BRIDGEBUILDING CHURCHES have a kingdom-sized vision and a mission field that ultimately moves beyond Judea and Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth.  Dean Hay pastors the United Church of God in Ursina, Pennsylvania and are definitely a BRIDGEBUILDING CHURCH.  Here is their latest mission field.

     The amphibious assault ship, the USS Essex

For more on Bridgebuilders Ministries go the bridges to the Bridge.

RETHINK - MAKING A CULTURE SHIFT

 BY STEVE DUNN

The move from being a traditional and inward-focused church to an outward focused one requires a culture shift. As this is played out in the first decades of the 21st century it is done so against the backdrop of the shift in our nation from a churched culture to what some have called a post-Christian one. In particular, within the church you find yourself moving from a membership culture to a discipleship one. In a recent church council training session, I spoke of it in this way:

Rethink

Rethink who you are as a Christ-follower and as a leader

Don’t go to church - BE the Church

DISCIPLES not members

EXPECT something from God

REINVEST in ministry

ACT intergenerationally

ADVOCATE the Vision

GIVE to God first and give more

STOP pleasing people and please God

EMBRACE excellence and reject perfectionism

STOP saying me and proclaim we

(c) 2013 by Stephen L Dunn

INTRODUCING A NEW BLOG-BEING THE BEST CHURCH FOR THE COMMUNITY

The last year has been a busy one for me as a person, a disciple of Jesus Christ, a pastor and teacher, and blogger.  A sabbatical, ending an eleven year pastorate, teaching for a seminary, and taking Bridgebuilders Seminars nationally have all reduced some of the time and energy that I have had for this ministry.

Lately I have found myself drawn to casting vision and providing coaching to churches that want to take on a kingdom-focus.  To borrow from Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanton "to become the best church for their community."  Not all of these churches have been ready to embrace a full-scaled outward-focus.  Many are traditional churches who sense the prompting of the Spirit and are beginning the process of renewal.

Renewal often precedes a new vision and a fresh empowerment.

I am introducing a new blog called BEING THE BEST CHURCH FOR THE COMMUNITY in hopes of fanning into flame the fires of renewal God is setting in these churches.  My first hope is that these churches will start becoming discipleship cultures rather than simply rehashed ecclesiastical organizations.

I invite you to follow this link to the new blog and see if you want to be a part.  This blog can also be accessed on Facebook through Networked Blogs.  VISIT THE BLOG

- Steve Dunn

WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBITY TO THE GREATER COMMUNITY?

Posted on High Calling> featuring attorney Dwaine Massey on what he feels he should give back to the community in which he lives and which provides him a place to carry out his calling.

5 WAYS TO OVERCOME CHURCH BOREDOM

©iStockphoto.com/earleliason

Brad Powell: “If our spiritual walk isn’t fresh and exciting, our ministry won’t be either.”
Question: I think I understand why our church isn’t reaching new people or creating any kind of noticeable impact: It’s boring. To be honest, I’m the pastor and even I’m bored. Obviously, the solution is to fix it, but I’m not sure how. Suggestions?

BY BRAD POWELL

 Know this: You’re not alone. This is a huge problem for all pastors and churches over time. Boredom is the natural byproduct of redundancy. And let’s be honest, church ministry is redundant by nature. Without intentional interference, churches will have no new people come on Sunday, and everyone will park in the same place, enter the same way, greet the same people, sit in the same seat, sing the same kind of songs, listen to the same person teach, and then do it all again next Sunday—and again and again. Makes me yawn just writing about it.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, there are some unavoidable areas of redundancy. Generally, people should come to the same place each week, gather in the same auditorium and listen to the same pastor/teacher. But church doesn’t have to be boring.

Think about it. Life is filled with unavoidable redundancies. Breathe in and breathe out. Go to sleep and wake up. Eat three or more times every day. Go to work and come home. Celebrate the weekend, then say goodbye to it. And on and on it goes. But life doesn’t have to be boring.

What makes the difference? Changing it up. Though you have to eat three times a day, you don’t have to eat the same thing. In fact, you don’t even have to eat the same way. Where is it written that certain kinds of food are for certain times of the day? In our family, my wife, Roxann, messed with this concept all the time. She initiated reverse night, which always began with dessert. Of course, it usually resulted in no one eating the salad. But who cares? It was a lot of fun. Our kids still talk about it to this day. By changing it up, she created lifelong memories.

We can apply the same lesson to our churches and ministries. Sadly, many leaders seek to overcome boredom by switching churches instead of making the investment to change up their present church. But changing locations usually leads to the same result. Over time, the new church will become boring as well. We need to learn to create new and fresh experiences in the midst of the unavoidable redundancies of our present circumstances. We need to learn to “change it up” where we are.

CONTINUE READING

PEOPLE ON MISSION WITH JESUS

“Leadership is not merely personal sanctification but the multiplication of disciples.” – Mike Breen 

The majority of churches in America are not growing. It is a well-documented fact. The number one reason for this is that churches have become institutions instead of missionary movements. Institutions tend to be inward focused, intent on preservation rather vision. Movements figure out what God is doing and where He is going and join Him.

In many ways we have succeeded as a church–but succeeded in matters that are contrary to the metrics of the Kingdom. We make the pastor the chief discipler but insist on most of time being spent on the wrong priorities. We want him present in programs whether there is a discipleship purpose or not. We want him to attend to our every need instead of focusing on the work that God is clearly calling us to do. We allow ourselves to be recipients of services instead of providers. In many cases we resist his allowing or equipping others to do what he does for fear that he will stop making our needs his highest personal concern.

And yet at the same time we want to see the church grow. But again, we focus on the wrong metrics. How many people are in the pews and how many dollars in the plate? (Some pastors refer to this as counting nickels and noses.) Because we are not really concerned with doing the work of Jesus ourselves, or that even the church as a whole does the work of Jesus, we never ask whether these additional people represent persons who will be a part of the ministry or simply more consumers of the ministry’s services.

In that scenario, the church is only growing at the expense of the pastor’s exhaustion or lowering the expectations of people who are part of the church. And in that scenario, we have a whole lot of people who are sure they are going to heaven but aren’t insuring that they are taking anyone with them.

Have you read the Great Commission lately? “Then Jesus came to them and said, `All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20

Permit me to highlight two phrases: go and make disciples and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Jesus defined his mission as making disciples who would share the Good News of the Kingdom of God. He did not say, “Once you’ve got it made as a disciple” you’re finished. Nor did he say, “Once you have learned my commandments” just hang in there until I return. And he did not say the pastor takes care of the disciples and the rest of us watch.

People on mission for Jesus know that what Jesus counts is how many disciples we have made and disciples are measured by their obedience to the will and purpose of God.

The church is not growing because it is not making disciples, just highly savvy religious consumers.

It’s time to change that. Jesus IS returning.

(c) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn Originally posted in IMMEASURABLY MORE

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO MISSIONAL?

An outward-focused church is a missional community. The church, as a body, is living on mission with Jesus. But this is far more than a program, it is a lifestyle. And outward-focused churches are shaped by the Spirit to become a missional community made up of individuals living missionally. This video poses some important questions to be asking and reflecting upon as your congregation takes on a missional focus.

Come Explore the More from Jeff D. Johnson on Vimeo.

INWARD FOCUSED KIDS OR OUTWARD

I was talking with a youth pastor who has an effective outreach to the unchurched children of his community.  Like all effective youth pastors, his first concern is to make disciples of children.  He wants them to have a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ while they are still young.

But as he spoke, I heard another motivation for a children’s ministry that is clearly outward-focused in its vision and strategy. It had to be do with the health and faithfulness of the church.  This is what he said, “THE CURSE of the internally focused church is that it develops internally focused children and internally focused teens. Without intervention the curse will be handed down from generation to generation.”

A typical youth group becomes a closed group, where the focus is on meeting the needs (and desires) of kids.  It is what Ed Stetzer has called “a holding tank with pizza.”  Given the tendency of kids to form and fossilize into cliques, outward focused youth leaders must instead teach kids to look beyond themselves.  To see themselves as disciples on mission with Jesus.  They need to learn what it is to be authentic disciples and they need to be given ministries that help out that discipleship into action.

They need to see that their friends need Jesus and be challenged and equipped to help them make disciples of their friends.  Not simply decisions, but functioning disciples.  But again, they need not to be kids who are just getting together to have fun or to be protected from the world’s idea of “fun.”  They need to learn to pray, read and understand God’s Word, discover their gifts and use them.  They need to love Jesus and all the people Jesus loves.

© 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

WHY DOES THE CHURCH EXIST?

Why does the church Exist?

The Church is God’s great idea. It is a place where people can discover a new life living a new way. The people of the early church were “the called out ones”, “disciples”, and followers of the “Way”. In the early church there was an atmosphere which included a sense of awe, togetherness, unselfishness, unity, power, community, and a strong sense of mission. The resulting fruit?… The Lord added to the church day by day those being saved…and the church found favor with all the people.

Our mission and focus is all important. It defines why we exist and why we are here. Emil Bruner in his book God’s Forgetful Pilgrims, Recalling the Church To Its Reason For Being states,’The Church exists by mission as fire exists by burning. Terry Virgo, leader of New Frontiers Ministry in the U.K. once said, ‘When we lose sight of the great commission we lose sight of our great prophetic purpose in life.’ Both statements are extremely important. When any church focuses upon any thing less than the Great Commission as it’s primary purpose for existence it will eventually loose it’s purposeful mission. That church will quickly forget why it is blessed in the first place. 

Many people need to recover their sense of mission. Disillusioned Charismatics in particular, who were seeking the great dream of a painless, prosperous Christianity have realized the dream was merely a vapor without substance. In their pursuit to find fulfillment through the accumulation of things, and seeking to become successful they have become inward and blessing focused.
God wants to get the attention of the church. His purpose… that the church might seek Him and discover His passion for our dismembered world. 

It is interesting to view church movements from a distance. While some seek Him for personal blessing, others seek Him for the lost. They are mission/value-driven. Some of the fastest-growing churches in the USA are in this category. They are doing all they can to reach everyone they can. They are focused upon the main thing. Everything else follows. 

For example Pastor Rick Warren… with the 15,000 member Saddleback Church… author of the 1,000,000 best seller The Purpose Driven Church… He encourages leaders to recapture their purpose, by defining their mission…A church committed to the great commandment and to the great commission will grow a great church. 

80% of his church growth is by first-time believers. As one man stated, “We cannot continue to be a traditional church and expect non-believers to want to be a part of it. They won’t. They don’t want our religion. They want to experience the reality of life-changing answers for life’s problems and the God of that reality.”

The questions Warren asks in his book provoke thought…What drives your church? What is it’s purpose in life? What is it’s mission? Does your church have a sense of mission? Or is it a church adrift?

Sometimes getting back to our foundations defines our business. As Christians and church leaders we need to continually ask ourselves, what business are we in? and how is business? Sometimes it is facing the hard questions. We need to discover our present reality in order to move forward.
One year during a losing season Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi gathered the team together and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” This is getting back to basics. I think our great Coach would like to gather His team together, point to our world and say, ‘Church this is your mission.’ It really does matter where you focus your aim. It will set the course of your life.
Where are you aiming? Inward or outward? What is your purpose? Why do you exist?

From the archives of Steve Bowen's blog NEXT WAVE.  Click to read entire article.

PARTNERING WITH THE SCHOOLS

There was a time when the churches were the center of the community. Except for the rarest of situations, the school has supplanted the church as that center.  The school, between families with kids in school and those who pay taxes to support it to people who follow their sports teams, has a profound shaping effect upon the community.  Recognizing this reality, my congregation has been prompted by the Holy Spirit to include this statement in our vision as a church in mission.

"We believe God wants us to partner with our schools in every way to influence children and youth for Jesus Christ."

To fullfill this our church has created a youth center with two days drop-in center programs for Middle Schools and High School.  We have made our church available as the practice site for the Junior Cheerleaders. Persons from our church volunteer in the schools building relationships and providing needed services to help the school.  We now provide leadership for an on campus student Bible study.  We sponsor two Good News Clubs at the nearest elementary schools. We are careful to be respectful to the boundaries necessary in schools to avoid church and state conflicts, the we make no secret that we do what we do because God wants us to be the best church for our community. We hope people will be open to our help spiritually as they recognize the need.

Recently I attended a meeting of our local ministerium and the Vice President for Student Services of our local school, the Hempfield School District.The schools need tutoring volunteers, parent advocacy and education programs, clearing houses for needy families physical concerns.  We are actively engaged in helping netwrok to meet those needs.  We are now helping sponsor a dialogue between the schools' leadership and the religious leadership of the community of how the churches can assist with basic human services that would normally cost schools budget monies in these fiscally stressed times.  Our Christmas offering was for the school's Good Neighbor Fund, which the Office of Student Services used to help families who financial emergencies cannot be met in other ways.

One of the thoughts that came to my mind is that our church could help the school disseminate important information to the community and to help us do our planning in a way that we could make good use of the resource that is the school. Also to avoid unnecessary conflicts when our parents are pulled one way and the church wants to pull them our way.  We have now added the website for the school district to the links section of our church web site and to our church blog. You can see these by going to our web site CHURCH OF GOD OF LANDISVILLE or to our blog BEING THE BEST CHURCH FOR THE COMMUNITY.
Trust me, the school officials were delighted at our offer.

Schools are understandably concerned when churches simply try to get into the schools to advance the goals of the church, especially when churches seem unconcerned with the perceived needs of the schools.  But we believe that churches who seem themselves as partners with the schools can benefit the entire community and remind the community that the work of Jesus is not a threat, but an enhancement.

KEY QUESTIONS FOR OUR TIMES

In 2000 Bill Easum articulated these key questions for churches seeking to be missional, outward-focused, evangelistic at the commencement of the 21st century. Here are OUTWARD FOCUSED CHURCH we would be interested in your answers. We'll be sure they get forwarded to Bill.

In 2000 I prepared a presentation for the Society for Church Growth in which I asked what I considered at the time to be some of the key questions of our time.  In looking back over these questions I find they are still the key questions with which Western Christianity is wrestling. You be the Judge if they are.

• What is it about my relationship with Jesus my neighbor and the world can’t live without experiencing?
• How do I share my faith without coming off like a bigot?
• What will Christianity look like when it truly understands that North America is a mission field?
• What is the difference in being missional and doing evangelism?
• What is the difference in a being pastor and being a cross-cultural missionary?
• What does it mean to live in a world where one’s spirituality is more important than one’s credentials?
• Can we imagine doing evangelism that is not carried out within the context of conquest?
• How do leaders lead without control?
• What will authority look like in an out-of-control, anti-institutional, non-religious world?
• What will Christianity look like when it’s no longer defined by books?
•  How do we transition from handing out data that informs to offering an experience that transforms?
• How will we help people grow their spirituality instead of just learning more about the Bible?  
• What will Christianity look like when the church is missional and not institutional?
• How will we “be” the church instead of “go” to church?

 So how are you dealing with these questions? Or are you?
Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

SISTER ACT - A MISSIONAL MANIFESTO

Early in my D.Min. studies, this movie inspired many of us to become outward focused.

INTERNAL NEEDS BASED CHURCHES MAY MISS GOD'S UNIQUE MISSIONAL VISION

James Nored recently wrote in the Missional Outreach discussions page of his MISSIONAL OUTREACH WEBSITE:

"Jesus said that his mission was to seek and save the lost, serve people, and share the good news of the kingdom of God. As he went about this mission, he healed people, fed people, and met many needs.

But when you look at how he treated the disciples, other than healing Peter's mother-in-law, it would appear that Jesus focused more on teaching them how to meet other people's needs than their own. In fact, his call was to "lay down their lives, take up their cross, and follow him." This call was to service and self-sacrifice and meeting the needs--of others.

In his book, Church Unique, author Will Mancini talks about the problem of having a church that is focused on meeting internal needs and expectations. Note the following:

"On the needs-based slippery slope, leaders are constantly trying to meet people's needs and expectations within the church. Whether the needs ring of religious consumerism or are legitimate concerns of life and death, the slippery slope works the same. With the leaders' cruise control set to "react," thoughtful leadership becomes unnecessary because there is always a persistent parade of needs to be answered. The vision of the church is reduced to making people happy. The reality is that such a church is probably missing out on fulfilling its unique calling and role in the community by trying to be all things to all members.Sliding down the needs-based slope is perhaps the most 'spiritual' way of avoiding the hard work of self-discovery."

His point is that being an internally focused, needs-based church puts leaders in a reactive mode that does not allow them to effectively discover and implement God's unqiue missional calling for their church in that context. Time and energy alone from dealing with needs and complaints leaves room for little else. I have witnessed this problem many times.

What are your thoughts on Mancini and Nored's observations?

VISION REQUIRES GOD'S MIND AND GOD'S EYES

Vision starts with a new set of eyes and a new mind. Human sight is limited by the boundary of our range of sight. The best human eyes may see the horizon even at a great distance, but we are incapable of seeing what lies beyond the horizon.

The limitation of human sight also limits the human mind. We may be able to conceive a road map to get us to the horizon. If we don't believe we have the resources to get us there, however, we may not set out on that journey. Or we may chose a destination that stops well short of that horizon, satisfied that we have moved forward instead of pressing on the gain the prize.

Romans 12 reminds us to be "transformed by the renewing of our mind." We let God reshape our thinking and understanding. We let God introduce his thoughts into our thinking. And then we commit to think like God instead of asking God to think like us. We begin to dream the big dreams of God and see how God wants our vision achieved. Both our thinking and action step out of the box where we now reside and head for the promised land beyond the horizon.



So when you ask God to transform your mind and give you a new set of eyes, what fo you dream of seeing for the Kingdom?

THE CHURCH IS A "SCRATCH AND SNIFF" EXPERIENCE

Will Mancini describes himself as a "clarity evangelist." He writes a blog/website by the same name. Glenn Smith, a superb church planting coach used by my denomination pointed me towards this blog. One thing led to another and I found myself reading Will's summary of a teaching time from Alan Hirsch. Here are some powerful thoughts from Alan:

• How can you improve on Jesus’ plan of discipleship? He said, “Die.”
• If we don’t get Jesus right, we create a toxic system, that produces toxic people.
• If you want to reproduce, you have got to be “reproduce-able.”
• With disciples you can go places, with consumers you can’t.
• We must act our way into a new way of thinking not vice versa.
• We engaging a people group, we can’t preempt the gospel with our version of church (structure).
• The church is a “scratch and sniff” experience of the Kingdom.
• Incarnation is how the God engaged the world. He doesn’t overwhelm us, he invites us.

You can read more of this post. Click
We have also added Will's blog to our blogroll.

MORE ON CROSS-CULTURAL PARTNERSHIPS

Since 2002 we have had a sister church relationship with a Navajo congregation at Tsaile AZ. During this time we have sent three teams to conduct Vacation Bible School for them. Generally this has meant 85 to 125 children, teens, and adults. You can read about this in an earlier post.

This effort with Tsaile has created some interest and momentum in partnerships closer to home. As people have returned from the Navajo Reservation overflowing with stories of ministry and changed lives (including theirs), people who cannot make the commitment in time and money have sought ways to get out of the familiar territory of in-house programs. We were one of the original members of the Lancaster County Council of Churches. LCCC has made a high priority ministry to the poor and the homeless. Our people have embraced a Feeding Team ministry housed at an inner city Lutheran Church. The entire church is involved in providing food stuffs for the meal. A smaller team of 6-7 persons prepare the meal in our church kitchen on Wednesday night, and then an additional team of 12-15 persons go to the site and serve those persons in their care. But as they have fed the folks there, people in our team have started "paying attention" to the lives of their clients. More and more they have sought ways to begin dialoguing with the people, and providing ways to meet spiritual needs, as well. As my congregation is predominately white and middle class and their guests are generally poor-white, Hispanic, and African-American; this serve as a regular cross cultural ministry. We now have more than 25 persons from various parts of the church who have made this their ministry.

Meanwhile, our people are planning an additional VBS to Tsaile next summer. Scenes like those in this post will be repeated with new faces and new lives changed,

Next post: Why we believe cross cultural partnerships are essential to the outward-focused church.

RICK RUSAW ON EXTERNAL FOCUS

I received an email encouragement today from Rick Rusaw, who two years ago shared a powerful time of teaching on the Externally Focused Church at the sessions of our Eastern Regional Conference. He was very supportive of the Servant Church Conference that my congregation attempted offer (unsuccessfully) to our area churches. I thought you'd benefit by his reminders. - Steve

THE IMPORTANCE OF PARTNERING

This past weekend my congregation partnered with an important community ministry, Hope Within. Hope Within, based in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, seeks to help provide medicine and medical care for families in Dauphin and Lancaster County who have no medical insurance. Our partnership involved sponsoring a concert by At the Well, a Celtic American Band made led by Bill Stine, our church's choir director. Many people love the lively and poignant sounds of celtic music with its varied instrumentation and winsome lyrics. Only about 70 people made the concert on a cold Saturday afternoon, but they generously contributed $900 to this important community outreach.
(This was actually the second such concert we sponsored, the previous one raising well over $1200 for Hope Within).

In 2002, when my congregation began to move toward being an outward focused church, we developed a very intentional philosophy of outreach and evangelism. One of the foundational values was that we would not attempt to duplicate any effective established ministry; we would partner with it. Another was that we would make our church available to community groups without charge, seeking to affirm those community groups (religious and non-religious) who were trying to strengthen the quality of life in our community. The third is that we would seek out ministries, such as Hope Within, and be very intentional about helping them tell their story and generate income for their ministries. We would do this by involving our people in this support effort, not simply sending a budget contribution. We wanted our people to have a practical hands-on experience in kingdom work--not just church work. We also wanted to provide manpower and gifts that were sometimes unavailable otherwise to often budget-limited groups like Hope Within.

Partnering has helped those groups get the word out and get the job done. It has broadened our own people's vision for kingdom work and exposed them to ministry opportunities that would not have been generated by our own church programs. And it has been one more way to make outreach by which people know the Church of God of Landisville.