Ministry in Motion has a  new look, but the same promise of quality in Leadership Excellence!

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Scott’s Ramblings:  “Football and Worship!”

Scott Miller

smiller@milfordfirstumc.org

In the words of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee… “Welcome True Believers!”

You are going to be riding on an adventure similar to a roller coaster in this series of articles.  My name is R. Scott Miller and up to a few years ago I was in the mold of what I would consider traditional youth ministry.  I truly believed that my job was to do program ministry, plan retreats and trips, coordinate fundraisers, go to meetings, be a mentor and be the forever “big Kid.” (Okay, some parts don’t change.)  A little over 5 years ago that paradigm was turned upside down and backwards for me.  Over the next months I want to share with you about the direction I have gone and hope that you will begin to consider what you are doing in youth ministry as well.

What Happens When the Sr. Pastor Skips Church?

In the Fall of 2000 my senior pastor and his wife were given tickets to a Cincinnati Bengals Football Game.  It happened to be on a Sunday the Associate pastor was preaching.  They attended 9:30 Service and as they were driving away, they saw something that caught them off guard.  They saw a group of around 20 youth walking from his church to a local fast food joint.  They should have been moving from Sunday School to 11:00 worship.   From what I have heard, the staff meeting the next day was quite interesting.  Out of that meeting the staff decided there needed to be a worship service developed that kept these kids in church rather than leaving right after Sunday School.

The associate pastor at the time who was currently working with youth began to look at models of contemporary worship.  Some of the youth, youth leaders, and the associate pastor visited different churches doing contemporary worship.  During the month of March of that year they experimented with 4 contemporary worship services.  These experiments were well attended and revealed the necessary reasons that a service directed toward youth would begin with a good core group.

Even God Has A Sense of Humor On April Fools Day!

That is where I came into the picture.  It was December 30^th when I saw an ad online about this church in the Cincinnati area looking for a full time youth minister.  This attracted me since it was near my home area.  After living so far away for a number of years, I decided it was time to move back to the area where I grew up.  To make a long story short my first Sunday was (I am not lying!) APRIL 1^ST.  There was not a more appropriate Sunday for me to begin.  Later that week I was given my first major assignment.  I had until July 1^st to develop and implement a “Contemporary” worship service that our youth would want to attend.  The original intention was for this service to feed into a larger church wide “Contemporary Worship Service,” but something totally different emerged instead.

 Now that I have teased you a bit… will you come back next month to see what happened?

 Next Month

 Scott’s Ramblings

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“How to Find Ministry Employment”

Rebekah Hanover

Worship Director

Crossroads UMC, Ashburn, VA

Looking for a job is not for the faint of heart, particularly if you are called to full-time ministry. Keep in mind your giftedness, your calling, and some of the basics of job hunting.

You know people who know people. Eighty percent of all jobs are never advertised and over half of all employees find their jobs through networking (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Network either intimidates people or gets a bad reputation. Never use people but know how to ask for help. Most of us don’t realize how extensive our network is. You have to tell others what you are looking for and ask if they have any recommendations for you. If you know someone who has with experience in a position in which you are interested, spend some time learning from him or her. Look for advice.

In addition to your networking, there are a few ministry job-listing websites. One of the most extensive is xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" / ChurchStaffing.com. Youth Specialties also has a job listing, as do many denominations. However, do not blindly send out hundreds of resumes. Spend some time doing your homework.

These days, most everyone has at least some space reserved on the world wide web. If a ministry you are interested in has a homepage, start there. The overall look and feel of a ministry’s page will give you an overall impression. Then dive a little deeper and explore core values or beliefs. Don’t skim over these sections. You will save yourself time and frustration if you do your homework in advance. If you are not theologically compatible or in agreement with their stated values, it is not worth your time or theirs to pursue an opportunity any further.

If you like what you see, you may also call the ministry and ask them to send you any regularly distributed material (bulletin, newsletter, newcomers packet, etc). Most of this material may also be available online. Most churches and ministries are very helpful in providing additional materials.

If there is a particular ministry in which you are interested, but don’t see a ministry listing, don’t give up.  If they are not listing any current openings, call and ask, but only after you have done all your research. When you call, be specific. You need to be able to tell the person on the other end what you are looking for and why you are calling them. If you are cold calling random ministries simply because you need a job, you won’t get very far. It appears that you are looking for the ministry to serve you. Ministries are looking for people who can serve others through them.

An inquiring call might go something like, “Good morning, my name is Linda. I have a background in programming for and mentoring youth. I’m looking for a paid ministry position and I’ve noticed that you have an extensive youth ministry. There’s everything from weekly Sunday night worship, a couple retreats coming up along with several work camps scheduled for this summer. I’d like to explore how we might serve together.” This may be the motivation a ministry needs to revisit the budget.

If there simply isn’t a position available, ask for a referral. “Do you know of any ministry who may be looking for youth ministry staff?” Do not be afraid to ask. You will get a lot of no’s. However, after a full day of cold calls, I spoke with someone who gave me ten new names to call, and even recommended I use their name as the referral party.

That is a lot of cold call networking, but it can work! Pursue your calling and don’t give up!

Book Review:  The Practicing Congregation:  Imagining a New Old Church by Diana Butler Bass, ISBN 1-56699-305-9

Reviewed by Dean Feldmeyer, PhD

Sr. Pastor, Wilmington United Methodist Church

Wilmington, Ohio.

            Change is painful.

            Churches struggle with it and fight over it.

Pastors agonize and often give up trying to institute change rather than fight the battles that inevitably follow in its wake.

            Diana Butler Bass, in her insightful book, The Practicing Church, offers an explanation of why change is so hard for churches and how we, as their leaders can help them work through change in a positive, affirming way.  Many churches, she says, see change as a rejection or negation rather than as an affirmation.

            The reason our churches have this perspective is because we, in the mainline protestant denominations, have often lost the difference in tradition, custom, and convention.  Here, in a nutshell, is her theory:

            TRADITIONS reach back to our beginnings.  They come from our roots and are grounded deep in our history: they are foundational.  They demonstrate and perpetuate our core values.  They are the very center and heart of our fellowship and they shape our corporate life together.  They define who we are.  Examples of Christina traditions would be: Charity, love, generosity, mutual support, peace, self sacrifice, self discipline, humility, kindness, forgiveness, faithfulness, corporate worship, and disciple making.

            CUSTOMS are the long-standing, ritualized ways of acting out our traditions.  Customs are always specific to the group who owns them.  Acts and events become customs because they allow the group to speak of and act out their traditions in ways that are particularly meaningful and effective for them.

            So, for example:

An ancient and venerable Christian tradition is “charity”-that is, generosity toward those in need, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, etc.  The church rummage sale to raise money for the local children’s hospital, however, is not a tradition.  It is a custom.  It is a long-standing, ritualized way in which a particular group of people act on and live out their tradition of charity.

            CONVENTIONS are widespread agreements that people make in order to make life easier for everyone.  Driving on the right side of the road is a convention.  Worshiping at one hour or another is a convention.  Conventions have little or nothing to do with core values or traditions and are changed whenever a more efficient convention is discovered or needed.

            Problems arise when churches confuse their traditions, customs and conventions, when they treat customs and conventions as though they are traditions.  Traditions never change.  Customs and conventions change often, especially when we discover new and better ways of living our traditions.

            Some ways of handling the tradition/custom/convention confusion are:

1. Take time often to explain this difference to your congregation-in sermon and in devotional moments;
2. Be careful of your own language.  Don’t call customs traditions and so forth;
3. Identify traditions when they are being acted out in your church;
4. Speak of change not as a rejection of old customs but as a way of affirming our traditions and discovering new customs for our life together as a community of faith; and
5. Remember that almost every lasting reform movement in the history of Christianity (including Methodism) began as a way of recapturing the ancient and venerable Christian traditions by creating new and innovative customs,