Toolbox For Faith

Dr. Callahan wrote the following nearly 15 years ago in his book, “Building for Effective Mission,” but I when I came across it again last week, I was struck by how absolutely true it is. We are at our best as a people of God when we live as a mission movement, not as an institution.

Welcome to one of the greatest ages of mission the Christian movement has ever seen. Welcome to the first century. Welcome to the twenty-first century. Welcome to a mission time. . . . This is no longer a churched culture. I encourage you not to mourn its passing. Do not long for a return to those days when going to church was the thing to do. The church is never at its best in a churched culture.

The church is at home in an age of mission. . . . When church going was a staple of social conformity, the church was nonetheless ill at ease and out of place. Despite all the cultural status conferred on it, the church was restless and uncomfortable in a churched culture. Yes, it has enjoyed its prominence as a cultural institution and the pedestal on which it was perched. Yet the church has realized, albeit dimly, that it is not called to be admired by the world. Intuitively it has been restless to serve, not to be served.

Whenever the church accepts the perks and the prestige, it becomes a slave of the world. It is no longer a servant in the world. It becomes beholden to the world. The danger is that it will be distracted from its mission and become a pleasant irrelevancy in the culture. Its voice becomes muted, its message muffled. The good news of joy, wonder, grace and hope is stifled.

When the church allows itself to become a pleasant irrelevancy, it becomes simply an amiable activity for those few who may have an occasional interest. The culture can then simply ignore the church.

Fortunately God invites the church to mission direction, not worldly distractions. And, fortunately, the church retains a latent memory of how to share the mission. The church that endures beyond a churched culture is a church that knows best how to live in an age of mission. With God’s help, the church rediscovers its beginning and thus lives out its true identity as servant in the world.

Have you ever stopped to think about what statistics your congregation tracks and what that says about your priorities? In a previous time, congregations primarily tracked membership and worship attendance. In today’s world, membership numbers may tell you little or nothing about the health and life of a congregation. To me a more helpful measure of the ministry of a congregation is called Persons Served in Mission. Persons served in Mission equals the total number of people directly touched by the mission and ministry of a congregation during the course of a year. This includes people in worship, educational ministries, youth ministries, senior adult ministries, community helping ministries and any people directly helped or involved in the various ministries of the congregation. When combined with worship attendance, Persons served in Mission begins to capture the impact a congregation is making in the world.

For example, last year at St. Michael our average worship attendance was 136 people per Sunday and our Persons served in Mission totaled 4025, while at the same time our membership dropped from 408 to 320 because we realized that 90 people who had died or moved had never been removed from the roles. If you only look at membership, you might think St. Michael was in trouble, but when you look at the number of Persons served in Mission, you get a much clearer picture of the vibrant outreach ministry of the congregation. It takes a little time to get into the habit of collecting Persons served in Mission data, but it my experience it is a helpful way to measure the health and life of the congregation.

Developing Keys to an Effective Church: Strengths, Shepherding and Generous Giving
★ Learn to build on your strengths
★ Discover possibilities for the future
★ Learn what motivates people to act
★ Strengthen shepherding in the congregation
★ Grow generous giving

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With great fear and trepidation, I emptied the contents of the very large box labeled “utility dump cart” with the added note “assembly required” on the garage floor last Monday. I have been traumatized for life by “assembly required” boxes. I remember the utility building I put together for my mother. I put in 641 screws—not counting the over 200 I put in the wrong place and then removed—and this was before electric screwdrivers. And then there was the first swing set I assembled. It said “5 minute frame” on the outside but I discovered that even Superman could not have put it together in five minutes. And then there were the directions for the swing set. They included instructions for 9 different sets, none of which were the one we purchased, and were written by someone who had English as a very distant second language.

With shaking hands, I pulled the instructions from the heap of parts and started reading. These instructions had special rubrics—written in red—for the assembly challenged people like me. The first read in very large letters, “If you read and follow these instructions, this product can be assembled in 55 minutes or less. If you don’t read these instructions, assembly may take over two hours!” Simple and to the point which made sense to me. Then all the parts you were assembling in each stage were highlighted in red. Even with a break to get a large ice tea on the 90 degree, record high day and with another break to talk to my neighbor and corral one of our cats for the neighbor girls to pet, I finished in a personal best, amazing one hour and ten minutes.

As I reflected on the experience, Ken Callahan’s words came to me, “Give just enough help to be helpful!” The instructions did that. It is a wonderful lesson for life. Always give just enough help to be helpful. If we give too much help, we create a dependency relationship that is never helpful. That is a hard lesson to learn but my congratulations to Sears—you did it right this time. The instructions were easy to follow and made sense. I am still traumatized but I have hope.

Seven Words of Grace

God blesses us with grace. - Psalm 23:6
Strong, healthy congregation live in the grace of God. - 1 Cor 1:1-4
Grace is grassroots. - Luke 2:7
Grace is generous. - Mark 16:6-8
Grace is gentle. - Eph 4:2
Grace is mutual. - 1 Cor 13:3
Grace finds us, and we find grace. - John 1:14

- Kennon Callahan

Dr. Callahan suggests that we advance our congregation with these steps.

1. We claim our strengths.
- not in analytical ways, but in rejoicing ways . . .
- Oh - we do this well.

2. We expand one or two current strengths.
- pick one or two, don’t worry about all of them
- save three and four for the coming years

3. Add one or two new strengths

4. Sustain your current strengths
- the foolishness would be . . .
- we have a current strength in worship and plan to add a program strength
- we divert resources from worship to program and have zero sum gain

5. Act swiftly on our present and future
- time horizons for swiftly depending on the congregation and the ministry

This morning, Dr. Callahan is talking about the different languages that individuals speak in a congregation and noting the importance of learning and speaking the language of the grassroots of a congregation. He proposes five possible languages.

1. Athletic, Physical
2. Intellectual, Cognitive
3. Extracurricular, work project
4. Social, relational
5. Music, arts

The problems that some pastors, congregations, synods and institutions face is a gap between the language and learning style of the leaders and the grassroots. The art is to learn and use the language of the people gifted to you by God.

Sometimes we build momentum in ministry by focusing on three out of five of the following:

1. Motivations
- match motivations and people
2. Leaders and Key Objectives
- excellent match with leaders, compelling key objectives
3. An Effective Long-range Plan
- matches our gifts, strengths and competencies
- Clear and achievable
4. Excellent Mistakes, Objectives Worth Not Doing
- higher level of excellent mistakes, higher level of creativity
5. Memory, Change, Conflict and Hope
- sometimes we need to help people deal with memory, overcome conflict and discover hope

- Kennon Callahan

Strong Healthy Congregations deliver three out of the five qualities on the list and God will bless you as a strong, healthy congregation

Strong, Healthy Congregations

1. Live in the grace of God
2. Build on their strengths; then tackle any weakness
3. Compassion, Community and Hope; then, Challenge, Reasonability, Commitment
4. Excellent Sprinter Possibilities; some Solid Marathon Runner Possibilities
5. Act Swiftly

- Dr. Kennon Callahan

I am at a week long continuing education event with Kennon Callahan as he discusses the second edition of his book “Twelve Keys to an Effective Church: Strong, Healthy Congregation Living in the Grace of God.” Starting tomorrow, I am going to try and post a few of the most interesting ideas that come up during our sessions.