Resources and Comments in Response to “What to Keep, What to Cut”

The September 6, 2010 issue of Alban Weekly (“What to Keep, What to Cut“) suggests an excellent approach to communication and strategic planning in congregations–particularly when difficult decisions must be made.

If you have not already read the article from John Wimberly, please do so now.

A set of resources is listed at the end of the article. In addition to those listed, you might also consider Loren Mead and Billie Alban’s book, Creating the Future Together as well as Gil Rendle and Alice Mann’s Holy Conversations.

What are your stories and thoughts concerning this topic? And what resources do you recommend?

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Church consultant and Lutheran pastor Peter Steinke recognizes the cultural shifts and systemic pressures that can lead congregations to lose their focus. At the same time, though, he emphasizes that a focus on mission is essential to navigating those shifts and pressures. His August 30 Alban Weekly article (“Avoiding Mission Drift,” excerpted from his recently published book, A Door Set Open) defines “mission drift” as the conditions that result from either not having a clear sense of mission or losing sight of mission. These conditions—which range from “succumbing to a pressure group” to “exchanging core beliefs for more marketable ones,” can take shape, gain power, and derail congregations when people lose sight of mission.

What is the mission that can effectively preserve a congregation’s integrity and vitality? For Steinke, it is “the expression of the church’s deep, abiding beliefs” and “the major standard against which all activities, services, and decisions are valued.” Ultimately, says Steinke, “It is about God’s love for the world, not what I like or don’t like about my church.”

What resources can support you and your congregation in avoiding mission drift and reclaiming mission? In addition to the resources listed at the end of the article, you might consider the items in the “Mission and Vision” section of the Congregational Resource Guide—particularly Fredric Roberts’s Be Not Afraid: Building Your Church on Faith and Knowledge.

What are your stories and ideas regarding mission and mission drift? And what resources do you recommend? We look forward to hearing from you! 

Drawing on the biblical story of Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, Carol Howard Merritt invites readers to envision the living waters that can renew their congregations and make possible the missions and ministries to which God has called them.

Merritt’s Alban Weekly article of August 23 (“A Well in the Distance“) explains how old congregational and denominational frameworks no longer serve within the social and cultural contexts in which people find themselves. Nuclear families—with housewives who could offer abundant volunteer labor to a church—no longer characterize the demographics that define congregational reality today. But Merritt points out that there is cause for hope: “New opportunities, tools, movements, missions, and passions cascade through our wilderness landscape bringing vital ways of organizing faithful communities, communicating prayerful longings, and seeking social justice.”

What resources can support these “prayerful longings”? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider Changing the Conversation: A Third Way for Congregations, as well as Culture Shift: Transforming Your Church from the Inside Out.

What stories and ideas do you have regarding this topic? And what resources do you recommend? We look forward to hearing from you!

In “Ironies, Paradoxes, and Balance” (the August 16, 2010 issue of Alban Weekly, adapted from Beating Burnout in Congregations), Lynne Baab points to a paradox in congregational life: the work required to fulfill the life-giving goals of congregations often lead to levels of burnout among volunteers that are life-depleting. As Baab puts it, “If a person or many people experience exhaustion, discouragement, and pain in the very place that promised to give life, then what does that say about our faith?”

Baab notes that for some volunteers, burnout does not happen; rather, they experience their service as life-giving and they recognize the “holy moments” in their work. And fortunately, in a healthy congregation people recognize that God can foster transformation through all kinds of situations. “Indeed,” Baab surmises, “burnout can enable us to reshape our priorities and have a fresh start.”

What resources might enable volunteers to recognize the holy moments in their work, and to allow a grace-filled “fresh start”? In addition to the excellent resources listed at the end of the article, you might consider Kirk Byron Jones’s Addicted to Hurry: Spiritual Strategies for Slowing Down and Margaret Guenther’s At Home in the World: A Rule of Life for the Rest of Us.

What stories and ideas do you have about this topic? And what resources do you recommend? We look forward to hearing from you!

In the August 9, 2010 issue of Alban Weekly (“Craving Community,” excerpted and adapted from “Downtown Judaism: In Our Own Image,” an essay in Living Our Story), New York Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein relays his memories of the longing for community and for the safe haven of sanctuary that arose in lower Manhattan and in Jewish life after 9/11.

That longing still exists, and Goldstein holds that people even now “are looking for communities, not congregations,” and for sanctuaries more than for houses of worship. And yet, a key question in the face of creating community and sanctuary is how best to “strike the proper balance between creating innovative projects and initiatives and conserving the traditional pillars of our rich and ancient faiths?”

If you have not yet read this article, please do so now.

The article is followed by an annotated list of relevant resources.  In addition to these resources, you might consider The Spirituality of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation into a Sacred Community as well as the exciting project and website, Synagogue 3000.

What are your thoughts and stories on this topic? And resources do you recommend? We look forward to hearing from you! 

The July 27, 2010 Alban Weekly (“Friend, Foe, or Fiasco,” excerpted from Bruce Epperly and Daryl Hollinger’s From a Mustard Seed: Enlivening Worship and Music in the Small Church) stresses the importance of strong partnerships between pastors and music leaders, particularly in small churches. Such partnerships are fostered, say Epperly and Hollinger, by good communication; understanding strengths, weaknesses, and personality types; respecting each other’s roles in ministry; and a commitment to spiritual formation on the part of both pastors and church musicians.

Epperly and Hollinger conclude that “Creative worship calls us to be bold in creating healthy relationships between the pastor and church musician that are loving, supportive, full of open communication, and grounded in spirituality.”

If you have not yet read the article, please do so now.

What resources can support creative worship and the relationships that nurture it? In addition to the many items listed at the end of the article, we hope you’ll also take a look at the “Music” section of the Congregational Resource Guide. You might find Don Saliers’s Music and Theology especially helpful.

What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you!

In the July 12 issue of Alban Weekly (“Why Do We Worship the Way We Have Always Worshiped When People Keep Changing?“), Graham Standish asserts that forms of worship need to be adapted to the trends that emerge with each new generation. Forms that were vital thirty or forty years ago fail as time passes because congregations forget to “keep the focus of worship on the encounter with the Holy.” Maintaining the status quo begins to take precedence over enabling people to “gain a sense of the Creator’s purpose in their lives, Christ’s presence in worship, and the Spirit’s power working through them.”

What is the alternative? Becoming intentional about adapting worship to the spiritual realities of people’s lives. The core question, says Standish, is this: “Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?”

What resources might help you and your congregation move toward an adaptive, spiritual approach to worship? In addition to the items listed at the bottom of the article (particularly Standish’s books, In God’s Presence and Becoming a Blessed Church), the items featured in the “Worship” and “Spirituality” sections of the Congregational Resource Guide may prove helpful. You might especially consider Beyond the Worship Wars, and Making Liturgy.

What are your stories and ideas concerning this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you! 

In the July 7, 2010 issue of Alban Weekly (“Funding for Today and Tomorrow“) Dan Hotchkiss points out that many congregations want to believe they serve those beyond their walls, but expect budget outlays to focus on the desires and needs of their members. He compares the congregation with other nonprofits as he explains that both kinds of institutions require plans for “primary customers” (people whose lives will change through interacting with the organization) and “secondary customers” (people whose contributions and support are needed for success).

The article discusses several ways to approach these plans. (If you have not read the full article yet, please do so now.) One approach is to “teach stewardship to members, who eventually understand that the congregation does not exist for them alone but has a precious gift to give to others through their gifts of time and treasure.”

What resources can support teaching stewardship in your congregation? In addition to the resources listed at the end of the article, we suggest you check out the “Stewardship” sections in both the “Administration” and “Spirituality” categories of the Congregational Resource Guide.  You might especially find Generous Saints: Congregations Rethinking Ethics and Money helpful.

What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources have you found helpful? We look forward to hearing from you! 

Lynne Baab, author of Reaching Out in a Networked World (from which “Why Blog” was excerpted for the June 28, 2010 Alban Weekly), argues that blogs can be wonderful communication vehicles for congregations. They can function as newsletters, as stories and testimonies, and as building blocks for communicating “a piece of what the congregation considers to be valuable and essential for faith.”

In addition to pastoral blogs, there can be congregational blogs which are produced by a team. However they are produced, and whoever produces them, they should be conversational and personal in tone.

What resources would help congregations considering blogging? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, we suggest you take a look at “The Networked Congregation,” a web resource developed by Andrea Useem for the Congregational Resource Guide.

What are your thoughts and stories about blogging? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you!