A lot of this come from Stetzer’s book - Transformational Church: Creating a new Scorecard for Congregations
.Normal Church in America is under 100 in weekly attendance.
How is God working outside the walls of your church?
Ed Stetzer & Thom Rainer
Vibrant leadership, Relational Intentionality & Prayerful Dependence
Discern --> Embrace --> Engage --> Discern…
The “how” of ministry is shaped by the who/when/where of the culture.
Vibrant Leadership
Key Principles:
1) L+1
-Leader +1 other person.
-have to have someone else with the vision
2) Reward
-what you reward is what type of behavior you will see from members.
-what we celebrate we become
-visual score card can be a reward as people see movement
3) Eating the elephant
-one bite at a time.
-be the kind a leader that the people see you out front, but not so far out
front that they see you as the enemy and shoot you in the rear.
-cultural change takes time
-1st year is honeymoon period
-2-3 are the roughest years
-4-5 adjustment period
-5 and on = greatest spiritual and other types of growth
4) Strategic Relationships
-who are those in the church that when they speak, people listen.
5) The Leadership Team
-need a team to make it happen long term
-needs to have a compelling purpose
-needs to have the right leader moving them forward
-needs the right team members
-needs to have a conducive culture – ready for it
-no longer all about me, but we are reaching beyond ourselves
Relational Intentionality
1) Strategic Relationships
-important here too.
2) Early Victories
-early victories gain you lots of traction to keep going
3) Matching Passions
-everybody is gifted in something and passionate about something
-point them in the directions where their passions are
4) Leadership Modeling
-somebody is watching you, more than you think
5) Intentional Ownership
-have to do the things you don’t want to do
Prayerful Dependence
-Prayer is the engine
-Prayer drives and undergirds everything a Transformational Small Church does.
-Prayer becomes a focal point of the church
In transformational Churches…
-Prayer happens naturally out of the community of believers
-People pray because
-Nothing worse than knowledgeable spiritual people disconnected from God.
2) Accessibility
-prayer gives all people access to God
-TC’s are places where prayer is taught where everyone can connect with the one true God.
-You have a personal relationship with Christ because of the ongoing things, not because of a prayer once 22 years ago.
3) The Response to His praying people
-Jesus invites people to invite Him into their lives and he changes & transforms them through that.
Praying Churches…
1. Experience breakthroughs
2. have praying leaders
3. Commonly experience answers to prayer
4. pray because they believe it matters if they pray
Session 2 – Pastor Roundtable
We have to do something new to see something new.
Pray. Give. Go!
Worship – Actively Embrace Jesus
Mike Harland
You hit what you aim for. What are you hitting?
Will we choose our traditions over our children?
Who are we presenting? Jesus. How do we best present Him?
#1 issue for small churches is lack of musicians and skills in music.
Identify who you have and how you can use them and bring them along to help lead worship.
Music is a powerful tool to be Missional with. It can penetrate into our culture and expose them to the Gospel where they may not be willing to otherwise listen.
When people encounter Christ in worship they can’t help but go and share that message.
If worshipping God is the goal, than the music is just a tool (among multiple tools).
-Public reading of Scripture
-Preaching of the Word
-Prayer
-Gospel demonstration – live it out
Mission – Ed Stetzer
How we show the love of Christ.
-Living out our faith
-Sharing our faith story with those around us
-Engage people in ministry within the church and in missions outside the church.
-Evangelism is a natural part of life in Transformational Churches
-The church has to make a conscious decision that their existence is directly related to the sharing of the good news of Christ.
If you don’t believe what Jesus said in John 14:6 you can’t experience revitalization.
-Bill Easum
Churches with transformational practices were active – even aggressive – about service in the community
TCs have a significantly higher % of believers who see their church engaged in deeper mission.
Join Jesus to save and to serve.
TC’s have a different perspective on church membership. It is more than signing a card
Membership is equated with a commitment to both the church and the community
A Cross-centered and resurrection powered life no longer lives for itself. Instead it dies daily for the new priority of the kingdom mission.
Steps to Engaging in God’s Mission
1) Define success.
-the TC scorecard should have the heading: Lives being transformed by
the power of Christ.
2) Prepare
-TCs receive training to be on mission
-Too many churches rely on surface-level orientation
-Are we training our people to minister to others?
-Spend more time with the Leaders and the Lost.
3) Providing personal leadership to believers
-the most valuable resource for the Missional journey is
real-life examples and real-time conversations.
4) Moving into the community
-TCs build a good reputation with the city.
-if your church to disappear from your community would anybody notice?
-Church exists because God wants his glory and to join Jesus on his mission.
-80/20 sin – 80% of the work done by 20% of the people.
-God has not called us to be passive spectators but rather active participants.
-Be the church, not go to church.
-showing and sharing the love of Christ
-sometimes (often) we’ll have to push harder on the sharing part.
There is no time where you retire from serving Jesus. Your role may change, but everybody can do something. You can’t sit, soak and sour and call that your service to Jesus.
Seniors who can’t get out can pray, send cards, support financially etc.
Talk with other people who love your community and learn about its needs.
-School boards, local government, other churches
-find the needs and then find ways to meet the needs.
You need to be an expert about your community.
Life Together – Ed Stetzer & Rick Howerton
Proximity does not equal community
-move people from sitting in rows to sitting in circles to living life together.
-Small Groups
-Sunday Schools
-there needs to be a place where people are in community and not just proximity
Five deliverables of smaller communities
1)
2)
3)
4) Smaller communities deliver maximum participation – no one can be anonymous.
5) Smaller communities deliver Missional opportunities.
5 elements of a transformational small group
1) Mission orientation – focus must go to joining God on his mission
2) Word-driven mentality
3) Multiplication mindset – groups must understand from day one that their purpose is to reproduce – goal is to advance the kingdom, not keep it for yourself.
4) Stranger Welcoming – Groups must always be concerned about the empty chair
5) Kingdom focused – not a holding take to have our needs met.
Have to teach people the reason for having small groups.
-the reason for small groups is to join God on his mission
-essential component of our ministry
-we don’t have the space in our building to teach adults at the same time as teaching children
-Jesus had 12 people he poured himself into
-Lets you get to know people well
-accountability
People want to return to a past era when “it” worked thinking that it will work again.
A lot of churches fall in love with where they used to be, rather than where we are.
Discovering a Missionary Mentality
-Understanding context, or a missionary mentality, is a key component in Transformational Churches.
-We must know the stories in our place of ministry.
2 comments:
Thanks so much for the notes! I appreciate it! I kept getting dragged away to take care of my son and other issues, so thanks for your attentiveness. What a great seminar!
Happy to share with you Tim! It takes little effort to do so, and if it even helps just one other person/church it is totally worth it. I did miss a few minutes (you'll see 3 consecutive blanks about 70% of the way through it) where I got a call I had to take. But otherwise it is most of what was talked about, with some of my own thoughts and interpretations for how to apply it to my setting here and there.
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