Toolbox For Faith

Every congregation has a pattern to its life and ministry. At St. Michael for example, we do not schedule much for the two weeks after Virginia Tech graduates, because everyone takes a little break once the students leave. When I arrived at St. Michael, that end of the school year break continued throughout the summer. All of our ministries went into hibernation. Sunday School went away. The Senior Adult group stopped meeting. The Choir took a break. We offered worship and Vacation Bible School, but that was about it. Most everyone was still around. People didn’t really seem burned out to me when summer rolled around, but still our ministry virtually came to a halt.

Over the years, we have slowly increased our ministry during the summer months without much resistance and recently, I think I discovered part of the reason why. While talking to one of my long-time members, I learned that our “hibernation period” probably started because there was no air conditioning at church. It was too hot in the building, so nobody did anything until the weather started to cool off. The interesting thing is that even though air conditioning was added years ago, the pattern was so ingrained that nothing changed.

Sometimes we do things in the church for very intentional reasons, like not scheduling meetings during the two weeks after graduation, but sometimes we are simply repeating a pattern that may no longer be helpful or necessary, like going into hibernation for the summer. Each congregation’s pattern of life will be different, but discovering your pattern and understanding your pattern can be a tremendous asset for leaders as they plan for the life and ministry of a congregation.

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 received an email last week from a former member who among a variety of things thanked me for “the excellent advice that you shared with us at a meeting shortly after you became pastor.” Luckily, she shared what I had said because I was not certain what she was talking about. She quoted me as saying, “If you have a new idea that you want accomplished in your congregation, find a champion for the idea and do not give it to a standing committee.”

That sure sounded like something I would say. Over the years, I have learned that standing committees are designed for ongoing programs that have already been developed but new ideas require one champion or a small team led by people who are passionate about the idea to develop the program. Committees have their hands full doing what they have accepted as responsibilities. That means that when a new idea is presented, most often the new idea is put on the back burner.

A new idea prospers when one champion or a small group of champions take responsibility for making sure that the new idea becomes reality. People with a passion for the task will make it happen. Once all the groundwork has been done, most times you can pass it on to a standing committee to keep it functioning if it needs to be more than a one time event or happening. Have a great idea? Find a champion or a small group with a passion for the new project to make it reality.

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.

I just finished my part of the Easter Sunday bulletin, the last of four bulletins that we are doing during Holy Week. I had copies of the Easter bulletins for the last two years at the church where I am interim pastor and could not help but notice how vastly different the bulletins were because of the changes I made last year.

Two Easters ago, my church had an “everything but the kitchen sink” Easter service where every option, especially the longest and most formal, was selected. Some items that were included were not even in the hymnal or worship guides with which I am familiar. The result was a service that was not easy to follow and took much, much longer than usual. I do not have a time limit for our worship but I want the time we spend in worship to be meaningful. The “everything but the kitchen sink” approach was the way I learned to do Easter worship 39 years ago when I entered the ministry. The service included everything so that it would be a correct festival celebration to the glory of God. I was taught that Easter worship should be complex and involved. The same went for Christmas. I did it that way until about 20 years ago.

I changed my approach when I realized how many very marginal members and guests who were not familiar with our liturgy were at the service. I was concerned about reaching all people who worshipped together on Easter. The result was that I simplified our service to make it meaningful to everyone in our mission field who voted to come to Easter worship. I am convinced that simple does not indicate a lack of meaning. Simple can be powerful, moving and meaningful. I want us to have a wonderful service that reaches all people who attend. I want everyone to hear the Easter message without being overwhelmed with how complicated the service is to follow and/or overwhelmed by a service that continues forever and ever, amen.

As part of the 100th Anniversary celebration at the church where I am interim pastor, we are having a special Children’s Sunday on Mother’s Day, May 9. These are some of the ideas that we have gathered as we do our planning. If anyone has any other creative suggestions, please let me know.

1. During the prelude, project pictures of our youth on a screen in the chancel. Ask parents for their baptismal pictures so that those could be projected with their present pictures.

2. We can have the children do art work that might be
• Used in advertizing the Sunday
• Used as a banner
• Used to decorate the sanctuary and narthex

3. Plant a tree at the conclusion of the service

4. Give the children stickers or ribbons

5. Have the different Sunday School classes write petitions for the prayer of the day

6. Incorporate a blessing of the children as part of the service

7. Have the children bake unleavened bread for use in communion.

8. Use hymns such as “Jesus Loves me” that are kid friendly. Involve the children in special music.

9. Collect items—such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, shampoo for example– for a specific children’s ministry

After last week, I have been rethinking the saying I have heard for years, “Location, location, location.” Two diverse incidents started me down the reanalysis road.

I went by a local antique store to pick up some special silver polish for my wife and had a great conversation with one of the owners. She told me that they do over 90% of their business over the internet. Then she added, “That’s the only way we can survive in this location.” “Location, location, location” for them was the internet.

A few days later, I was driving on the short cut from our house to civilization and the mall when I passed a church located in the back of a warehouse with a big new sign out front with giant letters advertizing Biker Church. The church has been there since we moved over a year ago but this was a different name. On several different occasions when they had Saturday events, I noticed all the motorcycles. Evidently, they decided to specialize. For them, “Location, location, location” was the biker grapevine because they are way off the main roads.

In a brochure to college students in the town where I am interim pastor, I wrote that the best way to find our church was by GPS. We then gave directions but I still feel that a GPS is still the best way to find us. That is why it is vital for us and many other churches who share our “off the traveled path” problem to look at our location in creative ways.

“Location, location, location” is still just as important but it is much more than a physical location. I am going to ask our key leaders to examine effective ways such as the internet and a specialized community grapevine so that we can creatively relocate for our church

Our 100th Anniversary event on Sunday evening which let people share the remarkable stories of the congregations was amazing, better than I anticipated and I anticipated a remarkable evening. That was probably the hardest I have laughed in years. I heard about people I had never met but now know in a way I will not forget. We had fun as the stories were shared in a number of different formats. Before the evening was half over, I realized that any church could benefit from an evening of storytelling. The emphasis on people is a superb way to understand a congregation.

I did miss on the numbers. We had between 90 and 100 attend which was great. I was a little too optimistic but the story was not numbers but the people who made and continue to make this church a mission field for God.

“Well, Pastor, how many people do you think will come next Sunday night,” asked the head of our second 100th Anniversary Sunday Night Live. I paused a very long time before I answered.

The congregation where I am interim is celebrating their 100th Anniversary in 2010 and we are having a Sunday night supper and event, called Sunday Night Live, every other month until our big celebration in August.

The first event in January was amazing. Our 100th Anniversary Team felt that we should expect 50 for that Sunday night program. I was very optimistic and said 75. We were both way off. We had 104 attend. We pulled out five more tables and 40 chairs to seat everyone. The program on the history of the church was dynamic and concluded by talking about our God given hope for the future. The evening gave our 100th Anniversary celebration unbelievable momentum.

The program on March 14 is on Storytelling. We will have over 20 present and past members sharing memorable stories about the congregation in person or on video in a series of unique formats. One of our members who teaches his adult class from a rocking chair will lead a section entitled “Rocking and Remembering.” We will then play Jeopardy with questions about the congregation. Our lay chair will be our Vanna White. The final segment is entitled “Show Time” and all I know about it is the title. In between we will have special music with devotions at the beginning. The men are serving a hot dog supper with all the trimmings and delicious deserts to begin the evening. We have flyers up all over the church and we sent out a special mailing yesterday with color pictures of the participants reminding and inviting people. I think it will be a remarkable evening.

But back to the question that was asked last Monday, “How many?” I first ducked a direct answer by saying, “After last time, I have no idea.” After another pause, I added, “I think we will have 125 people at the event.” I am definitely an optimist but we have momentum, an excellent program and first-rate communication so there is a basis for my optimism.

There is a fine line between optimism and wishful thinking but I do not think I crossed it. I will let you know next week how close I came.

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