Dear CT Blog readers,

I need your help.  What follows is a draft, a first stab at trying to nail down what congregations will be asked to measure and report for their Missional Vital Signs.  It does not address how congregational leaders will gather these measurements.  We will get to that later.  First, we need to be clear what will be measured.  What follows is the result of many conversations with different congregational leaders, but it is still provisional.  What isn’t clear?  What suggestions would you make?  What’s missing that needs to be included?

I really welcome and appreciate your assistance in this.

Dr. Jeff Stiggins
Office of Congregational Transformation

 

Missional Vital Signs
What are we really going to measure?
 
The purpose of the Missional Vital Signs is to assist congregational leaders (1) to focus on the five core practices essential in “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” and (2) to know whether they are making headway effectively living into the practices.  Making disciples not gathering measurements is our real goal.  Measuring is just a tool to assist congregations to be more fruitful in making disciples.   One key measurement has been selected to give an indication of a congregation’s effectiveness in each of the five practices. 

Beginning January 1, 2009, congregations may begin reporting their Missional Vital Signs and by July 1, 2009 every congregation will be expected to do so.  Missional Vital Signs will be gathered weekly and reported monthly.  Once a month, a designated person in your congregation will receive an email with a web link which will enable five numbers for each weekend in the month to be reported.  When the information is sent, the results can be immediately seen on the year-to-date chart for your church on the Missional Vital Signs website which can be reached directly at http://www.flumc2.org/yearly.asp or by clicking the  Missional Vital Signs logo on the conference (www.flumc.org) or congregational transformation website (www.congregationaltransformation.com/). 

Before congregational leaders can decide the best way to gather their weekly Missional Vital Signs, we need first to be clear about what we are going to measure and report for each of the discipling practices.  What we measure needs to be simple enough that it can be repeated weekly with consistency.  More important than absolute accuracy is an indication of trends in the effectiveness of a congregation’s practice of ministry.

 

The number of persons in attendance at the principal weekly worship service(s). 

“Principal weekly worship service(s)” includes any service held on a weekly basis as a primary opportunity for worship.  In many congregations this will be the Sunday morning service(s).  However, if the congregation has other worship services attended primarily by persons who generally do not attend on Sunday morning, attendance at these services should be included. 

For example, some congregations have a Saturday night service to which people come instead of Sunday morning.  Some congregations have youth worship services on Sunday evenings as part of their youth ministry; this is where youth typically worship each week, rather than on Sunday morning, and attendance at these services should be included. 

Children who participate in all or part of any such service may be included in the count.  This would include children who participate in a children’s church service especially designed for them.  This would not include infants in the nursery who do not attend a worship service.

Some congregations have traditionally included in their weekly count a group of people who are away together on a retreat or mission trip.  This certainly seems fair as it does reflect the number of persons in the congregation who are in worship that weekend.

Without being persnickety about it, the intention is to count individuals who attend worship only once a weekend.  We needn’t worry that Grandmother Jones came to three worship services one weekend because her granddaughter was singing at each of them and she gets counted three times.  However, if the same 25 member choir sings at all three worship services, it would be a more accurate reflection of the congregation’s real attendance in worship not to include them in the count three times.

Occasional worship services, such as Maundy Thursday, Good Friday or funerals services should not be included in the weekly count.  
 

 

The number of persons received into membership by “profession of faith” and “reaffirmation of faith” this week.

“Profession of faith” is the first public expression of commitment to Christian faith by an individual in which she or he acknowledges commitment to Jesus Christ and pledges to learn to live life as his disciple.  This may include youth who have gone through a confirmation process and are now joining the church.  This may also include adults who have never before been a member of a congregation, but now come to faith and choose to live out their faith as part of your congregation.

“Reaffirmation of faith” refers to persons who have been baptized at some point in their life, but have not been actively involved in a congregation for quite some time.  Such persons usually are experiencing a renewal of faith and are choosing to live out their faith as part of your congregation.  They are not transferring their membership from another congregation.

 

 

The number of persons involved this week in small discipling groups.

A “small discipling group” involves approximately 2–15 persons who are gathering for the purpose of growing in their walk with Christ.  Such groups should involve the following five elements:  (1) a shared commitment to mature as followers of Jesus Christ, (2) reflection on Scripture, (3) discussion about what it means to live out God’s Word in our everyday lives, (4) honest sharing, and (5) prayer.  In short, people in “small discipling groups” are training to better follow and to be more like Jesus.

This means that all church groups are not small discipling groups.  There are groups designed for other purposes (for example, fellowship, education or service) that are not intentional discipling groups.  A line dancing group wouldn’t be.  A gathering of men for breakfast while listening to the mayor speak would not be, either.  Neither would most Board of Trustee meetings, though administrative committees certainly could be structured as discipling groups.  Some large lecture oriented Sunday school classes would be questionable, as they are realistically more like another worship service than a gathering of persons intentionally committed to helping each other become more mature apprentices of Jesus Christ. 

A Disciple Bible Study group would certainly count.  So would most Sunday school classes, if they are intentional about discipling their participants.  Alpha groups would count.  Many youth groups are focused on helping each other become better disciples.  So might a group seeking to apply God’s word to their marriage or to parenting or to their financial life.  A group that gathers to do a particular ministry (like making celebrate Jesus type visits in their community) might, if they took time to read Scripture, reflect together and pray before heading out.  A Celebrate Recovery group would certainly be.  And so would two accountability partners who meet weekly by phone to pray, read Scripture and encourage one another in their walk with Christ. 
Local leaders will have to determine which groups meet the minimum requirements of an intentional discipling group in their congregation. 
 

 

The number of persons weekly in worship who say that they have joined Jesus in Salty Service to persons outside their congregation for at least one hour.

“Salty Service” is defined in terms of any of four elements:
• Hands-on mercy ministry alleviating the suffering of others
• Justice ministry addressing systems that cause suffering
• Earth-care as a steward of God’s creation
• Relationship building easing emotional or spiritual needs

Unlike measurements for the other four practices, worshipers will weekly self-select whether they have met the criteria of “Salty Service.”  Their self-selection will not be as verifiable as the other measurements.  But again, the goal is to focus on and encourage Salty Service, not gaining absolutely accurate numbers.

Many persons will self-select that they have been a Salty Servant this week who were involved in church-sponsored ministries.  They may be part of a mission trip, be one of the congregation’s monthly volunteers in a soup kitchen or teach an English as a second language class offered at the church.  Persons may also be involved in ministries that are not church sponsored.  A person may choose on their own, for example, to tutor at a local school, to repair a toilet for an elderly neighbor, to work with the community Red Cross, to take part in an community taskforce planning an Earth Day event, to spend time intentionally cultivating a relationship with an unchurched person, or to take part in a beach cleanup day.

The gathering of this measurement will have to go hand-in-hand with communicating to worshipers what is meant by “Salty Service.”  This will require the pastor and/or liturgist regularly shaping people’s understanding about what is meant by “mercy,” “justice,” “earth-care” and “relationship building” ministries.  Local examples will need to be given.  Opportunities for people to share how they are being a Salty Servant will create Salty Servant role-models in the congregation.  The intent is that over time, being a Salty Servant will become as fundamental to being a normal Christian as attending worship, being involved in an intentional discipling group, being an agent of Christ’s love to others, and tithing. 
 

 

The total amount given weekly by persons to the congregation for budget, capital and missional purposes.

This would include all contributions received by the church for these purposes during the week.  Pledge and loose plate offerings would be included.  Funds given for capital debt, building or repairs would be included.  Also included would be special offerings to ministries beyond the church; for example:  the Children’s Home, a youth mission trip, Habitat for Humanity, Storm Recovery or a sister congregation in Cuba or Angola. 

All personal contributions funneled through the church treasurer should be counted.  The only funds excluded would be interest income, facility use fees, income from child-care or adult day-care ministries, and memorial funds — because these do not reflect immediately on the financial generosity of the worshiping congregation.  (There is a sense in which memorial funds do reflect the financial generosity of the congregation.  However, a single significant gift can also make the whole congregation look extravagantly generous, when in fact, that may be far from true.)

Four members of my covenant group were hanging out and catching up with one another late last Tuesday afternoon following the Bishop’s gathering in Lakeland.   “Jeff, did you notice the nervous laughter at two points in your Missional Vital Signs presentation?”

I had.  In fact, the first one really threw me for a moment, because I didn’t understand what was going on.  It happened when the slide reading, “It’s Not About the Numbers” was shown.    I looked around thinking that something bazaar was going on, but everyone’s eyes were on the slide.  Then it hit me:  a bunch of us really don’t believe this.

Just after the gathering, a pastor came up to me and said, “I get it: the website and the Missional Vital Signs are really a tool for local congregations to stay focused on making disciples and for tracking how we are doing.”  And that’s it exactly!  The main intent of the Missional Vital Signs is to help congregational leaders keep disciple-making the main thing in their thinking and to know whether they are making headway at it or not.  The numbers are just an indication– and admittedly not a perfect or complete indication – but a good indication of whether a congregation is keeping Christ’s goals in their sights and moving toward them. 

About six years ago, I finally went to the doctor for the first good physical I had had in about as many years.  When he looked at my blood work, he sent me straight to a cardiologist who said, “Jeff, your weight is creeping up and your blood work is in the top 5% of the worst blood work I have ever seen!  This is something that we need to pay attention to if you don’t want to die of a heart attack at a premature age.”   Okay, he had my attention.  My father died of a heart attack in his late 50’s, so I knew this was serious business.  We talked about the particular metrics that were important and how we were going to address them – some with medication, some by exercise and diet.  We began to meet monthly until the medication issues were worked out and then annually to monitor how I was doing.   This isn’t a numbers game, this is about my health.  Without regularly checking my vital signs, however, and getting some feedback about how I am actually doing,  I tend to slide back into those lifestyle habits that don’t keep me healthy. 

Congregations are the same way.  Over the years we go through missional drift.  Congregational leaders start out clear that their task is to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”  But as the years go by, the mission actually practiced by the congregation week by week can begin to drift off Jesus’ target.  The Missional Vital Signs is one way our connection is trying to help us all remember what Jesus calls us to do and to measure how we are doing at it.  It’s not an institutional numbers game; it’s about congregations staying healthy and faithful to Jesus’ mission. 

The other moment of nervous laughter was when these words flashed on the screen: “Missional Vital Signs are about the congregation’s ministry – not the pastor.”  After the gathering, another pastor came up to me: “So are appointments going to be made according to our Missional Vital Signs, now?”  It really sounded more like a defeated accusation than a question. 

“Absolutely not,” I responded, “the Missional Vital Signs measure the congregation’s disciple making practices – not just a pastor’s effectiveness.  The pastor’s leadership is only one, albeit, a significant factor contributing to a congregation’s ministry through the years.  The appointive cabinet knows that the effectiveness of a congregation is always a complex matter also involving the congregation’s traditions, style and lay leaders, and the community’s economics and demographics – to name but a few factors. The DS’s know it is not just about the pastor’s effectiveness.” 

The Missional Vital Signs mainly just organizes conveniently data that is already part of a congregation’s profile and record which cabinet members already consider as they enter into any discussion about congregations.  And the situations of congregations are so vastly different, that you can’t really compare one congregation to another without knowing a whole lot more information about them than their Missional Vital Signs.  For example, as pointed out in the discussion after our presentation, you can’t just look at what the average worshiper is giving in one congregation and compare that to another congregation without knowing the economic level of their community.  There is no meaningful comparison if one is in an affluent community and the other is in an impoverished community. 

What pastoral leaders can do, however, is to regularly review the Missional Vital Signs with their congregational leaders as a way of seeing how their congregation is doing in these five key disciple making areas.  Good pastoral leaders can then ask congregational leaders to consider questions like:

• We have had a significant increase in professions of faith this last year; what did we do right and how can we keep doing it next year? 
• What does it mean that only 5% of our congregation is involved in intentional discipling?  How can we involve more people in seriously training to follow Jesus?
• How can we encourage more of our congregation personally to be involved in making a salty Kingdom difference in the world? 
• How can we celebrate that there has been an increase in Extravagant Generosity per worshiper over the last two years?  

Thanks for reading the CT Blog,

Dr. Jeff Stiggins
The Office of Congregational Transformation

I have been a pastor for only a few short years. When I started, I had no idea how challenging the learning curves of leading a local congregation in decline would be. Early on, I attended workshop after workshop in hopes of finding answers. Deep down though I was looking for more than answers, I was looking for a group of people who, like me, remained passionate and hopeful about congregational transformation. 

In January of 2006, I attended yet another workshop. It was called “The Gathering.”  There I found it all: the strong, tested, Biblical answers and the hopeful, passionate transformation tribe I had been looking for. After so many disappointments, it felt like coming home. 

I want to encourage you to get yourself to the next Gathering, scheduled for November 12-14 at Anona UMC in Largo Florida. Here are a few more good reasons to go.

Kingdom Goals 
Other events I had attended seemed to emphasize building the institution of a local congregation, building in such a way a congregation could be all things to all people by themselves. What impressed me most about the first Gathering was its emphasis on building God’s Kingdom together. “The Gathering” is passionate people, lay and clergy, from all over the country and all over the world, with simple goals: to encourage one another, resource one another, and collaborate with one in building God’s Kingdom through local congregations. This event and these concepts break down the walls which isolate us based on denomination, congregation size, and cultural differences.
 
Proven Resources and Passionate Authors
I am not exaggerating when I say that I use the concepts or resources I received at the first Gathering on a daily basis. They work. I have recommended them to other pastors who have also seen results. I am also not exaggerating when I say I was energized for months after the event. The speakers are some of the top people in their fields. Their authenticity, experience and faithfulness was inspiring.

In addition to opening and closing plenary sessions, you can choose from 8 difference training tracks, led by the authors themselves. Topics of the plenary sessions and tracks include: 
• Church Health
• Demographics
• Natural Church Development
• Collaboration through Church Multi-sites
• Church Planting 
• Leading Turnaround Churches
• Leadership Development 
• Leader Impact: Focused Living Retreats/Advancing Leaders 
• Spiritual Formation: Pathways to Peace 
• Small Churches - Big Impact
• Church Life: Practical Ministry Issues.   

Great Price and Close to Home
I have seen some might expensive event costs in some mighty far away locations. The cost of The Gathering is only $150. That’s for a three day event and includes your training, lunches and over $100 in resources.

Time is ticking my friend. For more information or to register, go to www.churchsmart.com. I look forward to seeing you there.

Lisa Degrenia

[Lisa is the pastor of Allendale UMC in St. Petersburg.  We welcome her to the CTBLOG!  “The Gathering” will be hosted at Anona UMC in Largo, FL on Nov. 12-14.  A PDF informational flier can be obtained by clicking on the following link: http://congregationaltransformation.com/documents/TheGathering.pdf ]

I once had a lady in my church who came to me and complained about all the things that were going on in the congregation.  The problem wasn’t that the things weren’t good things, but that she couldn’t possibly be part of all of them.  In my very best pastoral manner, I explained to her that was OK.  It wasn’t required that she be a participant in everything that happened.  She could just pick and choose what was helpful for her or what she could be the most helpful in accomplishing.  We were indeed a busy church!  I thought that was the way it was supposed to be.

That was how I learned to do church.  The senior pastor I worked with in my first assignment encouraged that kind of busyness.  The rule of thumb for us was that we should have so much happening that we couldn’t possibly keep track of it all personally.  It had to be bigger than us.

As I visit around the Conference that seems to be a pretty common perspective.
Recently, I have been re-thinking that perspective.  We are very busy.  I just wonder if we are busy in ways that are productive, that move us toward fulfilling our vision of making mature disciples for the transformation of the world. 

One of the things we are really good at is developing programs. They keep us busy and meet particular needs.  But that is different from developing a system or process to make mature disciples to transform the world.
 
PROGRAMS – activities, curriculum or events, often borrowed and adapted from other churches, designed to meet a particular need.  Asks: What is the need?  How will we meet that need?

PROCESS – movement of people through steps or stages to arrive at a destination (e.g. achieving your vision, making disciples)   Asks: Where do we want people to be?  How will they get there?

Discipleship is a process, not a program.  You don’t just take a class and get a pin and become a disciple.  As Dan Glover and Claudia Lavy put it in a great new resource for considering a system of discipleship, Deepening Your Effectiveness: Restructuring the Local Church for Life Transformation,

Simply following six easy steps will not magically transform a person into a fully committed follower with a deep and abiding relationship with the Creator.  It is not possible to…jump in where we think we might fit, and grab a tidbit or two that will help us ‘go deeper’…

Participants in the life of our congregations know deep down inside that there must be more to becoming a disciple than attending another program.  They just don’t know how to get there.  If we are going to become a transforming force in the world we need to show them how.  As has often been said, if we keep doing the same thing (or more of it) we’ll keep getting the same results.

Phil Maynard
The Office of Congregational Transformation

One of the impressions I get is that many pastors are weary.  They have been at this ministry thing 60 hours or more a week for some years and they are just tired.  And no matter how hard they have worked at it, it never seems quite enough.  It isn’t that they don’t care – they care deeply!  But there isn’t enough time or energy to meet all the needs waiting for their ministry.  I remember one pastor telling me years ago that he really didn’t want any more people in his congregation because he couldn’t keep up with the expectations for ministry by the people that he had then!

Several of my lay leader friends have shared their impression that lay people often feel underutilized and even – though few would probably put it so bluntly — a bit bored with the church thing.   Many spiritually mature disciples have significant leadership skills, teaching abilities, mentoring know-how and the capacity for caring which have been developed through work and life experiences.   And when they come to church they wind up handing out bulletins or going to meetings where minor decisions are endlessly discussed. 

Something is wrong with this picture: over-worked clergy and under-worked laity.  Pastors with excessive ministry expectations and laity with few.  Worn out ordained servants and laity disengaged from ministry.  Is this the picture of Christ’s Body ministering that we see in Scripture? 

Certainly not!  The picture in Scripture is one of every baptized disciple called and gifted and functioning in ministry.  The ministries vary according to people’s gifting, but every follower of Jesus Christ is invited and expected to join Jesus and one another in ministry that makes a difference in people’s lives.  “It was [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. . . . From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”  (Ephesians 4:11-13, 16 NIV emphasis added) 

This is a picture of an interdependent community where everyone does their part in coordination with one another.  There are not a few overworked servants while most sit idly in the pews.  There are not some who get ministered to and others who do the ministering.  There are not consumers of religious services and the hired help who provide them.  There are not just a few who get all the honor and glory for being called to ministry, while most do not share in this privilege.    Instead Paul describes the church as Christ’s Body in which every part (person) has a role to play which blesses others.

Somehow we need to help one another better reflect this understanding of a Biblically functioning church.   Could pastors help laity discover the ministries to which they are called and encourage them to exercise their service to others?  Could laity release pastors from the expectation of doing the ministry that laity are called to do?  Could pastors quit trying to do all the ministry, essentially taking ministry away from the laity?   And could laity do the ministry that God’s has planned for them to do and not expect it to be done for them by a professional pastor?

Perhaps an example would be helpful.  Where does Scripture suggest that clergy have to do all the pastoral care?  Hospital, nursing home and shut-in visits in many congregations are expected to be covered by the pastor.  And yet, there may be laity quite willing and able to do this important ministry – especially if the minister could go with them for awhile and coach them (disciple them) about making pastoral visits in these settings.  But would those in the hospital and their family feel that the church had “really” visited them if the pastor doesn’t come?  Would people feel that the pastor was somehow shirking her or his responsibilities if lay people made the nursing home or shut-in visits?  Clearly teaching from the pulpit and conversation among church leaders will have to expand the congregation’s understanding of the roles of laity and clergy in ministry. 

Recently, Bishop Whitaker suggested that every congregation needs to have a clearly thought out discipling plan.  In other words, a plan for helping people move from being baby Christians dependent upon the congregation to feed and care for them, to mature followers of Jesus Christ who assumed responsibility for the ministries God has prepared for them to do as self-giving servants.  How might your congregation be different if every member were taking up the ministry for which God gifted and planned for them?  Would it free your pastor up to provide leadership in other critical areas?  Would your laity feel engaged in life-changing ministries equal to their gifting and the fulfillment of making Kingdom contributions? 

Your congregation would reflect better the description of Christ’s Body in Ephesians 4:11-13.   “[Christ] handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.”  (The Message)

Dr. Jeff Stiggins
Congregational Transformation

‘The disgruntled you will have with you always.’  Well, not necessarily so, according to The Reveal Study, sponsored by the Willow Creek Association, involving over 80,000 congregants in over 200 diverse congregations.  Those that are dissatisfied with their congregation’s ministry spanned between 6% and 42%, in their findings, just published in Follow Me: What’s Next For You?  by Greg L. Hawkins & Cally Parkinson.  (Available @ www.revealnow.com).  What’s more, the dissatisfied in this study averaged seven years in their congregation, involved people across the spiritual maturity spectrum and were neither entrenched in their frustration nor, for the most part, ready to quit the church.  And they seemed to be dissatisfied about the very same matters that people generally pleased with the church’s ministry voiced concerns about, though to a lesser extent.  “This suggests that we should pay attention to those complaining e-mails when we see consistent patterns in the source of the grumbling; it appears the dissatisfied may be a bellwether for the entire congregation’s view of needed change in the church.” (p. 98)

And what were the dissatisfied generally disappointed about?  This is what really caught my attention.  “By a wide margin, the weekend service is the church activity most highly correlated with church satisfaction.  In fact, the weekend service is more significant to people’s satisfaction with the church by a factor of four compared to all other church activities.” (p. 94)   Worship services seem to be the largest single factor related to people’s sense of satisfaction with the congregation’s ministry. 

The study goes one step further to ask what about the worship services fail to meet the expectations of those who are dissatisfied.  And here is some food for thought I’ve been chewing on all weekend.  The top three unmet expectations were:

• “Incorporates relevant Bible teaching to help me with everyday life”
• “Is challenging or thought provoking”
• “Provides in-depth study of the Bible”

I wonder if we might boil it down this way:  challenges me to think about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ whose life is grounded in the traditions of Scripture and yet lived out in a 21’st century Florida community.

There is bad news and good news here.  The bad news for preachers is that this is pretty much about our sermons.  The good news for preachers is that this is pretty much about our sermons – and we can do something about that! 

People expect our sermons to help them take seriously the authority of God’s Word for their lives as they live daily in a culture that is hostile to Christian faith.  And they don’t want us to feed them pre-digested pabulum.   They want to be treated as thoughtful people.  Not in the sense of sharing with them esoteric Biblical tidbits that make no difference in how they live their lives next week.   But in the sense of pushing them about . . . about what it really means to forgive that person who has offended them.   Or inviting them to wonder what’s really involved in being a servant who picks up her or his cross for others in Christ’s name.  Or challenging them honestly to look at our world where so many have so little while we have so much –  and where we seldom feel we have enough and tend to spend just about all that we do have on ourselves. 

This is preaching that flows out of a preacher’s own struggles to be an authentic follower of Jesus Christ.  These are the sort of sermons that call from preachers our very best and are possible only when we are being led and taught by the Spirit.  This is the “take thou authority. . .” for which we preachers were called, ordained and appointed.  This is the sort of preaching that deep down every preacher wants to be doing – and with God’s help can.

Dr. Jeff Stiggins
The Office of Congregational Transformation

It was for pastoral care that I first felt called into ministry.  And after five quarters of clinical pastoral education, the role of chaplain pretty much dominated my self-understanding as a minister.  Meeting people in the hospital – and then in the congregation – at the point of their need with Christ’s presence and love and with the spiritual resources of the church was also deeply rewarding for me.  Didn’t Jesus say that being a caring community is the telltale sign of His authentic followers?  “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13: 34-35)  But gradually I realized, as many congregational leaders were also coming to realize, that today’s congregations need something more from both their lay and ordained leaders.  That something more is missional leadership. 

The church now finds itself in the wilderness, where many forces in our cultural context are at odds with who and what Christ calls his followers to be and do.  Like the Hebrew children wandering in the wilderness, the Christian community today needs pastoral care as they struggle with the challenges of everyday life in a hostile environment.  However, the Hebrew children also needed Moses and Aaron to help them know who they were as God’s People and then to act in ways that were authentic to that identity.  Likewise, congregations today need clergy and lay leadership to help them remember their identity as followers of Jesus and to fulfill the mission to which He calls us.  That takes something more than pastoral care; that takes missional leadership.

Missional leaders – and please hear that I am talking about both clergy and laity — assist congregations in two vital ways: in faithfully following Jesus and in fruitfully joining him in mission. 

Faithfulness: missional leaders ask questions regarding the identity and mission given us by Jesus.  Who does Jesus call us to be?  And what does Jesus call us to do?  As people become increasingly clear about the identity and mission given us by Jesus, missional leaders must constantly call people to grapple with what it means to be authentic in their present context.  Given who we are as disciples of Jesus Christ, called to join Him in Kingdom mission, who should we be together and what should we be doing in the world?   What does having integrity as followers of Jesus mean for us?  Missional leaders constantly call the congregation’s attention back to these identity-defining questions.

Fruitfulness: You would have to be asleep like Ichabob Crane in Sleepy Hollow not to recognize that our culture and communities have radically changed over the last fifty years.   Because of our changing context for ministry, missional leaders raise questions about the continued effectiveness of past practices and call people to explore more fruitful ways of carrying out their mission in the new situation.   Jesus talked about the need for new wine to be poured into new wineskins (Matthew 9:17).  It seems to be human nature that we tend to fall in love with the wineskins from which we first drank the new wine of faith ourselves.  Missional leaders constantly raise the effectiveness question: what new wine skins will work better in serving up the new wine of faith to the people now living in our community and to the next generation? 

So what I have grown to acknowledge is that both the pastoral care and missional leadership roles are critical for congregations today.  Chaplaincy without missional leadership leads to self-absorbed declining congregations who have forgotten that Jesus calls his followers to join him on mission in the world.  Missional leadership without chaplaincy ministry results in congregations that fly apart over being “forced” to adapt new wineskins without pastoral sensitivity.  Chaplains attend to the stability and continuity of a congregation’s life together.  Missional leaders attend to the integrity and effectiveness of a congregation’s ministry.  Both functions are essential in a healthy congregation. 

As you think about your own congregation and your own leadership, is the balance tipped toward pastoral care or missional leadership?  What would it take for your congregation to be better balanced in its overall leadership?  Assuming that Christ provides what His Body needs, are there some voices that need to be listened to more carefully and given more credibility in your congregation’s life and ministry?

Dr. Jeff Stiggins
Office of Congregational Transformation

I have just finished reading a great book by Steve Ogne and Tim Roehl called Transformissional Coaching.  One of the chapters that caught my attention, probably because it addresses an issue that I have dealt with all of my life, is entitled Listening First: He who speaks without listening.  It had lots of good insights into the importance and benefits of listening as well as some practical stuff about developing good listening skills.  But what really got me focused was a listing of quotations about listening that have invited much reflection.  Whether we are in a coaching relationship, a pastoral relationship, a marriage relationship, or a friendship, I think these speak volumes to us.

So I thought I’d share a few of them with you…

• History repeats itself because no one listens the first time.  (Anonymous)
• A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something. (Wilson Mizner)
• It’s extremely difficult to introduce vital new knowledge when everybody assumes he already knows all that needs to be known.  (Lee Thayer)
• You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.  (M. Scott Peck)
• If speaking is silver, then listening is gold.  (Turkish proverb)
• Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. (Ambrose Bierce)
• It is all right to hold a conversation, but you should let go of it now and then.  (Richard Armour)
• Every person I work with knows something better than me.  My job is to listen long enough to find it and use it.  (Jack Nichols)
• No one ever listened themselves out of a job.  (Calvin Coolidge)
• An open ear is the only believable sign of an open heart. (David Augsburger)
• Listening is the single skill that makes the difference between a mediocre and a great company.  (Lee Iacocca)
• The first duty of love is to listen.  (Paul Tillich)
• The best time to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.  (Josh Billings)
• Forty-six percent of those who quit their jobs last year did so because they felt unappreciated.  (U.S. Department of Labor)
• Big egos have little ears.  (Robert Schuller)

Listening may be the most important thing we do in our ministry and in our relationships.  I hope these have given you pause for reflection as well.

Dr. Phil Maynard
Office of Congregational Transformation

Last week’s CT Blog entry talked about passionate worship: it isn’t about worship size or style, but it is about encountering God afresh and being challenged to mature as Jesus’ apprentices.  I was discussing this entry with someone yesterday who said, “Don’t you think that excellence plays a big role in passionate worship?”  I’ve been thinking about this and would like to share a couple of ideas that probably need to be more fully developed, but I’ll leave that up to you.

I remember a friend of mine saying once, “God is not glorified by mediocrity!”  He went on to quote Colossians 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord, not for men . . . It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”  A few verses earlier, the writer says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”  (vs. 17)   Obviously, excellence honors our Lord more than “good enough.” 

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  The same is true for excellence: it is hard to define, though we know it when we see it – only we don’t always agree. 

If members of our congregation are going to risk their reputation by inviting someone to come to worship with them, they have to feel good about the whole worship experience to which they are inviting persons.  When a regular attender brings someone to worship with them, they do not want to walk up the sidewalk to the sanctuary and realize — through the eyes of their guest — that the landscaping looks pretty shabby or that the lobby appears as if the congregation is ready for a garage sale.  If the sound system operator misses the first sentence or two every time a microphone is turned on, the regular worshipper may be cringing beside their guest.   If their guests are made to feel like strangers who have mistakenly shown up at someone else’s family reunion, the church member that invited them may promise themselves, “Never again!”   If the choir sounds like an out-of-tune bagpipe or if the preacher’s sermon seems to wander around aimlessly and never make relevant contact with life in the 21’st century, the regular worshiper next to their guest may find themselves blushing with embarrassment.

Sometimes when the family has been at home together, dirty dishes are sitting in the sink, beds are not fully made, toys and papers are strewed around.  It’s fine for the family just hanging out, but we wouldn’t think of inviting guests over until things were picked up and cleaned up.  Sometimes our church facility or what happens typically at our worship service is fine when the church family is just hanging out, but the level of excellence isn’t high enough and the “cringe factor” isn’t low enough that our church family members feel comfortable inviting someone to come with them.  While that isn’t exactly what Passionate Worship is all about, the lack of excellence certainly impacts people’s overall experience of worship. 

And what if the home folk all feel that their worship is excellent in their eyes, but the people in the community, whom the congregation hopes to reach, do not experience what happens as excellence from their perspective? 

I remember driving home from a Saturday night contemporary service some years ago with my son Kalon who was the pianist on our praise team.  The service was 3 or 4 years old.  We had matured significantly in the quality of our music.  We had become sophisticated in using PowerPoint and video clips.  We had learned to carefully craft the transitions between worship elements.  Because all that I did at the worship service was preach and because the “cringe factor” had gotten so low, I found I was personally able to worship more freely in that service than during the Sunday morning traditional services.  On the way home, I was literally thinking how much I appreciated our jazzy Saturday night service when Kalon spoke up: “Dad, the music on Saturday night is lame.”  Suddenly, I was struck with the fact that the 26 years that separated this dad from his son meant that their perceptions of excellence were different.  One wasn’t right and the other wrong, but they were different.  What drew me in because it seemed excellent to me, certainly wasn’t perceived as excellence by my son’s generation.  It forced me to begin to wonder: “What sort of service would be perceived as excellent by persons in their late teen (and now late twenty’s)?  What sort of worship service because of its perceived excellence would enable his generation of young men and women (and now their families) to learn to worship passionately? 

What about your worship service?  Is its excellence sufficient that your church family members are willing to invite their friends over?  And when their younger friends come, do they perceive the service as excellent and want to come back?  And if not, what does that say about your Radical Hospitality – extending God’s grace to the community and the next generation?

Dr. Jeff Stiggins
Office of Congregational Transportation

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