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I can now officially share the good news!
Last week this press release went out from the Lilly Foundation.
The awarding of the Renewal Grant to Saint Joseph means that I will be able to take some significant time off next summer for a Sabbatical/Renewal Leave and that while I'm gone the church will also be spending some significant time focused around the opportunity for spiritual renewal. There will be a lot more information come this way in the weeks and months to come!
I've known for a couple weeks but couldn't make it public knowledge by putting it into print until the press release went out from the Lilly Foundation last week. So know I would invite you to share in my joy and I pray that this will be a blessing to the whole church as well my family and myself.
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I got this link through Monday Morning Insight thanks to Todd Rhodes and I would love to hear your responses. The focus of the article was on what qualifies for success. Here is a lists of things from W. David Phillips:
So today, I want to share with you some of the metaphors we listed (and some I came up with afterwards), of things we can count as a measure of success. But I need to issue a warning. You will have to think about these and you may push back unless you realize the metaphor. So don?t react?Ponder? 1. The number of cigarette butts in the church parking lot.
2. The number of adoptions people in the church have made from local foster care.
3. The number of pictures on the church wall of unwed mothers holding their newborn babies in their arms for the first time.
4. The number of classes for special needs children and adults
5. The number of former convicted felons serving in the church
6. The number of phone calls from community leaders asking the church?s advice
7. The number of meetings that take place somewhere besides the church building
8. The number of organizations using the church building
9. The number of days the pastor doesn?t spend time in the church office but in the community
10. The number of emergency finance meetings that take place to reroute money to community ministry
11. The amount of dollars saved by the local schools because the church has painted the walls
12. The number of people serving in the community during the church?s normal worship hours
13. The number of non-religious-school professors worshiping with you
14. The number of people wearing good, free clothes that used to belong to members of the church
15. The number of times the church band has played family-friendly music in the local coffee shop
16. The number of people who have gotten better because of free health clinic you operate
17. The number of people in new jobs thanks to the free job training center you opened
18. The number of micro-loans given by members in your church
19. The number of churches your church planted in a 10 mile radius of your own church This is something that I've been thinking about lately as we ponder what it is that we should measure to track the results of our goals and objectives. So what do you think?
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I'm not sure where all the time went between now and my last post but I haven't completely disappeared. I guess it has just been a tad busy and I've set the blog aside for awhile. This should be changing as I have some exciting news to share soon so I'll try not to hold it in for to long.
Just a quick reflection on stuff.
How can I accumulate so many clothes? It really doesn't seem like I buy clothes on a regular basis. In fact it can be months between the times I actually go into a store and buy anything for myself. But the other day everyone else was getting things ready for a garage sale so I went up and started grabbing some clothes to put into the sale. I came down with several arm loads and filled up a rack of pants and shirts that I haven't worn for awhile or no longer fit. Then I went in on Saturday morning and I couldn't tell that I had taken any clothes out. How did my closet get full again?
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Joseph Myers in his book Organic Community says:
"We can have some control over the environments in which community usually emerges, but we have little or no control over community actually emerging. We can intend for the process of community to begin, but we cannot create community intentionally."
I've been pondering this quote for the last day and a half and considering its implications. As Pastor of Community Life here at the local church I've pondered this reality for a number of years. It seems like we can lead some people to community but we can't make them really partake of it. We do everything we can to help people make connections and yet people seem rather content to sit back and come once a week (or even less), sit for an hour in a worship service, and then walk away content that they are a part of the community of faith. It could be that is exactly what some people need in their lives. They could very well be full of other relationships and groups that meet their needs for community and what they want and need in the church is found in the one hour they are here. However some of these same people come to me and say things like, "I've been attending here for ... and I really don't know anyone yet."
The reality is that I continue to look for ways to prepare for the possibilities of community developing but still find myself shaking my head and wondering why we don't get it right more often. Maybe the look of community that I have in my head isn't a real possibility in a large church setting and I need to make a fundamental shift in my understanding.
What do you think?
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One of the things that I do is pastoral duties in a church that I'm on the staff of. But the question that roles around in my head often is, "What is a pastor?" That is followed with questions like:
What does a pastor do?
What is a pastor like?
What is it that people expect from their pastor?
In our Staff Parrish meeting last night we began to talk about these things a bit and the obvious answers is that we are not of one mind. This really didn't surprise me as it is a part of the tension that I have been feeling over the last couple of years. The problem with this is that it sets the pastor up for failure and disappointment.
At the leadership roundtable I attended the keynote speaker was talking about how every culture has both an "ideal" and a "reality" expectation of others. The ideal is the way the culture expects people to act in leadership and the reality is that which they know and see on a regular basis. As long as the reality does not vear to far from the ideal, or if the person is known well by the others then the reality of life is accepted. The problem arises when the leader ventures to far away from the ideal and acts just like everyone else.
Example: A pastor is supposed to serve God (what they really mean is serving the church) without regards to money. The pastor is well loved and appreciated and the church is looking forward to a long relationship. But the pastor comes to a point where the salary that is being paid doesn't cover the costs of raising a family. So the pastor goes to the leadership of the church and says, "I need more money to support my family." It won't matter how it is said or how honest the pastor is being. The church leadership will almost certainly be looking for a new pastor in a fairly short period of time. It might never come up as to the reason why, but the pastor has stepped outside of the bounds as to what is expected.
So what are the ideals that surround the pastor in my location? That is what I'm trying to figure out so that we can have at least an honest conversation as to whether those ideals are what we really want to live. I'm sure that it will be an interesting conversation as we go along.
Any suggestions?
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