Welcome to this blogspot. Below is my original email sent to a variety of friends. Juno.com wouldn't let me keep sending emails to so many people at one time. That's why I started this blog.
This started out as an idea for one of my favorite small churches in the world: Chickasha First Church of the Nazarene. I love that church. However, as the discussion continued, I thought of applications for the church I now pastor, Midland Valley First Church of the Nazarene (another of the churches I love most in the world!!!!) Sign up for a free account, click the "comments" word below to see the ongoing discussion, and post your own insights / thoughts / questions. Let's see God's kingdom advance in every ministry setting!
Blessings, Brent Van Hook
---------
Friends,
On the heels of a great conversation with my good friend Dr. Ron
Orr, long time member of Chickasha First Naz, I wanted to open up a
discussion about this:
What about small churches teaming together for high quality staff?
For example, if Anadarko, Chickasha, and Tuttle (it could be any 2
or 3 churches in a geographical region) joined forces to hire the
best music / worship leader they could find. Then worship could be
at, say, 9 am in Anadarko, 10:45 in Chickasha, and 6 pm in Tuttle.
Sunday School at the alternate hours.
Imagine who wins with this! Most of all the church gets high
quality ministry at smaller churches who aren't able to afford the
best. This would improve community standing for those churches and
give a momentum boost that might propel them to new heights.
I know NW Oklahoma has a couple churches doing this with a youth
pastor. Any other examples? If tiny United Methodist Churches
share a senior pastor, why couldn't churches in the 50-75 in worship
attendance share a staff member? It could be anything from kids to
youth to pastoral care to administration to preaching to any combo
of the above.
Thoughts? Dialogue? Discussion?
Brent Van Hook
25 comments:
Chuck Milhuff was the first to respond to my original email:
Brent go for it. Who gets the 10:45 time for the worship leader? How about a preacher that may have more preaching ability than any of the three churche's pastors circulating as well?
Chuck
MILLHUFF MINISTRIES
CHARLES R. MILLHUFF, D. Min.
MILLHUFF MINISTRIES
COLLEGE CHURCH 2020 E. SHERIDAN ST.66062
OFF. and CELL 913-269-5221 HM 913-764-0005 FAX 913-764-4576
Loren Gresham sent the following input:
Sounds like a great idea to me. As a layman, I've noticed how some
churches, no matter how small, want to 'own' their staff. If that type
of feeling could be overcome, good things could happen with shared
staff. LG
Jon Middendorf sent the following input:
I think it's a great idea. We're sharing a staff member right now with a church on another district. Joe Hall serves our church by facilitating compassionate ministry at Penn Ave Church of the Nazarene. Let me know how I could help.
Jon
I submitted the following:
You're right, Loren. It would have to begin with humility and a teamwork-minded
heart from the leaders of churches.
I guess the beginning point is a heart broken for a lost world, holy dissatisfaction with
fruitfulness that yields only plateau or declining results, and a spirit of willing to
try something new. Not enough of us / church leaders have that. But some do! So let's
get the word out that this is a possibility.
There ARE Godly church leaders of small churches (I have Dr. Orr and several of the
Chickasha church leaders in mind as I write this) who want higher yields for their
faithful church work. These people have the right humility / fortitude mix to take a
chance on something like this and see it work!
Generally speaking, for most plateauing and declining churches, what do they have to
lose? They can always go back to the way it was! And it's not really THAT much of a
change in terms of what they experience...except it's better quality.
Idea: What if the staff person(s) spent a day or two in each town they serve? That
would give them personal contact time with the congregation. Say, for example, a music
and worship leader spent Tuesday in Anadarko, Wednesday in Chickasha, and Thursday in
Tuttle. Just spent the day there. Spent the whole day visiting families, having lunch
with kids at school or with laymen, going to the Optimist Club meeting, having choir
practice that night including sound system workers, etc. No matter what staff work they
did, they spent a whole day connecting with the people. This is a crucial element to
small town pastoring. That might add an element of the "ownership" element
Loren was talking about. It wouldn't provide an "exclusive" element. But
that's where a church's humility would need to kick in.
There could still be a full time shepherd at the church. A church like Chickasha could
afford a full time pastor and 1/3 the salary of a staff person. That might help the
congregation feel like they always have a person to call on at all times.
Thoughts? Responses? Who can use this?
Next I sent this:
Jon,
Tell Joe I said "hi." I've tried to email him but apparently I have an old
email address. His wife grew up at Waterloo. I talked to him about coming to Waterloo
on staff.
Maybe you could forward this to your Dad? Does he have any thoughts? Might he know
some people who could use this concept?
What about SNU profs. Could some of them bring this up to kids as options?
That brings up a new thought for me: What if, just to try it, a couple churches had a
college summer intern? Ran VBS at each church, had a couple outreach events, visited a
few people. That might warm up a congregation to the concept.
Doug Samples, what do you think about that?
Brent
Loren Gresham again, responding to my email of the idea of the staff member visiting a city one day a week to encourage "ownership":
Brent: really great ideas if the "ownership" issue of staff by a local
congregation could be overcome. Keep the dialogue going. Loren
Like all Trevecca grads, Dan Boone added a twist. ha ha. Seriously, though, Boone added some creativity and practicality worthy of serious consideration:
Brent,
You started a great conversation. Thanks for inviting us to think out loud.
I'd offer a twist. I think this might work better if one senior pastor and a team or 2 or 3 staff served 3-4 congregations. At College Church, we were doing up to 4 services, and this could easily have been 5 or 6 with weekend services. We also provided staff leadership for a struggling congregation nearby and two Sunday morning nursing home services. The pastoral care load for 3 congregations of 100 is not much different than one of 300-400. The administrative load would be greater with the 3 churches, but I would suggest that one of the staff pastors be a good administrator who guides the boards, finances, and facilities in conjunction with the local leaders.
Some of the benefits -
1. You don't have multiple preachers spending a day or two in the study preparing different sermons that will be preached one time and shelved. Sermon work may be the most repeatable work done by anyone in pastoral ministry. Most of the other work by staff pastors requires presence. The sermon can be prepared once, preached multiple times. This is probably the most cost effective saving in the ministerial workload.
2. One or two well-planned worship services could be shared several times. Worship times would need to be negotiated between the churches - ex. Saturday 5pm and 7pm, Sunday 9am and 11am - and maybe one community wide shared Sunday evening gathering that would combine youth groups, etc. Musicians from each congregation might be used to dramatically improve the worship experience in all the churches. Our experience was that we needed to have two primary teams that rotated in 2-3 week shifts.
3. The salary package for the senior pastor is usually the highest. This means that only one senior salary would allow 2-3 other good packages to be offered for administration, worship, education, etc. In the shared staff model, you would still have three senior pastor benefit packages to pay before you hire your first shared staff person. In the single senior pastor model, you'd save at least two benefit packages and get more staff.
4. The missional mindset of caring for the county/area would be unified. Lay expertise in teaching could be shared among congregations. Larger outreach events would bring all the congregations together for community projects, revival type gatherings, and other service ministries.
5. Of course if you really want to get efficient, these congregations can merge under this leadership structure, adopt a common name with a location prefix, use rented space where the facilities are declining, elect a common board with reps from each church, and combine outreach/service ministries for impact.
It doesn't take a big church to do this. When I was in Raleigh, NC with about 150 people, we started a 9am service in the Cary town hall with our youth group as worship leaders. I preached the same sermon both places and we drew needed leadership to duplicate prepped ministry in both places.
If a senior pastor thinks she/he could pastor a larger congregation, this may be the way to find out. It takes a lot of multi-tasking, the ability to keep your eye on several things, and a good team...but this is very cost
efficient.
Blessings,
Dan Boone
In emails I sent out that got returned b/c juno.com thought I was sending spam, I offered these thoughts:
A. Could we use one of our summer ministry interns (right now we have 1 for youth and another for kids ministry) to help with VBS at our church the first week of summer then use the same material to lead VBS at another church nearby?
B. We need media help. Anyone nearby want to team up to hire a media person. Someone who knows what they are doing could easily meet our greatest media needs right now in 1 day a week work. We have 1/5 of the salary. Who's with me? Someone like Jason Worthington. Ordained and working at a Mac store right now.
C. Dr. Estep, what do you think about sending a survey to churches on the district asking what staff needs they have that could be filled with a part time staff member? Then fill a board with the requests from each team-work minded church. Next find as many resumes as possible. God mixes gifts up in unique ways so it's likely creative answers could come through unique individuals.
I see this as a win, win, win, win situation.
Hi Brent...
Great to hear from you. You have a great idea. I think this is a great plan and I began to tell you about our experience at OKC First and Penn Avenue when I looked down and saw that Jon had already responded. We are living a dream right now. Getting to work between two churches...one that has significant resources and one that does not is a picture of the Kingdom. OKC has commissioned us as missionaries to Penn Avenue and we are serving as a conduit between the two churches. Some great things have already begun to happen and it truly does seem like God is blessing both churches through this. Would love to talk to you again soon. 314-6558
Yes, Joe! Yes, yes, yes. This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. I remember praying with you and Amy about God's will for you. You wanted/needed to be close to family in Oklahoma yet wanted to fulfill God's calling to missionary service. I couldn't even imagine this type of job for you. But God worked it out.
Think of the "wins" here. OKC 1st wins by bringing missions "home" and having a face / friendship with ongoing missions service. The Penn Ave. church obviously wins. You and Amy win as described above.
Having done something like this, what advice do you and/or Jon have? What suggestions? What have you done that made this situation work?
Tell Amy and your in-laws "hi" from me. You're a first class, top-notch guy...but you still married "up"!!! ha.
BV
Here's a few thoughts along the same lines as Multiple Staff.
Last week after a meeting with the District Children's Council, we are going to do a rotating VBS next year.
Line up several churches that in the past have been unable to do VBS and space them a few weeks apart. Have a few "decorating" Saturdays in the winter and get everything done - in a really big and excellent way. Bring in inflatibles for the last night, and leave a lasting impression on the community.
Have a team that could go to the community - work along with the church leaders and canvas the area for a few weeks to advertise the upcoming event. Help the local church so that AFTER VBS, when visitors come, they are prepared and have volunteers to handle it.
Not exactly like a mulitple staff -but the same concept. For some of the smaller churches who have just a few children, we think it will be a great boost to them, and to their communities to be able to offer something. Again, something that is well done, and maybe even a little over the top - so that it's not just another event. It's not a hardship on any one church. We all have to prepare VBS anyway - why not do it together, and then instead of throwing out all your things (or storing them in the attic to be thrown away later!) take them to the next church to be able to benefit from them.
Penn Avenue . . . We are one of three churches that are taking rotations to go and do Children's Church at Penn Avenue with Joe and Amy Hall. We are able to take a lesson on what we talked about the Sunday before. That way the Power point, lessons, crafts, puppets, etc. are the same as you used last Sunday. There is very little extra preparation involved, and a whole other congregation is able to benefit from it. Joe and Amy can minister in another area, and the children are taken care of.
Dorothy Whipp
Dorothy,
Insightful thoughts! Thank you. I like what you're doing for Penn Ave. That seems like a constant perspective aligner (so to speak). I also like the concept of using up within a summer the VBS materials. That means less $ for each church to raise, less duplication, and more $ to advertise. Of course you KNOW, having worked on staff with me, that a follow up program is near and dear to my heart.
I think this is a good first step to building cooperation between churches that could eventually lead to churches sharing a staff member.
From my friend Rick Houston, former minister and now layman extraordinaire at my church! I like the idea of involving retired ministers.
I think this is a fantastic idea. For years I have thought that we are missing an opportunity to help out churches who have shortages in areas of need. By doing this we make everyone stronger for the kingdom sake. Count me in and let me know if there is anything I can do. If there is an open discussion group I would love to be a part of this as well. I also think there is an opportunity to utilize retired pastors for mentoring young pastors and helping them in their vision and purpose. I believe that the
wisdom they possess is far wasted and would be a HUGE tribute to them to pass it along.
Thanks
Wm. Rick Houston
Area Installation Manager District 1296
Cell # 864-844-3283
Office #: 706-771-9919 Ext. 206
From my friend and mentor Donald Joy. He raises good questions and issues. Are there answers for this?
Brent:
I'm following your exchanges with great interest. I've seen only one "shared team member" structure that worked well and over a period of a few years, until the Education Minister moved to another level of service. The main impediment you can count on for the proposed shared team member is "conflict" over what are regarded as "one time exceptions" to have that team member at a particular site on a designated service day elsewhere. If a district office [Church of Nazarene organizational chart?] could manage the schedule and book exceptions notifying all church offices, the shared team member could be protected the tug and pull of "special" exceptions. That might eliminate this persistent and predictable fatal challenge Since most staff are presumed by their employers to be "on call" 24/7 unless local policy makers stipulate otherwise, you can count on it that there would be "emergency calls" for the shared member to be running on empty responding to special exceptions to the schedule.
Assuming there is a way to make the shared team member design work smoothly, the ultimate disadvantage of shared team member structure is that when local church "team" meetings are held the decisions and schedule details are often worked out dynamically within the group. You can count on it, missing some or most of those group processes risks serious glitches since the shared team member will often be working blind in most settings. No one can take good enough minutes/notes to keep the shared member abreast of the week's plan details and get them to the member in a timely way.
Carry on! Make the idea work!
Don
Donald M. Joy www.DONALDJOY.com
105 Academy Drive rodojoy@juno.com
Wilmore, Kentucky 40390 859-858-3817
From my father in law who pastors a 3 point church in Tennessee:
dr. bubba deBrent
Your Blog made a Jog in my memory. I thought of reconstructing my past experience with what Dr. David Lowes Watson had said in class. You have heard some rich in-depth professors. Dr. Watson is among the top. His credentials read: BA Oxford Univ, M.A. Oxford Univ, M. Div, Eden Theological Seminary, Ph.D. Duke Univ --- McCreless Prof. of Evangelism, Perkins School of Theology; Exec. Sec. for Covenant Discipleship & Christian Formation GBOD; Professor of Theology & Congregational Life and Mission, Wesley Theological Seminary and Director of the Nashville Area Office of Pastoral Formation who retired in 2005. He is one of those when he spoke a sentence, you would have thought he had given a condensed paragraph rich in content.
I was interested in what he had to say within The UMC organizational context and bump that against my circuit of churches. I have been re-reading a paperback book: No Little Places, 1996, by Ron Klassen & John Koessler, ISBN 0-8010-9014-8. In this book pages 96, 104 and 107 went along with what Dr. Gresham and Dr. Boone stated. The churches where I pastor are located where there use to be in country townships, but no more. If a 10 mile circle were drawn around each of the three churches, there would be multiple Churches of Christ, Baptist and other small UMC's that fall into another District with the same mindset of ownership. The demographics are interesting to say the least. To change ....? Our membership drive from 5 to 50 mile radii to each church with the intent of maintaining their existence due to 185 year history and ancestor ties.
According to the book, "No Little Places, each church takes on the "Parent Style of Leadership" which is "More spontaneous and informal" instead of the "CEO (business model)". Yet within The United Methodist Church Organization, our Local Church Conferences and reporting system are conducted and reported as if we were a Mega-church. The socks might fit, but rest of the suit is rather baggy! There is definite possibilities of each church finding its nitch with a specialty, but would require concentrated area leadership. The United Methodist Conference regards a circuit of churches - part-time. It is part time for the churches, but fulltime for the pastor due to membership locations, hospitals, nursing homes and funerals in a region from Nashville, Murfreesboro and Pulaski TN to Auburn, AL.
The talent base within each church varies in quantity and quality. Those who serve, coming from distance, have a sense of responsibility that may be extinguished if replaced by paid assigned personnel. The same was true when on the mission field. To Americanize destroyed the sense of ownership and cultural set preferences.
I am enjoying the blogs, and looking forward to more.
Blessings,
Daniel Hyde
from the minister of music in our church. I responded in bold (not because I'm yelling, but just to have a different font) to some of his insights:
...a staff guy weighing in...
i like dr. boone's ideas on the entire staff, including senior pastor, being shared. here are some thoughts/issues to consider in a three church/three senior pastor scenario.
~i think there are some continuity issues that could be challenging working for 3 different senior pastors. do i have 3 bosses? yikes!
DEPENDING ON THE SITUATION AND HOW IT WORKS OUT, I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN. SEE BELOW WITH SERMON SCHEDULE IDEAS.
~3 different sermons? as best i can, i like to plan worship thematically with what the pastor is preaching. unless every service is a (pardon the term) generic praise service, planning 3 different services based on sermon
topics for every church could be a little unreasonable.
I TOOK DR. BOONE'S IDEAS A DIFFERENT WAY. I WAS ASSUMING THE SAME SERMON IN EACH PLACE. IMAGINE THE PASTORS GETTING TOGETHER AND PLANNING THE PREACHING SCHEDULE INCLUDING WHO WILL PREACH AND THE THEME. THEN, SAY, IF I WERE IN CHICKASHA AND IT WAS THE ANADARKO'S PASTOR'S TURN TO PREACH HE WOULD SHOW UP AND PREACH. I WOULD LEAD PASTORAL PRAYER AND EVERY OTHER CLERGY ELEMENT OF THE SERVICE. WHEN I PREACH I PREACH AT ALL 3 PLACES. MY MEMORY OF BEING A SMALL CHURCH PASTOR IS LOVING TO HAVE PULPIT HELP IN ORDER TO BE MORE HANDS ON IN OTHER AREAS.
I THINK THE IDEA WOULD REALLY BE TO HAVE A LEAD PREACHING PASTOR. THOUGHTS?
~one key for me as a leader is knowing what i'm getting out of my musicians.
a combined worship team or teams would build consistency so i wouldn't have, for example, no decent drummer at 1st naz, a piano player that ONLY plays hymns at 2nd naz, and sister so-n-so at 3rd naz who believes the organ will
be the only instrument in heaven. otherwise, i might ending up having to plan 3 different services based solely on what musicians i have available at each church.
MAKES SENSE. THERE WERE SEVERAL OCCASSIONS IN CHICKASHA WHEN OUR MUSIC MINISTER ACCOMPANIED HIMSELF / HERSELF. OTHERS USED INSTRUMENTS TOO. BUT, LET'S SAY, A TIM PITZER TYPE PERSON WHO PLAYS THE PIANO AND SINGS...THE MUSICIANS I HAD WOULD BE WILLING TO SIT AND LET HIM LEAD IN ORDER TO GET THAT QUALITY.
~sounds a little vain but would churches be willing to invest in similar projections equipment and software such as easyworship, and decent sound systems? what about a shared sound and/or projections person that travels w/ the praise band/team so we're not using hymnals in one place, song sheets
in another, and projections in another.
GREAT IDEA. WORKABLE TOO. PERHAPS DISCOUNTS WHEN CHURCHES BUY STUFF TOGETHER. I LIKE THE TRAVELING PRAISE TEAM IDEA. MAYBE USE CHICKASHA'S GROUP ONE WEEK, ANADARKO'S THE NEXT, ETC. WHEN YOU'RE "ON" YOU MAKE A DAY OF IT. OTHERWISE YOU'RE "OFF" AND A WORSHIP PARTICIPANT ONLY.
pastor mike mcadory
midland valley 1st ch. o/t nazarene
po box 645
3526 jefferson davis hwy
clearwater, sc 29822
803.593.3114 ch
From Sandra Gray, President of Asbury College (and a former Sunday School teacher for us as newlyweds in Lexington, KY).
Brent,
I commend you for thinking outside the box. The most important message I get from this idea is that rather than seeing ourselves as "in competition" with one another, we can actually think about working together to advance the cause of Christ. There will be something very powerful about churches and Christian schools working together. Asbury College will be glad to enter into the conversation for getting students involved. Let's keep thinking about what this could look like.
Blessings to you --
Sandra
oh...i thought dr. boone was talking one complete staff that did the work in 3 churches, not each church has their own senior pastor, a shared staff, then on his 'day', one senior from a church preaches at all of them and gives the others a break. that doesn't relieve the burdensome senior pastor salary (ha-kidding!) and allow the churches to share that benefit package.
i'm interested to see if any other churches on our district would be interested in the shared media concept. we don't have close churches in proximity like a nashville or an okc so that distance would present a challenge. what if we contracted media stuff out to someone like jason?
mike mcadory
Brent,
It looks like there are a lot of solutions possible to the possible problems I originally voiced. I like the idea of a travelling worship Leader/team that carries everything with them. Also the idea of a staff for multi churches intrigues me. Think of the equipping of the "saints and the empowering of the laity that could take place with a solid staff who can implement that in each church.
Love it.
Brian
I would like to talk a little bit about how media can fit in to this conversation. I have had the opportunity to work with several churches in the creation of their media - both in print, audio, and video formats. All of these things can be created remotely and then sent to a church (or churches) through the internet.
One great resource for a church that wants great media, but has no funds is Life Church's resource catalog which is available for free download. However, their resource revolve around their sermons. this works out great if you want to use their sermons, or merely the title of their sermon series. That is not always the case - we are creative and have specific ideas for our specific congregations.
Many churches that are moving to the multiple campus structure enjoy having one graphic, website, and video created for all of their locations. This cuts down on costs while allowing for better quality. If smaller churches in the area are interested in getting together on and doing a similar sermon series then the cost for them would be much more effective for their budgets as well.
This is an intriguing blog - just the type of out of the box thinking I am trying to promote as well. Please let me know if you have any questions in the area of media and how someone might put something like this together. You can check out some of the things I've done at this link http://youtube.com/user/jaymacpro
also, shoot me an email: worthingtonstudios@mac.com
Jason Worthington
Apple Store Woodland Hills - Assistant Store Manager (Tulsa, OK) http://apple.com/woodlandhills
Connection Church - Production Director (Broken Arrow, OK) http://connectionchurchwired.com
Right on, Jason! Yes, I'm trying to mix the concepts of a multiple site church with small existing churches. You know, it'd be great if the Publishing House could provide the type of media help that Life Church does.
Or maybe our church could do that!
Blessings! Let's keep talking.
from Dr. Eddie Estep. Brings up again the issue of independence.
> Dr. Brent:
>
> Thanks for including me in the conversation regarding churches
> sharing staff members. This is a good idea, and would be beneficial
> to churches financially unable to acquire full-time staff.
>
> The churches that could benefit from this would need to meet the
> following criteria: 1) They would have to be in reasonable
> proximity. This factor alone would limit the range of potential
> implementation. 2) The perceived staffing needs of the church would
> need to be similar. 3) The churches would need to be willing to
> share the staff pastor. (As an aside, you are aware that the first
> "pastoral charge" on our district began about a year ago. Getting
> one of the two churches sharing the same pastor to change their
> worship time was extremely difficult. They would literally rather
> have a part-time, retired, drive-in pastor of their own than to
> share a full- time, residential pastor with another church. The
> sense of independence and self-autonomy is very strong in some of
> our smaller churches.)
>
> If you would like to devise the survey and/or facilitate a meeting I
> will support your efforts. We may have a few pastors who would be
> interested in the opportunity. The district office could distribute
> the survey via e- mail, and we would be glad to make the conference
> room or training room available for a meeting of interested pastors.
>
> I would also, should you desire, include your question, "If your
> church could have staff help in one area for a day or two a week,
> what area would it be?" in the July issue of Shepherd to Shepherd.
>
> Your idea on shared use of summer interns has much merit. We could
> also make pastors aware of this opportunity via Shepherd to
> Shepherd. In addition, our Mission Area gatherings which are
> occuring monthly in most of our mission areas, provide a great
> opportunity to communicate these possibilities.
>
> Warmly Yours in Christ,
>
> Eddie Estep
> District Superintendent
> South Carolina District Church of the Nazarene
> 150 McSwain Drive
> West Columbia, SC 29169
> 803.794.2209 (office); 803.794.8982 (fax); 803.740.1412 (home)
> District Website: www.scnazdist.net
from my friend David Wentz, college graduate and engaged man - but I remember when he was entering 7th grade...the year I began pastoring in Chickasha!
Ive been reading the conversation regarding smaller churches sharing staff members. Its
seems like a great idea but one that is a real paradigm shift. This could be somthing a
larger church could do with its church plants since the staff members are already there
and the connection between the churches would be strong. (This might happen already, im
not sure.) The point would be to set up a practical model for how this system would
work. It could be observed and modified within the plant churches and once its been
refined you could use that practical knowledge and experience to make a more convincing
sell to skeptical smaller churches with less affiliation with each other. I guess the
point is to try it in a safe stable environment first, learn from that, then export it.
from a friend of mine in Arizona:
Brent,
Whether in business... Or in the church... You have to have a team of people dedicated and committed to growing your enterprise. I understand the dynamics of budgets, expenses, etc... I think more often than not its our comfort zone actually that keeps us(business leaders/ churches) at such a disadvantaged ratio... That keeping our head above water
becomes our #1 goal day in and day out.
The church we attend now has a congregation of about 500. 8 full time staff. The facilities are very average... Equal to the church we used to attend. Congregation has the same type of feel as our previous church. Financially... The money flows a lot better I think due to the known need to finance such a large payroll. (and they talk about the gift of giving every service prior to offering)
But the difference is the people power and the increasing momentum that comes with numerous sharp people on your leadership team. The team has been personality profiled and they have the right people on the bus.
Duties are many, but with this many people... The ability to plan,
initiate, and execute is achievable... Along with the everyday duties that have to be "reacted" to which seem to blow up our day or week if we don't have enough people around to handle the workload. Whether in the corporate world or the church.... Its tough to be small. Having resources is a great thing... But with so many souls at stake... I 'm preaching to a preacher now:)
I'm praying for you... This is an enormous venture your heart is taking you on... I think its make or brake for so many of the churches.
Dr. Bubba,
I have continued to read with interest the excellent inputs from each one. They become reminders when new material is read that creates additional thought.
On the Church of the Nazarene Headquarters Home web page from: www.nazarene.org there is a listing at the top right corner called: “A to Z Directory”. When you click on that line it brings up an alphabetical listing of what General Headquarters has to offer.
You may scroll down to the “P” section and click on: “Papers, Clergy”.
The last paper listed is titled: “Recognizing, Equipping and Sustaining the people God is calling to pastor smaller churches” – Ken Crow
In this eight-page research paper, I found interesting reading, concerning need, resources, pastor education, church and financial statistics. The “A to Z Directory” has many interesting features. It may be that some of you are already familiar with what our Nazarene resource has listed.
Appreciating your inputs,
Daniel Hyde
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