Toolbox For Faith

I just finished reading, “Switch” by Chip and Dan Heath and I recommend it highly to anyone who is interested in change. They offer excellent insights into why change can be hard and helpful guidance for how you can help bring about change in your own life or in an organization you are leading. Here’s a small glimpse of their ideas.

They offer a “three-part framework . . . that can guide you in any situation where you need to change behavior: Direct the Rider[rational self]. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal clear direction. Motivate the Elephant[emotional self]. What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. . . . It’s critical that you engage people’s emotional side - get their Elephants on the path and cooperative. Shape the Path. What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. We call the situation (including the surrounding environment) the ‘Path.’ When you shape the Path, you make change more likely, no matter what’s happening with the Rider and Elephant.”(Switch, pg. 17-18) You can find more information about the book and free downloadable resources on the Switch page of heathbrothers.com.

I am working on a Comparative Religion Sunday School class this summer and I just came across a really interesting website called, religionfacts.com. There seems to be a little bit of everything on the site including information about every imaginable faith, but the section I found most helpful contains charts. There are comparison charts, like the Christianity vs Jehovah’s Witness that I found, but also charts listing things like the early church fathers. Obviously I can’t vouch for all the information, but at least the Lutheran stuff seems fairly accurate.

I am in the middle of reading Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. Switch is a wonderful book which focuses on how to accomplish change when change is difficult. When I finish the book, I’ll post a more complete summary, but for now I want to focus on one of their points - “Follow the Bright Spots.” In essence, they are suggesting that you take a look at your ministry, discover what you are doing well, learn from that success and apply the knowledge to another area of your ministry.

For example, if you have great success with Vacation Bible School and limited success with weekly Sunday School, the question becomes what can you learn from VBS and how can you apply that lesson to Sunday School. Perhaps you have great storytellers at VBS and simply including those storytellers will strengthen Sunday School. Obviously each congregation is different, but I think following the bright spots will help us identify our strengths and help us to use our ministry gifts more effectively.

If you are interested in learning more about Switch, you can check out the Heath Brothers website.

I get an email newsletter from George Bullard and this morning he sent out a very interesting article about what happens following a major “leave/lose” conflict in a congregation. He discusses healthy steps for moving forward if a pastor is leaving or if a pastor is staying. Obviously, every situation is different, but Bullard offers some good advice for dealing with a very difficult situation. The article is entitled, “Leaving, Staying and Becoming Well Following a Lose/Leave Conflict in a Congregation.”

Several years ago, St. Michael added the ability to receive online donations to our website. At the time, we were one of the few congregations I could find with an integrated donation section on our site. Over time, we have developed a small, but significant percentage of the congregation which makes use of this online giving option. In addition, we have several people who make donations through their online banking services. During an average week, we receive between 10% and 20% of our weekly offerings through online giving.

For years, congregations have tried to make it easier for people to give - offering plates, coin boxes, offering envelopes, and mailed offering envelopes. Since many people are paid electronically and pay all of their bills electronically, I seems reasonable to assume that the percentage of people giving electronically will continue to increase. If congregations want to continue to make it easy for people to support their ministry, then before long, an online giving option will probably be a necessity for most congregations.

Some sermons and Sunday School lessons stick with people for a lifetime, while others are forgotten almost as the words are spoken. Chip and Dan Heath in their book, “Made to Stick,” explore the reasons why some ideas are sticky and others are not. The book offers a model for how you can make your ideas (read sermons and teaching) more engaging and more memorable. I have tried using a few of their six principles in my writing and speaking and they work. The six principles are known as the SUCCESs model: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Stories. The book is wonderful and their website contains lots of free helpful resources.

Each year on Palm Sunday instead of a sermon, we read the story of the Passion as a congregation using a responsive reading with multiple readers. The response from the congregation is always very favorable. If you haven’t seen the booklets you can use for worship, you can get them from Augsburg Fortress. Here is the link for the Passion according to Luke.

In the Hands-On Holy Week service that I posted on Friday, I referenced a booklet for kids entitled, “Three Amazing Days”. The booklet is well done and focuses on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and an Easter Vigil. It is available in two formats: Pre-Reader and Young Reader. There is also a booklet that focuses on Lent and Easter. It too is available in Pre-Reader and Young Reader. The booklets were designed to support the current Lutheran hymnal, but they are very general and would probably support most liturgical hymnals.

Congregations are always looking for helpful ways to gather information about new worshipers. For a while everyone used the “Visitor Book” and then we all switched to the “Friendship Pad” at the end of the pew. At St. Michael we use a version of the “Welcome Sheet” that my father used in his ministry.

Each week, we place an insert in the bulletin that captures information from all worshipers. There is a spot for name, address and email address. There are places for prayer requests and communion information. There is also a box which is changed each week to gather information on short term ministry opportunities. You can see an example of the “Welcome Sheet” here. The “Welcome Sheet” allows everyone to have something to put in the bulletin and has proven to be a very useful tool for gathering information from both new and long-term worshipers.

About 18 months ago, St. Michael started a backpack feeding ministry.  The concept is very simple, but the impact is tremendous.  In every school, there are students who depend on a school breakfast and a school lunch for their main nutrition.  Over the weekend, these students often receive very little to eat.  Backpack feeding programs provide six healthy weekend meals to these students.  The food is placed in an ordinary backpack and given to a student as they are leaving school on a Friday afternoon.  The ministry is a partnership between St. Michael, other community churches, local organizations and the schools.  We started delivering 5 backpacks per week at one school and now deliver a total of 56 backpacks each week.  If you want more information about our backpack feeding ministry or would like help starting a backpack feeding ministry at your congregation check out: Micah’s Backpack. (www.micahsbackpack.org)

Like many congregations, we use email and electronic communication regularly as a part of our ministry.  At times, email is extremely helpful, but at times it can also cause problems.  The Alban Institute posted an interesting article this morning called “Is Email the New Parking Lot“.  If you use email regularly in your ministry, you might be interested in what they have to say.