One of our soon-to-come training tools is called Caring for Church Workers, which helps churches know how to support their staff and volunteers. As a sneak preview, here's a short excerpt from an interview we've included in the tool. Lee Dean spoke with Doug Fagerstrom, president of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and author of Ministry Staff Member and The Volunteer.
How important is delegating and releasing church workers?
We need to know what we're releasing them to. Sometimes leaders are guilty of catch and release, which is a fishing term. I recruit you and release you to ministry but I don't touch you again. There needs to be a coming alongside. I need to be praying for you, engaged with you, evaluating with you. I need to be asking you good questions about your ministry. "Do you need help? Do you need more people or fewer? Do I need to be sharing with the rest of the organization what you're doing?" We need to release you, but not so released that we cut the line.
Continue reading "Caring for Church Workers"...
Every church faces tough decisions. Perhaps one of the most highly publicized examples this year was the controversy at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church over its new pastor, Tullian Tchividjian.
We want to compile stories about dilemmas like this from around the country. Then we'll turn those stories into case studies that can help church leaders learn how to work through their own ministry dilemmas.
But to do this, we need the help of our readers. So we're asking all of you to email us (BCL at christianitytoday.com) if you know about a case in which a church worked through a difficult decision. Since such situations are often very sensitive, we ask you to be careful about any names and details you choose to give us (we will be doubly careful on our end). But any lead is helpful—even if you only know the name of a pastor that you think we should talk to.
We're especially interested in cases that touch on the following two issues:
Continue reading "A Call for Case Studies"...
Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It's a good time to try the exercise below—in a board meeting, small group, staff retreat, Sunday school class, ministry team, or other small group setting.
This activity takes its cue from the words of thanksgiving in Paul's prayer for the Philippian Christians. Paul began by thanking God for his fellow believers, thus deepening his connection with them in the most foundational way. When believers today follow his example, expressing thanks for one another, the bond among them also grows stronger.
Exercise
1. Read Philippians 1:3-8 aloud.
2. Explain to group members that you'll use the next 30 to 45 minutes simply expressing thanks for each member. When we affirm fellow Christians, we honor God, who has placed these people in our lives.
Continue reading "Thankful Connections"...
The Forgotten Art of Attentiveness
In our frantic, busy lives, one of the most profound challenges for any leader is simply paying attention.
At the TAG Consulting Leaders Forum in Scottsdale, Arizona, this week, noted Christian leader Leighton Ford spoke on how to move from crazed busyness to focused attentiveness. Leighton is president of Leighton Ford Ministries. For 30 years he served as associate evangelist and later vice president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. His newest book is The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things (InterVarsity, 2008).
In introducing Leighton, Jim Osterhaus pointed out that Leighton has been at the forefront of 4 major church movements of the past 50 years: mass evangelism (with BGEA), reclaiming the social dimensions of the gospel (with Lausanne), the study of leadership (with Arrow Leadership Program), and now the reintroduction to evangelicalism of the good of contemplative living (his books).
Continue reading "The Forgotten Art of Attentiveness"...
A fellow minister told me recently that a Sunday School class had asked for his help. "I was excited when a group in my congregation wanted to grow!" he said. Unfortunately, he said, they seemed to want him to give them the right answers—some type of magical ministerial formula.
My friend, however, knows that ministry isn't magic. And he had worked with enough groups to know that he couldn't give this group pat answers. So instead of talking about curriculum, furniture arrangement, or the thermostat setting, he went deep. He asked, "What are you willing to do to make this class grow?"
Questions can be more powerful than answers. Quick answers, however, remain a temptation. Aren't we the professionals? What if people discover how lost we can be? So we pop off answers, jump on command, and eventually burn out. But instead of answering others' questions, perhaps we need to ask a few of our own.
I was fortunate to learn this lesson as a young minister when I went to the Young Leaders Development Program sponsored by the Center for Congregational Health. Like many young pastors, I wanted to have all the answers. Fortunately, I stumbled across this program, designed for "ministers who are ready to ask the right questions." Fourteen years later, I continue to ask myself the key questions I learned there: Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
Continue reading "The Three W's"...
