Three Goals

Here is a radical idea!

All staff members must accept three major goals. The first goal is the number of new disciples that will be brought to Jesus under their respective ministries. Setting this as the primary goal, makes outward focus everyone’s responsibility, from the person leading the nursery staff to those responsible for assimilating new people. It also creates an environment of outreach that leads staff to be creative in reaching new people, whether adults or children. The second goal is the number of new people that each staff member will train to be involved in his or her ministry each year. Congregations grow in proportion to the number of leaders and groups that are developed. The third goal is specific numbers or percentages by which that staff member’s ministry will grow during the year. Almost no one is exempt from these goals.
--Paul D. Borden, Direct Hit

Removing Obstacles

When a leader keeps personal ego in check—and builds the confidence and self-esteem of others—it is then possible for the team to work together.

We teach others the knowledge, skills, and strategies they need to succeed. And we work hard to get obstacles out of their way so they can make progress.
--Ken Jennings & John Stahl-Wert, The Serving Leader

Removing obstacles from another's path is a powerful and usually invisible ministry.
- Ed

Levening Your Church Meetings-Part 4

4. Planning Meetings/Retreats
Though planning meetings do not happen with the frequency of the other groups that we have been talking about, they still are occasions for the work of the Spirit. Besides the creative openings and closings that have been suggested, the planning meeting can be done in the spirit of discernment. The goal for the planning is to discern God’s direction for each part of the church’s ministry. What is God calling us to do in education? in mission? in evangelism? in service? in worship?

One way for this kind of contemplative planning to take place is to use guided imagery. If you are focusing on evangelism, for example, a guided prayer could invite people to relax, close their eyes, and imagine a city or town square where a lot of people gather. Imagine yourself sitting on a park bench observing people. You notice that Jesus is coming to sit with you and you feel comforted by his presence. You begin to talk about reaching out to people with the good news of God’s love, and you share your ideas and you listen as Jesus shares his concerns. You close by asking Jesus to give you courage and wisdom to witness to those in the community. You receive his blessing. A whole group that is led through such a guided imaging experience now has not only ideas for evangelism but ideas that have been shaped in the depths of prayer. Such a contemplative planning process can add immensely to the listing of problems and possibilities on newsprint that most churches go through in their planning process.

Other prayer experiences can be designed to lead into the planning process. The Quakers use extended times of silence. Many Native Americans use a council-style discussion where everyone is encouraged to speak spontaneously from the heart when they are holding the talking stick (or in Christian circles, a chalice). Such a process insures that each person does more listening than speaking. Other groups have used pictures of nature or children to elicit prayers and thoughts on personal experiences or on subjects that are to be discussed.

Contemplative planning strives to have ideas and plans emerge from the richness of prayer. Explore guided imagery and other prayer experiences as part of the planning process for the church.

Heart and Soul: a guide for Spiritual Formation in the Local Church
Larry J. Peacock, Upper Room Books

LEVENING YOUR CHURCH MEETINGS-Part 3

3. Action/Service Groups
The Soup Kitchen Committee, the volunteers who maintain the thrift shop, the Peace and Justice Committee, the Senior Citizens Housing Task Force, and the Nursery School Board are examples of a third kind of group that can have the leavening dough of spiritual formation.

The opening time is vitally important for these groups that are engaged in meeting the needs of “the least of these” and in addressing difficult and complex issues. It is hard to sustain commitment in the face of persistent evil and slow-moving bureaucracies. Prayers for strength and guidance are always appropriate. Reflections on God’s compassion (Micah 6:8, for example) provide the basis for ongoing commitment. Songs about God’s promises of shalom and justice can lift the heart. Jim and Jean Strathdee’s music could encourage many groups.

Periodically a group will want to spend time sharing responses to these kinds of questions: What are the joys and struggles of our call to serve? What new challenges is God giving to us? What scripture has given you strength as you carry out your mission? How do you see Jesus walking with us? Where did you see the winds of the Spirit blowing?

Care for the members of action groups is an important part of spiritual nurture. It may be useful to plan retreats and social gatherings to provide space for the healing rivers to flow back into active lives. The section on options will give many suggestions that will be useful for nourishing the members of action groups.

Heart and Soul: a guide for Spiritual Formation in the Local Church
Larry J. Peacock, Upper Room Books

LEVENING YOUR CHURCH MEETINGS-Part 2

2. Study/Fellowship Groups
Sunday school classes, Bible studies, book discussions, youth and adult classes all have their focus on learning and maturing in the Christian faith. But often in study groups our emphasis is on information, mastering ideas or concepts, analyzing and dissecting. We try to figure out what each “jot and tittle” means. That kind of approach has value, but we have neglected the slow, thoughtful prayer dialogue that focuses on formation rather than information. This approach is grounded in the faith that behind the words we study there is always a Word to encounter. We study not just for information but for insight—and the truth transforms us.

In study classes then, we ask more than the who, what, when, and where questions. We can ask: How am I like the prodigal son? When do I feel like the bent-over woman? We can hear Jesus ask us, “What are you looking for?” and “Who do you say that I am?” We can place ourselves with Esther and Daniel and discover our faith in times of difficulty.

Heart and Soul: a guide for Spiritual Formation in the Local Church
Larry J. Peacock Upper Room Books


Many sections of scripture have been put to music and can deepen our reflection on the passage. Listening to Handel’s Messiah allows portions of Isaiah to echo in our minds and hearts. The new United Methodist Hymnal contains many antiphons for the Psalms. These musical lines can add a new dimension to our study.

Writing can be a useful tool in study groups. The members can be asked to write a prayer of thanksgiving, a psalm of lament, or a prayer from a Bible character’s point of view. The members can journal or dialogue with one of the characters or with Jesus. Or members can draw their response to entering into the passage. In studying to be formed into the life of Christ, artistic expression (writing, drawing, painting, working with clay, dancing) can open new windows.

The vital feature of this discipline is not what one studies but how one studies. We read and study not just with the mind but also with the heart. Included at the end of this chapter is a format for this kind of meditative Bible study. This model can be adapted for a variety of kinds of study groups.

LEAVENING YOUR CHURCH MEETINGS-Part 1

1. Administrative/Business Meetings
Many meetings in a church focus on institutional concerns—building maintenance and improvement, job descriptions and hiring decisions, budget line items and stewardship campaigns, recruiting teachers and leaders. Wherever two or three gather in Christ’s name, Christ is present. In the midst of conducting business we can have our eyes open to see the Spirit at work through bricks and mortar, dollar signs and newsprint agendas.

Though opening meetings with prayer can become perfunctory, the opening time can become an opportunity for spiritual nurture. questions can be asked instead of or in addition to prayer. What is the will of God for this group? What gift of today do you bring to this meeting? What people will feel the tender grace of God by our actions in this committee? A time of extended silence is a good way to settle in and make the transition from being scattered to being gathered. Leaders who open the meeting with prayer might try writing their prayers instead praying spontaneously; those who write out their prayers ahead of time might try spontaneous prayers.

Think of other ways you might transform the opening time into a moment of experiencing God’s tender and supporting grace. You could invite members of the committee to prepare a short reflection on scripture. Find a song or chorus that ushers the committee into God’s presence and into a spirit of openness. Look with fresh eyes at the opening.

During the meeting, time for silence or prayer may be appropriate—not to squelch discussions or disagreements but to open group members to the ways of God, who is always working for love in any situation. I can still recall the profound silence and prayer before important votes at many General Conferences. Especially when we seem at a “stuck” point in a committee, silence and prayer can give space for a new-dawning insight.

The close of the meeting is also a time for nurture. You might ask, “How has God been present in our decisions? What signs of joy and hope did you experience?” The close of a meeting is a good time for gratitude-thanking the members for their faithful contributions. When meetings are held in the evening, the closing can be a time for blessing prayer. “Blessed are you, Loving God, for you hold us with tender care and watch over us as we rest.” Again, singing can be a way of closing and sending forth into the world.

Heart and Soul: a guide for Spiritual Formation in the Local Church
Larry J. Peacock Upper Room Books

The Gift of Disagreement

Disagreement is a gift. It alerts us to something wonderful waiting to be uncovered, telling us it's time to dive deeper.
--Rabbi Irwin Kula, Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life

Healthy Soul

Too many people consider soul work to be primarily interior and valuable only to the person doing the work. The most important reason to attend to our souls, however, is that spiritual health and vitality determines the quality of our contribution to our world. What good is a healthy soul hidden away on a mountaintop or “purified” to the point of divorce from reality? Spiritual wholeness is not an end in itself; it is a means to participate fully in a world that is spiritually hungry. A healthy soul cannot help but love.
-- Traci Mullins and Ann Spangler, Vitamins for your Soul

Some Thoughts for the Day

What if your work expressed your own highest values?
What would your relationships be like?
How would you be?
What message would you be expressing?

Urgency from Vision Not Guilt

Good leaders understand that the presentation of vision must always, always be accompanied with a presentation of urgency for that vision. Without the consistent presentation of urgency, people vote with their behavior for the status quo. A good leader makes the status quo so unacceptable that people are willing to embrace a new vision.

If one creates urgency from a prophetic perspective so that everyone feels guilty about all that could be happening but is not, there will be no change. Prophets create guilt, and guilt is designed to produce repentance, which is a type of change. But changes in congregations, which may start with repentance, must be led by leaders rather than prophets. Shame and blame do not produce change.’ [healthy change or positive growth]
--Paul D. Borden, Direct Hit

Pastor as Chaplain vs. Leader

While the pastor is sewing the seeds of vision, the pastor is fulfilling well those ministries and responsibilities that are designed to keep the congregation small and effective at meeting member needs. Failure to do so will cause the pastor to lose credibility and reduce any future leverage for change. The pastor still functions as a chaplain: visiting, caring, and counseling.

At this time the pastor is really living a double life, or at least performing two jobs: a chaplain and a leader. This is one major reason why change is so difficult and why most pastors decide, often unintentionally, not to pursue it. The job is just too demanding. It is much easier to go with the flow.
--Paul D. Borden, Direct Hit

Three necessary Teams for Change

All three of these teams are necessary. Many fail because they try to bring change on the strength of vision alone. - Ed

While the new pastor is communicating urgency and developing vision, he or she is also recruiting three key teams of people. Team One is a prayer team that will commit to pray regularly for changes that lead to health, growth, and reproduction.

Team Two is the vision or dream team. Certain people find new ideas and ways of thinking intriguing and are energized when put with others who think as they do. Also many declining congregations have some individuals who are dissatisfied with the status quo and make quite clear how they feel. Idea people and critics should be recruited for this team. The purpose of this team is to help the pastor develop arguments for urgency and create vision in order to address the urgency.

Team Three consists of leaders whom the pastor recruits and trains to help implement change. A pastor should not recruit these particular leaders or potential leaders for Teams One and Two. The pastor will need all the leaders that can possibly be recruited for Team Three.
--Paul D. Borden, Direct Hit

Communication Skills

Developing excellent communication skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others. If a leader can’t get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on it, then having a message doesn’t even matter.
—Gilbert Amelio, President and CEO of National Semiconductor Corp.

Signs of Outstanding Leadership

The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?
--Max De Pree, Leadership is an Art

A couple questions

1. What kinds of things rob you of your joy in the Lord? How can you halt this robbery in progress?
2. How do you distinguish the voice of God from other voices? Who helped you learn “voice recognition”? Is there someone you can help with “voice recognition”?
--Gary Straub & Judy Turner, Your Calling as a Leader

Trust

1. What helps you keep in close communication with the Holy Spirit?
2. To what degree can God trust you? What does this trust look like in real life? In what areas could you become more trustworthy?
--Gary Straub & Judy Turner, Your Calling as a Leader

Nourishing Ourselves

If we don't nourish ourselves, joy will elude us.
We nourish ourselves whenever we enter into activities that build our energy reserves. Consider this list of common nourishment sources:
1. Music - What songs lift me?
2. Thoughts - What thoughts speak to me?
3. Experiences - What experiences rejuvenate me?
4. Friends - What people encourage me?
5. Recreation - What recreation re-creates me?
6. Soul - What spiritual exercises strengthen me?
7. Hopes - What dreams inspire me?
8. Home - What family members care for me?
9. Giftedness - What gifts activate me?
10. Memories - What memories make me smile?
Finding Joy, by Dr. John C. Maxwell

Sabbath Practice

The first level of being is to cease doing. Quite simply, we need to stop the work of the week.

The first thing people notice when they begin a Sabbath practice is how work and material desires crowd out other thoughts. What I say to them is, "Congratulations, you’ve reached the second level of Sabbath consciousness?"

The next level of being is blessing consciousness. We expand our sense of who we are and treasure our lives.

I experience the fourth level of consciousness; when I feel a sense of sacred stillness and release from all worry and anxiety. I’m subsumed in love and gratitude. I feel a sense of completeness, of all-encompassing holiness and joy. I call this the "flow of being" as it can only be matched by the creative flow of work at its best. There’s no way to make it happen. This level of consciousness only can be reached after experiencing the other three; after practicing being and accomplishing not-accomplishing.
--Rabbi Irwin Kula, Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life

Dying and Rising

Here are transformations that are not only possible but are also likely. They fit the “dying and rising” metaphor that belongs to the church:
• Dying to hopelessness and defeatism, and rising to fresh new life.
• Dying to worrying about or obsessing over numbers, and rising to passion for authenticity.
• Dying to self-absorption, consumer thinking, and the desire to have one’s needs met, and rising to passion to reach others with Christ and to attend to the poor, powerless, and disenfranchised with the compassion of Christ that has no boundaries or limits.
• Dying to worship wars, and rising to new openness for worship that embraces all.
• Dying to saying, “We can’t,” and rising to asking, “Why not?”
• Dying to fear of conflict, and rising to welcome conflict as healthy and needful to keep clarifying that the main thing must remain the main thing.
• Dying to fiscal fears and an ethic of scarcity, and rising to lavish generosity and an ethic of abundance.
• Dying to clergy-driven ministry, and rising to ministry owned by all.
• Dying to programs, and rising to witness.
• Dying to negative energy and bashing the church, bishops and judicatory executives, and the seminaries, and rising to an awareness of being advance scouts for an emerging new church.
• Dying to a sense that the church is necrotic, and rising to a new day of optimism and vitality.
• Dying to deals, causes, and spiritual self-help, and rising to a childlike passionate love for Jesus Christ and his church.
--Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit

The Gift of Inner Wounds

I do not believe that once our eyes are opened, we will fall back into
a complacent sleep. Nor do I believe that our inner wounds, once
healed, will be forgotten and wasted. God's spirit wastes nothing! We
are told in the twentieth chapter of John that the risen Jesus showed
Thomas and the other disciples his wounds. I used to wonder why those
wounds remained on his risen body of light. Why weren't those earthly
marks of suffering swallowed up, forgotten, in glory? Was it so his
friends could identify him? Partly. But I think there was a more
important reason. I think all his friends through the ages to come
were being shown that wounds, especially when healed, can become
sources and signs of new radiance of life. No longer the sources of
pain and despair, the wounds now healed can become the channels of
healing for others. ...

The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, will not remove the lines of hard-won
experience from our faces. A new power of light, the light of the
divine passionate compassion, will shine through those lines on our
faces.
-- Flora Slosson Wuellner, PRAYER, STRESS, AND OUR INNER WOUNDS