Last week I began a post on a church I had visited in the North Metro area. Yesterday we took another trip, this time to Faith Covenant Church, Burnsville, MN. Faith Covenant is pastored by Dr. David Clark, who was previously a Dean and Professor at Bethel Seminary, and is currently still working as an adjuct professor teach one course per semester. Dr. Clark is one of the best professors I have had, and that is a pretty high compliment. He is incredibly smart, yet is gifted in putting that into terms that the average person can grasp. Dr. Clark has been at Faith for a little over 8 months. In that time, he has given some great direction to the church, and helped them begin on a new course with a clear vision of who they are and where they are going. I'll include my notes from yesterday below. Most are self explanitory. If it doesn't make sense, drop me a comment and I'll try to clarify. A few of the notes are from Dr. John Cionca as well (mostly the end of the notes)
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David Clark:
- trying to make sure all the things they do have connecting points
so they stick together (Velcro hooks) so there is a cohesive ministry
-need to think through ways people transition from one ministry to
another – junior high students into sr. high programming etc. – no
gaps, no seams, pass the baton onto the next program – avoid overlap
and avoid gaps
5 purposes of the church
-worship – an upward focus
-community – relations and connecting with other people
-service – inside and outside the church
-mission – reaching people for Christ – geographically non-specific
-apprenticeship (discipleship) – information vs. transformation
Community and apprenticeship are inward directed, service and mission
are outward focused
-churches that are growing are tenacious on service and mission
-look at the budget to see where $$ is allocated
Grade each area to see where you are weak
-most churches are (or think they are) A-/B+ in worship, community and
discipleship. Most churches aren't above a C-/D+ on service and
mission in spite of what they think
-Genesis 12:1-3 Abrahamic covenant
-Jewish nation did great at first half (1-2) and poor on the second half (3)
-worship-->community-->service (where people often can come to faith)
-->mission-->apprenticeship-->worship (endless circle)
Invest time, talent, and treasure in vision
Spirit always trumps structure, but you have to have the structure in
place to keep things going day to day.
Plumber analogy – pipes are structure and water is the Spirit. We
want the best flowing pipes possible (remove unecessary kinks), but
without water there is no purpose for the pipes.
-mission happens everywhere
-need to take people to the point of the need to change
-two things lead people to change – a great vision and a burning platform.
-"that's a great idea, how do you see it fitting into our vision…"
-every member is a witness, but not every member is an evangelist
-we can share our story even when we aren't smooth evangelists
-invest and invite – invest in your friends/relationships and then
invite them to hear about Jesus
-requires high quality product @ church for when you invite people
-in our culture excellence is a requirement
-not requiring perfection this week, but improvement
-excellence with intimacy
Create entry points for people other than the worship service
-pre-evangelistic events
-patterned to groom them into the church
-contemporary worship trying to move toward progressive
-drama, dance, art etc.
-Piano led for the most part (guitar othewise)
2 services same style
750-800 in worship +200 children for 1000 on weekend
-don't assess success by attendance
-faith steps for success
-will you give your heart to this vision?
-what are the things that stand in the way of us realizing this vision
-assessing what church needs, then teaching it on the individual level
-EQ – emotionally unhealthy church, but preaching on personal emotional health
-avoiding "you" and using "we"
-Need to have exit interviews for people who leave church
-gives you a good picture of what needs to be looked at
People give to vision, not to paying lights bills.
Average per capita giving is roughly $1100 per attendee (Faith is
over this)
60% of budget for staff is a good rule of thumb (building loans can
skew this for a period)
Pay for staff then program then facilities when possible
Opt for open ended surveys over number/rank order surveys
Focus groups of 15 people max X's number needed to get feedback and to
roll out Vision.
-they did 15 or so of these meetings when DC began making his changes.
3 comments:
Why do all programs have to cohere?
Is that like saying we all have to be on the same page in terms of our priorities/vision of the ways we are God's hands and feet?
dlw
I think you have the main idea, but specifically within the context and culture of their church. They have very diverse ministries, but each ministry falls in under the over arching vision of the church as a whole. Each ministry strives to help the whole church work toward it's vision. I'm sure Dr. Clark would be more articulate in his explaination of this if you asked him though. I could probably articulate this more if you would like (with examples) but at the moment I have to go slave away in the salt mines for I have bills to pay....
MrCLM
I guess I agree that the Church needs to share an understanding of how it should do ministry to get along and keep the turf-wars down.
I am sure Clark and others like you no doubt have well articulated senses of these ministries that are similar and I would largely agree with.
dlw
ps, I checked out the STR thing, but found it to be poorly argued and not worth posting about. One can't dismiss so much of the OT as just entailing the context of the nation of Israel without then devoting far more time considering our context today with far more inequality. It also more or less just asserted individualism and skirted over the hermeneutic issues involving homosexuality.
It seems that this was done by a second string poster at STR.
dlw
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