4/7InkzHVUEQeEdU9vpc1tikzEhChrKmPfvXI-FSDBrBQ

transforming the church

23 Advantages for Churches Using Social Media

A business web site (businessesgrow.com) recently published a list of 25 non-financial benefits of business blogging.

The list can be adapted to show the benefits of church blogging. Our list is a little shorter. We combined some things. Here goes:

  1. Create a database of answers.
    Seekers and members ask the same questions over and over. The need to have ready answers for most Frequently Asked Questions inspired Luther’s Small Catechism. Archive your answers to the questions you hear most often.
  2. Showcase your workers.
    Shine the spotlight on your volunteers. It is likely to inspire and encourage others.
  3. Integrate your message.
    Your pastor and church leaders create content regularly when they preach and teach. Give their work broader reach.
  4. Help search engines find your church.
    A lively church blog will rank over those annoying listings by the internet version of the phone book yellow pages.
  5. Tell your community why your congregation is different.
    Make your ministry stand out.
  6. Lay the foundation for other forms of communication.
    If you have an active blog, it will be easy to create a newsletter or congregational report. Cut and paste!
  7. Show your face.
    Your blog will reveal your congregation’s personality. Potential visitors will feel like they know you before they cross the threshold. Be assured — visitors today look at web sites first!
  8. Measure your vitality.
    A church with an active blog is proving they are engaged in the community with relevant and purposeful activity.
  9. Good public relations.
    Churches always have trouble attracting the attention of the press. If your blog has good community content, your local papers will find you.
  10. A quick and easy way to communicate with your current membership.
    If your members subscribe to your blog, they will get an immediate notification of breaking news. No need for the phone chain. Just don’t abuse it if you want to keep your followers.
  11. Engage your congregation.
    This may take some patient nurturing, but your congregation’s blog can become a place for congregational interaction and provide valuable feedback to your leaders.
  12. Ask questions.
    How many vestry or council meetings are spent debating what the congregation wants? With a congregational blog, you can ask them. Pose a question two weeks before a meeting and see what people have to say. If you want to keep this a valuable tool, be prepared to listen to the answers and respond wisely.
  13. Crisis management.
    You do not have to rely on anyone else to supply facts about your ministry. You can tell your OWN story! When a controversial decision is reached, use your blog to help the disgruntled understand. If your denomination is in the news, add your slant to the public issue.
  14. Forum for ideas.
    Again, this will take some nurturing, but foster the sharing of mission ideas. If people know they can make a difference, they will speak up. Be prepared to respond to ideas. No one likes to put their thoughts on the line only to be ignored.
  15. Give your leaders a platform.
    If their ideas are good, they will catch the attention both within and outside your community. That’s giving your church new reach and authority!
  16. Segmentation.
    This is something we don’t think about in the church. We like to think of ourselves as being “one.” There are, however, sub-interests within any united congregation. With the internet you can address these without leaving anyone out. In the business world it’s called “market segmentation.” In the church, it might mean directing some blog posts or creating a separate page or category within your blog for singles, youth, church musicians, daycare parents or Sunday School teachers.
  17. Identify advocates.
    An active blog will create “fans.” It’s nice to have supporters and know who they are!
  18. Inexpensive way to keep connected.
    You can gently remind your audience of upcoming events without the time to make phone calls or incur the cost of sending letters or postcards.
  19. Measure controversial issues.
    Should you change the time of worship this summer? You can debate this in a vacuum OR poll your members on your blog.
  20. Create a volume of work.
    Your blog will create your congregation’s history. Take your posts and create a quarterly or annual report. Your loyal members are likely to purchase an “annual” if you make printed copies available and include lots of photos.
  21. Network.
    Your blog can help you find people with special skills for a variety of needs from programming to building maintenance. Vendors may even be willing to contribute or discount services if you give them a plug and a link on your blog.
  22. Connect with people on an emotional level.
    Most congregational publications are fairly dry. Blogs can come to life with good story-telling, photos and video.
  23. Prove to your community that you understand today’s world. 
08 Feb 2012

16 Traits of a Creative Church

Creative people are often not welcome in the church.

That may seem like a bold statement, but there is some truth in it. Creative people insist on change. The Church talks about wanting change, but it is often presented by people who are rather transparent in their real goals. They want the Church to change their way. They want the Church to be more secure financially. They want the congregation to give and get along.

If the formula is so simple, why are most churches in decline?

If Churches are to embrace change they must embrace creativity, and that is a rare commodity within the rigid framework that many churches have. In some of our Ambassador visits, we have encountered congregations that post in their bulletin or web sites a list of ways newcomers can contribute: sing in the choir, serve on a committee, join the altar guild, usher, read lessons, etc. That list can be a formidable barrier to thought leadership or creativity. There is a sense that people are pegs that fill the Church’s predrilled holes.

Today’s Church needs to explore the concept of “creativity” and the power (and change) that word can create.

Creative people solve problems. Often “creative” is used to describe talent. “John is a creative person. He plays the organ so well.” But what problems did John solve? It is indeed a blessing to have talented people. But creativity is something different. It’s an atmosphere . . a way of thinking. When creativity is nurtured, talented people come out of the woodwork! You might be surprised at the talent you didn’t dream was there!

Here are some traits to nurture in your creative congregation.

  1. Creative congregations are motivated by mission. It begins with a personal sense of mission and is later applied to a group’s sense of mission.
  2. Creative congregations foster prayer.  Prayer reminds us of Whom we serve and why we have a mission. Many opportunities should be provided for individual and community prayer.
  3. Creative congregations discourage labels.  If your Church has been exploring a problem for some time they have probably subconsciously labeled every aspect of the problem. “Those people are adversarial.” “The pastor won’t like this idea.” “Old members won’t go for it.” “The community is going to object.” “We don’t have people who can do that.” Get rid of the labels. Just stop it!
  4. Creative congregations challenge the advice of “experts.” Would the Church be facing such problems today if the “experts” had all the answers? Experts have some answers. However, experts can have their own agendas. They want to see their pet solutions put into place. Don’t ignore them — just don’t be afraid to challenge them. Creativity requires fresh thinking. If every problem is approached with a “must do” list, you will end up with the same solutions, proposed by the same experts.
  5. Creative congregations explore ideas. They ask the question “What if . . . ?”
  6. Creative congregations look for order in confusion. By sorting through a mess, you might find some treasures. By rearranging the chaos, you might find exciting connections between ideas.
  7. Creative congregations embrace serendipity. The unexpected can spark the change you are looking for. In church work, serendipity can walk through your door any Sunday. It can be a new person, a new community event, a new learning, a new pastor. Embracing serendipity can change the definition of success and failure. Make it a habit. So what if only three people showed up at your special event. What did you do with those three people that gave them something to talk about  the next day?
  8. Creative congregations are patient . . . to an extent. They know that the creative process takes time. They know the discipline required to work at it. As long as the process has direction, their people will exhibit patience. But if the process is stone-walled, they will leave. Water and watch creativity grow. Ignore and watch it wither.
  9. Creative congregations are tenacious. They will work hard at a project given an environment that allows them freedom to make a difference.
  10. Creative congregations network. Change requires fuel. Networking with other churches and neighborhood groups provides the opportunity to share objectives and ideas. This helps congregations find resources and ideas.
  11. Creative congregations are expressive. They are confident in their mission and are not afraid to say so — as individuals or as a group. Provide venues for members to express themselves. These might be within worship, a parish newsletter, or as part of discussion groups. Create a congregational blog!
  12. Creative congregations follow their instincts.  It may be the Holy Spirit nagging at you.
  13. Creative congregations are courageous. A truly creative congregation is going to be challenged. The Church must at times challenge hierarchical and societal policies. Congregations that have fostered creativity are best equipped to face such challenges.
  14. Creative congregations challenge naysayers. And there will be plenty of them.
  15. Creative congregations constantly reassess. They are not afraid to admit they are wrong. They try new ideas, assess progress and tweak with abandon. Failure to try will leave you with the same old church. Good ideas that may one day fulfill their promise will be abandoned too soon.
  16. Creative congregations are not afraid to have fun. People discover themselves in games and laughter. Provide many opportunities for your congregation to enjoy themselves. Send your members to church camp! You will be creating creative people. Creative people create creative ministries.
12 Dec 2011

How to Choose A Community Manager for Your Congregation

Community Manager? What’s that?

Community Managers coordinate the various Social Media used by your church, whether it be the blog, Facebook, Twitter or the web site. It’s a new job description even within the corporate world. Churches using the internet will need to address this new societal role as well. Within a decade, this may be one of the standard church positions along with pastor, sexton, music director, organist, or youth leader.

Social Media is a powerful ministry tool which must be managed to be effective. It is not enough to simply advertise that you are on the web or have a Facebook page. These are tools that must be used in real time!

Our Ambassadors have explored the Facebook presence of a number of churches we visited. Most have very little interaction on their Facebook pages. We were surprised to see that one of the smallest churches had a much higher “edge rank” than larger churches. It was not surprising to us that this church had impressed us with their connectedness to their neighborhood even before we saw their internet stats.

In contrast, a denominational internet presence can reveal very little interaction with readers — typically a few posts in the months after the site was announced and not much but announcements from the denomination since.

We are all learning to use this new tool.

As you develop your internet usage, think about the day when you might need someone to coordinate  things. Social Media must be managed. It is a role which is important enough to fund and can promise a measurable return on investment (to borrow a business term).

  • A Community Manager must be a social person. Look for a person who would be interacting with members and visitors even without the internet.
  • A Community Manager must have good communication skills. He or she will be writing a lot and the ability to express your church values clearly and accurately is paramount.
  • A Community Manager must be nice. People won’t interact with an authoritarian, judgmental, didactic or sarcastic moderator. The church forum is not a place to show cleverness but concern.
  • A Community Manager must care and be prepared to act on their concern. If people pose a problem to your church on its internet forums, they are looking for more than offers of prayer. A Community Manager must be prepared to channel important inquiries to appropriate leaders for action. Some action must be taken or your internet presence will become dormant.
  • A Community Manager must be able to work with many people. The information gleaned from the internet must be channeled to others.
  • A Community Manager must be flexible. This is territory where the best planning can go out the window at any time. Planning is important, but the ability to respond to the realities of the present is also vital.
  • A Community Manager must like technology. They don’t have to come into the role as an expert on all the resources and techniques available (no one in this field knows it all!), but they must embrace learning, be willing to become engaged with online experts and communities and adapt as things change…and that is often! They must be willing to try ideas an honestly measure their effect. They cannot be tied to one medium. Facebook might work best with one community. Twitter might be more effective in another. Blogging might work with all.
  • A Community Manager must reflect the values of your church.  He or she may be the first person outsiders come to know. Of course, every member is a face of the church, but the Community Manager will be in the spotlight.
07 Dec 2011

Small Churches Can Reach Out to Unaccompanied Children

Our Ambassador visits have revealed some stereo-types of small churches. We heard some professional leaders referring to them mockingly as “old-folks homes.”

Offensive as this terminology is — some congregations are aging. Unfortunately, leadership mindset sees this as the end of ministry. Pastors adopt, sometimes with the encouragement of denominational leadership, a caretaker approach to serving. There are no plans for growing the church or any reason to look for mission opportunity. They are playing a waiting game.

It may be up to the laity to turn things around.

Our ambassadors have seen some small, aging churches making the transition to becoming welcoming places for families and children. They invariably have only supply pastors or part-time professional leadership. Imagine what might happen if the leadership saw this as a door opening for ministry.

Our own church made this transition and grew from a church of seniors to a church of young families.

Our transition began when we noticed a number of children returning week after week without parents. At first a couple of girls (about aged 10) came and sat in the front row. After a few weeks, they brought an older brother (about 12). Soon they started bringing younger children.

We weren’t prepared to deal with this. That’s not the way church works! Parents bring their children to Church and Sunday School.

Things have changed!

We have noticed some similarities in other churches we visited. The early focus of our visits was the urban church. In cities, children pass the church as they walk home from school. Curiosity brings them back. Yes, their parents should accompany them. But children are playing the cards they have been dealt. They may come from homes with only one over-taxed parent. The parent may know the children have gone to church and consider it baby-sitting, or the parent may be at work unaware of that their children have turned off the TV and wandered out on their own. In the worst case, the parents may not care. In that case, the church must not turn their backs on the children because they have arrived on their doorstep in an unconventional way. Small churches with aging memberships can be particularly attractive to children who are seeking.

Young children have some things in common with older folks. They are crossing paths in life. Children are dependent growing into independence and older folks are independent growing into dependency. Young children often like the attention of seniors who can understand them in a way their parents don’t. They have time for them when their parents are preoccupied. It is validating to seniors.

Congregations can see this as a nuisance that must curtailed, or they can see it as outreach coming to them.

There are good reasons to discourage unaccompanied children.

  • They do not contribute to the offering.
  • They do not behave.
  • They are lively, energetic and strong and may seem threatening to the frail.
  • They may be there only only for donuts at fellowship.
  • Raising them is the responsibility of the parents.

Or

  • They may, in their own ways, be seeking.
  • They may enjoy the music.
  • Older children (as young as 11 or 12) may have been left in charge of yournger siblings and are following an instinct to parent them.
  • They might might feel part of a family of God when their own family is dysfunctional.
  • Raising them is the responsibility of the community of God.

Here are some first steps to take when children start coming to church by themselves.

  • Make sure an adult sits nearby, perhaps in the pew behind them.
  • Teach the church service. Pastors can give a brief explanation as your worship moves along. The adult sitting near them can whisper in their ears. “We are now going to stand to honor the reading of the Gospel that tells us about the life of Jesus Christ.”
  • Engage the children in conversation. Find out where they live and who their parents are.
  • Plan to visit their homes with the pastor. You may be hitting a brick wall, but you may find a parent receptive to help. At the very least, the parents should know with whom their children spend Sunday mornings.
  • Pray for them. Assign each child to an adult as a prayer partner. Engage the children in the prayer if possible, but they don’t need to know you are praying for them!
06 Dec 2011

10 Reasons to Question the Wisdom of Interim Ministry

Interim Ministry is a fairly modern trend of assigning a short-term minister to a parish that has recently ended a relationship with one pastor and intends to call a new pastor. The process is described in a similar manner by various denominations as a time to minister to the people and help them identify ministry objectives.

One denomination described the interim period as a buffer between a congregation and its relationship with a former pastor and expectations of a new minister. One said, “The interim minister makes the necessary changes in a congregation. No reason to have the congregation get mad at the new minister. Let the interim take the heat.”

The days of a congregation enjoying the leadership of a single pastor for decades may be numbered.

This sounds like a good idea on the surface, but there is a danger that the practice could serve less noble purposes. Our recent visits to 34 congregations found a surprising percentage engaged in some stage of interim ministry. Some were just beginning the process. Some had been in interim status for more than a year. One had a new interim at our first visit and we learned a few weeks later that another interim was stepping in. “It didn’t work out,” the newer pastor explained.

Both the number of interim ministries we encountered and their length raised questions. We do not claim to have the answers but the questions could be important.

  1. What other aspects of our lives have such long fallow periods? We change presidents and mayors, jobs (and even spouses) without months of interim work. An argument might be that presidents and mayors have long campaigns before they are chosen for their jobs. That leads us to consider the call process.
  2. Perhaps it is the call process that needs changing? With the average length of pastorates fairly short — less than seven years — an interim ministry can be a frequent occurrence, adding to instability. The scenario could be 12-18 months of interim ministry, 12 months of honeymoon, three years of ministry, 12-18 months of interim ministry, etc. (Revolving door). While pastors may feel that the interim has eased the transition process, the lay point of view is that the process starts all over again every time the face in the pulpit changes — interim or not. The call process, at least in our denomination, can be unsettling. Candidates are given every opportunity to learn about the congregation, while the names of candidates are withheld from the congregation until a sample sermon is delivered. The approval process is often based on little more — yet congregations expect so much more!
  3. Shouldn’t congregations undergo a constant process of self-examination? If ministry is to be effective, congregations will change constantly. Communities also change quickly.
  4. Shouldn’t all pastors have skills to help congregations assess goals and strategize?
  5. Does the interim process change the role of lay representatives? Who does the interim pastor report to and work for — the congregation or the regional body? In several of the churches we visited, the interim pastor announced that he or she would be making a report to the bishop that week. There was no mention of any lay involvement.
  6. Wouldn’t it be easier to train one leader to handle change than to try to work with dozens of congregation members?
  7. Is the interim process good use of congregational resources? Congregations pay good money to the interim for a very short-term investment. If this is a period where ministry concentrates on self-analysis, that translates to a long period of time when resources are spent on activity that is not, at least for the time being, outreach-oriented. Are visitors during the interim going to be attracted to a congregation in long-term transition?
  8. Do interim ministries meet the career needs of pastors and administrative needs of regional bodies more than the ministry needs of congregations? Interim pastors are making short-term commitments. Short-term commitments are safer entry points for the many seminary candidates entering ministry as a second career. Interim pastors don’t have to consider the hassles of moving and relocating families. It’s an attractive opportunity for pastors who don’t want to make changes in their lives that may not match the career objectives of their spouses. But the congregations are expected to change!
  9. Do interim pastorates change the political balance? An overlooked consequence of the over-dependence on interim pastors is the shift of power away from the congregation. Interim pastors have close ties and loyalty to the denominational body and its current leadership. When a high percentage of congregations have interim ministries, that has the potential to skew the decisions of representative governing bodies.
  10. Why should the interim process, led by experts in interim ministry, take more than three months?
21 Nov 2011

14 Reasons Congregations Should Avoid Social Media Ministry

Maybe Social Media Ministry isn’t right for you. There are plenty of good reasons to avoid it. :-)

  1. Religion is a mystery. Let’s keep it that way!
  2. Let people form their opinions about our religion from the popular media. They do a pretty good job!
  3. Social media allows for too much interaction between clergy and laity. It’s best to maintain boundaries.
  4. We do not want to be known by our works. It’s a theological thing.
  5. Why monitor our image? We have a great reputation. No one could possibly have a beef with us.
  6. What if people who don’t know anything about us take cheap shots online? So what! Everybody knows the truth. No one will pay any attention to them.
  7. We want the people who join our church to know as little as possible when they join. That way we can tell them what’s what! We don’t want their ideas to mess up something good.
  8. Our congregation is a close-knit family. We are busy helping each other and don’t have time for other people’s problems.
  9. Pen and ink were good enough for St. Paul. No need to make any changes there.
  10. We think it is a bad idea to reach more people with the message of God’s love. What’s in it for us?
  11. If we start writing with other people in mind, they may get the idea that we care more than we really do.
  12. We can’t afford to serve any more people than we already serve. It’s just not in the budget!
  13. Who has time for this Social Media nonsense? Our current members keep us plenty busy as it is.
  14. Everything is great just the way it is.
18 Nov 2011

Calls to Action Are Nothing New to Christianity

A Call to Action helps your reader take the next step.

As you get comfortable with blogging you will want to start creating more interactivity with your readers. If you want interaction, you’ll have to ask for it. That’s where the Call to Action comes in.

Calls to Action are so important to the business world that they have their own acronym (CTAs).

You see them every day in advertising: “Call 1-800 . .,” “Send $24.95 to  . . . .” 

Typically, advertisers try to create a sense of urgency — a reason for people to take action NOW! They know that people need incentive to get off their backsides and do something. And so you see the warnings! “Act now. Offer ends July 4.” “Supply is limited.” 

This is not new thinking to Christians. Our whole faith is built on Calls to Action: “Follow me,” “Come and see,” “Do Unto Others . . . ,” “Love one another.” The challenge to the modern church is to translate biblical Calls to Action to reach modern Christians or seekers.

How do you create Calls to Action on your web site or blog?

Again, you see CTAs on web sites every day. “Click here,” “Download,” “Submit,” or “Enter.”

Churches can use the same tools. The goal is engagement with others and growth in Christian community.

Pace yourself as you build your community’s engagement and trust. 

Your CTAs should be stepping stones to involvement in your community. Help people move from the anonymity of cyberspace to “what’s in it for me?” participation to “how can I help?” commitment. In other words, watch your interactions with your readers grow from anonymous participation to sharing an email, to providing a name and eventually a physical presence.

Here’s a plan described in tiers or levels of engagement:

Your first-tier or introductory Call to Action might simply be to pose a question at the end of your blog article.

  • “What do you think?”
  • “Can you recommend a resource?”
  • “Share your experience.”
  • “Do you know anyone who can benefit from this idea?”
At this level of engagement, your only goal is to get people thinking about their involvement.

A second-tier Call to Action might be to provide a way for people to answer those questions on line with a comment box. Another possibility is to engage readers in a simple poll. Blogging software makes this easy. Limit your poll to one question and suggest just a few possible answers. It allows your readers to test the water. There is no risk. They are not sharing any personal information with you. Keep it fun. Everyone wants to know how their ideas stack up to others. Report the results of the poll in an entertaining way.

A third-tier Call to Action might be to offer something for download. 2×2 offers the Editorial Calendar for example. You can have this information offered freely (as 2×2 does) or you can ask for information when they download and begin to create an opt-in email relationship.

A fourth-tier Call to Action might be to interest readers in some action that requires a bit more initiative from your readers. Tele-evangelists, for example, often ask for prayer requests.

  • Sign up for our Walk for Hunger.
  • Volunteer to work in the Food Pantry or Thrift Shop.
  • Join our Prayer Chain.
  • Join our youth on their Mission Trip to New Orleans.
  • Attend our workshop on Autism.

A fifth-tier Call to Action asks for information and offers something of value in return for the information (an incentive). Do not ask for more information than you need. An email address may be enough. A physical address might be desirable. Keep in mind that the less information you require, the more comfortable it is for readers to participate and the higher the response. If all you need is a name and email address — that’s all you should ask for.

  • RSVP for Our Community Thanksgiving Dinner by November 1 and receive a beautiful Advent Calendar. (Blogging software will allow you to create the form.)
  • Sign up for Hunger Walk by October 15 and receive a free T-Shirt at the starting line.
We’ll explore the nuts and bolts of how to create and use CTAs in a future post.
16 Nov 2011

Our Once and Future Church

Today’s Alban Institute Weekly Forum builds on the re-release of the books written in the 1990s by its founder and president emeritus, Dr. Loren Mead. The Once and Future Church (1991), Transforming Congregations for the Future (1994), and Five Challenges for the Once and Future Church (1996) tackle the very issues our sponsoring congregation, Redeemer Lutheran Church, has been facing since 1998.

None of our members was a scholar of his work at this time. We were just lay members working at what we believed was our mission. As we review the five challenges Mead poses for the church, we find remarkable similarities to the direction our congregation took — without leadership pointing the way but with dedicated lay people grappling, uncompensated and unrecognized, with issues as big as worldwide church.

Our discipleship has not been without cost. We have suffered both as community and as individuals. Most of the time we found ourselves very much alone. The church as a whole was struggling, its denominational leadership was struggling, its individual congregations — large and small — were counting every penny. Our small church was deemed insignificant.

Mead writes:

For now, here are the five challenges I see we have ahead of us: 

  • To transfer the ownership of the church. 
  • To discover new structures for the church. 
  • To discover a passionate spirituality. 
  • To make the church a new community and source of community. 
  • To become an apostolic people. 

Redeemer deals with each of these issues:

  • We insist that the ownership of our community rests in the congregation. Our constitution and church polity agree with our position. But this has been of no protection. When assets are coveted, governing documents are quickly rewritten in the minds of church leadership. Clergy serving us disappeared with little or no notice or explanation. We were eventually evicted from our property. This was intended to be a final blow. Our denomination even predicted publicly that within six months, our congregational identity would die. 26 months later our congregation still meets weekly and has found new ways to serve which do not rely on property or professional leaders. 
  • Left without a building to support, we began creating a new congregational structure which reached out to other congregations, denominations and the spiritually minded with no church affiliation. How fortunate that the world was never more prepared for this type of outreach!
  • We discovered within ourselves a spirituality we didn’t know we had when we were passive pew-sitters, receptors of our clergy’s sense of spirituality. A foundation was quickly laid for the development of dormant leadership skills.
  • We embraced outreach tools that the church as a whole has been very slow to use to anywhere near full potential. Within months we found that our community potential was worldwide.
  • We work now to create an apostolic presence using modern tools.

Mead goes on to write:

“We need to recognize that a classic conflict of interest is at work here. Clergy-dominated institutions make many decisions in which clergy have a direct stake: salaries and job security, for example—sometimes involving prestige and preference. In our society we generally feel that institutions that nurture “conflict of interest” frequently make bad policy—policy that supports the welfare of those with the conflict of interest not the welfare of the entire institution.”

Mead calls for more dialog between clergy and laity. He cautions that dialog must be entered into with equal respect among participants. This, Redeemer has found, has been impossible. The conflict we have faced has been fought for four years with virtually no dialog and no foundation for mutual respect. Power, not mission, was central to the conflict from the outset.

Mead’s books were rightfully acclaimed when they were published. As they are re-released in a single volume for a new generation of church leaders, we can only ponder why his respected advice has been so strongly resisted by the readers who once found his thinking so ground-breaking.

We hope for a new generation who can not only applaud his wisdom but also apply it!

14 Nov 2011

Why Small Churches Are Ideal for Multicultural Outreach

2×2 is polishing the crystal ball. Looking into the future, we see the small urban church as having the best potential to implement multicultural ministry.

Here are the reasons why:

  • Location, location, location 
    Small churches sit in the middle of changing neighborhoods. If multicultural ministry is the goal, the church needs to be where the cultures are!
  • Heritage
    Small churches remain close to their heritage which often had their roots in immigrant ministry. Suburban churches are likely to have had a later historic start and missed that experience.
  • Size
    Smaller groups of people make it easier for newcomers to become involved in influential ways more quickly. They will not be lost in a crowd.
  • Ability to Adapt
    Small groups can change more easily and quickly with the right leadership. There are fewer minds to change. Leaders are easy to identify and motivate.
  • Personal Touch
    Guests stand out in a small church. Visitors readily greet them. This has been very pronounced in our Ambassador visits. Smaller churches meet and greet — before church, sometimes during church, and after church. Medium-sized churches often assume somebody else knows you and may say hello. Larger churches have an invitation to sign the guest book printed in the bulletin.

Small Churches Have the Best Shot of Leading the Way — Except

  • Many small urban churches are targeted for closure.
  • Their ministries have often been neglected with minimal professional leadership provided. Leaders are often assigned as “caretakers,” waiting for congregations to get discouraged and close. While they are providing “palliative care” the neighborhoods around them are changing with no outreach efforts attempted.
  • Interim ministries (the new normal) slow the process of change. While congregations are in a year or more of evaluation/assessment limbo, neighborhoods keep changing. When the congregation finally calls a pastor, they are starting over once again with probably another year before outreach can be attempted. That’s two years of a congregation’s history and resources spent focusing on relationship with a pastor — not outreach. With an average length of pastorate being just a few years, that’s a high percentage of a congregation’s time and resources focused on self.
  • Often, resources are depleted during years of maintaining a status quo and doing NO outreach. People are afraid to spend money, attempting to preserve assets for their current ministry as long as possible.
  • Assets of small neighborhood churches are sometimes eyed by the denomination.
  • Attitudes toward small churches, fostered by hierarchy, make them unpopular places for clergy to seek calls. What energetic pastors want to hold the hands of a congregation that has been labeled caretaker ministries with closure in the near future?

If denominations want to advance multicultural ministry, they must take a fresh look at the neighborhoods where multicultural ministry is most needed and find ways to make ministry possible.

The first challenge to the Church is to reverse the negative attitudes towards small churches as not worth the attention of church leaders. These attitudes squander the resources available for multicultural ministry.

This type of ministry requires special training. Seminaries must stress evangelism skills. The current scenario many small churches face is pastors who charge the laity to do this outreach. The laity have even less training than pastors! This is not working!

New ideas for teaming ministry talent (both lay and clergy), church agencies and resources must be explored.

Failure to address these conditions over the course of many years has created distrust between congregations and regional bodies. Reports from church consultants and online polls are consistently close in numbers. According to them, two thirds of church members have lost confidence in their denominational leaders with an additional 10% or more not sure. This should set off the sirens among leadership circles, but they have been slow to recognize the problems.

Rebuilding trust is a good place to start.

11 Nov 2011

Experiencing Multicultural Ministry: Part 1

2×2’s sponsoring church, Redeemer Lutheran Church, has broad experience in multicultural ministry. As we start a new series of posts, we’d like to share our experience. We doubt it is typical or even if there is any typical methodology to multicultural ministry.

(We invite you to share your experiences. This is a fairly new emphasis within many church bodies. We can probably learn more from each other than from books!)

Multicultural Mission Outreach changed our church enormously for the better. It enriched our worship, our sense of mission, our fellowship, our stewardship, our spiritual life and our individual lives.

We did, however, encounter difficulties we never anticipated and which were severe.

We discovered that the greater church does not understand Multicultural Ministry. Its view seems to be “same old church/different people.” While leaders have identified this as a worthy goal (even a necessity), it does not appear to have a plan to achieve the goal or leadership with training to help implement it. In our experience, lay leadership was pivotal to laying the groundwork.

We encountered something very different, exciting and refreshing!

A Little About Redeemer

Redeemer is a small congregation in a well-established Philadelphia neighborhood. East Falls is home to rich and poor. Up until about a decade ago, it was flanked on either end by government high-rise housing projects. These have been destroyed. New single family subsidized housing has been built where they once stood.  The presence of the “projects” in our neighborhood influenced attitudes toward different cultures for many years.

An outsider passing through would see tree-lined streets with well-kept homes. Some of them are sizable estates. Most are modest rowhouses. There are upscale apartments at opposite ends of town.

Redeemer sits at the economic and cultural crossroads of our community. Across the street is the public library and a K-8 public school. Down the hill is old factory worker housing. Behind Redeemer are middle class rowhomes. Above and across the street are the homes of many of Philadelphia’s movers and shakers, including a former U.S. Senator and Pennsylvania’s former governor.

East Falls is a university neighborhood. Philadelphia University, Drexel and Eastern Universities have campuses within our borders. Temple and LaSalle are also nearby. The local public school has struggled with academic achievement. Quaker and Catholic Schools are neighborhood options. Educational opportunities bring many newcomers to our town.

The buildings are of manageable size. A practical church layout, reflects the practical working class people who built it. In addition to a sanctuary/fellowship hall, our members built a seven-room educational building which proved to be an enormous asset to the congregation even after the loss of members following the turbulent 60s.

Redeemer was in a prime position to become a multicultural church, but it didn’t happen overnight.

A decade of poor leadership in the late 80s and 90s, left the congregation divided. We received little help from our regional body as they were having financial problems and any congregational problem was likely to be seen as opportunity to close a church for its assets. We struggled with our denomination for two years in the late 90s.

Eventually, our lay leaders identified a retired pastor who agreed to help. He came into a congregation that no longer trusted pastors. He spent three years with us, slowly restoring our congregation’s confidence with a weekly message of love. He invited many and a good number joined. He laid the groundwork for acceptance as our new members represented many parts of the world.

One family from Tanzania, began inviting their extended family and friends. Over a period of ten years, we developed a small East African community within our congregation.

In 2006, our congregation decided to concentrate our evangelism efforts on growing this segment of our congregation. We asked our part-time pastor to help us find leadership who could relate to Swahili-speaking East Africans. We talked about this for months. The regular report at council meetings: “There is no one.”

When this pastor resigned suddenly, our members within weeks identified two rostered Lutheran pastors from Tanzania. We started working with them.

Our members put every effort behind this outreach. We began by hosting a separate worship service entirely in Swahili. English-speaking members helped with music, putting together a worship bulletin, hosting fellowship and helping with child care. Leadership discussed that attendance at the English service might have to suffer while people, who normally supported it, helped with the Swahili Outreach.

Within a few months 49 members joined through this effort. At the suggestion of our Swahili-speaking members, we united our worship.

We were not prepared for the reaction of our regional body.

To be continued . . . 

08 Nov 2011