Archive for January, 2012

Accidental Idea Becomes Key Ministry Philosophy

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Accidental Idea Becomes Key Ministry Philosophy

Some of the greatest ideas happen by accident. Many great inventions that we take for granted, find their roots in a mistake or an accident or some kind of failure. I have also found this to be true in leading a community of faith.

One of the best things we are doing as a church, when it comes to organizational structure and staffing, happened completely by accident. We had recently hired a staff person to look after all of our Junior High Ministries. Just prior to that we had moved the person responsible for Junior High into a similar role for Senior High students. This is a traditional hiring practice in many churches.

It was obvious in the way the ministry was functioning and growing, that the leader of our Junior High ministry had strong gifts of leadership and teaching. The leader of our Senior High ministry was gifted in the area of the arts and technology and had a real “shepherding” gift. Parents and volunteers told me they wished that each of these very young leaders could have a piece of the other.

So we came up with an idea.

Why not take a gift-based, team approach to this ministry? Instead of each person overseeing a segment of the complete ministry why not let them lead the larger combined ministry together? This allowed them to use their gifts and natural abilities. We saw both Junior and Senior High ministries flourish and started having a greater impact on students from grade 6-12.

Then our college/university ministry began to grow. The traditional way of doing it would have been to hire a staff person to oversee that segment of our church community. But one morning while sitting in my office I got a Spirit-led idea. Why not add this responsibility to the two-person team that was already in place and add a third person to the team that brought gifts and abilities that were complementary to the team? So we did. We brought in a leader with administrative and organizational strengths that made the entire team stronger—again allowing each ministry to flourish and grow.

Like any great idea there are some drawbacks and challenges. For example, each of these leaders now is out at least an extra night per week than they were before. It means that I don’t just have one direct report but I meet with the “team” together. We have had to make one of the team members a “quarterback” while treating team members with equality.

There are some challenges but there are so many benefits that outweigh any of the challenges. The most important one is how these ministries have had a greater impact on the people they lead and serve. Second to that is that people now get to serve using their gifts and abilities which provides great passion and endurance and it makes doing ministry fun.

This has worked so well for us that we have now used it in other areas of our ministry. Once led by a solitary leader with some part-time support, our Children’s Ministry leadership team is made up of two people who have very different gifts and abilities but work well together. Our Care Team is made up of one full-time and one part-time person who work in a team environment. Our Technical and Visual Arts ministry which were once two separate ministries are now one ministry with two team members using their gifts and abilities in strategic ways.

We have also done this with some volunteer ministry team leaders. Our ALPHA Ministries are led by a team of people who each bring different gifts to the table. Again, we have seen a greater impact in this ministry since we have made this change.

As we move forward we will continue to look for ways that more and more ministries can be led in a team approach. This idea that happened by chance has now become a key philosophy in the way we organize and operate our ministries. We believe that this allows people to love what they do because they get to serve according to gifts and strengths and we believe it will have a greater impact than the traditional way of hiring and staffing and raising up key volunteers.

Dave Ralph is the Lead Pastor at Lakeside Church in Guelph, Ontario. Leading and teaching are his spiritual gifts and personal passions. Before entering full-time ministry, Dave was a funeral director for 10 years and VP for a financial institution. He has been ministering at Lakeside since 1999.

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A New Context for Spiritual Formation

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

A New Context for Spiritual Formation
It is fairly common in congregational life to separate mission from spiritual formation.

Members are invited to join small groups in order to deepen their faith through the communal habits of Bible study, mutual sharing and prayer. Many seek involvement in these groups as a way to connect more deeply with the church and nourish spiritual friendships with other members. However, in most cases small group ministries adopt a fragmented approach to Christian discipleship—one that ignores the transformative impact of mission.

On the other side of congregational life, teams are formed for various kinds of kingdom action. Ministry coordinators are tasked with the responsibility to innovate and mobilize for greater engagement in global mission and local efforts to serve the poor, marginalized, and forgotten. But seldom are these actively engaged members invited to consider how they are encountering God in mission and being transformed in the process.

When Peter was prompted by the Spirit to minister to the household of Cornelius, a shift was required before he was able to participate in the work God was inviting him into. The transformation was kick-started with a personal vision that moved Peter to reconsider his convictions regarding dietary laws and table fellowship with non-Jews. Peter’s theological introspection enabled him to cross boundaries and risk entering the home of a Gentile.

As he witnessed signs of the Spirit’s outpouring among an unlikely group of recipients, Peter was further transformed. With new theological awareness he expressed, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” Peter’s new perspective was both astonishing and scandalous given the predominantly Jewish composition of the early Church.

The work of transformation in Peter’s life would take years to complete. Sometime later Paul found it necessary to confront Peter regarding a lapse in his new convictions regarding Gentile inclusion.

In time, God used Peter’s missional engagement with Cornelius to extend the transformation to the entire congregation in Jerusalem. Not only were the members of Cornelius’ household converted but Peter, and eventually the entire Church, underwent a kind of conversion.

Full participation in the missio Dei (mission of God) will always require a shift in personal habits, attitudes and understanding.

For some time now our congregation has been wrestling with the potential and possibility that mission offers for spiritual formation. We have no intention of abandoning group prayer and Bible study, but we are exploring the possibility of forming new structures.

Rather than attempting (often in futility) to add missional mandates to established small groups, it may be preferable to form groups around mission and ensure that members have the opportunity to reflect on missional praxis (practical application). The continual back and forth movement between praxis-reflection-praxis will provide participants with the opportunity to consider how God is being encountered in mission and how He is inviting them to shift (transformation) for greater missional impact.

Old discipleship paradigms have frustrated the ability to embrace new frameworks. Going forward we are convinced that biblical insight, transparent discussion and compassionate prayer will play a critical role, but primary group attention will focus on God’s active-presence in the missional context.

Mike Stone has been the lead pastor at ForestView Church in Oakville, Ontario for fifteen years. He and his wife, Sharon, celebrated 25 years of marriage in Spring 2011. His thinking has been influenced by many authors including: Lesslie Newbigin, Darryl Guder, Alan Roxborough, Mark Lau Branson, Craig Van Gelder, Alan Kreider, Alan Hirsch, and Michael Frost.

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Permission to Speak Freely?

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

Permission to Speak Freely? As I look back on this last year, I am thankful for some major epiphanies in my life. The most significant is that God has helped to transform my paralyzing “fear” of people into a healthy “respect” for people. That has been huge.

How did I learn it? It took some painful disappointments and conversations to put me into a broken and contrite learning posture. In that place, I finally had a heart ready to understand Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 2:4: On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.

The transformation that accompanied this realization is hard to explain – all I know is that I emerged out of that dark night with a new conviction that I could no longer tell people what I knew they wanted to hear. I had to begin to “speak the truth in love” one of the many exhortations that Paul challenged the Ephesians with. (Ephesians 4:15)

As I have stepped out to do this more courageously, I have been reminded that speaking the truth in love is not just something that will help me be a better leader – it is the foundation of true Gospel community. Our courage to speak the truth in loving ways demonstrates that we believe in grace.

This was reinforced as I initiated a conversation with someone who had faithfully served our congregation for many years. The person was extremely effective in a particular area of ministry—but had a brutal track record for dealing with the rest of the congregation in very disrespectful, demeaning, and discouraging ways. For years, the problem behavior had been avoided because of how much we valued the ministry contribution. It finally dawned on me that by maintaining the person’s service we were facilitating the contamination of our community’s integrity.

I prayed. I prepared. I prayed more. I picked up the phone and initiated a conversation that I knew could be volatile. It was tough – but in a way that I didn’t expect. I shared specific examples of behavior that was clearly unbiblical and could not be tolerated or excused. With my spiel finally finished, I tensed up and waited for the response. There were some fireworks – but what saddened me most as I listened to the protests was that it was clear to me that this person felt “blindsided.”

I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized that this was maybe the first time that anyone had actually shared the truth about how the person related to others. My fellow believer’s sanctification process had been stunted because no one was willing to risk the chaos of confrontation.

I think that I avoid tough conversations because I am afraid to test whether the grace of the gospel can handle it. We avoid speaking truthfully to each other as faith communities because glossing over sin and unmet expectations seems more effective than the messy chaos introduced by truth telling.

Paul says that it is through “speaking the truth in love” that “we will grow up!” That means that when I avoid telling the truth in loving ways that I am in effect stunting people’s growth and the growth of my congregation.

Some questions to chew on…
- What are you afraid of?
- Is there a person or person(s) who paralyze you – who prevents you from doing or saying what you know needs to be?
- Is there a “truth” about your church or ministry that needs to be addressed in love?
- What would it look like for you to “respect what people think of you” as opposed to “fear what people think of you?”
- Is the danger of speaking the truth without love a real danger or just perceived?

Jay Lehman fulfills his calling to “Lead, Feed, and Seed” as Lead Pastor at Auburn Bible Chapel, Peterborough, Ontario. He and his wife Christy have 3 sons, Noah, Jonah and Isaac.

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Rainbow-Spotting

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Rainbow-Spotting

“My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.” — William Wordsworth

If life were all rainbows and righteousness, pastors would be virtually redundant. But life is never storm-free or sin-free. Shards of the great flood continue to assault our world and devastate our lives. Personal failures, natural disasters, chronic pain, earthquakes and disappointments of every kind seep in or flood over us and change our world forever.

But God is a master of new beginnings. And Artist that he is, God uses a full palette to paint Hope in a way that we can both see and feel.

In the summer of 2005 I was guest aboard a family yacht in British Columbia’s scenic Desolation Sound. My wife had died seven months earlier and despite the majestic beauty of the scenery, the name ‘Desolation Sound’ echoed the recent deluge of loss in my life. It had been raining all night and I sympathized with Noah’s travail.

As I raised the deck hatch the next morning I stared up at a magnificent double rainbow arched across the sky above the shrouds and mast of our boat. Nothing graces the landscape like a rainbow, especially after the gray-sky of storm, and my heart leapt as those rainbows silently eloquently proclaimed promise and hope to my soul.

The ancient story of Noah is crowned with such a rainbow. By sheer mercy and grace the ark and its inhabitants survived the devastating flood. And by sheer mercy God does this over and over again in our lives. But people often need help noticing these signs of grace and recognizing and interpreting them as the hand of God. That’s the role of pastors and elders, of Bible teachers and friends.

The rainbow is not just a pretty ribbon; it is a God-sign. As Noah emerged from the ark God interpreted the rainbow as a personal promise, a covenant with the earth that no matter how vile or violent human society may become, God will forever be Earth’s protector and defender.

The bow is a warrior’s weapon – and yet here was God, unilaterally disarming, pre-figuring the day when swords everywhere will be beaten into plough-shares. The rainbow gives a glimpse of Yahweh’s character of self-restraint and boundless love, just as we see in the life of Jesus the full spectrum of God’s invisible heart.

But people in grief or confusion often cannot read the signs for themselves, at least not right away. It took me months and the patience of friends to discern God’s rainbow for me and to feel its joy. Pastors and elders have the task and privilege of walking with people through their storms and helping them to spot rainbows. We can’t make their heart leap, but we can pray with them, drawing on our own experience of God’s grace in storm and on the richness of the Word. And we can help them discern the ways our Artistic God is revealing himself and offering hope in the unfolding and over-whelming circumstances around them.

David serves on the Board of VMC and as a pastor at Lincoln Road Chapel in Waterloo. He has three grown children and 6 grandkids. After 20 years in Montreal with IVCF and then as a pastor, David returned to Southern Ontario and married Tiffany Svensson, an environmental consultant. This led to his discovery of the pervasive theme of water in the Bible and to his blog “The Wonder of Water” and a book Downstream from Eden to be published in Spring 2012.

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You can see the video of David McClurkin’s funeral online

Saturday, January 7th, 2012

Click here to see the video http://vimeo.com/34627171

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