Need Help – Invitational culture and evangelism
I need your help.
The Task Force on Welcome and Outreach that I mentioned previously will be meeting soon (later this month, probably). We’d like to come up with 5-8 books on our topic for the team members to read this summer and report back to the group. This is part 1 of the education phase.
Our charter calls for surveying visitors on their visit experience, surveying the community for their impressions of the church and spiritual needs, and then making recommendations to the session. The recommendations are supposed to cover creating a culture of hospitality and invitational evangelism.
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Do you have any book suggestions? I have a handle on what it feels like to BE a visitor, but I’m really stuck on how to survey the community. Books on invitational evangelism and books on a culture of hospitality would be very useful.
Thanks for your help! Please leave suggestions in the comments. If you can’t get the comments to work, e-mail me at the address behind the link in the left-hand menu.
Being A New Member – A 6-month checkin
About 8 months ago, I wrote Church – A New Chapter, in which I announced that I was beginning the new member process for joining the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville (NJ). I actually joined 2 months later. That makes this about the 6-month anniversary.
Time for a report card. I’ll stick with my hopes and fears from 6-8 months ago.
The overall grade is B+. The church has come to feel like home, and I often refer to it with the same feeling that I would use to refer to my family. There are some things that could be better, and I haven’t completely settled in yet. The details are really long, so they continue below (those reading on the site itself will need to click the link below).
Whoosh! and a question on calls
Whoosh!
That’s the noise that I probably made getting through all that I had to do this weekend.
Saturday, the Youth Sunday rehearsal ran long. I was at church from 10:30am to 2:30pm. I was completely impressed with the youth. The 3 seniors who delivered the sermon hit the message perfectly and needed very little tweaking. The rest of the crew adapted to their jobs quite easily. I’ll write more on this later.
Sunday was Youth Sunday. I was the usher-herder. I also had to get prepared for the Adult Forum afterwards and eat breakfast. Everything was a rush. The service went great, and as I said above I’ll write more later.
After the service I had to run away from the youth and go finish setting up for the adult forum. I was the 1st speaker of 3 – covering the biblical basis for environmental stewardship. I think it went well (nobody came up and said that I did a good job, but they seemed to be paying attention).
After that, I ran home and had exactly 30 minutes to eat lunch, shower and change to go to the opera with Carolyn. We saw Rigoletto in Trenton. I’ll write a whole blog post on that for you. The opera was good – the lead soprano was amazing.
—————————————————-
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Last week sometime, in my way over-churched haze, I remember having a dream one night. I don’t remember what the dream was about, but I do remember one snippet.
I was involved in something at church. My current pastor passed me a note (it wasn’t during a service or meeting or anything – he just handed me a note as we met standing up somewhere). The note said something like “Be sure to listen for a Call.”
Now I realize that I’ve recently become re-involved in the church, and that I’m a likely candidate for over-enthusiasm. If you remember my story, once upon a time I was deciding between Computer Science and Religion as my college major. Due to some unhappy church-related events Computer Science became my major, and Religion my minor. I honestly believed going into college that I might be headed for seminary.
The only word I’ve ever heard encouraging this came more recently. I told my current Youth Director (under whom I work as a Youth Advisor) my personal faith story. He asked if I’d consider seminary now. I told him that I’ve only been back a year or even a few months (depending on how you count) and that besides – I’m a bit too used to my current income level.
I don’t know what this dream means, but it is intriguing. Is this a message? Is it just the product of doing too much church in too short a time period?
So here’s my question to the professionals out there. Would you be willing to tell me (here in the comments, in e-mail, or even on your blog) what your Call was like? When did you know that you were being called to the ministry?
Busy Week
Here’s my crazy schedule for the rest of the week.
Wednesday – 6:30 – 8:30pm – Youth Sunday rehearsal
Thursday – 6pm – 10pm – Trenton Titans playoff game
Friday – 6:30pm – 10:30pm – Trenton Titans playoff game (if they win Thursday)
Saturday – 10:30am – 1pm – Youth Sunday rehearsal
Then Sunday:
8:45am – leave for church
9am – 9:30am – set up for Earth Day adult forum
9:30am – be adult shepherd for ushers for Youth Sunday
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11am-ish – as soon as the service is over, run directly to the lounge
11:15am – be the speaker for the 1st 15 minutes of the Earth Day adult forum
Noon – Adult Forum ends, go home
1:30pm – leave for opera (Boheme Opera – Rigoletto)
1:45pm – pre-curtain talk (always worth the time)
3pm – 6pm – opera
6:30pm – come home, collapse
Unfortunately, I have to miss the post-Youth Sunday service lunch with all participants in order to do the Earth Day presentation.
Welcome, Rev. Mary Alice Lyman
The Rev. Mary Alice Lyman was Called by the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville (NJ) yesterday to fill the Associate Pastor position. The congregational vote (by secret ballot) was unanimous!
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Welcome aboard! I look forward to seeing you again once you completely arrive in July!
TO Committee!
(well, at least To Task Force)
I met with our pastor last night about the “other idea” that he had.
It seems that he’s been reading a lot of the stuff on my blog (Hi, Jeff!) – particularly the stuff that I’m writing about new members and visitors.
He’s looking to put together a task force to study how the church is perceived by visitors, seekers, and the surrounding community.
Other than these genuine reactions, there may be some http://www.learningworksca.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Divided_We_Fail.pdf tadalafil cialis india basic light-force symptoms also. Avoid taking heavy meals when planning to have a generic sildenafil pill It should be consumed 30 minutes to an hour before any sexual activity viagra on line prescription to get the hard and strong erections that will last for several hours to several days and generally it is less than 3 days. In parallel, I studied the accumulated experience in sectors that have learned how to methodically develop and generate such hits. viagra soft Another interesting fact is that about 95% of the serotonin present in the body at any time is in the America, where a population of above 7,00,000 has gone under knee and hip replacement. cialis 10 mg He’s asked me to chair the task force. There will be a small number of chosen members (as opposed to “whoever wants to show up”) and the team will work for about 18 months. I asked for a co-chair who has been around a while and knows the church and lots of members because I’m fairly new and haven’t gotten to know all that many people.
Beyond that, the charter and membership are still up in the air. We’ll probably get the team together in May to organize, and then take the summer for each member to do some homework (probably some books to read) and get started in earnest in the fall.
I will likely have to limit my blogging on this Task Force to what we are willing to say publicly. I will probably do some blogging about the committee process in general, particularly successes.
One thing that I can promise – I want your help. I will be asking questions over time about how each of you handle different issues or answer different questions in your community. I’ve found that I have a fairly diverse audience of church-related people (and others!) and I’d like to leverage that to help. In return, I promise that by the end of our process I will blog some useful information gained by experience – just as I have with the Reconnecting with Faith retreats.
NOT to committee, at least not this one
I got a call last night on the answering machine from a member of the Stewardship committee. This was my “contact later” mentioned in the letter from the pastor. (I blogged this previously here).
I called her back today.
I started off by mentioning the fact that my pastor had sent me a separate e-mail talking about another initiative that he’d like to speak to me about. That initiative – which deals with visitors, seekers, and the perception of the church in the community – is a much better fit for me. It falls right in line with my personal experience, my retreat experience, and some of the things that I’ve written for this blog (which is apparently what brought me to his attention in the first place). He also specifically mentioned that I should choose either this new initiative or the stewardship committee, but not both – in order to avoid “new member overinvolvement” syndrome.
Then I mentioned my concerns about last year’s stewardship campaign (detailed in my blog post referenced above). I also listed the good that I took from last fall’s campaign and how I increased my pledge 25% above my original plan based on one speaker’s message about taking risks knowing that God will provide.
She explained that they plan to use Herb Miller’s Consecration Sunday program for next year’s campaign, and that they are trying to get the focus from keeping the church heated to giving what you are called to give. I agree that this is the correct tack to take when it comes to stewardship. However, I’m not sure that I’m a good fit. The last thing that I want is to be the lone voice of dissent no matter how valuable that might be to the committee. Remember – I’ve only been a member for 6 months.
I’d also like to see some concentration on the gift of time and talents rather than just money. Based on my committee work here thus far, it seems that the congregation suffers from the usual church disease – a small number of people do a lot of the work.
I really believe that the other “visitor/seeker” initiative is a better fit for me because:
- It’s something that I’m really passionate about
- Working on it doesn’t necessarily require knowing lots of other members
- It’s more focused on giving to individuals rather than taking/accepting from them (I put my youth group work in this category too)
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I think the way that we left it is that I’m not interested in the Stewardship committee. I’m hoping that my feedback will be well received (it was clearly heard and understood).
As for the other initiative – Tuesday will tell (next Tuesday, that is).
While I was dreading this phone call, I think it went well.
——————————–
In other news, my blood pressure is acting up. I got refused by the blood center for a platelet donation last night because my BP was too high. They tend to get a higher reading than the doctor every time (probably because I go to them straight from work and straight from the highway), but I checked at home this time and it really was that high. I have a physical scheduled for later this week anyway. I’ve been on medication for high BP for over 10 years, but maybe my body has adjusted and they need to up the dosage. We’ll see. Mom’s BP has been all over the place (from normal to very high) for years, so I guess I inherited a problem.
Youth Group Comedy
Last night, the youth group started off by attending the Taize service for Wholeness and Healing at the church. This service involved annointing.
Afterwards, the youth group got back together for a quick meeting to go over Youth Sunday which is coming up.
Comedy #1:
Youth Director: So, what did you think about the service? What did you like?
Freshman Girl: It was short, and there wasn’t a sermon.
Comedy #2:
We’re listing the parts of the worship service to get ready for planning Youth Sunday.
We’re all yelling out parts of the service:
Somebody: Assurance of Pardon
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Scribe Girl: writes “Insurance of Pardon”
Youth Director: I like that! Leave it.
(At this point I leaned over to another adult and asked “Does that make the Offering an Insurance Premium?”)
Scribe Girl: (embarrassed) changes it to Assurance
Youth Director: “Insurance of Pardon”, what does that mean?
Scribe Girl’s Older Brother: It means my sister needs a helmet!
Gotta love siblings.
(It probably didn’t help much that we’d already had ice cream at this point.)
To committee or not to committee
I got a letter from my pastor last night.
He wants to invite me to join the Stewardship Committee. Next year, the committee will apparently be using Herb Miller’s “Consecration Sunday Stewardship” program, focusing on the spiritual need to be “givers” rather than the church’s need to “receive”.
It’s nice to be asked. However ….
When I joined the church, we were asked to fill out a stewardship questionnaire. On the page were a list of major church committees, and we were asked to check those that we were interested in. Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, Stewardship is one that I chose not to check.
I also have some fundamental issues with the way that the church in general goes about asking for money. Giving is too often a demand in the church. I feel that giving in the church should be voluntary – each gives as they feel moved (called, even) to do so. If the church comes up short, they tell us so and we adjust our giving to make it up. I really don’t care what other people give – it’s only important to consider my own giving.
This past year, the church (through the pastor) threw around actual numbers. In one sermon, Pastor Vamos said:
One tangible indicator of our generosity is this–our giving to the
church. The health of this organism. We need to say that. If our
congregation is struggling to meet the bills, something is wrong. Your
giving to this church is an indicator of whether you’re living
generously. If you’re making over $90,000 and giving $50 a week–your
intent may not match with the reality. There’s something wrong with
that picture.
The use of an actual dollar amount in the sermon is what bothered me the most. That sermon almost caused me not to pledge this year. In a later sermon, a guest preacher exhorted us to take risks with our giving, knowing that God will make it work. On the basis of that guest’s sermon, I increased the amount that I pledged by 25% over what I’d planned to give.
Later, Pastor Vamos compounded the error of using specific numbers. During his “State of the Communion” sermon, he spoke about the actual pledges received:
There are some interesting statistics that you can take home and mull
over. I remember from college statistics that the mean is the average,
and so our average pledge from this past year is $2,206. And that’s a
lot more than it was last year, and so that’s terrific. But the
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are below–is $1,500. And I’ve been told that the mark of health for a
congregation is when the mean and the median are close together,
because it means that we’re not as dependent on those large pledges.
And don’t get me wrong–if you’re one of those larger givers, we hope
that you will increase your giving, because that really affects our
ministry greatly. But this really represents a challenge to those who
are below that mean and are able to, if you have the gifts, to be able
to do more. It’s a challenge for us to think about that, how we can try
to make the mean and the median match up a little more closely.
It was even worse than that. We were given a bulletin insert that showed a bar graph with each pledge from smallest to largest (the smallest being under $100 and the largest being $20,000). We were also given the average household income for the county, the average household income for the town that the church is in, and what a 10% tithe would be for each of those incomes. These were compared to the average and median pledges.
The use of specific numbers in financial stewardship is the use of guilt in the church. It’s measuring us against each other rather than measuring us against Christ. There’s no question in my mind that the church must be funded in order to survive. There’s also no question in my mind that giving of your time, talents, and money are required for a faithful Christian. It’s just the use of specific numbers that bothers me. Following Christ is not about guilt – it’s about the grace of Christ’s sacrifice and our attempt to be as Christ-like as possible to thank God for that miracle.
Lest you think that I’m griping because I’m cheap, my pledge was above the average. It’s important to remember that I am a part of a two-church household, and Carolyn pledges a similar (probably identical, but I’m not sure) amount to her church.
So the problem for me is this: If I’m uncomfortable with asking others to give money, if I’m uncomfortable with the way that stewardship campaigns have been handled in the past – should I join the stewardship committee?
Perhaps my presence would moderate some of the things that bother me. On the other hand, I really don’t want to find myself at odds with the rest of the committee and my pastor on a regular basis.
What do you think?
I really wish they’d chosen me for one of the other committees.
The letter says that “in the next couple of weeks, someone from the current committee will be calling to see if you are willing to serve.” I hope I have an answer by then.
Green Church Options
The report of the Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church “Green Team” to the Buildings and Grounds committee is complete.
We suggested several possibilities for inclusion in the upcoming Capital Campaign. I say “suggested” rather than “endorsed” because timing prevented the Green Team from meeting and voting on the options.
The proposals are:
- Installation of Solar Panels – likely on the Fellowship Center – this is a big dollar project
- Switching from fuel oil to biodiesel for heating the church and manse – we concluded that the distribution network isn’t there today but should be soon. This would cost more, but be cleaner.
- Replacing electrical lighting fixtures and incandescent light bulbs with lower energy alternatives (newer long tube ballasts, compact fluorescent bulbs)
- Insulating the roof of the Fellowship Center to increase R-value
- Lowering thermostats and placing framed instructions on temporarily turning them up in all locations – our new programmable thermostats automatically go back to the programmed setting after 2 hours. This would involve setting them lower most of the time and turning them up only when a meeting is held in a particular room.
- Installing ceiling fans in the Fellowship Center (essentially a big high-ceiling multi-purpose room with basketball hoops)
- Installing storm windows in the Meetinghouse (sanctuary) – our historically accurate building does not have them.
- Power Vents for Fellowship Center (to pull hot air out of the room in the summer)
- Weatherstripping/caulking all buildings
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As you can see, most of the recommendations are non-controversial but cost a fair amount of money when done all at once.
The focus of the Green Team should now shift to preparing advocacy and educational presentations for Earth Day (April 22). We have the “Adult Forum” slot that day after worship. The youth are leading worship that day, and we may have the environment be the subject of the “Adult Message” that replaces the “Children’s Message” (where the kids all come down front and get a special lesson) on that day.
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