Go to www.Transforming2012.info for more information and to register.

Tuesday, May 22nd

Transforming 2012 will involve 11 webinars from Noon on Tuesday to Noon on Wednesday, June 19th-20th. One will be led by Cynthia Woolever on "Leadership That Fits Your Church: Finding a Mission and a Match".

Cynthia will present a 45 minute webinar, and then after a 15 minute break she will be on a telephone conference call to dialogue with interested participants. The PowerPoint she will use during the webinar will be for sale during and after the event for $9.99. The telephone dialogue will be recorded and available to registered participants to listen to later.

Cynthia Woolever, research director of the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, has more than twenty years experience working with congregations, judicatories, and seminaries. Along with Deborah Bruce, manager of research services, Presbyterian Church, USA, Cynthia has recently written a book for the TCP Leadership Series with Chalice Press entitled Leadership That Fits Your Church. It will be available this fall.

What if it Really is the Pastor’s Fault?
A Travel Free Learning Article

By George Bullard, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

Some years ago when I arrived at my office on a Monday morning I already had a message from Wilson. The day before his church had voted down a proposal to sponsor a Korean congregation. He was devastated. I was in shock. He wanted to know if I could come to his church and talk with him about it. I left the local denominational resource center where I directed the missional engagement focus and drove to Wilson’s office.

On the way I reviewed our process. Several months earlier an experienced Korean pastor from another part of the United States had visited with me about the possibility of starting a congregation among Korean people in our city. He was relocating to a seminary a couple of hours from us to pursue another degree, and wanted to start a new congregation while he was in the area. Our city had the largest concentration of people of Korean culture in the state. Would we agree to sponsor his work?

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Not So Hidden People Undermining the Health of Your Church
A Travel Free Learning Article

By George Bullard, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

Maybe you are killing your congregation. It is possible you do not mean to; but it happens. Your motives could be commendable. Yet perhaps you have fallen victim to EGO which is Edging God Out according to management guru and Christian leader Ken Blanchard. It could be that you are trying to reimage your congregation in your image of what it should look like rather than allowing it to be reimaged in God’s image.

In many cases, the classic Pogo cartoon is right when it suggests we have met the enemy and it is us. Often we discover that the person who is a fault—even killing our congregation—is the one we see in the mirror each morning as we put on makeup, shave, or brush teeth.

If you are undermining the health of your congregation, you may be the last to acknowledge it. Others around you may realize it long before you do. Maybe they are afraid to tell you, they have told you several times and you do not hear and understand it, or they have told you and you have protested.

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A Travel Free Learning Article

By Greg Hunt, Author in the TCP Leadership Series with Chalice Press

Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: Client.Care@TheColumbiaPartnership.org. Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

I learned some very interesting things in the course of research for my forthcoming book, Leading Congregations through Crisis. Some of what I learned was sobering. Crisis has a way of exposing a congregation’s weaknesses and putting its future at risk. Some of what I learned was heartening. There are wonderful congregations out there things that have come through crisis alive and well. We have a lot to learn from them about preventing, preparing for, and recovering from misfortune.

Based on my research and my own experiences as a pastor leading congregations through crisis, here’s how I would summarize the bad news and good news about congregational crisis:

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Alive, Well, and Thriving!

A Travel Free Learning Article

By Mark Wingfield, Ministry Network Member with The Columbia Partnership

Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: Client.Care@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “Unless your church gets with the times and goes contemporary in worship, you’re going to die.”

Yes, I thought so. Every pastor of a traditional Protestant church in America has heard this one. It’s the conventional wisdom that has arisen from the success of the seeker-church movement of the 1980s and ‘90s.

The problem is, this conventional wisdom isn’t true.

Some traditional churches are doing quite well, thank you very much. You just don’t hear about them because they are the outliers in a sea of change that has swept American Christianity.

Contrary to the macro patterns of flailing denominations, on the local level there are many untold success stories of traditional Protestant churches that not only are surviving but thriving. Somehow, in the midst of all the handwringing over dying churches, these healthy models have been overlooked.

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Should We Add An Additional Worship Service?
A Travel Free Learning Article

By Dick Hamm, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 317.490.1968, E-mail: DHamm@TheColumiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

Adding an additional worship service is often recommended by consultants like me. It is a way of increasing the choices available in terms of time, style, space, and so forth. However, adding a worship service must be done carefully for a number of reasons, and below are just two important considerations.

Consideration One

When congregations are considering a second service, my initial advice is to first address the quality of the service currently offered. There is nothing wrong in and of itself with traditional worship. In fact, done well, traditional worship services rehearse the drama of salvation and can appeal to people of all ages and effectively help them connect with God. The problem is often that the traditional service is done in a way that is so tired and worn that it has lost its capacity to engage most people, especially younger people.

I liken a lethargic worship service to a faded photograph. My wife and I have a picture taken on a picnic with friends during seminary days. It is a Polaroid snapshot and so much of the color has washed out of it over these ensuing more than 40 years and there are some creases from too much handling. Nevertheless, when I look at that picture, I am right back there at Shades State Park with Mindy, and Joe and Ellen, eating lunch and playing cards at a picnic table bathed in sunlight filtered through tall beech trees on that beautiful summer day. The vivid memory of that time together and our deep friendship is triggered once again, even by that faded photograph. 

Those over 60 or so, remember when traditional worship was new to them and done so well. In those days, the preacher preached as though something was at stake, those who led prayers seemed to pray to a living God, those who read scripture had obviously practiced the reading before stepping into the lectern, and the people seemed to sing the hymns with energy and enthusiasm. Today, too much traditional worship features tired preaching, prayers that are read like a grocery list, and stumbling readers who draw attention to themselves rather than to the Word.

Like that faded photograph, just going through the motions of traditional worship is enough to draw many older adults into an effective worship experience because they still remember when their faith was new and the service was done so well. But young people who endure such services cannot find the Holy Spirit in these services with a flashlight! Neither can those older adults who did not grow up with traditional worship and thus have no memory to draw upon. No wonder such folks often opt out of traditional worship.

So, my first advice to congregations is, “Juice up the traditional worship service, even if you have decided to add another worship option.” Preacher, preach like it matters (because it does!). Public prayers, pray as though someone (in addition to the congregation) is listening! Readers, practice your assignment in advance (with a microphone when no one is around, if you can) so the words are heard more than you are seen. And when it’s time to sing, sing as though you are singing to God (which is what we are supposed to be doing) even if the best we can muster is a “joyful noise”.

Consideration Two

Once you decide to add another worship service of a different style for the sake of those who find a different form and idiom more helpful, be prepared for resistance from many, or most, older adults. Why?

People over 60 years old or so (OK, not everyone acts their age, so there are exceptions) tend to experience God in and through institutional life. The experience of being part of something larger than themselves, and the rituals and rhythms of the institution, help them feel closer to God. When the institution is growing (including for example the membership, the number gathered for worship, and the number gathered for their Sunday School class), they feel closer to God and a sense of well being. When the institution is shrinking, they feel more distant from God and an often vague sense of guilt and responsibility for it.

Adding a new worship service will inevitably draw a few away from the traditional service. When older members look around and see that their worship service is somewhat smaller, they feel more distant from God accompanied by a vague sense of guilt and failure.

Never mind that you can demonstrate that the overall worship attendance has increased by 20 or 30 percent and that many new people are coming; their service has decreased and they have a sinking visceral reaction. That in turn results in resistance and some resentment toward the new service. Though they may intellectually affirm the increase in worship numbers overall, it does not reduce their often unconscious and visceral reactions to shrinking numbers in their beloved service (which is such an important part of their institution).

This is not an argument against starting another worship service; it is just forewarning that you will need to deal with these feelings among many older adults in a pastoral way that helps them consciously acknowledge their sense of loss while helping them also to affirm the missional step of offering worship in other people’s idioms as well. Take the time to work through these issues rather than suddenly adding a service and telling those who resist it to get over it. Many people can work through it if treated with care and sensitivity to the issues.    

Resource

The newest book in the TCP Leadership series speaks into the challenges for transitional churches. It is Staying Alive: Why the Conventional Wisdom About Traditional Churches is Wrong, by Mark Wingfield. Mark is the Executive Pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, TX. This is a book resulting from visits he made to 15 traditional churches who are thriving.

Important Things to Know

Dick Hamm is a Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership. He is also executive administrator for
Christian Churches Together in the USA. His most recent book is Recreating the Church:
Leadership for the Post-Modern Era. He is available for speaking and coaching
with leaders, congregations, denominations, and parachurch organizations.

The Columbia Partnership is a non-profit Christian ministry organization focused on transforming the capacity of the North American Church to pursue and sustain Christ-centered ministry.  It vision is to engage 2100 congregations in transformation annually by the end of 2017. Travel Free Learning is a leadership development emphasis of The Columbia Partnership. For more information about products and services check out the web site at www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org, send an e-mail to Client.Care@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, or call 803.622.0923.

Subscribe to the Travel Free Learning Articles: Text "TCP" to 22828

A Travel Free Learning Article

by Ken Kessler, Ministry Partner with The Columbia Partnership

Voice: 804.338.5058, E-mail: KKessler@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

Lawrence had been struggling for days. He just wanted some insight into how the leadership team could have come to him. Yes, he had been a faithful member of the church for years, but any thought of joining the ranks of the key leadership of his congregation had been just been unthinkable. Lawrence, called Larry by his closest friends, was just a simple man. The story of his 38 years had been a challenging one for him. Having grown up in an abusive home as a child, he did not think his life would ever measure up. What could the leadership team be thinking?

Larry would always be grateful that his wonderful friend, Marsha, had introduced him to the amazing power of the gospel. Marsha is now his wife. His life as a child, teenager, and even young adult years had been scarred with hard living. His first marriage had ended in enormous pain of heavy alcohol abuse and infidelity. Through the introduction into the life-changing power of God’s love for him, he became a changed man. Christ had transformed his life from pain to renewed joy.

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Balancing Mission Activity with Missional Engagement
A Travel Free Learning Article

By Eddie Hammett, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 828.458.8954, E-mail: EHammett@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Website: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

Missional is in these days when it comes to church jargon, and church mission and vision statements.  While this is a great objective, with deep Biblical and practical roots, there seems to be an emerging confusion, often fueled by fatigue, between mission activity and missional engagement. Leaders and congregations frequently think that more mission giving, more mission trips and partnerships make them more missional. While that can be part of missional it is not the essence of missional.

The Essence of Missional in a 21st Century World

Being a missional leader or church is so needed in our increasingly secular culture. Our current culture in North American is resistant and skeptical of our come models of doing church. Coming to worship and church buildings served a church culture with church values well. Now to be church, the community of faith will be more about go than come. Learning to develop go values and go structures where believers encounter non-believers on their turf, in their world, and engaging in conversations they are curious about can be pathways for pre- and post-conversion discipleship and creating missional communities.

It is really a New Testament model right out of the book of Acts where the apostles were dispersed into the cities and met in homes for prayer, study, worship and engaging persons in their communities. (I discuss this shift in detail in my Spiritual Leadership in a Secular Age and Reframing Spiritual Formation books.)

Much of the struggle of Christianity in today’s increasingly secular culture has more to do with our preferred and familiar come models of church, than it does with the absence or diminishing spiritual appetite of our culture. In fact, the biggest barrier to church growth, rests with the institutional models of church we follow than the cultural resistance to the Good News.

Learning to value and embrace both the come and the go models of doing and being church is essential to impacting a 21st century world. Going on mission trips is great and needed but learning to be missional in our lifestyle 24 hours a day is far more critical in a 21st century world. Mission trips emerged as avenue for the church culture to engage the world. Missional and incarnational lifestyles are emerging as venues for permeating, engaging and impacting the world not just for a week or two but every minute of every day in every way. (I discuss these issues in more detail in my books Spiritual Leadership in a Secular Age and The Gathered and Scattered Church.)

Missional is about valuing and being church, and learning to measure what matters by,

Going: Where and how does the gathered church disperse throughout the community during the week becomes a key piece of information for churches wanting to impact the world and equip for transformational living of the membership. 

1.    Where do your members volunteer, work and play during the week?
2.    How are they perceived by those around them in these settings?
3.    What impact and influence are they making?
4.    How might that be deepened?
5.    How might it be celebrated and affirmed by the gathered church?

Engaging: The believers and non-believers around us during the work week becomes another significant piece of being and doing church in a 21st century world.

1.    How can we effectively build relationships with unchurched persons?
2.    How can the gathered church encourage and equip for deepening engagement?
3.    What are the challenges faced by church membership to deepen engagement with non-believers?
4.    How might the gathered church support and encourage amidst the challenge to engage with the unchurched and non-believing community?

Being Received: By the skeptics, non-believers and unchurched is essential in living out a missional understanding of the Good News and a biblical model of a New Testament church. Many believers are so concerned about being part of and accepted by the gathered church that we have little time, energy or interest in building healthy relationships with non believers in ways that we earn the right to share our faith and be seen as trust-worthy friends.

1.    What does being received look like in healthy relationships with non-church persons?
2.    How do we take prayerful, calculated, intentional risks in building relationships with non-believers so we influence them rather than them influencing us?
3.    How can the church nurture being received as a core value or building the membership and impact of the church?
4.    What are the risks, benefits and challenges of ‘being received’ by non-believers?

Impacting: Impacting and influencing has much to do with being salt, light and leaven in the world. God sends us into the world to be the church (Matthew 5:13, John 17:18). The essence of missional is in the virtues and manifestations of these elements of impact and influence. How, when and where can we season the world in which we live, work and play?

1.    How does the gathered church share stories celebrating impact and influence of the membership?
2.    How might we commission and affirm those classes, groups, families and individuals that intentional seek to live into these core values of being on mission in the world?
3.    How do we measure and assess impact and influence in the world as the church?
4.    How does missional living look different from mission trips and experiences?
5.    How do I/we reallocate our time, energy, relationships and resources to live more missionally?

Being missional sounds a bit overwhelming and all consuming to many! The challenge believers and church members have to maintain balance and not be overwhelmed is to be prayerful, intentional in living and designing our missional living as we go. It becomes part of daily tracks of life rather than an addition to do in life. Being a person on a spiritual journey in our daily lives has always been the call of Christ but many times churches have so created layers of programming that not only distract believers, but gives little time or encouragement for going, engaging being received by non-believers. 

It seems to me that a shift if being called for. I wonder who will hear and who will go, engage, be received and have a deeper impact for Christ in our increasingly secular age?  Will it be you? Your church?  What would a missional focused church really look like? What would the church value most? How would the church membership measure effectiveness in their missional living? These are the challenges as we seek to live as through the incarnate Christ as a missional community in an increasingly secular age. Go!

For additional help from Eddie consider www.50for99.info for a call with Eddie to help you discover and sift through your options.

Important Things to Know

Eddie Hammett is a Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership. He will be speaking and building learning experiences around this topic in 2012 as research for the forthcoming book. He is a certified coach with the International Coach Federation. Recent books of which he is author or co-author are Reaching People Under 40 While Keeping People Over 60, Spiritual Leadership in a Secular Age, and Making Shifts Without Making Waves. He is available for speaking and coaching with leaders, congregations, denominations and parachurch organizations. His personal web site is www.TransformingSolutions.org. His work is also highlighted at www.CBFNC.org.

The Columbia Partnership is a non-profit Christian ministry organization focused on transforming the capacity of the North American Church to pursue and sustain Christ-centered ministry. Travel Free Learning is a sharing knowledge emphasis of TCP. For more information about products and services check out the web site at www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org, send an e-mail to Client.Care@TheColumbiaPartnership.org,
or call 803.622.0923.

Subscribe to the Travel Free Learning Articles: Text "TCP" to 22828

When Is It Time to Move Ahead with Your Capital Campaign?
A Travel Free Learning Article

By Ruben Swint, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 404.314.7273, E-mail: RSwint@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org 

Recently I presented the Funding Ministry services of The Columbia Partnership by way of Skype; an internet-based video conference call service. Skype is a more convenient way for me to interact with prospective clients and it does take some advance preparation on both ends of the free video call. Churches find it convenient as well because they can easily schedule multiple presentations one after another, they can dismiss a presenter with a click of the mouse, and they do not need to worry about the travel costs incurred by the presenters who are not chosen.

Last month I interviewed via Skype and was chosen by two churches to assist with a campaign. To one of these churches I said, “I don’t think you need a full campaign to raise the amount you need. I think you can raise that amount with less energy, less calendar, a few meetings and less of me which will lower your cost for raising the money.” The other potential consultants had stayed with a full campaign as their only and proven option.

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Hidden Factors Undermining the Health of Your Church

A Travel Free Learning Article

By George Bullard, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership

Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

Life is fragile. But you know that. All of us who are more than a generation old realize the physical and mental sharpness of our childhood and youth has diminished. It may not be obvious when we are twenty-something or thirty-something, but it is there. It becomes more obvious when we are forty-something and fifty-something and still trying to trying to push ourselves like we were much younger.

By the time we are sixty-something and seventy-something the aging process is in full swing. Many of the symptoms of our aging have been present for decades, but they are just now having an obvious impact on us that we cannot overcome by just working harder. We must work smarter and choose carefully those things to which we commit ourselves. Health conditions that were not obvious in earlier decades are now part of our daily concern and actions.

If we make it to eighty-something or ninety-something, for the vast majority of us health and life expectancy issues are not only a primary concern for us, but often for our family who love us and have a responsibility to help care for us.

Is The Same Pattern True for Congregations?

Absolutely! The patterns are clear. Congregations often thrive for the first generation of their life. At some point when they are twenty-something their founding dream or vision wanes. If they do not intervene in their own journey in response to the spiritual nudge of the Triune God, the vitality and vibrancy of their congregation will diminish incrementally for the succeeding decades, and they will approach death at some future date.

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