Ministry model vs. Business model — Part 2

Ministry model vs Business model — Part 1

…I’m alright.  My mom called me this morning thinking something was wrong.  I did not post my usual “Sunday morning prayer” yesterday and had not posted my usual “Monday morning check in” yet today.  Sorry mom (and little sis)…I didn’t mean to worry you two.

Anyway…I am here.  Yesterday morning got a little busy and this morning has been the same.  It is hard to believe that September is right around the corner so that means Sunday school, Release Time and Confirmation is upon us.  Wow…where did the summer go?

Council meeting update
Last week I resumed talking about the business meeting model vs. ministry meeting model for my church council (See the above link for part one of this series).  In July we did some brainstorming on how we can better advance the mission of Christ.  I was very excited and encouraged about the outcome of that meeting.  I then mailed out some “homework” for the council; encouraging them to continue this ministry planning.  My hope was to discuss what they did at out August.  Unfortunately we did not get to do what I wanted to do.  It didn’t work out to start the meeting with mission planning and by the time we got to that agenda item it was getting late and people were getting restless.  I need to sit down with my president and make sure we are on the same page here.

Then today I got an email from a council member on how we need to spend more time in scripture and prayer at council meetings.  She felt we need to start our meetings reading the Bible together and praying more.  She must have been reading my mind these past few weeks and months.

So here is part of my plan to transform the Salem church council into a ministry meeting model over a business meeting model. Let me know what you think:
(1) On a piece of poster board that is hung in our meeting room, I have a list of our ministry priorities that we feel will advance the mission of Christ (this is our brainstorm list from July).  This will serve as a reminder each and every month why we really are taking time out of our busy schedules each month.

(2) The assigned council member for the month will lead the group in devotions as always.

(3)I will then lead the group in reading scripture.  Maybe the focus texts will be the lectionary texts for the upcoming Sunday.  Discussion and prayer would follow.

(4) Begin the “business” meeting portion of the ministry meeting.  This way, if the meeting starts running long, whats really important will not get the shaft.

So one of my priority do-to items this month is to sit down with my council president and share with him this plan and make sure he is on board.

What are your thoughts on this plan so far?  What would you add or do differently?

Series to be continued…

Take care and God bless!

-edh-

The Book of Faith

The Book of Faith is an initiative that has been launched by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

What is this initiative all about? 

Basically it is an initiative to get people back into THE book of faith…the Bible.  There are too many people out there that have very little biblical knowledge…and that needs to change.  On the surface it seems a little strange that a Church would need to launch an initiative like this because after all, reading the Bible seems like something that should be natural for Christians…right?  Wrong.

Walk into a Lutheran church and notice how many people bring their own Bible.  I am willing to bet you won’t see to many.  Often times the only scripture that people see is that little bulletin insert that many churches use in worship.  Some people never actually touch a Bible.  It sits on their shelf at home, collecting dust, but looking good for others who happen to visit.  Instead of the Bible looking good, we need to engage the Bible and see the Good News for ourselves.  The Bible is God’s love letter to us…so why keep that on the shelf.

At the Okoboji Lakes Bible and Missionary Conference one of the speakers said something that really caught my attention (actually there were many things that caught my attention but lets focus on this one).  What he said was, “Are you reading (the Bible) for information or because you are thirsty?“  I have to admit that more times than not I fall into the “information” category than the “thirsty” one: 
     “How will I preach this text?”  
     “Hmmm…this could make a good blog post.”  
     “How could I teach this or lead a Bible study on this text?” 
So I start searching for illustrations and look at the text “professionally” instead of devotionally.  Maybe this is a pastor thing.  I’m not saying that pastors don’t read the Bible devotionally, but I wonder how often we fall into the “information” reason over the “thirsty” one.

David over at Here I Stand is pondering the Book of Faith initiative as well and I am wondering who else is.  What are some good ways we can encourage people to get into the Bible more?  I know there are programs out there but I wonder how effective they are.  I think engaging the Bible has to be more than some canned program.  To me a canned Bible reading program will generate excitement in the short term, but we need to foster a long term relationship with scripture.  So I am curious on what people are doing and thinking about this important topic.

For people who have made the jump to Facebook there is a Book of Faith group were there is some fruitful discussion going on about the Book of Faith Initiative.  I would recommend that as one place to go.  And…as a side note (for Facebook people or soon-to-be Facebook people) there is a group called “Facebook for Pastors” where you can download a free book by the same title.  It is about how pastors (and anyone in ministry) can best use Facebook for ministry.  Maybe this can be a tool to engage people in discussions about scripture.  Hmmm…

Anyway…I throw this out to you.  Let’s get thirsty for scripture.

Take care and God bless!

-edh-

Monday morning (or should I say “afternoon”) check in

I am finally back in the office…but a little late on getting to my blog.  If you could have seen the pile of stuff I had to deal with I think you would understand.  I enjoy getting away for awhile; its just the getting caught up that I don’t like.  But I think I am there.

Last night I had an AWESOME night…

…that is Point of Grace and I had third row, center aisle seats for this concert.  AND…it was free.  This was the finale of the Okoboji Lakes Bible and Missionary Conference that I attended this past week…and everything is free…it has been that way for 74 years.  This is an amazing conference and I am always blown away that they can put on such an event based solely on the contributions of generous supporters. 

Each morning started with prayer and then a Bible study.  At 10am we have some fellowship time before we head to the “communities” (small group sessions) at 10:30.  There isn’t anything going on in the afternoon but we reconvene at 7:15pm for the evening worship celebration time with a different (usually a nationally known) speaker (i.e.  Tuesday night was Phil Vischer, the founder of Veggie Tales).  And did I say that all of this is FREE?

The “community” I attended in the mornings was lead by Phil Vischer and his brother Rob (a law professor at St. Thomas Law School in the Twin Cities).  They spoke about Christ and Culture.  I missed the Monday and Tuesday communities but I am glad I made it to Wednesday’s.  Here Rob Vischer spoke about the Christian perspective on family law.  The basic premise was the evolution of the same sex marriage debate.  This is something that has been brewing for quite a few decades.  But what was really scary is where the law is headed in the future.  Basically the family unit is being de-valued and more emphasis is being placed on individual liberty.  Hence…people starting to be allowed to decided who’s in their family.  Rob said that on the horizon the next debate will be polygamy because if two men or two women want to get married, why not expand that definition to include more people.  The direction that family law is headed is very scary.  This was indeed an eye opening “community”.

So much more happened this past week but I am still trying to process everything.  I got a feeling that as other learnings begin to bubble up that they will soon find themselves on the pages of this blog.  But in the mean time I will take my leave of this topic.

In the future
There are some other blog topics that I have started that I haven’t dealt with for a while…and I am going to be returning to these topics shortly:
(1) Evangelism — at the end of July I was invited to participate in a meeting at the ELCA headquarters in Chicago.  My bishop along with a synod minister and our synod V.P. attended this meeting.  We heard a number of presentations and participated in some fruitful brainstorming for the synod.  I also got appointed to the “Serving in God’s World” board (evangelism and outreach) for the SW MN synod.  I am looking forward to writing more about my involvement here.

(2) Business meeting model vs. Ministry meeting model — this was something concerning church councils.  Wrote a while back about my efforts of changing how our church council looks at themselves.  We need to be a group of people focused on advancing the mission of Christ in the world around us.  Someone commented and asked me how I was going to do this and I responded that I was still working on it.  Well…I want to return to this topic in the near future.  I have a council meeting this week and I hope to implement a new “agenda item”.  I will say more about this later.

(3) Learnings from the Okoboji Lakes Bible and Missionary Conference.

Whew…that’s a lot of stuff coming up and I am excited to get started writing.  I guess time off really did me some good.

Anyway…take care and God bless!

-edh-

Sunday morning prayer — unshakable

I am on the verge of returning to “normal”. I am still on continuing education so in about an hour Connie and I will be heading down to worship at the Okoboji Lakes Bible and Missionary Conference. So much has happened and I have learned so much that I can’t put everything into one post. But I do want to share one quick thing with you this morning.

Last night our speaker was talking about courage…courage that is not of this world…a courage that only comes through an amazing encounter with God. The theme of the conference is titled “Unshakable”…which has been a great theme for me personally (more on that in a later post). Last night our speaker (whose name I can’t spell off the top of my head, but will get the spelling when I get to my office tomorrow) said something last night that still has me thinking. He said, “To have an unshakable faith we first must be shaken”. And that “shaken-ness” comes from a powerful encounter with God. An encounter like what Peter had with Jesus in Luke 5 or Job had with God. Both were “shaken” to the core and became courageous followers of Jesus/God. Our speaker then said, “When we are shaken by something really big (Jesus) then everything else seems small in comparison.” Wow! Have I truly been shaken by Jesus? Have you? It has really got me thinking.

And with that I will leave you thinking since I need to go and get ready for worship. But I will write more about this later. Let’s pray:
Powerful God, shake us to the core with your love through Jesus Christ our Lord. Transform our view of you from a small God to a powerful God. Transform how we look and treat others. Transform how we share our faith with others. Father God, shake us till we drop to our knees in reverent worship of you. Create in us an unshakable faith…through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray, AMEN!

God bless and have a wonderful day.

-edh-

Wild Goose Chase

I DID IT!!!

Today (Saturday, Aug. 2) I ran a race called “The Wild Goose Chase”.  This is a 18.6 mile (30K) race that goes around Lac Qui Parle Lake near my hometown of Dawson.  Before this race my longest run was 12 miles so I knew this was going to be a huge test for me.  Up until the 15 mile mark I was doing fine, but at the 15 mile mark I hit what is called “the wall”.  Basically there was a lot of walking during the final 3.6 miles,  but I did finish hard.  But more importantly…I FINISHED.  My goal was to finish in under 3 hours.  My time was 3:00:21.  Missed by that much…21 seconds.  Oh well…I FINISHED.

The Twin Cities Marathon is two months away and I still have a lot of work to do, but I do feel encouraged.  I have an idea of what I am going to face in Oct.  Overcoming “the wall” is very much psychological so now I have some experience to draw from.  What got me through “the wall” today?  The mere fact that I would always regret not finishing.  I am hoping that motivation will get me through the Twin Cities Marathon in October.  And…there has to be a sermon illustration in here some place.

So now I sit here feeling very good about myself; nursing some sore muscles.  But when asked by my wife if I am glad I ran this race…my answer is “Yes”.  Sore muscles will heal and I will be back running on Monday morning looking forward to my next race (10K — 6.2 mile) in September.

With that I continue with my vacation so I will be back with you next week.  Take care and God bless.

-edh-

Mid-vacation update

Greetings and salutations…

I am sitting here in the Holiday Inn in Willmar as my wife visits the fitness center here.  Since I am by myself for a little while, I thought I would take this opportunity to check in.

It has been a fun an exciting few days.  On Sunday I flew to Chicago for a meeting at ELCA headquarters.  It was called the Synod Mission Table Pilot Project.  Thirteen of the 65 synods from around the ELCA were invited to gather and talk about mission strategy.  I was invited to attend this meeting with three others from the synod office including our bishop, a synod minister and the synod council V.P.  We heard some amazing presenters and spent some quality time together discussing some mission strategy for the synod.  I was honored to be included in this meeting and discussion.  We have a tough road ahead of us as SW MN is a synod that is declining in population and worship attendance.  We definitely need to rethink how we do mission and have to do something to encourage our people to be who they were created to be:  evangelists.  I think we have a pretty good plan in place and I look forward to writing more about our efforts as things unfold.

On Tuesday I flew back home and headed up north to the St. Cloud area to join Connie and her family for some time at a resort.  We had some great weather and some fun times together.  Last night we packed up and head our separate directions.  On the way home to Dawson, Connie and I decided to stop in Willmar at a hotel and have some time together and do some shopping before we head to Dawson on Friday.  On Saturday I am running a 18.6 mile road race called the Wild Goose chase.  This will be a great tune up for the Twin Cities Marathon in October. 

Anyway…I probably should sign off and pack a little bit.  We have a fun day ahead of us.  I will be back next week for my regular posts.  In the mean time, God bless you and I look forward to our continued conversations.

Take care!

-edh-

Coffee shop ponderings — God’s “good” plan

Here I am…posting my coffee shop ponderings from outside of Coffee Choices.  Actually…I never made it there today to write my sermon (I did make it there this morning for coffee though).  I usually start writing the sermon in my office and finish it at my coffee shop, but today was different.  I got on a roll and couldn’t stop typing.

On Sunday I am continuing my sermon series on Romans by preaching on chapter 8 verses 26-39.  I started pondering and praying about verse 28 where it says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.“  Upon pondering this verse I started thinking how this verse is often misused (or at least used in the wrong situations).  The times I have heard this verse used is when someone is facing a devastating disaster or disease diagnosis or something else devastating.  And in times like those, Romans 8:28 is the last verse I want to hear.  If I am mourning the lost of my house and possessions because of a tornado, quoting Romans 8:28 almost sounds like that God planned this disaster so he could do something “good”.  At the moment that is not comforting.  After the fact I may be able to look back and see the good that came from that disaster, but not right now.

I think this verse is used because of our insatiable desire to explain everything.  If we can’t explain it in scientific or logical terms we chalk it up to God’s divine plan (”I am not sure why this happened, but God is going to do something good thought it; it was God’s will.”)  Telling a parent, who’s child just died, that it was God’s will is often not the right thing to say.  Or trying telling them that God will do something good though that death.  You might get an angry response in return.  But who knows how they will look at death later on down the road.

Instead, I see Romans 8:28 as a proclamation of grace.  The “good” God is working towards is nothing else than our reconciliation through Jesus Christ.  Ever since the Fall, God has been working to reconcile creation back to himself.  And it is only though faith that we can recognize this “good”.  Sometimes the “crap” of this world can cloud our faith so we cannot see God active in our lives.  But after the dust clears, then things begin to clear up.

In a simple phrase, quoted by a friend of mine on Facebook, “It’s all grace!”  And that is so true.  God IS working for good, but let’s be careful how and when we use this verse.  We might do more harm than good.  Instead, share with people how God has gotten you thought difficult times.  Talk about God’s amazing love and how he never left you when you were going to a tough time.  Let people see the “good” for themselves after the dust has cleared.

What are your thoughts on Romans 8:28…especially in the context of verses 28 - 39?  Do you think this verse often gets misused?

SIDE NOTE:
There will be no “Coffee shop ponderings” next week as I will be on vacation up north.  Actually, there might not be a whole lot of activity from me at all next week, but you never know.  In the mean time, I look forward to reading your thoughts here.  Take care and I will catch you later.

-edh-

Sonshine photos

Here are a couple photos that begin to give you a picture of the Sonshine experience.

This is a small glimpse of “tent city”.  This is was taken on Wednesday when people were still “moving in”.  In a matter of hours from when this picture was taken you won’t see much grass anymore.

…and this is the back of my head at the main stage.  This definitely does not give you an idea of what the main stage experience was like, but if you image about 20 to 30 thousand people sitting in lawn chairs, then that will be a start.

-edh-

Monday morning check in — Post-Sonshine post

Here I am…in my office…post-Sonshine…procrastinating on writing my newsletter article (of course, by the time my secretary reads this I WILL be working on my article, I promise).

Anyway…we had a great time at Sonshine Festival.  We heard lots of great music from the likes of Jars of Clay, Third Day, Jeremy Camp, Toby Mac, Hawk Nelson, Peder Eide, Barlowgirl, David Crowder, and much more.  That list is definitely not listed in order because that would be to hard to do.  But Hawk Nelson is a group I never really listened to before but I am now developing a new appreciation for them.  All the groups were (and are) great examples and very open about their faith.  It was fun and inspiring to hear them and worship with them.  And for $68 for the weekend…for all that music…you just can’t beat that.

Our group consisted of my wife and I along with one senior high girl from Salem with a group of 10 from Our Savior’s.  There were more adults than youth in our group, but everyone had fun.  We camped in tent city where there were thousands of tents crammed in together.  It is hard to describe the scene but trust me, it was a zoo.  The “city” never really completely died down.  There was activity all night long for all four nights.  My wife and I came home on Saturday and let me tell ya…a shower and my bed felt great on Saturday night.  But over all it was a great experience and we are already looking forward to next year.

Ramp update
I haven’t said much in this area for a while but here’s a quick update (just in case you were wondering).  All the cement is poured and now they are on the brick work.  Red-ish (basic brick color…whatever that is “offically” called) bricks will be placed on the side of the ramp and a brick wind break is currently being built on the north side of the ramp by the sanctuary door.  The time table for completion is still mid-August sometime.  I will get some pictures posted soon.

One week to go…
After this week I will be out of the office for a couple weeks.  On Sunday I fly to Chicago for a special meeting on evangelism and outreach.  I was invited by the synod office to attend this meeting (I will discuss this more in another post this week).  After I get back on Tuesday I go on vacation until Sunday.  On Sunday I am still out of the office but for continuing education.  The week of Aug 3 - 10 I am at the Okoboji Lakes Bible and Missionary Conference.  A free conference in the Okoboji Lakes area (about 20 miles from here).  That too I will write more about later.  So this week I have a lot to get done before I head out.

With that…I leave you with this quote I came across…one I used in my sermon yesterday: “We are not in the land of the living, but in the land of the dying — someday we shall be in the Land of the Living.“  What a great reminder of the hope we all have in Jesus Christ.

Take care and have a great day!

-edh-

Sunday morning prayer

Hey all…I am back from a fun trip to Sonshine Festival.  I have more to tell you, but I don’t have time right now…that will have to wait until tomorrow.  In in the mean time let’s join together in a word of prayer…

God of hope, you give us strength to endure in the face of hopelessness.  When all seems lost you show us the way.  When darkness over takes us, you are our light.  When illness threatens to take everything we are, you are our healing.  When the world tries to crush us, you build us up…even stronger.  Oh God of hope, through Jesus Christ you give us something to look forward to.  Help us to see this vision vision and remember this promise in the darkest of times and the joyous of occasions.  Thank you for giving hope beyond hopelessness, in Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

Off to worship now so I’ll see you tomorrow.  Take care.

-edh-