Core Values
Posted on May 16th, 2008
I just finished reading Being Leaders by Aubrey Malphurs. I may reflect more on the book as I process it, but I want to get one particular set down tonight. I have been using another of Malphurs’ books, Advanced Strategic Planning, to help walk our church through the establishing of core values, a mission statement, and a vision statement. In Being Leaders, Malphurs throws out the idea of personal core values. He mentions it in Advanced Strategic Planning, but I never actually thought about setting out my own core values.
One of the appendices in Being Leaders is a personal core values audit. It’s actually the same audit he gives for churches to use in both books. So I took it, and here’s what I discovered about myself, in the order of priority that I established for them:
- Worship and Prayer
- Bible Knowledge
- Evangelism/Lost People/Missions
- Community/Relevance
- Mobilized Laity
The order is significant, as I perceive this is a process that someone would walk through. First, people should worship God and engage Him in prayer. This would be naturally followed by a desire to know Him more, which would happen through Bible study. While I don’t think Bible knowledge is necessarily a prerequisite for evangelism, I believe we become better evangelists the more we know about God, which is why I have it third. As we pursue evangelism, we will likely realize that we need to understand the people we are trying to reach: the people of our community (either where we were born or where we have chosen to live for work, family, or ministry). We will need to understand the community and make our message relevant, that is in the vernacular of the community so that the message can be heard and understood. And I firmly believe that this is a task of everyone in the church, not just the lead pastor, the staff, or the church leaders (be they deacons, elders, Sunday school teachers, or some other unnamed group).
Tags: church, core values, Ministry, philosophy of ministry
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Primary Care Pastor
Posted on May 2nd, 2008
Upon entering seminary, all newcomers at the time went through a Myers Briggs Type Indicator seminar to learn our personality types and how we would relate to our fellow seminarians and professors. I myself am an INTJ. Whether it is true of all INTJs or not I am not sure, but I have a strong bent on the “I” part of the personality – introversion. And I have a tendency to eschew people at times, especially those I don’t know. I am awkward in conversation with the unfamiliar. In crowded rooms, I find a corner to escape to where I can see all “lines of attack” in my directions so I can prepare for when someone heads my way. Most extreme example: during loud concerts, I generally sit in my seat and (literally) fall asleep.
All of which can make it pretty awkward to be a pastor. Can you imagine the person I just described in the last paragraph when he enters a new church as a new minister for the very first time? Let’s just say it’s very energy-draining when I have to force myself to reach out and engage people, especially a lot of people or over an extended period of time (say once a week, every week).
I’ve excused myself from the typical role of the pastor as care giver, the pastor as the one who visits the sick in the hospital room, the pastor who leads the way in evangelism. I’ve excused myself by relying on the passage in Acts where the Jerusalem church leaders divide the work of the ministry among the deacons who minister to the poor and widows and the elders who focus on the ministry of the word. I’ve just understood my role as that of an elder rather than what was called in that passage a deacon.
So today I’m reading through the latest issue of Outreach Magazine, and I come to an article by Ed Stetzer called “Questions for McChurch.” The article is about the problems he sees with the multi-site movement among churches. (Actually, it’s rather interesting – the article leaves the impression that he’s in favor of the multi-site movement, but his contract with Outreach requires him to take the “contratrian” [his word] position, so he has to find things to be negative about the movement.) His first criticism on the multi-site movement among churches is about the pastoral role, and how the multi-site church really limits the amount of ministering the senior pastor can do in the traditional pastoral care roles such as praying over the sick, watching over the flock, and breaking bread with one another. And he goes on to say that, in the multi-site church, the senior pastor is rarely the primary care pastor.
That phrase struck me. Maybe it’s because doctors and medical care have suddenly taken on an explosive new role in the lives of my spouse and me because of the new bundle of joy we’ll be holding in a just a few more weeks, but I had never thought of the pastor in such terms. When all of those forms ask about a primary care physician, I had never thought of the idea of a primary care pastor. Who is that? Should it be the senior pastor always? Is it appropriate to have a pastor of pastoral care who handles all of that while another teaching pastor takes on the role of the sermons (like my ideal church setting would have it)? Were is the place for pastoral care in the role of senior pastor (or whatever you call that)? If the day comes for me to be a senior pastor, whose primary care pastor will I be? Do I need to be a primary care pastor for a set of people even now in my associate role?
Lots of questions. Few answers.
Tags: church, Ministry, personality, sociology
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Brokenness
Posted on February 15th, 2008
Last night, my wife and I sat on the couch enjoying a relaxing evening in front of the TV, watching some of our favorite shows that we had recorded in the last week. We finished the last one we were going to watch for the night, and the TV switched over to the regular TV stations. It happened to be tuned into CNN, which was showing Anderson Cooper 360. And, rather than the obligatory coverage of the tight Democratic primary race, or the changes in New Orleans since the show’s last visit to the city (Anderson Cooper was on site in N.O.), the show was showing breaking news coverage on the shooting spree that happened inside a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University yesterday.
The two of us just sat numbed, in shock. It can’t be good when such stories have become routine, when the images of people fleeing for their lives is as normal in real life as it is inside the suspended disbelief of a movie theater. What is it that has happened in the last ten or fifteen years that has brought us to the point of wondering whether colleges could ever be safe, whether a trip to a mall for a day out could ever be relaxing again, whether any public place is really safe again. I know many places in the world deal with this, and have dealt with this for long years. But it’s new here, to me.
I wonder what we can do for my generation and the one after (those born post 1975) to curb the pain, the frustration, the loss of grounding that is spinning us out of control. It’s not for want of the knowledge of the message those of us who follow Christ know we need to share. There’s something else missing. Whether it is what we are saying, how we are saying it, or some other thing, I don’t know. Publishing houses make money off of those arguing to figure it out. But something has to change. Our ministry as a church must change and meet the needs of those who are hurting and broken. We aren’t doing it now.
Tags: Current Events, Generations, Ministry
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Change
Posted on February 13th, 2008
It has been a year and a half since I began ministering here in New Jersey. Hard to believe it has been that long. Hard to believe it has only been that long.
When I interviewed for the position, I was told that part of my duties under the worship half of my job description would be to transition the church from organ-led traditional worship to a blended style of worship that includes organ/traditional music and other instrument/contemporary worship. (Caveat: I don’t think that an organ necessitates traditional or can’t be contemporary, but it certainly is not done in my current context, and I can’t exactly imagine “Blessed Be Your Name” from an organ.) I had made significant headway in that area at the previous congregation I served, so I was not intimidated by such a task. Taking a cue from an adjunct professor from seminary, I declared my intention to not introduce change until I had observed the church for a year.
The year was up last August, and, on cue, I began introducing new songs. At a board meeting in December, the discussion about the pace of change came up, and the general consensus was that things were not happening fast enough. The impression was that the congregation wanted more, more, more. So I revved things up quite a bit and started introducing more new music.
So this month, at another board meeting, the general consensus was that I am going to fast. Too much new. Too quickly. And I just find that ironic.
Generally, I like to introduce a song and sing it three weeks in a row, and then continue for a few additional weeks with familiar songs before introducing the next new song. I thought that is what I was doing. And I said so at the board meeting. I wanted further instruction on where the middle road was between the “not enough” of December and the “too much” of February. This morning I went back through all of the orders of service since August and reviewed what we have sung when, and how often. Turns out I haven’t been doing such a good job with my intended approach for introducing new songs. That’s what I get for being high and mighty and thinking that I know best automatically.
Nothing like a kick in the pants to get you back to where you need to be. Or should I say, get me back to where I need to be?
Fortunately, the church really does want the change. I’m thankful for a community that is willing to walk along the path together, and even follow someone who stumbles along, such as me.
Tags: change, Ministry, Music
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Pressing on
Posted on February 8th, 2008
I just reread my last post…written three months ago now.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and our annual church business meeting have all come and gone and my ministry seems to have been largely unaffected by those events back in November. I consider myself very blessed to be in the community of faith in which I minister. The people proved to be very understanding. Large numbers of the congregation came up to me to encourage me by their own tales of having to face professional councils or exams multiple times to be certified for their careers. It was a relief.
We may have another go at the ordination thing come late spring. We’ll see…other things may get in the way of that. Initially, I piled up large stacks of books from my library to help me rework my ordination paper and retool my arguments. But they have mostly gathered dust. Orders of service, choir selections, Sunday school classes, and the many other details of ministry have come to the forefront, as it should be.
In the end, I am pretty sure that I just pushed too quickly. I brought up the idea for the ordination council, even though I have long believed that ordination is a function of the church, not the minister. Therefore, it should be the church that presses the issue, not me. And there are many other things that I pushed through that I probably would not do the same way, and would have regretted had the ordination gone through. God is gracious, even in the muck and mire of misery. Family, friends, and congregation members all hold me and my wife up in their prayers, and the effects are noticeable. I am not nearly as bitter as I thought I would be, and that is a blessing all to itself.
I hope to get back to writing more. Thanks for your prayers, whoever reads this.
Tags: Church & Theology, Life, Ministry
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