Buckets Overflowing!

Welcome to our West Virginia Mission Blog 2016!


It is Tuesday before the Mission Trip and so many blessings are happening, even before we go down to West Virginia.

Two weeks ago, we encouraged everyone to take a "mission bucket" home with them, and bring it back with items needed down in West Virginia.  Rick Burke did a great job explaining that, even if people could not go down with us, they can be part of the team, by bringing down these supplies.

I was overwhelmed by your generosity.  Buckets came back overflowing with items.  Beyond the buckets, we are bringing over $1,200 dollars in Lowes Gift Cards.  I just got word that there is another $650 in donations collected for the trip,

When I talked to the Appalachian South Folklife Center director, yesterday and told her what we're coming with, she was deeply moved.

This is such a generous community of faith.  Your love and generosity will clearly go down with us.  You will be with us throughout the week.  As we build relationships and partnerships down in West Virginia, we will be thinking of you, praying for you.  Please keep the Mission Team in your prayers, too.

Pastor John

Grateful Giving Campaign Wordle - "Showers of Blessings"

Chapter 4 Questions

Thinking about tonight's session on chapter 4 of Power Surge, here are the questions in back of the chapter:

QUESTIONS FOR PRAYERFUL REFLECTION

1)  Is your congregation characterized by centralized pastoral care (only clergy and staff provide the care) or decentralized pastoral care (everybody is trained and encouraged to provide the care)?

2)  What do you see as the problems and possibilities of decentralized pastoral care?  How would you minimize the problem and maximize the possibilities?

3)  Discipleship cultures are gift-based cultures.  Are there programs in place in your congregation that encourage the identification and utilization of individual gifts?  Do people eagerly participate?  If not, why not?

4)  The culture of a discipleship congregation is hospitable.  What programs, activities, and initiatives in your congregation ensure hospitality for strangers in your midst?

5)  If your congregation is membership-driven, what steps would need to be taken to change your congregational culture to a discipleship-driven culture?  Who needs to be involved?  What would be your first steps?

Questions from Chapter 3

As we look at chapter 3 of Power Surge, here are the questions at the end of the chapter that we might consider:

QUESTIONS FOR PRAYERFUL REFLECTION

1. Carefully reflect on the six critical marks of leadership and check which are your areas of strength and which are your areas of growth:

(ii)        Commitment to personal discipleship

(iii)       Ability to see and cast the vision

(iv)       Ability to contextualize the vision

(v)        Ability to align community to the vision

(vi)      Ability to continually communicate

(vii)     Ability to manage change

2.       To change any of these from areas of growth to areas of strength, what would you need to do?  With whom would you need to do it?

3.       Can you identify a group of lay leaders in your congregation who could engage in a visioning process like the one described in this chapter?

4.       How does your community of faith react to change?

5.       What might you do to help the community react more positively to change?

Chapter 2 discussions

Chapter 2 of Power Surge talks about the role of the pastor in a discipleship model, and how the role changes as you move from a membership to discipleship model.  In the membership model of church, the pastor's role is described as "the chaplain."  The expectation is that the pastor meets the spiritual needs of the "members."  In the discipleship model, the pastor provides spiritual leadership, including providing vision to the church, developing lay leadership in the church and "create useful change."  The ministry is, then, a shared ministry, focused on the mission of the church.  A membership model's focus is on the members, rather than on God, while a discipleship church is centered on Christ and the church's mission to bring Christ's Kingdom here to the community and beyond.

On reflection, it was noted that two ministers before, this type of model of pastoral care was running well and was very well received by church members.  The past minister had a more "chaplain" model of pastoral care, and perhaps that was a reason she may have "burned out."   Often, a chaplain model is not just what is required by the congregation, but is part of the pastor's self-identity.  Often, the chaplain model is a "conspiracy" between pastor and church, a co-dependent relationship, where the people get their spiritual needs, and the pastor's "need to be needed" is addressed.

In many ways, there is a need in the church for training the laity.  For instance, the deacons have come a long way in understanding who they are and what they do.  Additional training would be key.  There also has to be an open acceptance of the gifts of the laity.  Too often in the past, laity came with gifts, talents and were either rejected or ignored.

There was a great discussion on restarting a lay pastoral visitation team.  There has been several people interested in doing this, based upon a positive experience during the "small groups" expirament during the interim time.  The Stephen's Ministry was brought up.  This is a course that trains and supports lay visitors in a church.  John will be looking into this resource, in hopes of getting a team together for the fall.

What would kind of resistance could we expect if this move is expected?  Some older members, who have been steeped in the tradition of pastoral visits would have a problem with this.  In general, there would be a sense of grieving at the loss of the old model, and we would have to acknowledge and facilitate that grieving process.

All in all, this move was seen by the group as one that would have it's resistance, yet would be worthwhile in the process of empowering the laity and working toward out goal of being a "mission-focused" church.

Questions from chapter 2

Here are the questions at the end of Chapter 2 of Power Surge.  We will be using them on Thursday night.  Any comments?

1.   Is the model of ministry followed in our congregation best described as chaplaincy or spiritual leadership?  On what do you base your assessment?

2.   If your congregation has a chaplaincy model of ministry and wants to move to the spiritual leadership model, what kind of changes would be necessary and what kind of resistance could you expect?

3.   Are the relationships between pastor and staff and the membership of our congregation best characterized as co-dependent or interdependent?  Why?

4.   What problems and possibilities do you see for your congregation in “raising the bar” of expectation to call for discipleship?

5.   What is your definition of spirituality?  How does your understanding of spirituality inform your ministry and daily life and relationships?

A few thoughts from the first session

On Thursday, we discussed both the introduction and first chapter of Power Surge.  The chief concern of the chapter was to map out where the "membership" model of church (the model we all grew up with) came from and to distinguish this model from the "discipleship" model.  For the membership model, the primary focus is inward: to serve the needs of the members of the church.  The members "pay their dues" and "get their spiritual services."  The discipleship model has its primary focus outward.  The goal is to help each person to develop their relationship with God.  The focus is that every member really is a minister, and the focus is outward toward the community and the world.

John talked about how this model was implemented in a Boston area church.  They wanted more members, increased giving and more volunteers for boards and committees.  The pastor did all these things, and there was a great upsurge in all categories.  Then, these increases faded away.  It was clear a new model was needed.  They realized that their concerns about members, volunteers and money were not the main issue.  That sign of success is based upon a secular business model.  The real success in a church is the spiritual depth of its members.  They needed to "seek first the Kingdom of God" and all the other things would be given to them.  They adopted the model, and the church found itself revitalized, and is now thriving.

This model requires change, and does not happen overnight.  It requires patience and faithfulness.  But the benefits are powerful.

We talked about where we are at First Church on the continuum between memership model and discipleship model.  We saw ourselves somewhere in the middle.  The church use to be very much in the membership model.  Over the past few years of transition, we have made great strides.  The church already has many great ways that it develops member's spiritual lives, and many ways it focuses outward toward real mission.

We also talked about how the discipleship model was not so concerned with who is a member and who isn't, which has been a contentious issue in our past.  Yet the discipleship model is also a "high expectations" model, where those in the community are strongly encouraged to practice the spiritual disciplines outlined in the book.  Those who don't "get on board" are not shunned our thrown out of the church, but are constantly encouraged to engage in these practices.

We had a good discussion about how this model practically works in a church.  The subject of our tradition of doing collations and how that might be different under the new model.  Perhaps this is where being a member versus not being a member was most contentious.  How would collations work under a discipleship model?  Rather than being an obligation to meet the expectations of people, it would be a ministry of the church.  If it is God's call that we do collations and it is consistent with the mission of the church, people would feel deeply that God is calling them to minister in this way.  Collations would, then, emerge out of a spiritual life that is rooted in discerning God's will.  This would be true for all other ministries of the church.

There seemed to be a good feeling for the potential of this model and how it could work in the church, yet the journey has just begun.  Next week, we talk about "spiritual leadership" or how the pastor functions in a discipleship model.  So read chapter 2, and come with your questions, comments and concerns.  Or comment on this blog.  Let the conversation continue!