THE OUTWARD FOCUSED CHURCH I LEAD

Steve speaking to our Navajo sister congregation in Tsaile AZ

I often introduce myself as "one of the pastors of the Church of God of Landisville." Currently my title (and role) is Lead Pastor.  I have a partner, Barry Sellers, the Associate Pastor.  There are six elders who serve as "lay pastors" of the congregation.  We have five part-time staff members including a Youth Director and a Director of Children's Ministry. And we have many, many "members" (who we prefer to call "disciples") who use their gifts and provide leadership in various ministries of the church.  Now you know why I introduce myself in this manner.

Barry Sellers, our Associate Pastor and our "traditional church" pastor

Since early in 2002, the Church of God of  Landisville has been on a journey from a traditional and inward focused church to a missional church with an outward focus.  These days we have borrowed a term from Rick Russaw and Eric Swanson as we seek to be "the best church for our community."  During that quest, outreach has become our "brand."

Now in 2011, with the addition of Stephen Ministry and two ministries called Real Disciples and T.I.E. (Three is Enough) accountability groups, we believe God is calling us to multiply a second brand - "a healing place."  In posts on subsequent Thursdays, I hope to share with you some things about the Church of God of Landisville and who God is shaping us to be.

Lisa Kilgore, our Children's Director

Stacie Reber, our new Youth Director

Lynn Byers, one of our members on a short term medical mission assignment in Port-au-Prince Haiti

The Church of God of Landisville is a 178 year old congregation with a heritage in world missions (early 1900s) and education leadership (1980s and 1990s).  But in many ways, we have developed an entirely different identity by stepping beyond the traditional and institutional model during this past decade.  The priesthood of all believers has become a core value of the church. We work through missional strategies, leadership development, coaching, and a new volunteer position called Spiritual Gifts/Ministries Counselor to equip and empower persons to carry out their purpose from God by serving Him within the church and within the community that is our primary mission field.

Pierre Payen Hospital in Haiti, a 2002 mission work team helped complete this hospital early in our journey

An intergenerational work team that helped older families and a community in western Pennsylvania get a "new look" last summer

This summer we will send our fourth VBS team to help our Navajo sister congregation

There are lots of stories we can share.  God has given our church (at all levels) a tremendous sense of mission as together we discover "what is the Jesus in us going to do."

A CHURCH LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT - PART I

"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following

requirements ..."- Acts 15:28

Most are well aware of the Jerusalem Council described in Acts 15 and its critical role in unifying the fledgling church and confirming to the mission to the Gentiles.  We often focus on and learn from those agreed upon outcomes as outlined by James.  But I wonder how often we pay attention to the opening of that announcement, the words that Luke was careful to record.  "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us ..."  I wonder how often we take note of the word order - Holy Spirit, then us.

Quite often we make plans as the church.  We even are careful to arrive at a constructive consensus.  But how is that consensus arrived at?  And what is the role of the Holy Spirit in all of this?  Do we prayerfully together seek the mind of the Spirit and then try to discern what we agree He has told us?  Or do we decide together what we are going to do and then ask the Holy Spirit to bless what has actually been our decision?

It is no small question.

In my journey of the congregation I lead from a traditional and inward focus to a missional and outward focus, nothing has been more critical to our faithfulness and fruitfulness. We have agreed that the Holy Spirit is and must be the leader of the church. Not the pastor, or elders, or council, and certainly the majority of the people; but the Holy Spirit of God.  And we have agreed that this cannot be a statement to which we pay lip service, but a basic operating principle that we constantly work to make and stay a reality.

In practice, what does this mean?  When I first published my D. Min. Project on becoming a church led by the Spirit, I was asked by a fellow graduate in the commencement line, "In brief, what does it mean to be a church led by the Holy Spirit?" (The brief was referring to the monumental length of that publication.)  My response, "First, you have to believe in the Holy Spirit."

1. A church that is led by the Holy Spirit must give up its organizational thinking. It is not a human association of mutually agreed upon goals.  The church is a supernatural organism. It is the literal and continuing Body of Christ.  That means that as a body it will reflect the character of Christ. In action, we will live by the values of Christ. In vision, we will live by the mission of Christ.  And we will be open to let the Holy Spirit lead us into all truth about these matters. (More about this later.)

2. A church that is led by the Holy Spirit must possess a leadership  lifestyle that is wedded to the Word and embedded with prayer.  The human leadership of the church understands that its actions must at all times be consistent with what the Word teaches.  Its values must be the values of scripture. Its policies and decisions must have a clear scriptural foundation that is consistently communicated to the Body.  And those decisions, from beginning to end, must be bathed in prayer.

This post is to be continued ....

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

THE IMPORTANCE OF AFFIRMATION

A while back my Elders at the Church of God of Landisville proposed a special Staff Appreciation Day.  It was during the planning of our annual Pastor Appreciation Sunday (a well-established tradition for us, thankfully). It was also after staff reviews and annual budget talks intersected and it became obvious that despite an A-Prime Staff, no raises were going to be given in 2011.  The elders felt that the church should focus on those staff members (all part-timers with us) who are integral to our work and critical to our success as a church.  (I say as Lead Pastor, "They make me look better than I am.")  Someone, however, felt that was inappropriate, especially when the suggestion was made that encourage congregation members to feel free to give gifts of appreciation if they felt prompted by God.  The worriers worried that not everyone would get the same gift(s) (Barry and I never even know what the other received during Pastor Appreciation.) The zealots declared, "We should all just do our work without any appreciation or expectation of it. After all, we are just doing this to the glory of God."  The Lead Pastor, mindful how hard they work and how often they do not even received a word of thanks or are included in someone's prayer, was exasperated.  The elders were firm.  In January we held a Staff Appreciation Sunday.

The staff appreciated it.

The members appreciated the reminder that we are a culture of affirmation.

I think some gifts were given.

God was glorified.

STEPHEN MINISTRY COMES TO LANDISVILLE

Part of the vision that God has given us at the Church of God of Landisville is to be a safe place for people in need. Stephen Ministry has moved to center stage in our church's vision to allow us to accomplish that.

Our connection with Stephen Ministry began almost eight years ago when one of our then elders Bob Crosby (back row, 1st person on left) first named it as "something that might help us." Then about three years ago the elders began exploring the idea prayerfully. Early in 2008 we determined God wanted us to proceed, but a severe budget deficit and some vision problems within the church caused us to take it off the table for a time. But at the same time we sent two elders and the lead pastor to a Stephen Ministry workshop. This confirmed it to be God's will. However, Stephen Ministry emphasizes quality and training and we determined that God was telling us to wait--commit but go slow as He worked on some issues.

In 2009 we selected our first Stephen Leaders: Barb Sutton (middle row, second from left) and Associate Pastor Barry Sellers (back row, last on right). Barb had recently retired from the Social Security Administration and was seeking God's direction for a new ministry for herself. Barry is the pastoral staff member who oversees our visitation program and bereavement support team. They spent a week in training under the guidance of the trainers from Stephen Ministry. Then they took three months to prepare, two months sharing the vision with our people and interviewing those who responded. In January they began meeting with the Stephen Ministers of a weekly basis for 2 1/2 hours of training. A total of 50 hours was invested in training before we commissioned the class pictured above.

Too often ministry in traditional and inward focused churches is placed almost entirely on a pastor's shoulders. In addition, people are not empowered and equipped to carry a ministry that God is calling them to. We just "hope it will happen.." And too often we rush into ministry, without proper commitment and preparation and those ministries fail. Stephen Ministry now gives Landisville a tool and a model - with the primary blessing of bringing someone the love the Christ in s practical way. Stephen Ministry helps us break of the clergification of the church and to raise the level of discipleship in the Body.

For more on STEPHEN MINISTRY click the link below.

STEPHEN

WHY A LEAD PASTOR?

Recently at the Church of God of Landisville we changed my title from Senior Pastor to Lead Pastor. We made this change because we believe God has given us a new vision as a congregation which required us to do ministry in a new way. That meant my role was changing and to clearly communicate that I now have a new position title. The name, however, Lead Pastor was chosen because it matched our emerging philosophy of ministry. This is what we have shared with the congregation. - Steve

A Senior Pastor is a whole lot like the guy in this cartoon. He’s kind of the head of everything or the hub of ministry. He’s the “ranking officer of the church.” (That’s actually the job description in our church constitution.) In practice he becomes the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operating Office combined into one office. In that context He is the one who speaks for God and he’s the “one” responsible for the church’s success. The Senior Pastor has primary authority and that authority is positional, i.e., it’s tied to his office. Even if the Senior Pastor believes the Holy Spirit is the leader of the church, the congregation tends to think that job is the Senior Pastor’s. Thus everyone believes the Senior Pastor needs to be a part of what they do or else it’s not as important (or they measure the importance of what is done by whether or not the Senior Pastor blesses it and gives his time to it.)

It’s a killer job description; but it also promotes an inappropriate understanding of church leadership and the nature of the church in the 2st century. It is a model that suited well the hierarchical values of the Church in another era. It is a model that could easily be translated by people working in human organizations and the business world.

So why are we shifting from this concept to that of a Lead Pastor? Here are just a few reasons:

1. Effective leadership in the church comes more from relational authority than positional. People best follow a person who they trust not a person who has the power of position.

2. The church is a spiritual organism and the Holy Spirit is the Leader. The Holy Spirit works through the gifts of the Body and persons provide leadership to the rest of us when they faithfully exercise their gifts. That means that there are areas of a church’s ministry that are outside the pastor’s giftedness and when those areas must be at the forefront, people with those gifts must lead.

3. A church has many leaders all of whom are responsible for the faithfulness and fruitfulness of the church.

4. The pastor (i.e, the Senior Pastor) is chiefly responsible for vision-casting and equipping (see Ephesians 4). He is responsible to lead not manage. Management is often concerned with day-to-day effectiveness and maintaining the organization. Leadership is about the big picture and helping the church grow to the full potential of its calling from God. When the two are combined, the managing side wins because a whole lot of time is consumed being sure the group is operating efficiently and little time (or energy) is left for the Big Picture (Vision) and paying attention to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

5. The pastor is the chief spiritual officer of the church which means he must have time in the Word, in prayer, and focusing on helping the church understand and live from its core values as the Body of Christ. That is his work. It is the work of the church to do the work of the church.

6. Younger adults and unchurched people see Senior Pastor as a business or institutional concept with all of its baggage, not a spiritual one. They trust someone who leads, not orders. They relate to the heart of a pastor to commit themselves to his leadership and they want that heart to be connected to God’s heart.

7. A Lead Pastor has come to be synonymous with servanthood not rank. It is associated with humility not power. (If you don’t grasp that, read John 13).

These are the reasons why the Elders and the Church Council have approved a new title for their former “Senior” Pastor.

How that will be put into practice is the subject of our next blog posting.

Note to readers of OUTWARD FOCUSED CHURCH. You can read this post in its original and related posts at HOLY SPIRIT INCUBATOR.

MORE FOLLOWERS AND SOME BIBLICAL JOY

The nice thing about having people who register as FOLLOWING this blog is it gives me a better idea as to who is regularly a part of this dialogue. It also allows me some tools to receive evaluative feedback about the usefulness or lack thereof of what we are posting. Don't be afraid to identify yourself in this way.

If you're trying to figure out the reason for ELMO in this post, stop trying do hard. I am just having a little fun at 1:45 in the morning. Brian McClaren in his book The Church on the Other Side says that humor (or a sense of one) is essential to speaking to the postmodern heart and mind.

This past Monday I initiated an experiment within my own congregation to provide an on-line small group Bible study for people who have no small group time in their lives. Rather than be "hidden"on our website, it is in a free-standing blog so that the public might either feel to join in, or by at least bookmarking it, "listen in" to hearts within my congregation. It's called Biblical Joy and I invite you to eavesdrop yourself by going to:

http://biblicaljoy.wordpress.com

BAPTISMS AT A BEACH PARTY

The student ministry at our church (Church of God of Landisville) is called BURN. The name comes from the mission to help kids burn with passion to serve Jesus Christ and the impact their generation to follow Him. The front door of BURN is not a typical youth group on Sunday night. It is a midweek worship gathering that includes music (our own student band) and insightful teaching, testimonies from the kids, and fellowship. Generally the kids start gathering around 6:00 with things kicking off around 6:30. Worship begins and the rest follows. Generally they wrap up around 7:45-8:00 (it is a school night) but many times kids stay afterward for prayer and some godly counsel. Seven months ago our youth group had 12 kids on its best night (usually a party). Now more than 100 kids are part of BURN, not just from the church, but from the community youth center we operate (the Agape Center) and their friends from the local high school across the street.

Several weeks ago after an extended period of teaching called "Real Vs Fake" when the kids were confronted with the call to be serious committed disciples, 16 students gave their hearts to Christ at a worship gathering. Soon after several more were added. Jeremy Moyer, our Youth Director, asked about baptizing these new believers, with which I enthusiastically agreed.

But here's the twist. We have 12 kids desiring baptism, but at that baptism they were going to share testimonies about their journey to faith. Many of their friends would not come to the church for a regular service in our sanctuary with its magnificent marble baptistery. Many of them had not even made it to the gym where our student worship is held.

So we opted instead for Baptism at a Beach Party. On a Saturday night before Easter, BURN through an outreach event - a Beach Party at the pool at Hempfield Recreation Center. There, as the party wrapped up, we held a baptismal service. 75 teens (and some parents and adults) heard these 12 kids share their stories and then witness the powerful experience of the Spirit's presence as we baptized them in the pool (sometimes with other kids in the water a few feet away).

Changed lives are a powerful force for the church. Baptisms in neutral territory multiply the impact.

THE LEADERSHIP HUB AND SPIRITUAL INCUBATORS

A while back I posted an article "The Executive Team." It was an attempt to put into language that some of your church leadership for whom "business think" is their default mode to begin to see how leadership in a spiritual organism functions. In discussing this with those in leadership who see a possible danger in using such terms, we reframed his somewhat differently.

In most churches the Lead Pastor is the ranking officer or as we sometimes say, "First among equals." This does not mean the Lead Pastor is the only leader that counts. It means because of the office he has been given and the gifts he has been given, he serves as the point man on the church's mission and in communicating its God-given vision. It is an "office" that carries with it a natural positional authority that is enhanced by relationship authority.

In my own church, however, there are three other officers who have a similar positional authority that is enhanced by relational authority. They are the Council President (i.e., the church lay leader of the church), the Chairperson of the Elders (who leads those persons particularly responsible for the spiritual health and faithfulness of the congregation), and the Chairperson of the Strategic Advisory Team (the group that helps us formulate a unified mission and ministry plan that keeps us true to our vision, and to help all groups evaluate their effectiveness.)

They are a form of "top" leadership which means they are the first to model Servant Leadership.
From their position, they have many groups or leaders answerable to them. From their relationships, they model both the servanthood and Spirit-guided team work necessary to be faithful and fruitful as a church.

We are now treating them as a LEADERSHIP HUB into which ideas, issues, concerns, dreams, problems and opportunities are channeled. Then in their regular dialogue they seek what part of the church structure is best suited to respond to this concern. It is a way for people throughout the church to know where first to take their thoughts and the ones that people can know will be accountable to see that these concerns are addressed or these dreams are fostered.

We are calling the places they are assigned to as THE SPIRITUAL INCUBATORS. In our next post we will attempt to describe that in a helpful way.

It's a new concept that is evolving with us as a church in our desire to be effective stewards of the Great Vision our Great God has given a Great Church. We'll keep you posted.

BEING A "GOD" INFLUENCE - 2

To engage people in culture we must remember that holiness is separation from sin, not separation from sinners. - Ed Stetzer

In 2002 my congregation at Landisville began a series of "Thinking Forward Meetings." The Elders had invited the entire congregation to seek the mind of Christ for the future direction of the church. 71 persons attended 13 of these small group gatherings to share how they had seen God at work leading the church and what they believed we needed to deal with in order to be faithful to God.

In one meeting, 82 year old Bernie McFarland (a life long member of the church) announced, "If this church died tomorrow, no one would really notice. They think of us as the rich church on the hill (a reference to our magnificent stained glass windows), but we have no real impact on this community."

From that statement and similar confirming statements, my congregation set out on a journey to be a church that impacted its community for Christ in life-changing ways. Borrowing a model from Robert Lewis in The Church of Irresistible Influence we set out to build bridges to the community in prayerful hope that our interaction and relationships as the church with the community out in the community would draw people into the Body of Christ.

We also worked on understanding and embodying our core values so that when people connected with the Church they'd meet the real Jesus living in and through us. That meant we had to mature and grow as disciples who each day reflected the character of Christ--trusting the Spirit of God to make us influencers for God in the world without fear that the world would influence us.

EVANGELISM IS CONTAGIOUS

Steve Sjogren is one of the high impact leaders for the whole concept of the Outward Focused Church. In particular, Steve, then Senior Pastor at the Vineyard Fellowship in Cincinnati, popularized the concept of Servant Evangelism. We continue to use his classic Conspiracy of Kindness in the School of Evangelism of our Eastern Regional Conference. Recently Steve posted an article at on-line site of LEADERSHIP JOURNAL.

Steve writes: "There's an upward spiral effect, an enthusiasm that builds. People start laughing and telling stories and evangelism becomes easy because the courage is contagious. I think in our day there's a chronic shortage of joy in evangelism. The whole idea of having fun and high-fiving each other is almost completely foreign to us. But it is out there. We just have to find people that are willing to go out with us and find joy in doing these things together."

For the complete article you can visit: Courage is Contagious | LeadershipJournal.net

As my own Church of God of Landisville began looking at an outward focus, we found that making OUTREACH our brand through servant acts to the community, created a tremendous springboard for connecting people to Jesus Christ.

In my first summer at LCOG, I offered the training class Becoming a Contagious Christian At that point we were averaging perhaps 165 people in worship, but 14 of them signed on to participate. Armed with the understanding, tools, and passion to build redemptive relationships (Mittelburg and Hybels approach to evangelism), servant evangelism became the vehicle to get people out of the "box" (literally) and into the community in practical ways. As those ministries created relational intersections, it became possible for people to actually begin building redemptive relationships and introduce their new friends to Jesus Christ in an effective way. Outreach partnered with building redemptive relationships helped make evangelism both contagious and a joy.

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.

THE JOURNEY TO BEING AN OUTWARD FOCUSED CHURCH

Late in 2001 and early in 2002, the people of the Church of God of Landisville began to sense a fresh wind of the Spirit blowing in their midst. There is an excitement and a momentum in such a stirring that generates a vision and dreams about really being the Church of God rather than simply being a church.

During this time, my leadership had begun to explore these questions: "What does it mean to say that the church is led by the Holy Spirit?" "What would that church look like?" "What would it do?"

A clue to the answers to those general questions can be found in the apostle Paul's wondrous benediction,"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus ..." (Ephesians 3:20-21a).

Who among us would not pray for that to be the reality of the local church, especially those ministering in traditional churches whose flame seems to have been reduced to weak embers lying under a layer of ash form old fires that once burned brightly? What would we do if we sensed the Holy Spirit beginning to blow across those embers in an attempt to fan them into flame?

A whole lot of contemporary adjectives apply to this journey - organic, missional, reconciling, servant. This blog is dedicated to unwrapping the stories, the learnings, the dynamics of the journey from inward focus to outward focus--from being concerned with your congregation to focusing on the Kingdom. I invite you to connect with this blog, to offer your insights and experiences.