For many, summer is a time that people look for a good book(s) to read. Over the past while I have been putting a list together of Websites and blogs that I have found to be very good and helpful. These days the smaller church pastor has resources available to them like never before. Many big events are shown LIVE on the internet or post the material on line after for free. So the amount of listening and reading from some of the best godly minds are available to you wherever you live. Here is a short list of several blogs (etc) that I take some time to look at from time to time. If you have some also, please leave a comment and post them for all of us to look at.
ALSO... this will be my last post for the summer months as I will be away for a few weeks of down time. Have a great summer and HAPPY READING!
-Kevin
In addition to the the "Check out these Web pages" (VERY GOOD MATERIAL) part of this blog (lower right side)
Check out ...
Godly Sheep
the church of no people
wonders never cease
Kingdom people
A holy experience
donmiller
jamie the very worst missionary
Stuff Christians like
Ragamuffinsoul
Collide Magazine
Catalystspace
ENJOY YOUR SUMMER, rest, grow in Jesus AND READ LOTS!
I am for you!
-K
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Matriarchy in the Smaller Church
"Matriarchy or gynecocracy refers to a gynecocentric form of society, in which the leading role is taken by the women"
I was reading an article this week by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. who was talking about the cover story written by Hanna Rosen in the Atlantic Magazine "The End of Men" (find it here). In Albert's post (here), of the same name, he said a few things that got me thinking about the role of women in our smaller churches. His main point is the concern about the disappearance of manhood. That was not the direction I was thinking. I was thinking of how important women are in so many of our churches. I know that if it was not for our ladies, we would have a VERY hard time keeping going as a church family. In our church our ladies are a HUGE help in our worship team (we have two female worship leaders) and all of our piano players are women. Most of our LifeGroup teachers are women, as well as our kids LifeGroup leaders (Sunday school). Most of the people who come to pray at our weekly prayer meeting are women. Women, who do their very best to honor the men that they live with, are intentionally missional. They often are the ones leading the way to passionate followership of Christ. Now I am not saying that there are no men that are doing this, but just that there are much fewer men doing this in our church. Even in our local ministerial, the last 3 out of 4 new leaders are now women. Also from what I hear from other people's churches (not all churches), they are also matriarchal in their make up. There are many comments that could be made from these observations. I, unlike Albert, do not think it is a negative thing that this is happening. I am SO thankful that women are responding to the gospel so willingly. I am glad that they are willing to bear the burden of the Cross of Christ and serve as unto the Lord.
It does bring up several questions though. How do we, as smaller churches, not communicate to the communities in which we live that the gospel is a women thing? How do we bring the gospel to men who do not know Christ? As our churches are more gynecocentric, how do be keep from feeling and looking feminine in our esthetics and in our services? It concerns me that in many of our church's ministry to men is reduced to a breakfast once or twice a month. It concerns me that most men from our community see me as not a "real" man because of my associate with Christ that they see as a women thing. Yet how do we change this perception?
SO tell me.. what ideas, ministries and plans that you have to see the gospel connect with more guys? The gospel was carried by mostly men in the book of Acts... the adventure, the risk, the suffering and the battles that are written on their pages is SO drawing to me as a guy and I believe to most guys. yet somehow we have presented a gospel that is safe... easy... boring and not worth the risk to many men... and that is the reason men are so disengaged. As smaller church we need our ladies, yet how do we appeal to the masculine heart that longs for adventure and risk with the message of Christ? I would love to read your thoughts! Please comment...
I was reading an article this week by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. who was talking about the cover story written by Hanna Rosen in the Atlantic Magazine "The End of Men" (find it here). In Albert's post (here), of the same name, he said a few things that got me thinking about the role of women in our smaller churches. His main point is the concern about the disappearance of manhood. That was not the direction I was thinking. I was thinking of how important women are in so many of our churches. I know that if it was not for our ladies, we would have a VERY hard time keeping going as a church family. In our church our ladies are a HUGE help in our worship team (we have two female worship leaders) and all of our piano players are women. Most of our LifeGroup teachers are women, as well as our kids LifeGroup leaders (Sunday school). Most of the people who come to pray at our weekly prayer meeting are women. Women, who do their very best to honor the men that they live with, are intentionally missional. They often are the ones leading the way to passionate followership of Christ. Now I am not saying that there are no men that are doing this, but just that there are much fewer men doing this in our church. Even in our local ministerial, the last 3 out of 4 new leaders are now women. Also from what I hear from other people's churches (not all churches), they are also matriarchal in their make up. There are many comments that could be made from these observations. I, unlike Albert, do not think it is a negative thing that this is happening. I am SO thankful that women are responding to the gospel so willingly. I am glad that they are willing to bear the burden of the Cross of Christ and serve as unto the Lord.
It does bring up several questions though. How do we, as smaller churches, not communicate to the communities in which we live that the gospel is a women thing? How do we bring the gospel to men who do not know Christ? As our churches are more gynecocentric, how do be keep from feeling and looking feminine in our esthetics and in our services? It concerns me that in many of our church's ministry to men is reduced to a breakfast once or twice a month. It concerns me that most men from our community see me as not a "real" man because of my associate with Christ that they see as a women thing. Yet how do we change this perception?
SO tell me.. what ideas, ministries and plans that you have to see the gospel connect with more guys? The gospel was carried by mostly men in the book of Acts... the adventure, the risk, the suffering and the battles that are written on their pages is SO drawing to me as a guy and I believe to most guys. yet somehow we have presented a gospel that is safe... easy... boring and not worth the risk to many men... and that is the reason men are so disengaged. As smaller church we need our ladies, yet how do we appeal to the masculine heart that longs for adventure and risk with the message of Christ? I would love to read your thoughts! Please comment...
Monday, June 21, 2010
Video from Sunday
Here is a video from GOD TUBE that I showed on Sunday... I am glad it was a blessing to so many people... it is very well done...
-PK
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Five Strategic Advantages of Small Churches
Pastor Doug Braun from Melville suggested this article by Brandon O'Brien author of the book "The Strategically Small Church" is worth reading. For more information about Brandon and this upcoming book click here.
_______________________________________________________
For the past thirty years or so, the focus of most literature on local church ministry has been church growth. Whether they offer advice on how to develop a winning vision statement, attract and retain visitors, multiply your small groups, or manage a building campaign, the dominant voices in the most popular ministry literature promise to help you increase attendance in your services and programs. These materials suggest that the small church is somehow deficient, ill-equipped by definition to be stewards of God’s great Gospel of grace and redemption. If a small church wants to be better, it has to be bigger.
Frankly, I disagree. I believe that small churches—which, by the way, make up the majority of churches—are uniquely equipped for ministry success in the twenty-first century. In the following paragraphs, I offer five strengths that I believe are inherent in small congregations. These qualities are not limited to small churches only; they can be found in larger churches, too. But smaller churches can better leverage these characteristics for ministry success.
Authenticity
“Authenticity” has become an important American value. Authors James Gilmore and Joseph Pine claim in their best-selling book, Authenticity, that instead of searching for high-quality goods and services, “people increasingly make purchase decisions based on how real or fake they perceive various offerings.” This consumer value has influenced what people look for in a church. Almost intuitively, church leaders recognize that their church needs to be perceived as authentic if they want people to visit and come back. Spend a few minutes looking at church websites online, and you’ll find “About” pages describing churches as having “authentic worship,” “authentic community,” and “authentic service.”
These instincts seem to be accurate. A poll at the Web site ChurchMarketingSucks.com reveals that the number one reason people return to churches after an initial visit is because they deem the church “authentic.” The next most popular reason is the pastor’s preaching. The church’s programs only pulled five percent of the vote.
What this means for churches is that authenticity is a consistent factor in a person’s choice to join a worshiping community. In his book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them, Ed Stetzer writes, “One hundred percent of churches [we] interviewed, deemed effective at reaching young people by our criteria, hold authenticity as one of their highest values or have a commitment to being authentic.”
At this risk of oversimplifying this complex issue, I offer two statements to get us thinking about what authenticity means for the local church, and why smaller churches are at an advantage for putting it to work.
First, be yourself. My first pastorate was in a tiny country church many miles from the nearest street light. Our music was off-key; my preaching was fair to middling at best. But college students showed up in droves, because they appreciated the unpretentious, “authentic” community we fostered. If we had tried to “glam up” the worship service, we would have turned these students away. As Mike Sares, pastor of Scum of the Earth church, says, “The more glitzy something is, the less people trust it.” The more glitzy, “professional” worship services at larger churches can turn off some worshipers who are looking for a more authentic worship experience.
Second, make sure your behavior lines up with your stated convictions. Large churches can struggle with this not because they are less faithful, but simply because their size can be a liability. Churches of all sizes will claim to be a family, but the larger the church, the more likely it is to be run like a business—the worship and programming becomes professionalized, and congregants become less directly involved in the church’s ministry. Small churches, on the other hand, more often truly function as a family—with all the blessings and challenges that includes.
Lean and Focused
One reason larger churches can attract attendees from across a region is because they have the resources to offer a little something for everyone. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, megachurches provide “many ways by which people [can] craft their unique, customized spiritual experience to meet their needs.” Smaller churches often don’t have the financial resources or the volunteer pool to run a broad schedule of church programs. Not to worry.
Instead of running a multitude of generic programs, a better use of resources and energy in the small church is to zero in on one or two programs that focus on the unique needs of your local context. A smaller congregation can benefit from learning to value depth over volume. They can channel their limited resources into a smaller number of programs and potentially do these fewer things with greater depth and effectiveness.
Eleven years ago, Edgewater Baptist Church in Chicago felt called to reach out to its community by meeting a neighborhood need. There were plenty of needs. The neighborhood houses a large gay community, is the American home of a large population of Bosnian refugees, and faces the challenges of homelessness. Given the church’s size—around 130 members—its leadership realized it needed to focus on only one of these issues. There were already a couple of gay outreach programs in the area and a Bosnian church plant in the neighborhood, but one important need that wasn’t being addressed was a lack of childcare for less affluent neighbors. The children of working parents had nowhere to go after school until the end of the work day.
So Edgewater Baptist started Safeplace, an afterschool program and summer day camp that provides space and time for kids to work on homework, play games, and learn about abstinence, nutrition, and other practical health and safety issues. The church’s decision to subsidize tuition demanded that it streamline its programming, but Safeplace is now Edgewater Baptist’s single major ministry.
And their commitment has paid off: over 120 kids regularly attend Safeplace during the school year, and even more attend the summer day camp.
If several of your church members work at a nearby school and feel compelled to ensure the quality of education for the children in your neighborhood, perhaps your church’s unique ministry could focus on adopting the local school and providing mentors, tutors, and scholarships for extracurricular activities. If a majority of your congregation works at the local mill, perhaps your church should consider providing whatever support is necessary and unique to the people in that profession. The possibilities are as unique and endless as the neighborhoods we live in, our church’s gifts, and the families we want to reach for Christ.
People-powered
If a small church limits the number of programs it runs, then the lion’s share of the church’s ministry will have to come from its members. One creative way small churches are addressing this challenge is by finding ways to equip their congregants to minister where they are already active during the week. Chances are you have parents in your congregation who are active in the PTA. Perhaps someone is active in prison ministry or in some form of compassion ministry to the homeless or dispossessed. Rather than pressuring church members to turn all their gifts and service churchward, some small-church pastors are learning that their ministry has a greater impact in its community when they equip and encourage their people to keep serving where they are already active.
Empowering and releasing members to minister in the community requires that you know your congregants well enough to know what they are passionate about, gifted for, and already involved in. In other words, this strategy for ministry plays to one inherent strength of the smaller congregation—the pastor often knows his or her flock intimately and can more directly help congregants discover how to turn their regular responsibilities and unique giftedness into ministry opportunities.
Intergenerational relationships
The statistics are sobering: Some commentators project that nearly 80 percent of young people who grow up in church and youth programming end up leaving the church by the time they reach college. Sociologist Christian Smith says that the reasons teens give for leaving aren’t dramatic. “Many cannot explain their disengagement from religion,” he explains. “Many seem simply to have drifted.” Thom and Sam Rainer state the matter more succinctly: “Churchgoing students drop out of the church because it is not essential to their lives.”
Fortunately, there is hope. In her research through the Fuller Youth Institute, Kara Powell has discovered a common denominator among young adults who continue to make the local church a vital part of their lives. Students who actively seek a church home after high school are those who have had meaningful relationships with other adults in the church besides their parents. Those who had been given opportunities to serve younger children in the church were also more likely to view the church as important to their lives. In other words, intergenerational relationships within the church are an important factor in making sure young people keep the faith.
Small churches may feel the weight of this topic even more heavily than larger ones. Even as I write this, there are families in our church that are considering leaving because our children’s and youth programs don’t appeal to their kids. But some small churches have discovered that the solution to the generation problem may be counter-intuitive; instead of providing more exciting age-specific ministries, they find hope by bringing the generations together. Whether in the worship service, Sunday school, or through service projects, these churches look for ways to develop relationships across generational lines. And for this effort, the smaller the church the better! In large congregations, the generations have few opportunities to intermingle; in smaller churches, opportunities abound.
Ministry on the Margins
According to the Hartford research referenced above, the largest churches attract a fairly well-defined demographic. The average age of a megachurch attendee is 40. Nearly a third of them are single and, on the whole, the megachurch crowd is more educated and wealthier than the average members of smaller churches. In terms of distribution, there tend to be more megachurches in suburban rather than in urban or rural areas.
But which churches are reaching the people who fall outside this demographic and location? Small churches. Some pastors, including megachurch pastor Dave Gibbons, are finding that smaller churches can become an integral part of the local fabric of their communities and reach the people on the margins who often are not attracted to larger congregations. Dave was leading an ever-growing mega-ministry in the Los Angeles area when he felt a clear call from God to minister to the down-and-out and overlooked. At the core of his change of heart was a radical realization: For his calling to reach people on the margins, size was a liability. So instead of continuing to grow his church into an ever-larger megachurch, the congregation now expands its ministry reach by planting small churches worldwide. Dave calls these congregations of between 30 and 300 people “verges,” because they are “a convergence of the best features of a small and a large church.” They provide the critical mass necessary to remain energetic about mission, but they are intimate enough to be conducive to authentic community.
For Dave, smaller, nimbler congregations are the only way to reach the margins. In fact, he believes that congregations of 300 and smaller are “going to be the most effective in many places around the world.” He doesn’t think “bigness is going to fit most people or most cultural contexts where the church needs to grow.”
Recognizing these qualities of small churches as strategic advantages may require rethinking ministry success. None of them is guaranteed to grow a church numerically (nothing is, in fact), but fostering the authenticity that comes more naturally to your smaller church will make your church a safe place for the disillusioned. Streamlining programming and fostering people-powered ministry can make your smaller church a more integral, visible part of the local community. Intergenerational relationships can increase the percentage of youth who persevere in the faith, and ministry to people on the margins extends the gospel to populations that other bigger churches fail to reach. These efforts may not be as glamorous as church growth strategies. But they will equip us to participate in Kingdom growth—to watch how God can take our mustard seed and turn it into great harvest for his glory.
Brandon O’Brien is editor at large for Leadership journal and a writer for their popular blog, Out of Ur. Brandon served as pastor of two small congregations right out of college and is now a doctoral student in Christian History at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Learn more from Brandon at his blog and in his upcoming book, The Strategically Small Church.
_______________________________________________________
For the past thirty years or so, the focus of most literature on local church ministry has been church growth. Whether they offer advice on how to develop a winning vision statement, attract and retain visitors, multiply your small groups, or manage a building campaign, the dominant voices in the most popular ministry literature promise to help you increase attendance in your services and programs. These materials suggest that the small church is somehow deficient, ill-equipped by definition to be stewards of God’s great Gospel of grace and redemption. If a small church wants to be better, it has to be bigger.
Frankly, I disagree. I believe that small churches—which, by the way, make up the majority of churches—are uniquely equipped for ministry success in the twenty-first century. In the following paragraphs, I offer five strengths that I believe are inherent in small congregations. These qualities are not limited to small churches only; they can be found in larger churches, too. But smaller churches can better leverage these characteristics for ministry success.
Authenticity
“Authenticity” has become an important American value. Authors James Gilmore and Joseph Pine claim in their best-selling book, Authenticity, that instead of searching for high-quality goods and services, “people increasingly make purchase decisions based on how real or fake they perceive various offerings.” This consumer value has influenced what people look for in a church. Almost intuitively, church leaders recognize that their church needs to be perceived as authentic if they want people to visit and come back. Spend a few minutes looking at church websites online, and you’ll find “About” pages describing churches as having “authentic worship,” “authentic community,” and “authentic service.”
These instincts seem to be accurate. A poll at the Web site ChurchMarketingSucks.com reveals that the number one reason people return to churches after an initial visit is because they deem the church “authentic.” The next most popular reason is the pastor’s preaching. The church’s programs only pulled five percent of the vote.
What this means for churches is that authenticity is a consistent factor in a person’s choice to join a worshiping community. In his book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them, Ed Stetzer writes, “One hundred percent of churches [we] interviewed, deemed effective at reaching young people by our criteria, hold authenticity as one of their highest values or have a commitment to being authentic.”
At this risk of oversimplifying this complex issue, I offer two statements to get us thinking about what authenticity means for the local church, and why smaller churches are at an advantage for putting it to work.
First, be yourself. My first pastorate was in a tiny country church many miles from the nearest street light. Our music was off-key; my preaching was fair to middling at best. But college students showed up in droves, because they appreciated the unpretentious, “authentic” community we fostered. If we had tried to “glam up” the worship service, we would have turned these students away. As Mike Sares, pastor of Scum of the Earth church, says, “The more glitzy something is, the less people trust it.” The more glitzy, “professional” worship services at larger churches can turn off some worshipers who are looking for a more authentic worship experience.
Second, make sure your behavior lines up with your stated convictions. Large churches can struggle with this not because they are less faithful, but simply because their size can be a liability. Churches of all sizes will claim to be a family, but the larger the church, the more likely it is to be run like a business—the worship and programming becomes professionalized, and congregants become less directly involved in the church’s ministry. Small churches, on the other hand, more often truly function as a family—with all the blessings and challenges that includes.
Lean and Focused
One reason larger churches can attract attendees from across a region is because they have the resources to offer a little something for everyone. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, megachurches provide “many ways by which people [can] craft their unique, customized spiritual experience to meet their needs.” Smaller churches often don’t have the financial resources or the volunteer pool to run a broad schedule of church programs. Not to worry.
Instead of running a multitude of generic programs, a better use of resources and energy in the small church is to zero in on one or two programs that focus on the unique needs of your local context. A smaller congregation can benefit from learning to value depth over volume. They can channel their limited resources into a smaller number of programs and potentially do these fewer things with greater depth and effectiveness.
Eleven years ago, Edgewater Baptist Church in Chicago felt called to reach out to its community by meeting a neighborhood need. There were plenty of needs. The neighborhood houses a large gay community, is the American home of a large population of Bosnian refugees, and faces the challenges of homelessness. Given the church’s size—around 130 members—its leadership realized it needed to focus on only one of these issues. There were already a couple of gay outreach programs in the area and a Bosnian church plant in the neighborhood, but one important need that wasn’t being addressed was a lack of childcare for less affluent neighbors. The children of working parents had nowhere to go after school until the end of the work day.
So Edgewater Baptist started Safeplace, an afterschool program and summer day camp that provides space and time for kids to work on homework, play games, and learn about abstinence, nutrition, and other practical health and safety issues. The church’s decision to subsidize tuition demanded that it streamline its programming, but Safeplace is now Edgewater Baptist’s single major ministry.
And their commitment has paid off: over 120 kids regularly attend Safeplace during the school year, and even more attend the summer day camp.
If several of your church members work at a nearby school and feel compelled to ensure the quality of education for the children in your neighborhood, perhaps your church’s unique ministry could focus on adopting the local school and providing mentors, tutors, and scholarships for extracurricular activities. If a majority of your congregation works at the local mill, perhaps your church should consider providing whatever support is necessary and unique to the people in that profession. The possibilities are as unique and endless as the neighborhoods we live in, our church’s gifts, and the families we want to reach for Christ.
People-powered
If a small church limits the number of programs it runs, then the lion’s share of the church’s ministry will have to come from its members. One creative way small churches are addressing this challenge is by finding ways to equip their congregants to minister where they are already active during the week. Chances are you have parents in your congregation who are active in the PTA. Perhaps someone is active in prison ministry or in some form of compassion ministry to the homeless or dispossessed. Rather than pressuring church members to turn all their gifts and service churchward, some small-church pastors are learning that their ministry has a greater impact in its community when they equip and encourage their people to keep serving where they are already active.
Empowering and releasing members to minister in the community requires that you know your congregants well enough to know what they are passionate about, gifted for, and already involved in. In other words, this strategy for ministry plays to one inherent strength of the smaller congregation—the pastor often knows his or her flock intimately and can more directly help congregants discover how to turn their regular responsibilities and unique giftedness into ministry opportunities.
Intergenerational relationships
The statistics are sobering: Some commentators project that nearly 80 percent of young people who grow up in church and youth programming end up leaving the church by the time they reach college. Sociologist Christian Smith says that the reasons teens give for leaving aren’t dramatic. “Many cannot explain their disengagement from religion,” he explains. “Many seem simply to have drifted.” Thom and Sam Rainer state the matter more succinctly: “Churchgoing students drop out of the church because it is not essential to their lives.”
Fortunately, there is hope. In her research through the Fuller Youth Institute, Kara Powell has discovered a common denominator among young adults who continue to make the local church a vital part of their lives. Students who actively seek a church home after high school are those who have had meaningful relationships with other adults in the church besides their parents. Those who had been given opportunities to serve younger children in the church were also more likely to view the church as important to their lives. In other words, intergenerational relationships within the church are an important factor in making sure young people keep the faith.
Small churches may feel the weight of this topic even more heavily than larger ones. Even as I write this, there are families in our church that are considering leaving because our children’s and youth programs don’t appeal to their kids. But some small churches have discovered that the solution to the generation problem may be counter-intuitive; instead of providing more exciting age-specific ministries, they find hope by bringing the generations together. Whether in the worship service, Sunday school, or through service projects, these churches look for ways to develop relationships across generational lines. And for this effort, the smaller the church the better! In large congregations, the generations have few opportunities to intermingle; in smaller churches, opportunities abound.
Ministry on the Margins
According to the Hartford research referenced above, the largest churches attract a fairly well-defined demographic. The average age of a megachurch attendee is 40. Nearly a third of them are single and, on the whole, the megachurch crowd is more educated and wealthier than the average members of smaller churches. In terms of distribution, there tend to be more megachurches in suburban rather than in urban or rural areas.
But which churches are reaching the people who fall outside this demographic and location? Small churches. Some pastors, including megachurch pastor Dave Gibbons, are finding that smaller churches can become an integral part of the local fabric of their communities and reach the people on the margins who often are not attracted to larger congregations. Dave was leading an ever-growing mega-ministry in the Los Angeles area when he felt a clear call from God to minister to the down-and-out and overlooked. At the core of his change of heart was a radical realization: For his calling to reach people on the margins, size was a liability. So instead of continuing to grow his church into an ever-larger megachurch, the congregation now expands its ministry reach by planting small churches worldwide. Dave calls these congregations of between 30 and 300 people “verges,” because they are “a convergence of the best features of a small and a large church.” They provide the critical mass necessary to remain energetic about mission, but they are intimate enough to be conducive to authentic community.
For Dave, smaller, nimbler congregations are the only way to reach the margins. In fact, he believes that congregations of 300 and smaller are “going to be the most effective in many places around the world.” He doesn’t think “bigness is going to fit most people or most cultural contexts where the church needs to grow.”
Recognizing these qualities of small churches as strategic advantages may require rethinking ministry success. None of them is guaranteed to grow a church numerically (nothing is, in fact), but fostering the authenticity that comes more naturally to your smaller church will make your church a safe place for the disillusioned. Streamlining programming and fostering people-powered ministry can make your smaller church a more integral, visible part of the local community. Intergenerational relationships can increase the percentage of youth who persevere in the faith, and ministry to people on the margins extends the gospel to populations that other bigger churches fail to reach. These efforts may not be as glamorous as church growth strategies. But they will equip us to participate in Kingdom growth—to watch how God can take our mustard seed and turn it into great harvest for his glory.
Brandon O’Brien is editor at large for Leadership journal and a writer for their popular blog, Out of Ur. Brandon served as pastor of two small congregations right out of college and is now a doctoral student in Christian History at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Learn more from Brandon at his blog and in his upcoming book, The Strategically Small Church.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Hey everyone... here is a video sermon from Dr. Ed Stetzer that refocuses our pastoral roles.
If we are going to move our people into seeing themselves as missional (missionaries in their community) people... we need to look in the mirror to see how well we are encouraging this...
Tell me.... what do you think of this video?
-K
NOTES:
If we are going to move our people into seeing themselves as missional (missionaries in their community) people... we need to look in the mirror to see how well we are encouraging this...
Tell me.... what do you think of this video?
-K
NOTES:
1) Reconsideration of Leadership
a) From superman to everyone
b) From church to kingdom
c) From me to we
d) From personal power to people empowerment
2) Rejection of Clergification
a) From three tiers to one mission
b) From "called to the ministry" to "called to ministry"
c) From "called to missions" to "sent on mission"
d) From exceptional to ordinary
e) From "priests" to a "priesthood of believers"
3) Renewed focus on mission
a) From "full service" to "simple mission"
b) From "pay, pray, and get out of the way" to "join God on His mission"
c) From decisionism to disciple making
d) From "mission statement" to "Jesus mission"
Luke 4
Luke 19:10
4) Realignment of priorities
a) God is a missionary God
b) I personally join Him on mission - modeling
c) I lead others to join Him on mission - leadership
d) I equip others - multiplication
Monday, June 14, 2010
Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox
It is a free email resource and is FULL of great articles, information and ideas.
Smaller Churches UNITE!!
I am not sure all of what I was hoping this blog would accomplish, but I was hoping that those of us who serve, in the name of Jesus, smaller churches could come together and encourage, inspire, motivate and connect together a little here. So far it has not had the response that I had hoped. I know it has not been a long time since we began and I am also not so sure just how many people know about this blog.
So here is the deal...I really think this is a great idea and I am committed to try to connect us all. It is time consuming and we all have so little of that it seems, so not wanting to be writing with no one reading or without you all participating in the discussion...so how about I will keep blogging till the end of October 2010 and re-evaluate then... that take us through summer and after the fall kickoff. What do you think???
I really believe that if we all joined together and UNITE in mission as smaller churches and as pastoral leaders... I think we could have a great effect on our country...
I am for you...
-K
So here is the deal...I really think this is a great idea and I am committed to try to connect us all. It is time consuming and we all have so little of that it seems, so not wanting to be writing with no one reading or without you all participating in the discussion...so how about I will keep blogging till the end of October 2010 and re-evaluate then... that take us through summer and after the fall kickoff. What do you think???
I really believe that if we all joined together and UNITE in mission as smaller churches and as pastoral leaders... I think we could have a great effect on our country...
I am for you...
-K
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Living SENT... not living "STAID" : PART 4
Here is the last of the articles from Ed Stetzer...
In the first three parts of this series, we examined how we need a better hierarchy, better language and better understanding. In this concluding post, I'll demonstrate why I think we need better structures as well, if we want to fully involve all of God's people in all of God's mission.
When I speak of structures, please do not let your mind run to bureaucracy, for that can be discussed at another time. Instead, think about how the people and activities of a congregation are interconnected to one great value--the mission of God. It seems obvious that most churches speak often of God's mission but are inactive. It is time for less talking and more walking.
One structural glitch that needs to be changed is the compartmentalizing of mission as a separate ministry in churches. It is true that someone has to champion that cause, but it is not Bob or Sue's job to do missions on behalf of others. The "mission champion" needs to move everyone toward mission in all that the church does.
Moving toward mission means that all ministry efforts have as their primary goal the same goal God has, which is His glory being displayed among the panta ta ethne, the peoples of the world. So, whether it is the nursery, elementary classes, middle-school or intergenerational small groups, the goal can never be Seven Steps to Happier Living, but the role those gathered people play in God's mission.
Avoid allowing mission to be a silo of ministry--just one thing among the many things we do. We should lead our mission leaders to cross-pollinate each ministry with the mission of God. "How does what we do demonstrate a partnership in God's mission in the world?" should be the defining question from the children's worship planning team to the ushers to the personnel team to the homeless ministry.
By moving beyond compartmentalization, leaders can promote the entirety of the mission. It has been said, "You cannot expect what you do not inspect." When it comes to our mission, "What you promote is what gets participation." The mission of God must be celebrated and taught by the lead pastor. It must be in all printed material. The social media of the church should carry the theme of God's mission so it does not degenerate into the mundane of fellowship meal menu. It must be the focus of the music and singing. Songs like This Is My Father's World, God of This City, and Jesus, Hope of the Nations create directed thinking toward the plans and purposes of God including His glorious triumph.
Additionally, turning an old American Express commercial on its ear, membership should have its responsibilities. Consider having regular participation in some expression of international engagement as a membership requirement. Find a way for the accountants to be involved, the brick masons, the plumbers, the teachers, the day-care workers, as well as the pastoral team! If part of the dilemma is seeing missions as "preaching," then provide opportunities for the people with regular jobs to put their expertise to work in a cross-cultural setting. If not among Peruvians, then perhaps among the Pima in Arizona.
Structure should lead toward the fulfillment of mission, even when it celebrates the past workings of God's grace. Do not wait to celebrate what you hope to become; celebrate what you want to become. In an era that has touted "permission-giving" structures, we need to simply press ahead and insist on commission-giving environments. As our churches hold to better hierarchy, language and understandings of mission, then the members will naturally gravitate to the mission. We should commission believers to participate in cross-cultural mission at every level. Though we must not devalue the work that vocational cross-cultural missionaries do, our flat world affords everyone the opportunity to cross previously insurmountable boundaries.
For the missionaries who have traveled from your church or denomination to live in a foreign place, keep them in touch with those still on the home field. Encourage them to update their Facebook page or blog. "Beam them up" via SKYPE during the main worship gathering and get a live report. Host an authentic ethnic dinner night with reports about the home country. Distribute prayer guides about global mission efforts to influential leaders. Do a regular "Nations Focus" in Sunday worship.
Not only are the possibilities truly endless, they truly are necessary in order to give us better structures through which we can involve all of God's people in all of God's mission.
The work of mission is given to the church. If you are a leader, then it is your great privilege to lead believers into God's continuing mission of reconciliation. Doing so, we must not allow anyone to sit aside believing its work is for others. As Emil Brunner has said, "The church exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning." Every believer should be consumed and concerned to stand amongst the burning embers of God's great mission.
Researching Canada
At the national PAOC convention in May 2010, Dr. Ed Stetzer made a presentation using research that was done in Canada by LifeWay Research.
You can find the aritcile, with all the VERY helpful links and Slide shows HERE. I encourage you to read it... look at the stats, download the powerpoint then show it to your people....
God is speaking to His church... let us listen and with His help join him on His mission to reach Canada.
I am for you!
-K
You can find the aritcile, with all the VERY helpful links and Slide shows HERE. I encourage you to read it... look at the stats, download the powerpoint then show it to your people....
God is speaking to His church... let us listen and with His help join him on His mission to reach Canada.
I am for you!
-K
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Why has the CHURCH forgotten???
What has happened that so many people who have said that they are His followers yet have stepped back from following the LORD with all their heart and lives? What has happened that those "called out ones", HIS church, have lost their understanding of what the church designed purpose is?
Jesus still desires for us to be empowered by His Spirit for the purpose that he has created them for, but it seems like so many of God's called out ones do NOT know that that is or (if they do know) do not want to do that anymore.
Some may be sad at this BUT I think that GOD is stirring His people again and this is a GREAT opportunity we have been given. It also encouraged me GREATLY as I am hearing spiritual leader after spiritual leader saying the same things alone the same lines.
I don't know if you heard about this, but on Pentecost Sunday, Rick Warren told his church that "If you want to remain a passive Christian, find another church."The Christian Post writes:
"There are a lot of things done in the name of Christianity in the church that Jesus Christ would disavow," he lamented. "There's fake Christianity, there's phony Christianity, there's pseudo-Christianity."I want us to look at the real deal. What does it mean to really be a follower of Jesus Christ?" Unfortunately, the churches and Christians he sees today in the 21st century are a far cry from how they were in the first century, he noted. Aligning Saddleback with the DNA of the original church – which grew from 120 believers to dominating the Roman Empire within 300 years – Warren
As I edited the article a bit, you can find the whole version of it here.
I think it is safe to say to 20,000 people "find another church" if you are not willing to join us on mission. Do we, do I, have the courage to say that our church of 100 people or less? What if they take us up on it? What if they leave... then we would not have a job...
....but what if they don't..... but hear your passion for joining the LORD in his purpose for which the church has been created. What if they say YES LORD YES.... I think they might...
Maybe we need to be more concerned of communicating prophetically to our Church that if we do not join the LORD on His mission... we all are at risk of loosing something VERY dear to us...
Read these quotes from the book;
“God’s church is a missional church, a community that is sent and given away for God’s purposes. While I believe the unsent church is still God’s church, she is a bride that has lost much of her intrigue and beauty. For God’s church to reemerge in your local church, you must be willing to let the bride become beautifully sent. You must allow God to send you, to send your people, and you must begin to see yourself as part of a larger story of God’s mission, which began with Abram and continues today through leaders who desire to see God’s marvelous ways change the course of history.”
They go on to write...
“I believe that God’s people want to go BIG! They’re tired of being the unsent church— weary of church services, sermons, in-house programs, and Bible studies that never push them out and challenge them to really be the missional people God has called them to be. “
I BELIEVE that this is THE time for you as a solo pastor in a smaller church to call your people to go out and be the people God has created them to be as part of HIS church...
I am for you...
Living SENT not living "STAID" : PART 2
Here is part two of the article I posted last. You can find the PART THREE (of three) HERE...
"Words have meaning. It is because words have meaning that we should take care in how we use them when speaking on the mission of God, and it is because words have meaning that we should use intentional language to involve all of God's people in all of God's mission. Words build and words destroy. Words cast vision and words halt progress. And words have the ability to lead toward a preferred future.
In church life, some words have become so codified that they may as well form a second Decalogue. Come forward, Bow your heads and close your eyes and the like are pregnant with both intended and unintended meaning. If we are to involve all of God's people in all of God's mission, we need to ensure that our articulations match our intentions.
Two decades ago, Lesslie Newbigin wisely reminded us of the need to consider context in language: "In some cultures a dog is seen as a member of the household and an object of affection; in others it is primarily a scavenger and an object of contempt. The word 'dog' has distinctly different meanings in the two cultures, and the full meaning of the word can never be exhaustively specified" (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society). In the same way that the context of dog has to be explored, the context of words like mission, missional, and global engagement must be explored and explained.
The second thing, therefore, that we need to involve all of God's people in all of God's mission is better language.
The government makes a distinction between military and civilian so that we will all recognize who is tasked with defending the country and fighting wars--the military. Leaders in the church have made an unhelpful distinction by the use of the words clergy and laity. The unintended consequence is that we are left with the impression that one group is tasked with engaging in ministry--the clergy. We know that is not so, so why not stop speaking as if it is?
It will help all of God's people to be involved in all of God's mission if we will do the work of both defining the mission and choosing an appropriate cultural articulation of the mission. As Stephen Neil has said, "When everything is mission, nothing is mission." The mission of God cannot be the catch-all that includes everything from folding bulletins, to picking up trash on the highway, to coaching a ball team, to the gospel infiltrating a previously unreached people.
Admittedly, this is made no easier by the fact that some terms cannot be agreed upon across Christendom. Try coming to unity on the meaning of kingdom or a solid definition for missional. You'll find a difficult task awaits. What can take place, however, is a local church can choose words that convey meaning in the context of that body. In turn, those words can define the mission of God, the work of the church and the role of the members. When that happens, all the members of your church can be involved in all of God's mission.
As we do this, I believe a church seeking to involve each member in God's mission--a component of any missional church--will intentionally include the motive of God's glory to be expressed among the nations. It is impossible to separate the mission of God from the glory of God since His glory is the goal of His mission. God's glory among every tongue tribe and nation can and should be a theme for every church. Habakkuk reminds us, "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD's glory, as the waters cover the sea" (2:14, HCSB).
So emphatic is God about His glory being displayed throughout the earth, that I don't think a church should call itself missional unless it is seeking to serve locally, plant nationally, and engage an unreached people group globally. Without a global vision, there will always be a missing focus resulting in a church out of balance. Rather than saying "all Christians are missionaries," I prefer to say, "All Christians ought to be on God's global mission." Remember, words have meaning. As we are careful to take context into account in our local churches, using words that clearly communicate what the mission is and what it requires, we can see a move toward all of God's people being involved in all of God's mission.
"Words have meaning. It is because words have meaning that we should take care in how we use them when speaking on the mission of God, and it is because words have meaning that we should use intentional language to involve all of God's people in all of God's mission. Words build and words destroy. Words cast vision and words halt progress. And words have the ability to lead toward a preferred future.
In church life, some words have become so codified that they may as well form a second Decalogue. Come forward, Bow your heads and close your eyes and the like are pregnant with both intended and unintended meaning. If we are to involve all of God's people in all of God's mission, we need to ensure that our articulations match our intentions.
Two decades ago, Lesslie Newbigin wisely reminded us of the need to consider context in language: "In some cultures a dog is seen as a member of the household and an object of affection; in others it is primarily a scavenger and an object of contempt. The word 'dog' has distinctly different meanings in the two cultures, and the full meaning of the word can never be exhaustively specified" (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society). In the same way that the context of dog has to be explored, the context of words like mission, missional, and global engagement must be explored and explained.
The second thing, therefore, that we need to involve all of God's people in all of God's mission is better language.
The government makes a distinction between military and civilian so that we will all recognize who is tasked with defending the country and fighting wars--the military. Leaders in the church have made an unhelpful distinction by the use of the words clergy and laity. The unintended consequence is that we are left with the impression that one group is tasked with engaging in ministry--the clergy. We know that is not so, so why not stop speaking as if it is?
It will help all of God's people to be involved in all of God's mission if we will do the work of both defining the mission and choosing an appropriate cultural articulation of the mission. As Stephen Neil has said, "When everything is mission, nothing is mission." The mission of God cannot be the catch-all that includes everything from folding bulletins, to picking up trash on the highway, to coaching a ball team, to the gospel infiltrating a previously unreached people.
Admittedly, this is made no easier by the fact that some terms cannot be agreed upon across Christendom. Try coming to unity on the meaning of kingdom or a solid definition for missional. You'll find a difficult task awaits. What can take place, however, is a local church can choose words that convey meaning in the context of that body. In turn, those words can define the mission of God, the work of the church and the role of the members. When that happens, all the members of your church can be involved in all of God's mission.
As we do this, I believe a church seeking to involve each member in God's mission--a component of any missional church--will intentionally include the motive of God's glory to be expressed among the nations. It is impossible to separate the mission of God from the glory of God since His glory is the goal of His mission. God's glory among every tongue tribe and nation can and should be a theme for every church. Habakkuk reminds us, "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD's glory, as the waters cover the sea" (2:14, HCSB).
So emphatic is God about His glory being displayed throughout the earth, that I don't think a church should call itself missional unless it is seeking to serve locally, plant nationally, and engage an unreached people group globally. Without a global vision, there will always be a missing focus resulting in a church out of balance. Rather than saying "all Christians are missionaries," I prefer to say, "All Christians ought to be on God's global mission." Remember, words have meaning. As we are careful to take context into account in our local churches, using words that clearly communicate what the mission is and what it requires, we can see a move toward all of God's people being involved in all of God's mission.
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