Toolbox For Faith

Dr. Kennon Callahan was the one who introduced me many year ago to the 80-20 rule and it has been a wonderful revelation. The way that I understand the rule is that 80% of the effort create 20% of the results while 20% of the effort create 80% of the results.

If you have ever attended a committee meeting, you understand the principal. A great example of an 80 percenter is the worship committee who spent 30 minutes discussing how to deal with the acolytes who were chewing gum in church. They finally agreed with the pastor that the pastor would ask the acolyte to take out the gum before entering to light the candles and not to chew gum during the service. That 80 percenter was important to only the few anti-chewing-gum members of the committee.

At the same church later in the month, the property committee dealt with an important 20 percenter, parking at the church. The town had made a decision to enforce a parking ordinance that would have eliminated 40 parking spaces near the church that were used each Sunday. The committee was looking at every option to replace the spaces because they knew that the lack of parking would impact the Sunday attendance. That was a 20 percenter

When the 80 percenters tend to get just as much attention as the 20 percenters, many opportunities are missed. Look for the 20 percenters.

When I mentioned the possibility of a third service to folks at St. Michael, most were cautiously supportive and genuinely curious about why I thought a third service might be helpful. When I explained that I thought there was an opportunity to reach a group of people in our community who aren’t able to attend worship on Sunday morning, most people agreed that, in theory, the idea made sense. At this point, I don’t know if the service will be on Sunday night, Tuesday night, Thursday night or some other evening. I don’t know if the service will be in the Sanctuary or at a second site. I don’t even know what the style or format of the service will be. I simply believe there is an opportunity that is worth pursuing. Now the question becomes, how do we move from a possibility to a new worshiping community.

Initially at least, I am planning to use an approach presented by Dr. Callahan at the Developing Key Leaders event held in Roanoke in September 2010. Dr. Callahan suggested that one approach is to find five people who would have fun beginning a new service. Gather those people in January and think about who, in the groups they are already a part of, might have fun begin a part of a new service. Between January and March, he suggests inviting the initial five to each find three more people who would be interested in being a part of a new service. In March, he suggests gathering those people for a one-time fun event. During the March event, work with the group to develop excellent ideas for the new service. He suggests repeating the process in May and July by encouraging each of the people from the March event to invite three more people to join the conversation. In August, reach out to the community through personal contacts, phone calls, notes, emails, text messages, etc and then launch the new service in September. I like the approach because it draws on the wisdom of the community and invites broad-based support. I’m sure we’ll modify it as we go, but initially this seems like a helpful way to get started.

Comments from Dr. Kennon Callahan about growing happiness through God’s grace. He shared this yesterday at the Seminar for Key Leaders at Callaway Gardens.

Balance breeds balance.
Peace breeds peace.
Excess breeds excess.
Grace breeds grace.

What you do is what you get.

Comments from Dr. Kennon Callahan about growing happiness through God’s grace. He shared this yesterday at the Seminar for Key Leaders at Callaway Gardens.

The structure described in the constitutions of most mainline denominations is designed for middle sized churches. This structure won’t work for small strong churches, large regional churches, or mega churches. Long ago, most denominations pushed all their chips into middle size. Unfortunately, middle sizes churches are going away. They are too big to deliver the intimacy of a small, strong congregation and they are too small to deliver the programs of a large, regional or mega church.

How do you define a middle sized congregation. Middle sized churches are about the context. In Atlanta, 250 in worship makes you a small, strong congregation. If you worship 250 in South Dakota, you are a large regional, perhaps mega church.

Comments from Dr. Kennon Callahan about growing happiness through God’s grace. He shared this yesterday at the Seminar for Key Leaders at Callaway Gardens.

In times of scarcity, focusing on the many works. If you focus on the few, you will do even worse. The resources are among the many, not the few. In a time of scarcity it is important to expand the number of people who are a part of the decision making.

Comments from Dr. Kennon Callahan about growing happiness through God’s grace. He shared this yesterday at the Seminar for Key Leaders at Callaway Gardens.

The Key to happiness is being with the people you love, doing what you love, experiencing the grace of God. - Dr. Kennon Callahan

Often in the church, we are too preoccupied with statistics and decline to be happy.

We have forgotten that grace is happiness. Happiness is grace.
- People yearn for a moment of happiness.
- Happiness is not silliness or superficial. Happiness is deep contentment, satisfaction, joy, excitement, wonder.

The world has caught on to the fact that people yearn for happiness. Buy this car, house, etc and you will be happy.

As a Christian movement, too often we are stuck on the cross and haven’t gotten to the empty tomb and the resurrection.
- The message of Easter is “Christ is Risen!” The resurrection has happened.
- We are the movement of joy and wonder, grace and happiness.

We would do well to reclaim a theology of happiness.

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.

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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.