DBMIM August 6, 2010

IN THIS ISSUE--

--  Login Leadership: Telling Stories, by Tom Hanover.

--  Find Your Church’s Hidden Spirit, by Celia Allison Hahn, D.D.

--  Book Review,  "Everybody Wants to go to Heaven but Nobody Wants to Die, by  David Crowder, reviewed by Jeannie Cheuvront.

---

 

---

 

Announcing DreamBuilders' Ministry in Motion's Innovation Station, a Facebook page where ministry leaders can share ministry challenges and innovative ministry ideas.  Follow us on FaceBook! Check it out. http://www.ministryinmotion.net/innovation_station.html

 

---

 

Login Leadership:  Telling Stories

by Tom Hanover

 

            When Bill arrived at Maple Road Church, he was excited to join a ministry with so much potential.  Everywhere he looked he saw possibilities for reaching people for the Kingdom.  There was population growth, especially among young families who tended to be transient.  To Bill, that meant there were multiple opportunities to reach new people as they moved into the community.

            Maple Road Church not only had a good facility and a good location, but its  history and reputation were highly regarded.  The people said they wanted to grow, but they didn’t and hadn’t for nearly 20 years. They had been in a steady decline. Something was clearly wrong and Bill could not quite put his finger on it.

            On a whim, Bill started journaling all the stories he heard about the church either directly, when he asked actively involved congregants about their general impression of the church, or indirectly with those in the community who shared their solicited and unsolicited stories related the church. 

            What he discovered is that many of the stories had common themes.  And, in fact, they could be categorized in this way. 

One, the church had a great history. 

            Two, when Pastors Smith, Brown, and O’Brien were here, the church was the most active and most influential in the community.  Those men knew every person in town by name, and they never preached a bad sermon.

            The third category was that Maple Road was a friendly church.  Bill noted that this was a common remark among the people in the church.  However, the same was not expressed by those outside of the church.

Since there were many other stories that did not fit into any of these categories nor any category that Bill could pigeon hole them into, he decided to focus on these three areas to determine a pattern. He pondered what conclusions he would test.

            Bill posed different questions as he made his rounds of ministry duties to see if he could engage his church leaders in deeper thought.  His conversations began with these three invitations:  1. Tell me about a time when the church risked its security to accomplish a ministry.  2.  Tell me about a time when the church unified around a future goal and accomplished it.  3.  Tell me about a time when the church objectively and frankly assessed its own “health.”  As they spoke more stories came to the surface.

            The internal story of a congregation or a ministry is a window into the soul of the organization.  It reveals the focus, the values, and the expectations of the people.  Is the focus forward or backward?  Do the people value high quality programs or high quality relationships?  Are the expectations for high levels of involvement within the congregation or for high levels of influence in the community?

            An effective ministry leader will pay attention to these stories to discern and assess the soul of the congregation, much of which the congregation may not realize they are revealing.  For a strong leader to lead, he or she needs to know where to begin. 

            The second task a leader is faced with after he or she has gathered congregants’ stories is to summarize and articulate a story that balances and honestly reflects the internal story. Often, internal stories leave out valuable details because this is often how we cope with unwelcomed information about ourselves. 

            For example, when I dream I am usually taller and skinnier and have a full head of hair.  Unfortunately, that is not true in reality, but in my dreams I screen out unwelcomed information so I can frolic in my perfectly imagined world.  That is why it is a dream.

            Congregations or organizations often do that, too.  We talk about being friendly because that is what we want to believe about ourselves.  However, we neglect to acknowledge that our assimilation rate of visitors is below freezing on the Celsius scale. 

            We talk about being a church committed to outreach, but we neglect to acknowledge that we spend less than 5% of our church budget on anything beyond ourselves. An effective ministry leader will invite other key leaders to hear the whole story in order to change the focus and write a healthier story for the church. 

So, when Bill’s church celebrated a successful Vacation Bible School, which meant that no windows were broken, no violence was perpetrated on teachers or students, and all expenses were covered, Bill pointed out to the leaders that the 19 families attending VBS, who had no previous connection with the church, had not returned or connected again in the three months since then. 

            When this story was shared with the leaders, they agreed that was unacceptable and quickly began to develop ways to reconnect with those families first by inviting them to a special activity they were planning for the following month. 

An effective ministry leader helps the congregation tell an honest story about themselves so they can begin to write a healthy story; one that looks outward and forward.

            What kinds of stories are you hearing in your ministry setting?  Are they honest and complete?  How can you help your ministry team learn to write healthier stories that reflect a more active, hospitable and fruitful congregation and church?

Tom Hanover is Advertising and Promo Director of MIM ezine.  He has served in a variety of pastoral leadership roles for more than 35 years, including seven as a District Superintendent supervising the ministries of more than 100 pastors and churches in southern Ohio.  He is currently Senior Pastor of Sulphur Grove UMC, a multisite ministry in Dayton.  He has a BA (cum laude) from Taylor University, and the MDIV and DMIN degrees from United Theological Seminary in Dayton.  You can contact Tom at hanover@dbmim.net.

  

---

 

 

 

---

  

Find Your Church’s Hidden Spirit

by Celia Allison Hahn, D.D.

 

               For the last two decades, sociologists of religion have been studying congregations in order to discover how they can more effectively attract members and carry out their programs.  Celia Allison Hahn and Father Richard Chiola wanted something more, something deeper, out of parish research.  They were seeking to uncover the unique spirit that is incarnate in a parish’s life and ministries.  We might call it the parish’s spiritual center.  Celia Hahn is the Alban Institute’s founding editor-in-chief as well as the director of Alban’s Congregational Spirituality Project.   Her most recent book is Uncovering Your Church’s Hidden Spirit.

               Celia was inspired by a woman who sat next to her at church.  The woman said, with deep feeling, "I don't want just to believe in God; I want to know God."  Four out of five churchgoers who answered one typical survey said that what they most needed from their church was food for their spiritual hunger.  But many parishes and clergy are not sure how "parish" and "spirituality" can be joined together.  Most traditional spiritual guidance has focused on individuals, while parishes have concentrated on practical problems like resolving conflict, wrestling with budgets, and planning church programs.  Many clergy have learned little in seminary about how to support their parish in spiritual formation beyond educational programs or communion and other sacraments.  We don’t have clear answers to the question: “How can we carry out spiritual formation as a parish community?” 

               Over a three year period Hahn conducted the Alban Institute Congregational Spirituality research project with five varied Episcopal parishes in the Washington, DC area in order to discover their stories of congregational spirituality.  She chose an ecumenical group of advisors, including a Roman Catholic priest, Richard Chiola, who was teaching pastoral theology at Yale Divinity School.  He pointed out that there are two ways of developing parish life. One is pragmatic and functionalist: bring people together and then encourage them to meet specific organizational needs like schools, PSR, or RCIA.  The other way is Eucharistic and transformational, helping people to become one loaf sent out as pieces in their own diverse settings where they are equipped to be leaven in the dough of the world.  This latter way does not concentrate solely on parochial needs.  Instead, it nurtures people to be where they need to be as Christians in the midst of the world by making the parish, as a Eucharistic community, the support system for their spiritual life. 

               Chuck Olsen (who wrote Transforming Church Boards in 1955) found, that although Presbyterians volunteered for church boards hoping to enhance their spiritual growth, they experienced disappointment because of the secular business mentality.  Many Catholics no longer expect parish committees or programs to meet their spiritual needs. Pastors know that the Mary/Martha split between a personal spiritual search and the parish’s daily business has existed for centuries, not only for parishioners but for priests as well. It is becoming clear, however, that unless parishes can make room in their busyness to rediscover their spiritual center, they will keep losing the energy and relevance that are so important.  Many attempts, from Eucharistic adoration to small faith communities, have been made to try to meet this need.  What needs to happen now is for the parish as a whole system to rediscover its hidden spirit. In her research project's first year, Celia Hahn interviewed laity and clergy in order to learn what enhances a parish’s spiritual life. In the second year, she brought the learnings back to each parish, naming the gifts discovered through the interviews. Her ultimate goal was to help each parish discern, "What are we called to be and do now?"  She functioned as a companion and resource, something of a congregational spiritual guide, in constant communication with the members of her advisory board.  In the third year, Hahn wrote a book to share the learnings with all denominations.  The book is Uncovering Your Church’s Hidden Spirit.

               Among the many useful findings in the book are: l) that parishes as whole systems reflect the Paschal mystery, i.e. "are strong at the broken places;" 2) diversity has always been and remains the corporate spiritual gift of parish life and the means by which the Holy Spirit creates unity, and 3) a parish is an incarnational model of social transformation--a way of not just doing but of being social change.  These are just some of the ways in which the hidden spirit of a parish can begin to reveal itself. 

               Here are some of the practical ways the Congregational Spirituality Project found that this can happen.  Ponder the meaning of your church’s history (including the hard times) for hints about where God is leading you, where your story meets The Story, the Gospel.  Listen especially through your liturgy, its prayers and cycles, for patterns that match your parish’s life cycles.  Call upon your church’s lay leaders to conduct in-depth interviews of members, guided by questions designed to uncover ways in which parishioners have grown spiritually by involvement in parish life. Learn to reflect prayerfully on your congregation’s spirit by using scripture to discern parallel themes.  Discern your congregation’s unique gifts and needs—possibly, as in Revelation, by describing the “angel” of your church.  Consider which ministries are rooted in your parish’s unique way of being a parish.  But, most important: consider how to nurture people to be where they need to be in the midst of the world?

            Uncovering Your Church’s Hidden Spirit can provide helpful guidance as you discover how to carry out those discernment tasks, and you may also want to consider engaging a parish spiritual guide or companion to walk with you as you get to know God more truly by discovering your parish’s unique spirit.

---________________________

Celia Allison Hahn, D.D. is also author of Growing in Authority, Relinquishing Control (published by The Alban Institute: 1-800-486-1318, ext.2.), and may be contacted at cahahn@erols.com  Father Richard Chiola, Ph.D., may be contacted at St. Augustine Church, Ashland, IL.