MIM Ezine, October 20, 2006

-- The Reconstruction of A Youth Worker: “A Conversation About Youth Worship,” by R. Scott Miller.

-- Book Review: Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, By Andreas J. Kostenberger and Thomas R. Schreiner, reviewed by Teena M. Stewart.

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Peter heaved a deep sigh as he sank into his office chair. He had just hung up from a phone call with Larry, the Chair of the Finance Committee. In the two years since his arrival at Maintenance Community Church, he had learned to recognize the symptoms and the players in a slow and general decline of the church over the last 25 years.

The phone call illustrated his point. Larry had called to indicate that he and Alethia, the treasurer, didn’t see a need to do all that extra stuff for a pledge campaign. They were doing okay meeting the budget. It seemed like a lot of extra work when most people were going to give what they had always given.

Peter pondered his approach. How can he help all of his leaders get over this speed bump? They were good people. They loved the Lord. They loved their church. They just didn’t understand how their church reflexes contributed to maintaining the problem rather than creating new solutions.

Peter was mindlessly scrolling through all the spam in his email box when he saw a note from a friend. He shared some thoughts about using the “coach approach” to direct leaders. What is the “coach approach?” How can it be a helpful tool in leading leaders?

The “coach approach” focuses first on the one being coached. Peter would center on Larry or Alethia in his conversations with them. It was not about a task, a project, or a goal; but about maximizing Larry and Alethia’s leadership. What are their goals in their role of leadership? How are they building relationships with others on the team? What part of their leadership energizes them? What frustrates them?

The “coach approach” does not begin with problem solving, but encouragement towards self-discovery. As Larry and Alethia learn more about themselves and their teams, they become energized to engage in effective leadership.

The “coach approach” points out to people like Larry and Alethia their strengths. If Larry and Alethia are dependable managers of well-designed and thoroughly practiced systems, then Peter could help them focus their role on implementing the routine systems needed to keep the church functioning in a healthy manner. At the same time, Peter might want to look for others with gifts for imagination, creativity, and vision to craft needed new systems or new approaches.

This frees Peter from trying to force someone into a role or position he or she feels unqualified to do. It also reduces the guilt many people experience when they feel pushed or manipulated to do something they don’t like. How does Peter learn this? He asks questions. An important part of the art of coaching is the art of asking questions. These are not questions of interrogation or manipulation. These are questions of insatiable curiosity about people.

Peter began to list some of the questions that expressed his interest, support, and inquisitiveness about his leaders. When have you experienced a surge of interest and excitement about the church? What was happening in the church when you first chose to become a member? What is it about leadership that intrigues you? What do you like about your team members? Who is it that models the kind of leadership you want to grow into? Who do you think is watching your leadership?

Asking questions of curiosity affirms the leader with the coach’s interest. The “coach approach” seeks opportunities to cheerlead, encourage, and support the leader. In an environment of affirmation, a leader will learn to trust the coach and listen for guidance at critical times.

Peter thought about that old proverb his grandfather used to repeat, “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” He smiled. Maybe this “coach approach” isn’t anything brand new. It is just fresh framework on effective relational leadership.

Almost as if Peter’s friend read his mind, his email note raised the question: “But what about the mission?” Leadership is about a mission and a vision. Otherwise it is merely playing the pied piper with no place to go.

Peter’s friend had a response. The “coach approach” always asks questions to clarify the mission. What is our mission here? Why are we here? What is the fruit God is calling us to produce? What is the harvest Jesus sees in our community? Why does God need this church in this town?

The useful response is not to work harder or to change some agenda. The best response is increased clarity about God’s call to ministry. The “coach approach” is like cleaning the dust and smears off one’s glasses so the vision becomes sharper with greater detail.

When does the “coach approach” not work? Coaching is not counseling or spiritual direction. Counseling is often client-centered, but needs to focus on one’s inner health or social relationships. Coaching tends to focus on outward performance of leadership.

Spiritual direction is also focused on the pilgrim. However, spiritual direction tends to utilize spiritual resources and patterns to create an inner spiritual health. While that is essential to effective spiritual leadership, it may miss guidance on leadership behavior that needs grooming.

The “coach approach” is not always the right choice in chaos and controversy. When a building is on fire, a leader will not survey everyone to see what the consensus is about a response. The leader barks orders and points directions. It is time for action.

Many ministry opportunities are characterized more by decline or stability, rather than chaos and conflict. Most systems do not last very long in continued chaos and conflict. What is an effective leadership style where leaders are loyal and faithful, but uncertain about direction? Perhaps the “coach approach” is a useful possibility.

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.

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Recently, I had been contemplating about including some observations about Christian youth into my ramblings. After hanging out with a group called the Dead Pastors Society not long ago, a few of us continued our discussion over lunch, and the subject about my articles came up in conversation. One of my friends commented about how he would like to hear opinions from youth about worship. To me, this verified the need to include some of the youth into this series and it encouraged me to do it soon.

Let me introduce you to the voices you will be hearing from in the next few issues of my Ramblings:

Tim: In my opinion, the traditional adult worship services do not reach out to me like the youth worship service does. Since it is geared towards a youth audience, it does a great job of touching on subjects relevant to our lives as well as keeping us interested.

Drew: It is a comfortable way for me to worship. I feel less out of place in a youth service.

Amanda: This opportunity is important to me because it gives me the chance to be myself and have fun in church. It also lets me be around people my age and older; who share the same interest in worship as I do.

Beth: Having a youth worship service has been very important to my faith and growth in the church. It gives me a place to go to when things are hard.

Kaitlin: A lot of people that attend are my age, so I feel more comfortable and not out of place.

Timaji: I think it's extremely important. It gives youth an opportunity to worship in a more comfortable environment. In an adult service, most youth are likely to not understand the sermon because it's directed at adults. When you have youth worship, it's directed straight at the kids. It's easier to understand, and the environment makes it so much easier and more comfortable to grow in god through community. It's absolutely amazing!

Stephanie: I feel a lot more comfortable in Youth worship. I feel like I can relate it more to my own life.
Over the years, I have heard different reasons for families finding a church. One reason they give is because of the children and youth programs, but often they are just shopping worship services. They are trying to find a worship service that speaks to them. One where they enjoy the music, understand the preacher and feel comfortable with the congregation. Are the responses above much different?

For many years in youth ministry, I strived to build a good program that had lots of energy, activities and great retreats. However, as I have gotten older I realized that something was missing. At the retreats the kids got a chance to have some worship experiences, but what happened when they got back on Sunday mornings. I realized over the years that I would often have more youth attending youth group than I would have them attending church. The exception would be those Sundays that the youth were in charge or when the youth choir would be singing.

Most of the times, it was like pulling teeth to get them to worship. And many of my youth groups had very little influence from the senior pastor. But I have been blessed over the years to have worked with pastors that related to the kids. I believe that what was missing was a place to worship where the youth would both feel safe and welcome to worship in a way that is comfortable for them. Now is that much different from what adults are looking for?

Think about this until next month when I talk to this group of youth about how going to youth worship has affected them as well as their youth group.

Feel free to contact Scott to either agree, disagree or just pick his brain some more on this topic of Youth Worship 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 15 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 of 7 Things Christians Don't Do and What To Do Instead by Abingdon Press.

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Book Review - Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15

By Andreas J. Kostenberger and Thomas R. Schreiner, Editors, Baker Academic, 2005, 080102904X, 284

Andrea J. Kostenberger (PH.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is professor of New Testament and director of Ph.D./Th. M. studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Thomas R. Schreiner (Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminar) is professor of New Testament interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Together they have done a thorough research on 1 Timothy 2:9-15 which has long been an issue of debate regarding women in leadership, their roles in the church, biblical authority and submission to men.

Their book provides a scholarly look at all aspects of the passage. Is it written simply for the people of that time, or should the passage apply to Christians today? One of the dangers of interpreting scripture is that we often overlay our culture into the interpretation as well as taking the passage out of context. The authors give fair coverage to the history of Ephesus, and its culture and the prevalent gods/goddesses of the region and time.

Also provided are quotes from past published essays on the subject by scholars who have been either of the persuasion that men and women should be given equal authority or that men should have authority over women and not vice versa.

In addition, they cover the syntactical parallels to 1 Timothy 2:12 and language pattern groupings which are important to understand if the passage is to be interpreted accurately.

Though the authors spend a vast amount of time dissecting the Greek language, when explanations were given regarding the meaning of the words or specific terms, the authors do not include an English pronunciation of the Greek word, nor phonetic spelling or pronunciation. It may have been helpful for their readers if they had since those who are not Greek scholars may soon become confused as to exact meanings of the words as more Greek words are introduced and dissected.

Chapter 6, What Should a Woman Do in the Church written by Dorothy Kelly Patterson (a Koine Greek scholar) lends additional credibility to the book and provides good insight. The primary conclusion the authors reach is that women should not be in positions where they have authority over men in the church but that the passage is not a blanket command to eliminate all feminine teaching and leadership.

This is an academic book that relies heavily on research, biblical exegesis, and language interpretation. The back one third of the book is note references which may give you an idea of just how reference-heavy this book is. The average lay person may become bogged down in the in-depth time spent on referencing past published research by other scholars. It is appropriate reading for those wishing to go to great depths to pull apart the meaning while reviewing essays and research papers on the topic. In the end, it will be up to you reach your own conclusions after reading this thorough exploration by the authors.

Teena Stewart is a published writer, a ministry consultant and coach, and a product developer for Ministry in Motion. You can email her at smartwords@sbcglobal.net. To learn more about Teena, her writing, and consulting services, click here.

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MIM Ezine - October 20, 2006