MIM Ezine, December 7, 2007

-- The Reconstruction of A Youth Worker: Confessions of a Comic Book Geekby Scott Miller.

-- Book Review: "Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives," by Ravi Zacharias, reviewed by Teena Stewart.

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Continuous and discontinuous change was the theme of my last article. Many ministry leaders find themselves in periods of discontinuous change in their ministry organization, and soon discover that incremental tweaking of their current ministry approaches is no longer adequate. What is required is a different style of leadership than what they might have learned during more stable and predictable times.

Jerry’s experience is a good example of this situation. When he first started as a pastor of the Pleasant Valley Church 20 years ago, he spent most of his time visiting the sick and the bereaved. He worked hard on his sermons. And he attended what meetings were necessary to keep the bills paid. However, those days are gone.

Now Jerry is the pastor at First Main Street Church. Preaching the Word and loving the people no longer seemed adequate for this once strong regional beacon of ministry to serve the community effectively. People in Jerry’s congregation were working harder and harder with less and less to show for it. Now Jerry felt he was spending most of his time attending meetings, all of which had a similar theme. There was never enough money, volunteers, or time available. As the resources seemed to be running out, the challenges continued to grow.

And to make matters worse, the town was changing. More and more people of color were moving into the community, and with them they brought a rich diversity of language, worship styles, and cultural preferences. First Main Street was barely hanging on to what they had, how could they adapt to the new opportunities for ministry just outside their walls?

Roxburgh and Romanuk (The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, Jossey-Bass, 2006) talk about the missional imagination of the ministry leader. How does a ministry leader seed and nurture a sense of vision in the eyes and hearts of the people?

It is not easy. Ministry leadership is challenging, which is partly due to the human condition. People are not automatically wired for ministry. That is why we need transformation in our lives and in our world.

Secondly, it is not easy because God desires to grant accomplishment out of God’s sense of timing and direction; not out of our sense of skill or talent. It sometimes appears we are failing just when God is about to do something dramatic.

Think of the stories of scriptures. Who is it that accomplished much easily? Abraham and Sarah were promised to be parents of many descendents. But did they live to see it? Jeremiah prophesied about a new covenant, but did he live to see it? David was the apple of God’s eye, but his last days were filled with many regrets. The writer of Hebrews reminds us of many more who saw the vision from a distance and kept the faith; though they would never realize the dream in which they hoped.

Scriptures are full of stories of people with missional imagination. They could see God’s possibilities, if only through eyes of faith. They could imagine what God wanted to do. They would speak of it passionately. They reoriented their lives on the assumption of that mission.

That is the first step to nurturing a missional imagination. What are the Biblical stories of seeing God’s possibilities? What are the examples of people who reached tremendous potential through powerful resources not completely their own?

A ministry leader developing a missional imagination will practice to become fluent in the images and metaphors of the scriptures. Then the leader will teach others to learn these images and metaphors. The intent is not to take 21^st century Christians back to an ancient world culture, but to imagine God’s missional possibilities in the 21^st century.

My wife, Cathy, and I have been married 32 years. Over that time I have learned to recognize the sound of her voice, the style of her handwriting, the meaning of her unspoken facial expressions, and much more. My practice over the last 32 years of watching, observing, and learning about this wonderful woman informs and shapes my understanding of how she functions today. At times we complete each other’s sentences. At other times we communicate quite clearly without using words at all.

In the same way a ministry leader immerses the people of a congregation in the Biblical story. As they become familiar with how God has worked with men and women in the past, they will soon learn to recognize how God is relating to men and women today. A ministry team or congregation can then begin to develop their own library of language, images, and metaphors for how God is calling them to mission today.

A second step for the ministry leader to develop a missional imagination follows close behind. Missional leaders discern what God is doing in and through and around all the actions of the congregation.

When the Trustees met, I led a brief devotional on Matthew 25, Jesus’ parable of the talents. About 20 minutes later, the Trustees were discussing some topic on the agenda. When one Trustee voiced his opinion about the subject, another Trustee responded, “That sounds like burying it in the ground to me.”

Instantly, the whole group understood what was being said. It was not confrontational or argumentative. It was honest listening and sharing, and they saw their leadership tasks in light of the gospel teaching. It changed the decision and the process for discerning the proper action.

Just because people dress nicely for Sunday mornings does not mean that they automatically have this gift of discernment. This is something that most people need to learn. A ministry leader can teach this by first modeling it, and then practicing it with key leaders.

Provocative questions can also connect the scriptural imagination to our own missional imagination.

Thirdly, ministry leaders can help others develop missional imagination by telling stories. Not just any stories, but a missional leader will tell stories of hope and mission.

United Methodist Churches have an annual meeting called a charge conference where officers are elected, budgets are approved, and various reports are received. As part of the message I shared via video was the story of Steve, a member of one of our smaller churches who had a dramatic story of physical healing. It is a tremendous example of how one church reached out to someone facing difficulty.

Steve’s story is the story of the shepherd who left the 99 sheep in the fold and went searching for the one lamb who was missing. After hearing Steve tell his story, all I asked was, “Who are the people like Steve in your neighborhood?”

The message did not arouse guilt or feelings of failure. Instead, it was a story of hope: one man facing physical limitations, one small church who adopted him, and how God transformed both the individual and the church. If God can do it there, God can do it where you lead ministry.

That is our hope! That is our mission! As ministry leaders share stories of hope and mission, we cultivate the ability to imagine the mission to which God is calling us.

Tom Hanover has served in a variety of pastoral leadership roles for over 30 years, the last four as a District Superintendent supervising the ministries of more than 100 pastors and churches in southwest Ohio. He has a BA (cum laude) from Taylor University, and MDiv and DMin degrees from United Theological Seminary in Dayton.

I am going to share with you my true geekness this month. My buddy, who in my stories and sermons I refer to as Toothless Mark, and I decided to do a guys weekend away. It was not going to be just any weekend away. We had planned for months, booked a hotel, and bought tickets to attend a Comic Book Convention.

This convention we were going to wasn’t one of the big ones you would find in San Diego, New York, or Philadelphia. This is one that is held after Thanksgiving every year in Columbus, Ohio at a convention center next to a really nice hotel.

We were really excited! Since I am the comic book collector and Mark is the student of Pop Culture, there was going to be plenty for each of us. There were venders selling lots of comic books, artists, writers, and the puppets from Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Moreover, there were even stars like Doug Jones who played the Silver Surfer and Noel Neill who was the original Lois Lane. We were ready! We had a room at the convention hotel. We had our bags ready to shop. Nothing could stop us.

While I was checking into the hotel, Mark wandered around the hotel. We met up after I had taken care of things and I heard him snickering at two guys walking by wearing spandex costumes looking like super heroes. On the elevator with us were a couple of guys dressed like Yoda. On our way out of the hotel that afternoon we walked by the bar and there were more people wearing masks and costumes. I was laughing and Mark was wondering what I had dragged him into.

Seeing all these people dressed up got me thinking. We all wear costumes and masks of sorts. I will admit that at my first full time church in New Jersey I wore a sport coat and tie almost every Sunday. I HATED IT!!!!! But I felt like I had to. I felt that if I didn’t have a tie on, I would be out of place. I was wearing a mask hoping that the people in the congregation would respect my position more if I dressed the part wearing the minister’s uniform.

Unfortunately, most of our costumes and masks are a bit more discrete. Some are in the form of a big smile, even though we are hurting inside. Some are staying busy, because we have situations in our families that we do not want to address. I don’t have to run through the list because you know what kinds of masks that you wear at times.

Over the years I have tried to ditch as many of the masks that I could. I have worked hard at trying to be myself as much as I can. I will admit that sometimes it causes problems. Even at 40 some people think I am the big kid because I dress comfortable during the week and it is rare that you will see me in a suit or tie (usually around some special holiday or when we have a special guest like the Bishop or some other event). On the other hand because I am wearing less masks and costumes, what I have found is I have become more approachable, more real to people both in and out of my congregation. One of my favorite compliments is when someone starts to get to know me and tells me that I do not fall into their idea of what a minister is.

So what kind of costume or mask are you wearing? Is it something like a storm trooper costume made up of body armor trying to hide who you are to your congregation? Or is it something more discrete like one of the old 50’s heroes where it is just a slight mask so they see your face so people know a little bit about you but not much. Just enough…

I want to challenge you to take the chance. Take off the mask. See how things change both the way you handle yourself as well as the way people approach you. There are times when we do need to protect ourselves, but we can make the mistake of overdoing that. Being real is what is important to people. That is what Jesus did. Isn’t that what we should be modeling?

Feel free to contact Scott to agree, disagree, or just pick his brain about youth ministry you can contact him at: rscottmiller1@aol.com Scott would love to hear from you!

R. Scott Miller is the Director of Christian Education and Youth at Milford First United Methodist Church in the suburbs of Cincinnati, OH. In his 17 years of youth ministry, Scott has written and developed much of the youth programming used in his churches. Scott has a B.A. in Radio/TV and Journalism from Morehead State University and an M.A. from Asbury Theological Seminary. Scott is the author of7 Things Christians Don't Do and What To Do Instead by Abingdon Press.

Ministry in Motion has launched a new blog for readers just like you at http://ministryinmotionnet.blogspot.com/. It is a place to ask questions, exchange ideas, and encourage other ministry leaders in our growing network.

This month Tom Hanover will check the blog posts regularly to respond to questions and share ideas on strategic leadership. Stop by and let us know how ministry is going for you!

International apologist Ravi Zacharias mingles beautiful and unique inspirational stories with reflections on God’s working in our daily lives. Ravi believes there is purpose in even the seemingly mundane events and hardships as our lives are all the handiwork of a Master Weaver.

Zacharias, a nationally recognized speaker, has spoken at locations such as Princeton, Harvard and Oxford. Though one might expect someone with Zacharias’ credentials and accomplishments to be academic in his approach, the book is a refreshing mixture of biblical teaching, apologetics, and a down-to-earth style. The book’s lessons are easy to grasp.

Some of the most delightful aspects of the book are the stories Zacharias’ uses to from his native India to paint a visual image to illustrate his point. In addition, Zacharias looks at how God leaves his divine artist’s mark on our lives through DNA, life disappointments, calling, morality issues, spirituality, our will, worship, and our destiny. After completing this book readers should feel assured that they really do matter and that God carefully weaves the threads of life to make them unique individuals for a unique purpose.

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DBMIM -December 7, 2007