Submitting in the Church

“Who’s to say??  That’s none of anyone’s business but mine!”  It was said with ... emotion.  The business?  What she and other Christians should do with their money.  That’s what we were discussing and  then came something I heard more as, “It’s mine and I’ll do with it what I want.”

My answer to the question was going to be, “Christians praying together perhaps.”  We could say together that in our current community a $100k annual salary would be sufficient and we could give away the rest.  It was just an idea.  I thought Christians praying together could be a good answer to "Who's to say?"  I thought it was an interesting question for us to discuss.  But what I heard blowback-wise was something along the lines of I do what I want or what I think is best.  End of discussion.   

I got to wondering where we don’t insist on this as a natural, obvious right.  I do what I want and it’s none of your business.  Marriage?  Once in it, one person just doesn’t just do what one person wants.  Military?  What I do and where I do and how I do is my business and no one elses?  Nope, not in the military.  We accept that.  The Benedictine Order?  I think we go along with what the community says or what the abbot says or what the vows said.  So we surrender individual rights in that situation. We allow others to direct, even dictate.  

If you belonged to a church and you started having an open extra-marital affair, it’s no one’s business except yours?  Or did you when you became a part of that church surrender some part of your individualism to the community?  Do we vow to follow the session?  We say we do until they do something that we don’t like and then we go our merry way.  I am THE authority in my life.  But doesn’t it make sense that the church and the pastor would say to the church member having an affair, “Not as a Christian in our community you don’t”?  Get rid of that sin, walk with us in the way of Christ, listen to our “right” to speak into your life given by Jesus when he made his church and put us in them, and if you don’t, we need to excommunicate you.  

Our physical bodies do this?  Sick organ, sick cells … get right or die.  If that action doesn’t happen, then the whole body becomes sick and dies.  

Enough musing on this.  I’m not surprised that American Christians don’t submit their lives to an authority in terms of some form of church in their lives.  But it doesn’t seem completely right to me. Does it to you?

Success is ...

“Success is not what you have but who you have.”  That’s what he said.  And, in a sense, he is right, absolutely right.  But all week I had been thinking about another conversation.  There the person said, “You have to choose Jesus.”  And that’s right too.  But how does one choose for God if one is spiritually dead?  That's what Paul says we are in Ephesians 2.  Corpses don’t make a lot of choices.  

And when you do choose, then what?  How do we not think, “At least I was smart enough to make the smart choice of for Jesus rather than away from Jesus?”  It’s certainly possible, from that orientation, to think of God’s rescue as something we are a little proud about?  Maybe some, not a lot, not at all? 

Yet if you and I had absolutely nothing to do with it, becoming a Christian I mean, then aren’t we like quizzical?  Maybe we are even almost embarrassed to be saved standing next to someone who hasn’t “chosen” to follow Christ?

 

Back to the original phrase I opened with, “Success is who you have.”  I found myself, doing my Presbyterian thing, and this is a Presbyterian thing, just as the whole do-corpses-choose thing is a Presbyterian thing, … I found myself saying, “Not who YOU have.”  It’s true but can we say, “Who has you”?  Success is not what you have but who has you.  Then it isn’t even success.  It’s more like ... grace.

What Should We Pay a Pastor?

                It's money season at church.  Our Sunday School class entertained the question, "How do we come up with a pastor’s salary?"  Here are a couple of ideas.  Anybody know a high school teacher who is in it for the money?  Same is true for pastors.  A high school teacher has at least a college degree and gets considerable vacation time over the course of a year.  If your pastor’s salary is less than your local high school teacher’s, hmmmm. 

                A church can start by getting ten families together, having each family unit tithe, and putting that total amount of tithe dollars to a pastor’s salary.  We know that the pastor’s salary will then be the average of the ten families.  He or she won’t be an underling at the bottom of the scale nor an “overling” at the top.  (And take the pastor's tithe and make that the program money.)

                Sometimes we talk about pastors and call and if they have a call, if the Lord wants them there, then they go there without regard for salary.  The Lord will provide.  To this I say, “Amen.”  But I also say that everyone is in the priesthood of believers and this call thing is for every Christian, yes?  I usually hear it talked about with pastors however.  Usually I hear it associated with low salaries rather than high.  (“You’re paying really well but I feel called to be there anyway.”??) 

                Some of our calling is basic revelation.  We’re all called to work and glorify God in it.  It’s part of the Adam Covenant if you will.  Name the animals.  Manage creation.  Subdue chaos.  Be a blessing.  We really do not need to go on a prayer retreat to find out if we are to do this.  If anything, we’ll need a special revelation to exempt us from doing this.  Along with this comes a calling on a pastor’s part to manage both his or her own family and the flock of God.  In the community’s economy, if a pastor can’t operate the way the community does, can’t then provide for his family, or is stressed dollar-wise and is distracted from managing the flock, something is wrong.  He or she has a call also to basic maintenance of their families. 

                Congregation’s have budgets and can only do what they can do.  In the scenario above, with the ten families, the personnel costs were 100% of the budget.  As a church gets bigger the percentage changes.  It’s like parenting, once you go from two kids to three, the parents have to trade from man-to-man defense to zone.  A family of five lives more cheaply than five individuals because of shared costs.  And when a church gets bigger they can go to zone and shared costs and all that and the personnel part of the budget will take less of the whole pie.  

                Last week I considered who makes up a board and training being a necessity for the members to live effectively into their role – as helpers. 

                Today, many times we go to a secular model for our church boards rather than a biblical one, and we see the church board as a board of directors which has as a major part of its job to direct and evaluate the pastor.  Perhaps even more that than helping the pastor.  Moses enlisted the first elders and he asked them to be helpers.  There's no where in the text that they are appointed to be his Board of Directors evaluating him.  Not that he couldn't have used that.  Every leader should have this. 

                 Imagine all those boards above, comprised of those particular people, not helping the banker, dentist, and pastor but directing them and evaluating them.  Not that that couldn’t effectively happen or shouldn’t happen.  I’m not saying that.  But again it should not happen without real training in how directing and evaluating and how banking or dentistry or ministry really works. 

One very simple maxim for a board undertaking such a role is, “If you haven’t said clearly how it ought to be, you have less right to evaluate how it is.”  In other words, have the board members and, say, the pastor, ahead of time agreed to what the duties are, what the results desired are?  If not, then what can happen is that evaluation happens against whatever the desire de jour is or whatever the last performance gap was.  “You haven’t given us enough fellowship events.”  There may be a felt need for those events but was that actually asked for?  If no, it isn’t a fair evaluation.  

Usually, we find that our supervisors evaluate.  Sometimes it is peer review.  Sometimes it 360 degrees.  So a banking board, a peer group of dentists, and, in our case, a presbytery would be sane to have doing this role.  Don't you think?

A Board is a Board When ...

                Imagine a banker being given a board (as in Board of Directors) to help him or her with the bank.  The people are housewives, high school coaches, mechanics, and doctors.  They all say, “I’ve touched money.”  They say it with a sense of this qualifying them for being on the board. 

                Imagine a dentist being given a board to help him or her with the dental practice.  The people are plumbers, software engineers, and building contractors.  They all say, “I’ve got teeth and I’ve brushed my teeth.”  They say it with a sense of this qualifying them for being on the board. 

                Imagine a pastor being given a board to help him or her with the church ministry.  The people are lawyers, retired painters, and computer consultants.  They all say, “I’m a Christian.”  They say it with a sense of this qualifying them for being on the board. 

                In each case, the banker, the dentist, and the pastor, may truly be assisted by a perspective that is novice to that particular industry.   Indoctrination has its perils for the professionals.  Wasn’t it groupthink that had space scientists trying to invent a pen that could write without gravity when someone not caught in that suggested using a pencil?  There is always the value of fresh eyes.  There is a consumer and layman’s orientation that is invaluable. 

                But there is also a need for both training and differentiation.  Differentiation, the professional banker has a deeper and wider and more nuanced understanding of money generally than those who just have had dollar bills in their wallets.  Same thing with the dentist who has looked into hundreds of mouths.  Even true with a pastor.  And training those board  members to know some of what the 24x7 professionals know, will help them be real helpers. 

                Pastors, do elder training.  It’ll help you, them, and the whole church.  

What is a Good Pastor?

Albin Institute consultant and author, Roy Oswald, has an exercise in his book Making Your Church More Inviting in which he poses choice points.  They are choices between the good and the best in terms of what will help a church grow.  For example, if a pastor has only time to do one what should he or she do

·         Visit more shut-ins or prepare a better sermon?

·         Attend a wedding reception or go on a retreat with a parish staff?

·         Call on prospective members or conduct a training session for church officers?

·         Visit a bereaved family or help two church officers resolve a conflict?

·         Make a hospital call on a fringe member or attend a continuing education event?

·         Give pastoral counseling to members or attend a planning event with officers?

·         Call on parishioners or recruit leaders for church event?

·         Attend an activity with parish youth or critique a meeting with a church officer?

This is not a both/and but an either/or choice that is posed.  It is posed for both the pastor and the congregation.  It’s a problem  if the pastor chooses one and the congregation chooses another (and don’t think this doesn’t really happen). 

Most of the time, unless they are familiar with delegation, the church opts for that choice which is comforting and shows the pastor as, well, pastoral.  We invest in “pastoral” the meaning of social, relational, person-centered.  These are good and important.  “Pastoral” can also have invested in it the meaning of leader, trainer, maker of tough decisions, pulpiteer.  Typically, however, we instantly think, at least this is what I have found in my experience, of pastors as those who call on members and get to the hospital.  If you do this well, you are a good pastor.  If the church doesn’t grow because you don’t multiply yourself and deputize others, that’s okay, you’re still a good pastor because you called on shut-ins and noticed everyone who was sick.  It’s an approach, and not a bad one, but one that sees member care more naturally rather than organizational development.  However, at the end of the day it really is going to take both for a church to succeed.  Let’s stretch the meaning of pastoral so that this happens.

Strategic Value

If a custodian has been employed by a church for twenty years, and if he or she has been given yearly cost-of-living increases, his or her salary could be a good percent of the personnel budget (especially, if the church is small).  Bring in a new pastor with a fresh seminary degree and it’s conceivable that the new pastor’s salary is pretty close to the “tenured” custodian.   Someone could argue, with reasonableness, that the custodian’s strategic value to the organization is high.  Who else is going to turn on the furnace on cold mornings and chilled parishioners are no good, right?  But when we talk about the weightiness of decisions for the organization’s rise or fall, the issues of confidentiality, the interface with the public, the connection with the key mission of the organization, the number of dollars managed, … we can get a sense of how important a position is to an organization, apart from who is in the position or how long the post has been filled.  The higher the importance, the more pay there should be.  The lower, the less.  Have you weighted the positions in your organization by the seriousness and strategic value?  

Links that Help, Links that Last

Good Links -

I thought I’d share some links that I have found helpful –

www.fathers.com  -- get their weekly newsletter that shares good fathering tips.

www.covenanteyes.com – good filtering and monitoring along with good information.

www.pray-as-you-go.org – simple and good daily meditations. 

http://sermons2.redeemer.com – a section of free sermons by one of my favorite preachers, Tim Keller.

http://www.textweek.com – for Bible study.

If a Job's Worth Doing

I met a guy who was addicted to brake fluid.  He said he wasn't, that he could stop at any time.

I don't want to stop on the subject of axioms.  For pilots the rhyme, "Red over white, you're alright," helps them keep the runway lights in the right order for landing and means safety.  Just so, axioms help us in our decisions and actions in life.  

Last week I shared off-handedly, "If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right."  So if an organization has dwindling clients or customers and yet what gets passionate debate in their meetings is how much or how little detail should be in the minutes, I think they're doing something not worth doing.  If the Titanic is sinking, who cares if I rearranged the deck chairs correctly (whatever that would be).

Paradoxically, I offer as wisdom, "If a job's worth doing, it worth doing not right." Here's what I mean and maybe it is just for the perfectionists out there.  Let's say a person gets 80% of their production done in thirty minutes.  The next two hours gets them another 10%.  The next ten hours gets them 4% more.  The next one hundred hours gets them 1% more.  Somewhere in there, let's say after two and a half hours, if he or she had said, "Not perfect but pretty good and good enough," they could have gone on to the next project.  Against the person who keeps going for the 100% on one project, the good enough person gets thirty or forty projects done.  If it's worth doing, it's worth doing and not getting hung up on perfection.

The other aspect of the axiom is that if we aren't failing some or not finding our results having imperfections, we may not be taking on big enough challenges or risking enough.  Ie, we're playing it safe or underneath our abilities.

I'm glad for whoever noted that Jesus didn't wait for Jerusalem to quiet down, for the disciples to get back up to the number twelve, for the disciples' doubts to be completely assuaged and their convictions finally forged before he gave them the Great Commission.  If we wait for everything to get perfect, we're not ever going to get started.  This is an important job and while not trying to do it wrong, if it's worth doing, it worth doing, and it's worth even dealing with doing some of it not right.  

Axioms

A while back Bill Hybels wrote a book called Axioms.  Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs.  It contained pithy convictions about leadership.  He said, I believe, that he got the idea from Colin Powell who had done the same.  (Powell Principles The Powell Principles: 24 Lessons from Colin Powell, a Battle-Proven Leader (Mighty Managers Series) 

I didn‘t think I had any axioms but it turns out I’ve got a few.  For example, “If a job is not worth doing, it is not worth doing right.”  But the one I want to focus on today is, “You don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect.”  We all need feedback.  Our eyes and ears and nerve endings in our fingers give us feedback and we need that to live well.  We like it when someone says, “That was good,” or even, “Adjust your work a little in this direction.”  Without these bits of feedback we operate in the dark in a lot of ways.  So it is important, I believe, for organizations, their staff, and their boards to give and get feedback, to evaluate. 

It is terribly important to evaluate against a set of criteria.  In other words, up front we have said these are the attitudes we expect and these are the things we want accomplished.  If you haven’t said what you want or how it ought to be, you lose voice when it comes to talking about how it is.  You might just unfairly evaluate on the basis of the focus-de-jour which was not part of the original plan!

Right now we are heading into the fall with budgets to be drawn up, including money for salaries.  If those salaries are merit-based, and I hope they are, then we need to do evaluations.  After the fall there is January and, in our case, a new budget and new session.  So we also have goal setting.  The fall, then, right now, is how did we do on our past goals followed by what are our new goals.

Leadership in the Presbyterian Church is shared.  Usually, if it happens at all, and too often it doesn’t, the pastor gets a performance review.  However, there is a session that aids and abets the pastor’s leadership.  They, too, should get a performance review. 

I like asking people to first say what is important to them in their attitudes and tasks to be accomplished and then let them evaluate themselves against their self-stated standards.  So in the shared leadership of a Presbyterian Church, pastor, review thyself.  And, session, review thyself. 

But some outside inputs are necessary too.  The person’s goals need to tie into the organization’s goal for that role or position too.  So pastor, get reviewed by someone else, like the session.  Make sure that the task list for the last year that gets inspected as done or not done has your human being worker goals crowned by the corporate directions.  And, session, get reviewed by someone else, like the pastor.  Same thing about corporate directions with you.

Keep it simple.  If it gets too complicated, it gets frightening and deferred and … not done.  Done simply is better than not done at all.  If need be, look at the to do list and then ask what do we need to do more of and what do we need to do less of?  A discussion on that much is better than not at all.

Done simply is better than not done at all.  Hey, that sounds like an axiom or a principle or something. 

Push Push Push

I like the sign on the maternity room door:  Push, Push, Push.  Let me do the same about inviting, a subject of last week's blog.  

One of the reasons I arrange my preaching not around the lectionary but around series is so that people can invite.  "New" is one of the most powerful words in our society that there is.  We like new.  I like new.  You like new.  New clothes, new book, new movie.  We even have new car smell.  A message series when it approaches and begins is new.  

One of the concerns about Sunday School classes is that a set group of people bond and keep on meeting and meeting and meeting.  If you don't have history with the group, you might feel like you're breaking in.  Many refer to these classes as chiques.  So if you are new in town, or just want to turn over a new leaf about Sunday School, you might always feel like you are boarding a moving train.  When will you find one that is fresh taking on passengers and leaving the station?  That's why there should be new classes in the fall, after New Years, after Easter, and so on -- so new people can start at the ground level.  

Same with messages ... people can get a fresh start.  Maybe they don't know if they want to hang in there with church.  But they could persuade themselves to come for this 4-message series.  

But I started this blog suggesting it would be about inviting.  Here it is.  Each new message series gives members a new chance to invite friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, vendors, ... to something new starting at their church.  

Problem is too many people say that it isn't necessary.  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say it is someone else's responsibility.  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "If God wanted to grow the church, he would do it himself or it would just happen."  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "That's so gauche!"  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "The newspaper ad will do it."  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "We did that once and it didn't work out."  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "My church isn't worth inviting people to."  Then the church really dwindles!  There's no way around it -- An Inviting Church is Made by Inviting People.  

Think that line through in several ways -- An Inviting Church is Made by Inviting People.  

Open the Front Door, Close the Back Door

    

                Growing the church comes down to opening the front door and closing the back door.  It is normal with health for there to be growth, little bodies grow to be big one and even when our bodies stop growing we take it as a sign of health that our minds keep growing.  Growing a church has to do with keeping the ones you have (close the back door) and getting some more (opening the front door).

                Many time church evangelism committees are really the welcoming committees.  Do we have a nice brochure to give the visitor?  Do we call them visitors suggesting they’ll just be moving on or do we call them guests suggesting more hospitality?  Do we have a coffee cup with the church logo to give them before they go?  Do we send a welcome letter?  All good considerations … once someone has come to church that is.  But you can keep do all this friendly stuff if they haven’t come in the first place. 

                Evangelism, I think, is about letting others know in a multitude of ways about the claims of and events around Jesus of Nazareth.  It’s a little different than putting the classified in the newspaper or the yellow pages to get people to come to church in the first place.  Evangelism is more about us going to them than it is them coming to us.  Getting ourselves out of the pews rather than them into the pews. 

                I do like Inviting Committees.  I like them because some people are very fearful and feel inadequate around Evangelism.  “I don’t know what to say,” they plead.  Remember, as well, that for a church to grow we do need people won to Christ and then incorporated into his family but we also need simply people to come to church.  An Inviting Committee can focus on getting people to church for the first time.  Someone else can focus on getting them to come a second time.  And they can focus after that on them getting assimilated.  But an Inviting Committee can simply help everyone invite to church or some subset of church – join me for the Sunday School class, join me for our Habitat Saturday, join us for our pot-luck and speaker about Jesus’ leadership principles, join me for Christmas Eve service, join us for our new message series that sounds so interesting, join us our Bingo and board game night, …. 

                What it takes to invite someone to church or a subset of church is a basically good feeling about your church.  If the people are off-putting or the preaching is bad or the AC doesn’t work or the sound system doesn’t amplify right or the coffee is too weak, … then confidence evacuates the asker.  But most any church that simply tries to love people, then we are inviting people into a loving place.  That’s it and pretty good in the most simple form. 

                Invite away!

The Truth About Lies

I recently preached on truth telling and I got to thinking about how this might apply to something at the church.  Or not.  You decide.

We recently made a temporary change in our worship venue in order to try some new things in our worship style and at the same time save a little money in a more energy effecient space than our big, not-energy-efficient sanctuary.

What was great was that the congregation as a whole was pretty good natured about it and rolled with the punches.  A good, good sign of flexibility and good will.

As you'd expect, some were not so keen about it.  I'm not sure what all those not-avid attenders did.  I noted that some left temporarily.  They went to another church or they stopped coming to church for a bit.  They did what they needed to do, I guess.  We could have used their presence to foster the love and sense of success we need for one another and for visitors but they did what they needed to do.

Some came, maybe less consistently but not all that off-pattern, and they just tolerated it, accepted it, managed it.

Some added to these other options an outloud comment to someone of, "I don't like it," and that's their perfect right.

I've gone all this way because what I found interesting and typical and worth putting reigns on is how a few people said, "There are people who are upset by this move."  Here are my observations or thoughts on this comment.  One, it is feedback and feeback is critical.  Thank you!  Two, it is imprecise.  It doesn't tell us how many or who.  Is it two people out of a hundred?  Is it our resident curmudgeon who is against anything and everything?  Three, some people are very concerned that someone is upset and some people don't really care whether they are or not.  Maybe this is the difference between those who are fearful by anyone having uncomfortable feelings and those who are fearful of giving up reasonable goals because of a couple people having uncomfortable feelings?  The people oriented versus the task oriented?  (P.S.  If someone regularly receives others' fear and negativity, he or she or I might ask if we are giving off some kind of signal that we are good receptacle or receiving dock for such.)  Four, we hear, I think, "People are upset," more than we hear, "People are good with it."  When we repeat, "People are upset," it can start to get a life and everyone who hears this starts wondering who it is and what kind of thin ice we are on.  If we equally reported, "People are loving this," it can get a life too.  To find the truth we need to say both.  Otherwise, the negative can get a disproportianate influence.  To tell the truth we need to say all of the above and then some (stuff that you see that I am not seeing).  Telling the truth is simple and it is complicated.

Now go out there and be honest ... and loving.  Truth needs love.  Love needs truth.

5 Principles for Leadership

5 Principles of Leadership for Everyone

I was reflecting on what I believe about leadership.  Don’t stop reading because you’re thinking, “I’m not a leader.”  If you have contact with another human being, you are consciously or unconsciously influencing them and that, my friend, is leadership. 

Leadership is dynamic.  When it is time to hunt, the best hunters lead, not the best farmers.  When it is time to farm, the best farmers lead, not the best hunters.  So it is dynamic according to the objective.  It’s also dynamic by size.  Leading a three person company is different than leading a 3,000 person company.  Or what about situation – in wartime are we more directive than in peacetime?  And there are always moves between interpersonal needs and organizational tasks – are you feeling ok versus are we getting something done? 

Having said the above here are five principles for everyone.  One, it is modeling and translates into being the first one to roll up his or her sleeves.  This means being an example in terms of attitude and behavior.  Do and be what you want imitated.

Two, it is forecasting.  If everyone is looking at trees and no one is looking at forest, we won’t be as productive as we could be.  Someone needs to get out in front and scout out what’s coming opportunity-wise, what’s coming need-wise.

Three, it is having courage.  If a surgeon stopped surgery because he couldn’t handle the patient being uncomfortable, comfort rules and not health.  A doctor needs courage to pursue health.  And we need courage to tell the truth about how things are and not air brush what’s going on.  And we need courage to try again when we have failed.  Leadership just plain takes courage.

Four, it is having integrity.  Honesty is the best policy.  Authenticity merges into this.  If you can be trusted and you can’t be yourself, then leadership will tank.

Five, it is having love.  People know if you care.  Love the people you are with.  Yes, they are imperfect.  So am I.  You are too.  But there is no one without a special story and a special gift.  Value the people you are with.

Earlier I said that I’d share what I believed about leadership.  Frankly, as I typed those words I asked myself, “It is what you believe but is it what you practice?”  Ahhh.  We all believe stuff we don’t practice, right?  Funny how we do that.  But I hope I’m practicing it.  I’m trying.  I hope you will too. 

Jeff Wood, Interim Pastor at Cocoa Presbyterian Church.

Read more at www.talkingwithjeff.blogspot.com

Fear is Stronger than Hope?

"How do we know if we are making the right decision?"   That’s what the elder asked.  Good question.  An important one.  I suggested to her that the right decision needed to be related to a goal or a mission or some criteria.  If the goal is hospice, then the right decision has to do with comfort and non-heroic measures.  If the goal is survival, then comfort and non-heroic measures are the wrong decisions. 

"Well, don’t we need more information?"  That what the elder asked next.  Another good question.  I suggested to her this time that find out both how much information we have and how much time we have.  If we have five years, then we have time to get more and half the information we have will probably become obsolete by then anyway.  If we have five weeks, it’s another matter. 

And how much information do we have now?  “Well,” she replied, “there must be lots of different options.”  Ok.  Let’s brainstorm.  We came up with five.  “But there must be experts out there who could come up with a lot more.”  Probably.  Maybe not lots more.  But maybe more.  

Then I wondered to her, "Can we afford them?  Might some of them say contradictory things or different things?  It happens occasionally in medicine and other fields."  I don’t know if we have all the information but I am pretty sure we never will.  We live in an information age and there’s always more of it.  The amount of it and insecurity we have about making less than 100% perfect decisions, leads to questing for more instead of decisions and action.

"What if this change we make is bad?"  That’s another comment she had.  It could be.  But there is no option without change.  Staying as is will mean changes.  Going a different direction will mean changes.  Which is going to be for the better?

 

"Some people aren’t going to like what we decide."  Another comment.  True.  True.  So this is a reason not to do something??  No way.  That puts the naysayer or critic in charge of the church.  And someone will always be unhappy.  Even Jesus, the Son of God, who had only twelve faced one of them being unhappy -- Judas.  If someone’s going to be miffed period, let’s gird up our loins and make the best decision we can. 

This isn't far different from, "I heard people don't like program x, y, or z."  That's when I ask, "How many?"  Usually it is two or less.  Did you talk to the other 98 who were there?  So you don't know if they liked it or didn't like it?  It could be 98 to 2.   I also ask, pardon me, "Which people?"  Oh them, they're nuts and against everything.  Everybody knows that. And you saying that you heard some people don't like it helps the rest of us hearing it how?  Or does it spawn a rumor mill of dis-ease?  

Let’s focus not on the naysayers (although we don’t want to not hear or care for them) but let’s see the many who are willing, interested, and able.  Somehow we see the negative more easily than the positive.  Yes, fear unfortunately is stronger than hope sometimes.  But let’s go with the hope.  

What Industrious Churches Do

What industrious churches do at this time of year is

• Contact everyone from January to present about getting back into the swing of things at church as summer winds down.  Tell them what new Sunday School classes there are.  Invite anyone with musical interest to give the choir a try as they come back from summer break.  
• They start a new class or classes to invite everyone to.  
• They contact all the schools nearby and let them know that there will be special prayers said for them on the Sunday before school starts, that the staff and parents are invited to come, and that throughout the year the church is here to help.  If a staff member suffers a loss and has no church, if a student has a particular struggle, ... you are here. 
• They contact the PTO or PTA and communicate the same as above.  But also insert a message that parents and kids can "commission" the year together in church, get off to the right start with a prayer.  Education of the mind is only part of our education.  There's education of the heart as well.
• They let nearby hotels/motels/campgrounds know that you are here for their customers looking for church services.
• They let funeral homes know that if there are families without church support in a time of grief, that you are here.  
• They let nearby businesses know that you are here for another good school year and enjoy partnering with them to make this community a good one.  Let them know that if you can be of service to them or their employees in a time of need or for spiritual counsel or for a meeting place to do an in-service, you'd like to help.
• They put up signs if they haven't already that "XYZ Church is 1 Block" thataway.  
• They recommit to making the main event (worship) inspiring and start a new message series with the start of school.  

Anyone want to add to the list?  Please do!  Let's hear from you.

Good News

Last week I ended the blog saying, “Let’s never give up on sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.”  Many consider Christianity a moral code – teaching and advice on how to live.  But it is not first that.  It is first news.  There’s a big, big difference. 

Advice is something you believe someone should follows so that things go well for them.  It’s about the future.  News is about what has happened, the past.

Let’s say an army was approaching.  Advisors … advice-givers would tell everyone in the town, barricade this, build up that, store this, cover that, … archers here.  On the basis of worry, how might we save ourselves is the matter.  We live in a certain way based on advice rooted in effort.

The phrase “good news” is a translation of the word, “euangellion.”  See the prefix, “eu,” for “good.”  See “angel” in “angellion” and an angel is a messenger.  An euangellion was a technical term for a herald, someone who ran back from, say, a field of battle, to the hometown.  They’d shout, “Our King won!” People would then live a certain way but based on news rooted in someone else’s effort.

Christianity is all about good news.  Two thousand years ago Jesus rose from the dead.  It’s possibly harder to disbelieve the evidence than to believe it.  Based on that victory we live in a certain way.  Thanks be to God!

For info on the resurrection I recommend:  The Case for Easter by Lee Strobel and The Resurrection of the Son of God by Tom Wright.  The first is short and the second is long.  

New Christian

New Christian …

I was at a meeting today.  A guy named Joe asked Reuben and then me how we met Jesus.  He was asking because he just met him on May 23.  Someone asked him to church and out of politeness he went.  The message and the presence of Jesus hit him like a ton of bricks.  He became, in his words, “born again.”  He travels a lot and this was his first men’s disciple meeting.  He had a new Bible that was called, The Beginner’s Bible. 

He shared that he told a colleague about his experience and got the reply, “Oh yeah, I tried that once.”  After a bit, Joe was pretty confused and a little angry at some other ways the man was treating him.  Instead of taking it to him, he prayed.  He prayed because that was the first advice he got about being born again – you should pray.  A little while later the man apologized and Joe thought, “Man, this really does work!” 

I noticed the whole room nodding and encouraging Joe.  It was as if everyone was remembering anew, “Jesus does work!  I mean, truly.”  New Christians I have always thought are vital to churches.  Worship, it’s higher when you are standing next to a person who is feeling like, well, they have been born again.  Education, it’s real when you are the one teaching a brand new Christian what’s what.  (Joe said he’d been propositioned by three women in the last month and that had not happened to him in years.  The men in the room said, “It’s Satan trying to mess you up.”  See, they were teaching him.)  Fellowship, go to the nursery window of a hospital and watch the family peering in at the newborn.  Is that fellowship or what?  Evangelism, it’s higher because you see once more but up close and personal and now, Jesus is touching lives.  So off you go ready to share him convinced he’s who he said he was. 

Let’s never give up on sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.  

Still Time

There's still time to sign up for the Leadership Summit.  It is avaliable in every major city in the United States.  It is the one conference I go to year in and year out.

There's still time to volunteer to help with VBS at Cocoa.  We'll be doing it in conjunction with Celebration Tabernacle.  It starts this Sunday evening in Flaniken Hall.

I do a little volunteering at Civil Air Patrol, Merritt Island.  One of the first mini-lectures I gave was on the difference between the urgent and the important.  Do you know the difference?  It's critical to realize that the urgent feels important but may or may not be.  Conversely, the important may or may not feel urgent.  It is simply the road to ruin to not get that some very, very important parts of life are not and never will be urgent.

A deepening life with God is seldom experienced as urgent.  But is there anything truly more important?  Make room in today for the important.

Have you heard of C.S. Lewis' essay, "On Learning in War Time"?  He was in university when he was called up to WWI.  He took a little Latin book or something like that with him.  For everyone else, they'd get back to learning after the war.  For everyone else, the trenches were too dirty to read in.  For everyone else, the situation wasn't quite right.  He realized that in real life there is always something that makes it less than ideal to learn, some reason to say, "I'll do it tomorrow."  But learning is important.  It may not be urgent.  It is important.  And he made room in today for it.

Summer Reading

I found myself reading to my Sunday School class the other day from an old favorite, Devotional Classics by Richard Foster.  It got me thinking about summer vacations and reading and suggesting a summer reading list. 

Devotional Classics.  Three or four pages of sampling from all the masters from Ignatius to Nouwen.  With good reflection questions, too.

Winning on Purpose.  John Kaiser.  Short and some of the best common sense about churches around.

The Great Divorce.  C.S. Lewis.  The Screwtape Letters.  C.S. Lewis.  Both are short and sooo insightful!

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.  Paul Brand.  This is an amazing book about God and how he made us.  Written by a doctor. 

To Be Successful

In our Sunday School class last weekend I asked not what must someone do to be successful.  That will get a general answer showing some perspectives and values.  We asked what must a pastor do to be successful.  That's a little different than what a dentist must do.  Or someone in another role.  We asked what must a pastor do to be successful here.  A pastor may be successful in a storefront church but not here, in a megachurch but not here, in a church in Montana but not in Florida.  After all, local situations are particular.

Two matters came up that I was grateful for.  Neither one will really say what the a pastor must do to be successful at Cocoa Presbyterian.  I do think a step towards success in that matter, however, is asking the question itself, "What must a pastor do to be successful here?"

The first matter that came up was what a pastor must do to be successful to me and to us.  Of course.  I and we are the nest.  I and we are the home team.  I and we are doing the calling.  I and we come to this church.  We are bringing the pastor here to do something for me and us.

So the pastor can do what that line of thinking will produce and he or she should.  To an extent.  The line of thinking does not necessarily, though it may, hit what will make the church successful in terms of God and the world he is seeking.  The issue to ponder is whether focusing on the needs of the 100 or 200 or whatever who are present in a church means that they are satisfied while 1000 outside the front door are missed because they have a different set of concerns than those inside.  The question to yoke with what a pastor must do to be successful with us is what a pastor must do to be successful with them.  A church is never present just for us but for us and them.

The second matter that came up was what must a congregation do to be successful with a pastor.  Isn't that a good question?  Pastors around the world are thinking, "Wow, and you are already a step in that direction just by asking the question."

As a pastor my short answer was and is -- love the pastor.  We already know that he or she is human and therefore does not have the whole package to do everything well all of the time.  Even Pastor Jesus had people leave his church, and worse, and he was God!  But if in a family the best thing a man can do is love his wife because that means good things for her, for the kids, for him, then that's the same in the church.  Do you know anyone who does better with judgment than encouragement, reservation rather than support, criticism rather than care?  We can still be truthful.  Even then, though, remember what some wag said, I think very rightly about most human being's psyche's, "One 'You Turkey' erases nine 'Atta Boys'."

WHAT IF?

Let’s say that we are going to redevelop the church campus from head to toe.  Let’s say that you are on the committee to plan that.  In our Presbyterian system most rank and file members of the committee say, “We’ll simply recommend something to the session and the final responsibility will be theirs.”  But what if we said going into it, to that committee making the plan, “and we will do what you say.”  Period.  The church will do what you say.  We’re not going to put it to a vote.  We will do what you say.

My question is how do the dynamics of work in the committee change because of the responsibility bequeathed?  That this isn’t going to be about study alone, about hypotheticals, about recommendations where someone else has the real authority and responsibility?  This is about real action, results people will live with.  Let’s also put the committee members’ names on a plaque on the property when it is all said and done. 

If you’re like me, you can already feel a seriousness enter the equation.  We might imagine a few people saying,  “This isn’t for me,” and resigning.  It might protract decision making if the people involved fear being criticized by the church members for the final decision.  They might look for a fail-proof decision.  (This reminds me of two important maxims .  If a job is not worth doing, it is not worth doing right.  And, If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing not right.  The second is for the perfectionists of the world who don’t act because they are in pursuit of perfection.  Ten decisions at 80% good equals 800 points, let’s say.  One decision at 99%, knowing that we will never make 100%, equals 99 points.  And both took the same amount of time.  800 points to 99.) 

We can take some pain out of the process if we assure the committee members of our up front decision to support their decision. 

I submit that authority and responsibility and action combine for the best learning and best decisions.  Try it with your kids – we have $500 and 5 days for vacation.  We will do what you research and then decide.  Let’s have a decision in two weeks.  Try it with your employees.  Try it with your students.  Try it with your church committees.  

Leapfrog

I promised last week to tell how Peachtree Presbyterian at least used to leapfrog the get-a-person-to-keep-coming-and-feel-a-part process.  Before doing so, however, note that the point isn't just to get members.  Because you can have an uninvested member.  Would you rather have an invested person who isn't technically a member?  Too often we get hyped up about categories and nomenclature and overlook the organic reality.  I'd rather have someone who actually belongs rather than only technically belongs.

Peachtree, the largest PCUSA congregation, is quick draw McGraw.  They would invite everyone new at that service to meet immediately following the service.  They would there have coffee and treats and welcome from significant members of the staff and congregation.  There would be a moment of "here's our heartbeat" communication and then there would be one on one or one on couple visits.

Let's say I am the Peachtree person visitng with you the visitor.  I have a form.  I find out your address, email, and people you know at the church.  I'd then tell you a little bit about our Sunday School classes (like the 20's & 30's class) and our hands-on ministries (like the every Saturday morning Habitat crew).  With a menu of options I would then ask, "If you were to try one of these, which would you maybe give a shot?"  With that answer I would hope that you actually would give that one a shot.  Why not?  Just take a peak?  See if it works for you?  The visit wraps up.

The visitor gets the standard welcome letter.  Some places will deploy emissaries with fresh baked bread put into a bag that has the church's name on it.  The bag has handles so that if the person is not home you can leave the bag on the door knob.  In it is a note saying, "We loved having you at our church today.  Please come back."

But key beyond the above is that I would contact the teacher for the 20's & 30's class and the leader of the Saturday morning Habitat crew, if that is what the visitor had said they might be interested in, and I would tell them that visitor Joe Smith had indicated he might be interested.  Those leaders would get Joe's info and personally invite them.  "Hi, Joe.  I'm head of the 20's & 30's class.  I understand you might be interested and I would very much like you to come.  I'd love to meet you.  This is where we are in the building."

If the person registered in the sanctuary or a Sunday School class as a first time visitor but did not come to the after church time where "the visits" transpire, that person would be specifically called and invited to the time the following week.  This time was set up before the main worship service.  They would get the interview if they came and the process would be set in motion.

One more thing ... all who came to the coffee and refreshment and meet the pastor and the interview time before the worship servie would be asked if they would like to join the church.  Like right now.  We can do this now.  Why not?  There's a 30-day shipping free refund type of thing added.  Then they would swear them in and introduce them at the beginning of that next service!

Some will say that that is setting the bar very low for membership, that it should require some orientation.  Their point, and not a bad one, is that once we have their name and info and initial commitment, we have been given a pathway for orienting them.  We can legitimately send them membership materials.  We can legitimately send them a pledge card.  We can legitimately call on them to help with this event.  And all of that will be on the job training!  Why wait around and hope a visitor come around enough to eventually sign up for an orientation?

Is there attrition this way?  Yes.  But no more attrition than a more passive way.  Is there "membership gain"?  Yes, a lot more than the passive way.

What's in a Name?

I saw a best seller title the other day.  It was, “The ONE Thing.”  Subtitle:  What Successful People Do.  Those cover words get you thinking, don’t they?  What do successful people do?  If you had to boil down your opinion about what makes for success, what one thing would you point out?  

We all probably want a few one things.  How do you make it just one??  I suspect that is part of the book’s message, that successful people do get one goal or one principle to shine, do get from the many goods to the one best.  

After a Sunday School class the other day I walked out thinking that the one thing that can help churches, and individuals for that matter, has to do with names.  In churches, we look at health.  Typically, healthy organisms grow.  Even when we have physically matured we would describe health as growing mentally or relationally or spiritually.

For churches to grow they need an inner dynamic.  Something of genuine value and meaning is going on for the people there.  Not pretend value.  Not obligatory attendance.  Not rote habit.  Something really valuable.  It doesn’t have to be humongously valuable but it does have to be valuable.  

But they also need an outer dynamic.  Others need to be coming.  A store may be successful for its ten customers and that can be all the success that is needed if those ten sustain the store and the store sustains them.  Eventually, those ten will die and the store will end its successful life unless there are replacement customers.

New customers bring new ideas, new hearts, new hands.  And, get this, there is no straight sequence of we get an inner dynamic going and then we get new customers.  That is partially true but not completely.  New people bring a new inner dynamic and a new inner dynamic brings new people.  Or how do you get a new inner dynamic?  Get new people.  Play the dynamics as both and simultaneously, not as a sequence of first inner development and then outer recruitment.  

Okay, way back to the beginning of this article.  Once people come to a church a first time we have to figure out how to get them back a second time.  Most churches focus on this area but if you don’t focus on getting first time guests, you don’t have anybody to work all the welcome strategies on!  Anyway, if a person comes back a second time, the most powerful -- the one thing -- I think that will bring them back a third time is people knowing their name.  How are you with names?  

Listen when they tell you their name.  Really listen … for that!  Say their name out loud in the conversation with them several times.  Find a silly image or rhyme link to help you remember their name.  When you sit down in the pew write their name on your bulletin.  Save your bulletin and get it out before going to church next week.  

Next week -- how Peachtree leapfrogs the member process.

The Power of Recruiting

Presbyterian missionary expert, Ralph Winter, once asked, “What’s the quickest way to put out a barn on fire – to grab a bucket and run to the lake with it or to grab a hundred people, tell them to get a bucket and run for water?”  We hear about the power of compound interest.  Do we know about the power of recruiting? 

Let’s say our church could use money to carry out God’s mission in this area.  We could all reach deeper into our wallets.  What if you brought five people to church in the course of one year and everyone else in the congregation did the same?  Our 100 worshippers would bring 500 people.  That would be 500 more wallets opening!

We all give to the church not only in money but in time.  I recently asked our session about how much time they gave to choir practice, committee work, Sunday School class preparation, and the like.  Answer:  5 hours per week.

Then I asked how much of that time was directly related to recruiting people to Cocoa Presbyterian.  If you stood on one foot just right, you could say 10%.  But really the answer is more like 0%. 

It would be nice if we did 50% institutional maintenance and internal workings and 50% on outward recruitment and evangelism.  It is unlikely, however, for lots of reasons.  Spending 15 minutes a week though is do-able.  Sure, it is micro compared to a few hours.  But if each member put in 15 minutes a week (actual time), that’d be great.  If some of those efforts paid off, and eventually they would, we would have more wallets opening and more hands on deck.  

Gut Check and More

I don’t even remember what was said that precipitated this line of wondering in my mind.  I think it was something like, “I’ll just walk out of church.”

It just strikes me as odd in a place where we are with Jesus, bending our knee to his authority over our lives, to pick up the scepter of our life and storm out if we don’t like something.  It strikes me as odd in place that is about surrender and about humility.  But it is part of the American spirit, I suppose.  It’s a virtue of defiance, of chutzpa, of machismo, of ….

 

It reminded me of how we can exercise authority over the Bible or it can exercise authority over us.  Who’s smarter?  Who has the right to direct?  Who’s in charge?  Me??  God?? 

And there’s something similar with the church.  I know as a pastor I have put myself under the authority of the presbytery.  If I choose to live in violation of our confessions and rebel against my denomination’s directions, then I can renounce their jurisdiction over me or have them defrock me.  But there is a placing under the authority.  We don’t have this going on in the local church very much. 

We don’t have the notion that in becoming a church member we are agreeing to not only attend and tithe and pray for the church, but we are also saying that they have a say in our lives.  Should a pastor and a session show up in the home of a church members getting ready for a divorce and say, “We’re Christians and you are under our leadership and instruction so we want you to go to counseling.”  What about insisting on it or else they renounce church membership?

We are good for insisting that as a member I have a right to use the sanctuary for a wedding or to have the pastor there at the hospital bed.  But can the church “insist” in the other direction? 

No one wants a bunch of lockstep, unthinking people.  We all answer in our conscience to Christ.  But the church can be like herding cats.  Each one is pretty separate, pretty independent, pretty much the sole authority over what they think, say, and do. 

Jesus and the Roman soldier with the sick servant understood being under authority.

If you are tempted to just walk out of church one day, unless it is because you have to go to the bathroom, maybe we ought to do a humility check, a what’s the church all about check, a how does God shape our life and ego check. 

I’m just wondering.  

Leadership

I was reminded the other day that in the boulevards of Richmond, VA there are many statues of generals but none of committees.

I considered the other day how the first group of elders were when the Hebrews were on the exodus.  Moses needed help.  But nobody really said, because they were elders, that Moses wasn't the leader.

Organizations need leaders and they need boards.  But they are not the same thing.

Speaking of leadership, I want to encourage anyone and everyone to go with me to Orlando in August for the Leadership Summit.  It is the one conference I always go to.  It is Aug 8-9.  For more info --
http://www.willowcreek.com/events/leadership/ 

Wonderful Healing Service and ...

We had our quarterly healing service last night.  Maybe a dozen people came.  We prayed.  Everyone prayed for the person who came up and knelt and was anointed with oil as the pastor prayed for him or her. People confessed guilt for asking God for more when he had already done so much for them.  I get it.  But God does like to be asked.  Ok?  People confessed prideful ways and feeling like they were paying the price for it now.  But would God still heal them of their affliction?  Yes.  And thanks for confessing that because it makes me realize I'm the same way and more!  People wept out of frustration with parts of their body that were so uncooperative and even painful.  What frail tents we have for this earthly stay.  Good but when they get old or break, yuck.  And there was just such a sense of love among the dozen or so who prayed together.  I'm glad we had it.  I'm looking to see if God will heal those we prayed for.

And ... 95% of our Easter attenders said they came to Cocoa because of a family member or friend.  This church isn't going to gain members to compensate for the number that are dying.  The cheapest and most effective way is to get more people here is to have members invite.  If you care about preserving your investment in this church, you better invite.  If you want this congregation here for the generation of tomorrow, you better invite.  If you want this congregation to be here to make a difference in this community, you better invite.

As I said before we can say, "Ok, tomorrow."  Or we can say, "I don't like to invite so I'll let someone else do that."  But if it isn't you, you're a part of the problem and not the solution.  If it is tomorrow instead of today, you're a part of the problem and not the solution.

You know how to have lots of good ideas?  To have lots and lots and lots of ideas.  You know how to get some people here?  To invite lots and lots and lots of people here.

Why should they come?  Ahh, because they like you and you like the church?  Ahh, because we have a great choir and a reasonably informative and inspiring service?  Ahh, because we are on the doorstep of mission work -- it's as close as RFM school.  Ahh, because we want them and need them ... other churches have more than enough and one more is just one more.  Not here!

If you're on the session, I am going to ask each month how many you invited and how you invited and how it went.  I don't like just receiving reports.  I like asking for reports and asking for reports that have you saying not just stuff but what you're doing that's critical to our mission.

Why I Do What I Do On Easter

On Easter we were deliberate about
a.  starting a new and short sermon series
b.  putting in an insert that showed a new Sunday School class the next week
c.  putting in that same insert a special, interesting event happening within a short time frame.
d.  using "we're here" cards

Let me explain.  Biggest attendance days for churches -- Christmas & Easter.  We're to be fishers of men.  When the fish are running, do the fishing.  How do you fish?  Get your people to invite.  Promote -- sign, banners, newspapers, social media.

But once you get people there you must help them feel that what they got was worth the effort of going.  In a restaurant you do not want people thinking they drove thirty minutes and paid $10 for a $5 meal.  They will certainly go to a restaurant where they drive only ten minutes and pay $5 for a $10 meal.  And they will go back to that restaurant.

So have the place pretty outside and in.  That means people and place.  A pretty place with unfriendly people, ugh.  Vice versa sorta the same but not quite.  Try to do both.  People inspire.  Places inspire.

Then have the whole service be personal and on pace and possessing quality.  These things will help them feel good about coming and want to come back.  Having a sermon that has a bit of "to be continued" quality and piques their interest will also help.  That's the sermon series idea.  But a 12-part series might be too daunting for a person just getting their feet wet.  Coming for three weeks might work.  So make it a short series.

What if someone wanted to see what else is going on that might fit their age group or set of concerns?  Why not have an insert that samples some of your best activities from across the board.  Remember, however, less is more.  Don't try to list everything or they will get lost.  This is a fly-by kind of list.  Something for men. Something for women.  Something for kids.  And if you can add into your listing for men, for example, that they are just beginning something kinda neat next week, do that!  Listing that they will start that seven weeks from now is too far away.  Six weeks from now you will be out of sight and out of mind for them.

We put in that we were having a healing service next week.  That might arouse some interest, might get someone hurting to come again. That's putting in the insert a special event.

Not attendance cards but "We're Here" cards.  That's a fun thing to do, to say, "We're here!"  I have everyone fill them out while we wait.  I don't want anyone opting out because we just moved along and let that be a possibility.  Why?  Because we want the cards!  That's how we can follow-up and send them the newsletter a couple times, an invite to the men's breakfast, or whatever.

You could collect those cards then and there.  But I like to use them for some interaction with everyone.  So I plan to use them at the end of the sermon.  I ask them to pull them out towards the end of my message.  And I ask them a couple of simple questions.  For Easter it was, "On this believing Jesus was real and actually rose again, I am  [A] On Board (circle A which was preprinted on the back of the card), [B] Could use the pastor's prayers to understand this better (circle B), etceteras.

Now (not later because they'll lose the card) you have the offering and have them put the card and their money in the plate at the same time.

YOU BIG BABY

I took off blogging for Holy Week.  I got a couple of days in with my kids, grandkid, and friends in San Antonio.  Had a wonderful Easter with the Cocoa people ... who are so talented and dedicated!  Now off to blogging with a bang.

I like it when one church incubates another.  One has plenty of facility and the will and the flexibility to take another church onto its property.  It might take it under its wing in some other ways.  They can share all-church-work days and make the worship flower arrangement get in twice the duty. 

Some worry that there’s twice the wear and tear but probably not quite.  And nobody says to a couple getting married and moving into one or the others’ apartment, “Watch out because you’ll have twice the wear!”  No.  They say, “Two can live as cheaply as one.”  Or they say, “Twice the fun!”

But today I am thinking about a backwards idea that, as I am thinking about it, is  very true to life.  The incubating happens when a bigger takes on a smaller.  So there’s a full-grown mother who has a tiny, tiny little life inside.  Usually, an established church is incubating a little congregation of 20 or 30.  In my circles it has been an anglo church taking on a fledgling Korean, or Brazilian, or Arabic, or African American Church.  Other places have Laotians, Chinese, and so on. 

Now to the backwards part.  What if the congregation that you incubated was larger than yours?  What if after your family house was down to just you and your wife, would you consider moving into the mother-in-law quarters so you son or daughter and their growing family and their limited income could have a better home arrangement?  Or consider how in life we have children and we are big but they are little.  Fifty years later and they are big and we are little.  The kid I taught how to read is now teaching me how to manage my computer.  I remember a photo once where there was dad carrying Johnnie and then next to it the fifty years later where Johnnie was carrying dad.  So what if the congregation that you incubated was larger than yours?  It happens in life. 

So I know a church that is growing in a community where an established church is shrinking.  That same growing church is outgrowing its facility and the established church is down to using about 20% of its.  How could the established church incubate the growing one?  What would that look like?    

Fun and Thought

                                                  This guy is about to have a bad day!  

Churches measure many things.  One is seating capacity.  Our sanctuary seats 400.  But let's talking about sending capacity.  Not only how many rear ends we can get in a pew but how many people we can get into the world telling and showing the reign of Jesus Christ.  We definitely want people to come to church.  We also want church members to go to people.  Not one or the other but both and.  

I like this very short, very simple, very helpful video that is a part of this topic.  Please watch it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arxfLK_sd68

Holy Spirit & Julie Andrews

Bring up the Holy Spirit and we can get into hocus pocus pretty quickly.  Not that the Holy Spirit doesn't have some of that.  But there's a lot of the Holy Spirit that is supernatural in a mundane sort of way.  For example, three big chapters on the Holy Spirit are in I Corinthians 12-14.  Note that the famous chapter on love, chapter 13, is in the middle of that.  So rather than hocus pocus we have living in self-giving love as being full of the Holy Spirit.  

As Americans we don't realize it, the way fish don't realize they are in water, until we are in other cultures, or they are commenting on ours, that we are highly individual based in our outlook.  When it comes to the Holy Spirit the first way we think of it is how does he fill me?  In the Bible, however, while filling me is legitimate, an equivalent or greater concern is how the Holy Spirit fills us.  Ie, the group, the congregation.  

I got to thinking about how Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music story entered an unruly and stern family.  Let's throw in that the bathrooms were dirty and the children said self-pitying things all the time.  Or the children said uncharitable things about others.  She, of course, would love and discipline and model and sing.  The family members might not like her saying, "No," to them or saying, "No more of that," to them.  They might not like being sent to their rooms because they continued.  But eventually Julie Andrews got the sloppiness out, the encouraging in, and love flowing.  

The Holy Spirit in a congregation is the same way.  He might help the session send someone to their room.  That doesn't sound very spiritual, does it?  But it is.  He might help one member say to another member, "We don't talk that way in this church family."  He might help us prize encouragement.  He might help us hug and smile at everyone in the church family.  He might help us be brave or to sing.  He might be a lot like Julie Andrews in the Von Trapp family.  

Institution's Sake??

I am a servant of Jesus.  I care more about people's relationship with him than with the church.  I've heard people talk about their relationship with the church and never mention Jesus.  As a pastor I have cared about people sitting in the pews and let up on people who aren't following Christ becoming followers.  Too many of us have been a part of churches that transferred sheep amongst themselves rather than making new sheep.  So I am squeamish about simply trying to preserve the institution.  It can be like preserving the body and not caring about health.  If, however, you care about health, you'll preserve the body.  Right?

I will try to overcome my squeamishness and wonder if we shouldn't focus on making members.  Public radio has pledge drives.  Other organizations have member drives.  A base of members makes possible the mission.

I ponder so many of our good outreach and mission projects.  We're not giving away the farm at all.  But we give a lot of efforts to that which will not garner us sustaining members.  A thrift shop, a clothes pantry, a hefty program for helping feed the hungry by gleaning ... all very good.  All take our time and money and energy.  Some may join us because we care about others.  Hurray!  May it be so.  Yet a 100 member congregation spends a lot of itself doing a pantry for the poor, and not that they shouldn't, but those poor are not recruited as members.  If they were, they probably are so different socio-economically that they wouldn't join.  Meanwhile, the 100 member church shrinks to 90 to 80 to ... and then there's no more food pantry period.

Somewhere along the line we have to ask supremely, "Are we making more disciples?"  Too many of us aren't.  Me included.  And more mundanely and more in the sense of (yucky?) institutional preservation we have to ask, "What are we doing to get new members??"

We're doing this committee, that event, this renovation, this teaching series, this pot luck ... and none of them with the ask, "How can we leverage this for getting new members?"  Or none with the ask, "How does spending ourselves on this occupy us so that we don't have to do the perhaps harder task of finding new members?"

Good luck to us all.  Me included.

If Not Me, Who? If Not Now, When?

If not me, who?  If not now, when?  Pretty pointed questions.  Not that you couldn't say, "Not me, that guy Joe looks good."  Or not that you couldn't say, "Yes, me, but not until next year."  What I am thinking about, however, is, for example, inviting others to church.  There are some issues that are, in the old way of putting it, very important but not urgent.  And the urgent by its nature gets taken up while the important gets put off.  If we are not thinking carefully about all this, it isn't hard to say something that you know is important can be done by someone else and can be done tomorrow.  Of course, until there is no one else and there is no tomorrow.

I was thinking the other day about asking elders to say in the next session meeting who they were going to ask to come to church with them on Easter.  Something in me said, "That'd be putting them on the spot and you can't do that."  Then I thought, "Why?"  What makes that out of bounds?  Who created a value that would say sharing about who you are inviting to church would be putting someone on the spot?  If you were in Toastmasters to improve your speaking ability, someone would surely ask about what date you were signing up for to deliver your speech.  If you were in a church to improve your and others' relationship with God, and inviting them to church would improve your and others' relationship with God, someone would surely ask about when you were bringing whom.  Such invitations to share would help us from letting this important thing be done by someone else, some other day.

Hey, and I need someone to ask me, who are you bringing on Easter?  Hey, and I need someone to ask me, "If not you, who?"  "If not now, when?"

Coworking Space?

In my last blog I mentioned the innovation factor that happens when city blocks are diverse and short.  People, different kinds of people, end up walking and mixing.  Then there is through that interaction a combustion of ideas and partnerships.  And that’s why churches as they measure their health ought to consider as one of their factors their “mix” – especially new members and tenured members, young and old.

USA Today featured Atlanta amongst its articles this week.  Atlanta is becoming a high tech center.  One of the signs of that was how a Coworking space dedicated to high tech sold out even before it was finished. 

Coworking?  It is an open office and people bring in their desks plus computers.  There’s a common coffee pot and drinking fountain.  There’s a common kitchenette.  There’s whatever the “tenants” and the developers come up with that they want to have in common.  But it is space where people under a theme (like, in this case, tech) come together to do their own private work.  But they talk on the way in.  They meet each other and catch lunch together.  One ends up resourcing the other.

It could happen in a chat room or through Linked In.  But there’s something in the face-to-face and serendipity that I suspect can’t be duplicated virtually. 

The thought I had pop up as I read about Coworking Space was how churches could be leaner and brighter if they had coworking space.  In any community draw a radius of three miles and you will find five or ten churches most likely.  Imagine one office centrally located with shared copier, curriculum, coffee pot, secretarial pool, coop purchasing power, library, …. The list of cost saving and … here’s the point … cross fertilizing opportunities is big. 

I’m a Presbyterian and that’s somewhere in our idea of connectionalism.  Problem is we’re spread a pretty good distance and we’re all in the same camp.  Coworking in tighter geographical but broader denominational circles could be pretty exciting for Christ and his kingdom.