MIM Ezine, December 15, 2008

-- In the Huddle: Discipleship through Intentional Community: John's Story - Getting Beyond Social Christianity, by Tim Burns.

-- BOOK REVIEW: Couple Conversation: The Art of Creating Intimacy,by Theodore Chaffee, reviewed by Teena Stewart.

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The usher interrupted the service to hand the pastor a note. After a moment of silence while reading the note, the pastor announced, “We need some volunteers to go to the nursery immediately. The children have taken Mrs. Johnson hostage and are demanding better snacks for a ransom.”

The search for reliable, trained volunteers never ends. It often becomes a struggle that overwhelms the ministry leader. And in our struggling economy, it could get worse. Many ministries are forced to hold the line on staff expenses, if not cut back. Many volunteers are finding themselves scrambling for jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. They may have less time and energy to offer in volunteer service. It is a challenging experience for many leaders.

God is good. Since I wrote the last article on volunteers, I had the opportunity to hear my friend, Rev. Sue Nilson Kibbey, speak on this subject. Sue is the Executive Pastor at Ginghamsburg Church. It was extremely helpful to me in my own work of nurturing and caring for volunteers. Following are some of her thoughts that I would like to share with you with her gracious blessing.

Kibbey does not use the word “volunteers.” At Ginghamsburg they use the word “servant.” A volunteer holds the power and authority to give or not give as they choose. A servant has relinquished that right. Of course, no one is a servant of the church. That can lead to an abusive church environment. A servant serves God through the ministries of the church.

Furthermore, the church has reversed its image of ministry. The old traditional model of the mid 20^th century was that the professionally trained leader – often the pastor – was the one who performed ministry. Since a high percentage of the population attended church, ministry often took place in the context of the church building by the leader. Consequently, evangelism consisted of getting people outside the church to come inside the church where the ministry leader could do ministry on them.

The world has changed. Effective ministry does not look like that anymore. In the 21^st century we discover that a majority of people do not attend church, even though many of them are seeking or working on developing their spiritual life. They just don’t think the church has a clue.

So, ministry is done by servants who engage people outside the church facility where they live and move and have their being. The effective leader is one who trains, coordinates, supports, and encourages the servants in their ministries. The objective then is to get people out of the church and into the world where God can use their service to transform the world. Recruiting and supporting volunteer servants is an essential task for the effective leader.

Sue Nilson Kibbey identifies four crippling mindsets of the ministry leader. The leader needs to change these attitudes in order to attract volunteer servants.

What kind of assumptions does the leader make about the ministry to be done and the volunteer servants who could do it? It is not about convincing people, but inviting them to participate in God’s vision.

When a leader assumes a task is boring, the leader is communicating that the task lacks value and importance. Who would want to give precious discretionary time to something of no value? What is boring to one person may be a delight and a joy to another.

I tried Sue’s ideas immediately. I needed to recruit some servants to do the children’s message on Sunday morning. I enjoy doing the children’s message, but I know there are others who do this very well. With two campuses I am not always in the same location and need others to participate. So I wrote an email – not as ideal as a face to face conversation – to four people about doing the children’s message on four dates in the next couple of months. My message went something like this: “I have your name on a list of people who volunteered to do the children’s message and I haven’t given you an opportunity to do this. Here are several dates. Is there one you’d like to do?” I added the themes for each of the services and invited them to contact me with any questions.

Within 24 hours I had three responses volunteering for three different dates with enthusiasm! I confirmed each of their responses and thanked them for their service. I did have a face-to-face conversation with the fourth one who indicated interest, but clarified another area in which he would prefer to serve. That was a win/win.

Sue Nilson Kibbey has some more excellent coaching tips that I’ll share in the next article on unleashing the power and potential of unpaid servants.

Tom Hanover is Advertising and Promo Director of MIM ezine. He has served in a variety of pastoral leadership roles for more than 30 years, including seven years 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.

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John was a deacon’s kid. “Every time the church doors were open, we were there. It wasn’t a question or a discussion.” Following his mom and dad’s lead, John and his siblings engaged church life as many of us did in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The community that lived nearby was also the community they met with every weekend. When there were marriages, birthdays and other significant social events, the people that filled the church also celebrated in the family backyard.

John remembers that he knew all these people socially, and similarly his knowledge of Jesus was social familiarity, not a real relationship. Going to church and socializing with other church goers was “all he knew.” Yet church, and spiritual life was relegated to Sunday, Wednesday nights, the once a month youth group, and summer camp. John’s dad set the boundaries. Even as a deacon, he didn’t want to “shove it down their throats.” As a result, during the majority of the week social settings outside of church events remained decidedly secular.

When John launched into adulthood, the dichotomy continued. His head knowledge about Jesus Christ didn’t translate. “I didn’t understand anything about a relationship with Christ.”

He struggled in his faith. He knew the structure. He knew how to act from social training and church camp flannel graphs. However, the transformational power of Christ remained absent. He understood the structure he had learned, but had no experience of a committed, transforming Christian lifestyle.

When I met John, he was on a journey, “newly back to Christ.” Like myself, life had thrown him a few curve balls. The social faith of his youth was long gone, and John wanted to find the prevailing transformational faith about which he had heard. He knew more existed, but he wasn’t sure where.

“I wanted to go beyond the attendee status.” Hewanted to connect with God, and he learned how in our small group.

I watched John grow during the 2 ½ years we spent together, but I asked him to put this growth journey into his own words. “It was because of your friendship with me that I found a way to make a connection to a real faith. In group, we opened up and shared about vulnerable issues. We took a risk. It was like taking a knife, gutting myself, and bearing my soul. When I was accepted, I learned that in that relationship I sought Christ who accepted all my issues, too. I learned how to connect. The social Christianity of my youth became a lifestyle.” As we talked, John used some of these words.

The result, as John says, was that “there was bonding and binding of our souls as men. I built friendships that will last into Christ’s kingdom.”

John currently leads the Divorce Care ministry at Mt Hope Church in Lansing, Michigan. While the program is designed to be replicated nationally, John applies the transformational lifestyle he learned in our small group as he leads Divorce Care. He is building a network of friends which extends beyond the once a week class. He mentors those who are ready, always looking to raise-up leaders, thus duplicate the discipling process he learned. He consistently models a transformational and vulnerable lifestyle. As a result, John watches and participates with Christ as he helps those hurting individuals who seek understanding and healing as a result of divorce. Their lives are forever changed by divorce, but also by the comfort they find in the work that John does..

Disciples are made, not born. Maturity in believers is not the result of church attendance, social religious involvement or prayers at the altar. Jesus spent 3 years to transform 12 men into transformational leaders who could carry his message to the world.

Who do you know with whom you can actually be ‘real’? The world demands we wear masks; yet genuine spiritual growth requires vulnerable transparency. Who do you have in your life that you can share your real nature with?

If you are like a majority of Christians, this idea of vulnerable face to face accountability is new. Take the step. Find a person to become your Barnabas – someone who walks the path along with you.

Timothy Burns lives in West Michigan, and has written professionally for six years. Timothy’s writing reflects a deep connection to cultural influences, Christ centered living, and how often unwritten patterns can influence our behaviors and beliefs because while people differ by continent and decade, human nature does not. The ability to identify the human element or organizational culture sets Timothy’s work apart from what can be otherwise commonplace copy. His writing spans topics of Christian living, apologetics, and the hidden benefits that often surface through personal trials.

Good communication is crucial to a good marital relationship. When communication breaks down, the relationship typically becomes strained. The strength of a relationship doesn’t depend so much on how often you talk but how skilled you are at truly listening to each other.

Theodore Chaffee, a marriage and family therapist, believes there are four dimensions to the human experience—body, mind, soul and spirit. Understanding and meeting the needs of each of these dimensions can improve the intimacy between partners. Chaffee feels communication can be broken down into five skills levels: deep listening, light talk, mind talk, soul talk and heart talk. Each should be worked on separately to gain skill, but all five should eventually interface to create solid, enduring intimacy.

Chaffee provides examples of couples to illustrate how these five skills might be improved. He also includes several techniques or exercises, some with catchy acronyms that help you recall the technique in order to put it into practice. Newlyweds, who are just learning how to relate to one another, as well as seasoned married couples can grow by applying suggestions presented in this book.

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DBMIM December 15, 2008

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