Encouragement for leaders
Here’s a very thoughtful article on the subject that is well worth thinking about. It’s so easy to get out of the habit that we need reminding from time to time why it is so important.
http://blogs.christianpost.com/the-pastors-eye/ten-good-reasons-to-go-to-church-9676/
After our fun celebration, I began thinking, “Why is it important to celebrate? Are there good reasons besides the fun?” I remembered immediately that God must have thought it was important as he taught the OT people to set aside time for feasting and rejoicing. Now, in the glow of our big weekend, I can see some of the reasons.
The energy of the occasion is catching. People like to be a part of a good purpose in a way that is immediate and tangible. Helping out at a celebration provides a positive emotional feedback to the volunteer, especially when coupled with appropriate appreciation from those being helped. Volunteering in turn helps the volunteer to feel more a part of the organization that they helped.
We found that the combination of workers thinking together and the challenge of a focused task that they strongly believed in generated much creativity. All kinds of new ideas were spawned in the past few months and many of them were used. One of the biggest examples was the sanctuary makeover. The idea of preparing for the future helped set a climate for change. The creative idea of dividing the front wall between paint and paneling instead of all paneling was accepted by a huge majority. The new design’s decorative flexibility became evident at the 50th as the background of the cross became purple to complement the purple and gold color scheme of the celebration. Enlarging the vestibule and moving the doors to the center created an entrance so natural that it seems like it always should have been like that. For another example, we had done slide shows before on the big screen but never with the music embedded and narration overlaid. Anne Kipping and JoAnne Jones went as far as they could and then called in Josh Basile to put it all together. A third example was the spontaneous recreation of the church sign landscaping by Cindy Centner and Vicki Hilliges. All these examples made it obvious that creativity just happens as we celebrate.
Sometimes our praises seem rather ordinary, habitual and dutiful. That’s certainly much superior to a lack of praise, but there is more.
As our celebration continues, I continue to reflect on the planning that has led up to our celebration. I was thinking about things that we could have done better. That is part of evaluating any major effort.
Somehow we thought when we did the yearly budget a year ago that the cost of our celebration would get absorbed here and there in the budget. But as the year progressed and the celebration got closer, the committee could see that it was a big mistake not to ask for a specific budget line for the celebration itself. Fortunately for the celebration, this was one of those years where we needed to do a mid-year budget revision; so even though we were cutting the budget total, the finance committee carved out a line item for the celebration in the revised budget. Sooner or later, and especially in a tight budget year, subcommittees for promotion or dinner or remembrances, etc. are going to need money.
We discovered as the celebration neared that our leadership cadre was too thin. We were like a basketball team with only 5 players and no one to substitute when someone was injured or needed a rest. One team leader couple was doing double duty in two areas. While it was barely tolerable because the time frames of major involvement were staggered, it was definitely not ideal. Another leader had family circumstances arise that required more attention. Since that area had no assistant leader and very few team members, some work inevitably fell upon other sub-groups. When leaders are overloaded, the whole project suffers and workers can get a sour taste from overwork. Hindsight says we should have recruited assistant leaders so that each team had some back-up in case of emergency. I think I could have been more helpful in recruiting additional sub-team members. I left that to committee heads.
We decided as part of the build-up to the 50th anniversary to put the pastor on Facebook and create a Facebook page for the church. We did not realize when we did it that this medium would quickly become one of our best means of getting the word out about activities. If we had started sooner, we would have had more time to build up our Facebook following for the church’s page. Of course, we also created website pages for the 50th and the pastor blogged about it as well. However, we did not assign enough writers. We created the internet vehicles but had trouble getting sufficient new content online to maximize our exposure. Ideally we needed at least two volunteers specifically writing for the web and Facebook. Then, I think we needed additional means to link Facebook, the webpages, and the pastor’s blog. We were on the right track, but in hindsight, we could have been much more effective with a few changes.
Recruit more photographers
We had assigned a photographer for a formal picture of guests, but we had not assigned photogrphers for informal pictures. I wish we had. When we asked later for pictures that had been taken at the celebration, there were not nearly as many as we expected.
The preparations have been exhausting, but the result is clearly worth it. Many people have pitched in to accomplish a prodigious amount of work in the last week in preparation for this weekend at Community Wesleyan.
Cindy Center took on some of the outside gardening and asked Vicki Hilleges to help. Vicki in turn recruited her daughter Nicole and husband Doug to finish the complete redo of the landscaping surrounding our church sign. It looks awesome. Cindy and Vicki also resurrected the old planter between the pines, the first time it has been plated since I have been pastor here. Mike and Pat had lots of help in setting up for the dinner and it looks gorgeous with everything in purple and gold. Fran recruited help too and the Meet and Greet reception tables were a visual treat as well as being loaded with goodies. Here at the parsonage, JoAnne had help in preparing for the open house from Mikayla, Kim O. and Kathy Dunn.
A picture treasure trove was discovered just this past Sunday. Suddenly the history drawer had more pictures and notebooks in it than it had in years. This required a huge amount of hustle to resort pictures for the slideshow, fill more photo albums, and prepare the rest for appropriate filing. JoAnne headed up this effort with help from many. To Amy LaForte fell the task of actually putting the mounds of pictures into photo albums. Judy Pazdzierski and JoAnne created the photo record for 50 4 50 Ministries. JoAnne supplied the pictures and write-ups and Judy did the scrap-booking. The third photo project has been the slide show. Anne Kipping and JoAnne were working hard on it but discovered they needed a PowerPoint expert to help bring their whole vision together. Josh Basile joined their effort and supplied the expertise and the finishing touches.
Nothing like hugs from friends — Many hugs at the parsonage open house this afternoon and at the meet and greet time at church afterward. Saw many I have not seen in years. Many are returning tomorrow. Founding pastor, Rev. Tom Boghosian and his wife and former pastor Rev. Ed Crandall and Lois were here. In addition to these, tomorrow we expect to see Rev and Mrs. Wolfe and our D.S., Rev. Wayne Wager and his wife. After the conversation time the concert/praise and testimony time was attended by more than one hundred people. It was a joyful time.
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It is hard to believe that the time has arrived for Community Wesleyan Church’s 50th Anniversary Celebration to begin. It seems we have been thinking about it for a long time since we started planning and working toward this time about 30 months ago. We have accomplished much leading up to it too. We have worked hard together to complete 50 outreach and service ministries. During the celebration we will hear the report of our progress in reaching this goal. We have also worked shoulder to shoulder and sacrificed financially to achieve the 50th Anniversary Makeover goals that we set to help prepare our church for the future. Our plan was to make a generational difference by preparing our facility for God to use over the next two decades, if Jesus tarries. The results of the first two stages – the kitchen makeover and the sanctuary makeover – will be on display. In addition, folks can see the JAM’N Kids area and the new relaxed-look library both of which also caught the makeover fever. We are praising God that all of these projects have been completely paid for. The third stage – replacing the sanctuary floodlights with modern fixtures – is nearly funded as of the last LBA meeting. With much of the work behind us, now it is time to focus on the celebration. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for that, spiritually, relationally, and emotionally. The events of the next three weeks are about celebrating God’s faithfulness over the past 50 years and looking forward in faith to the future. Here’s a complete chart of what’s happening.
It is a commentary on our society when the jackpot or the winners for government sponsored gambling becomes the banner headline news. Is there nothing more important, more transformational, more threatening, or more informative going on today that should be the banner headlines? I consider it an insult that news media seem to think I find who won to be the most newsworthy information today.
First, it is a commentary on what runs the news media. We are not fed what is important or what is significant, but rather what people will click or buy –that is, what will sell ads. So news executives are not promoted primarily because they serve society well but because they pander to the whims of the slice of society who click on (buy) news. I contend that when we decide to make mega-million jackpots the banner headline, we should consider the detrimental effect of promoting the economic parasite of gambling.
Often people ask me if they can be a Christian and not go to church. I think it would be like trying to be a gourmet cook without frequenting the produce department of the grocery store; or trying to be a good basketball player without going to practices. The excuses people use for staying away are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and often revealing. Since Easter, the high point of the Christian year, is little more than a week away, this is a great time to remind ourselves of just how important it is to express our faith and grow in it by gathering together. Here is a good article summarizing why attending church is important.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/why-going-to-church-is-important-part-1-72392/
This year Community Wesleyan Church is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. With God’s help, we have worked hard to use this event, not just to celebrate the past or have a party, though we will do those too, but also to launch our church forward into its next decade with momentum and clarity of vision. Our aim is not only to celebrate God’s faithfulness in the past, but also to look forward with faith to his future acts through and on behalf of his people.
Since we have been complimented on how well this celebration is going so far, I thought I would write a couple articles about how it has happened. What have we done right that helped it happen?
As I reflect, the first ingredient of the success of this celebration plan has actually been the precedent that we set in previous anniversaries. No one argued, as sometimes happen, about whether we should celebrate; it was a given. The only question was how. We had in varied ways marked every five year anniversary since I arrived as pastor 21 years ago. In fact, as I look back, the variety in itself was a helpful part of the precedent we had set. Many of the activities for the celebration had been tested before. For example, for the 45th anniversary, we had decided to send a short term missions team to Romania. It was a big goal for us. But it was a success and so it was natural to decide a few years later to include sending another missions team as one of the ministries that would mark the 50th. As a part of the 40th we had a great feast. That idea will be part of this celebration as well, though it will be carried out a little differently. If we had not set a precedent by celebrating lesser anniversaries, I do not think we would have been ready to create the excitement and energy that have gathered around this celebration.
http://joshrhone.posterous.com/what-if-our-current-models-of-pastoral-leader
I have decided to join an important conversation about the long term viability of the current paradigm of pastoral ministry. Pastor Josh Rhone has asked a crucial question that I believe is a very important one for pastoral leaders today. It is a daring, even dangerous question. Yet it is one that may help us to face uncomfortable facts about the way we usually do ministry. We owe it to following generations to answer his question. Let me copy in his intensive query.
What if our current models of pastoral ministry are in fact detrimental to the spiritual health and vitality of the Church (and her leaders)? Might we need to reimagine/re-envision our models of pastoral ministry? And, what might a new model of pastoral ministry look like?
I am especially interested in how ministry affects pastors over the long term. Today I would like to comment on the issue of proximity. One of the characteristics of many pastoral situations that I believe often creates greater wear and tear on the pastor is the issue of proximity. By this I am speaking about how enmeshed the pastor’s and family’s lives are with his work. This issue has many facets.