Category: Church Development

In a recent GCI Weekly Update cover letter, Joseph Tkach asked, Why be concerned about mission? To help explore the answer, Church Administration and Development has produced Becoming a Missional Church. This video (embedded below) features Randy Bloom leading a discussion about how churches can actively participate in the ministry that Jesus is doing in the Spirit to fulfill the Father’s mission to the world. This video is a good resource for facilitating interactive discussions of pastors in districts, leadership teams in congregations, and members in small groups.

View this video on YouTube at http://youtu.be/LkaEI77mZ2s.

We hope to produce more training videos like this. Let us know (using the comment box below) what you think and if you have any topic suggestions.

In the U.S., GCI is a member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). A recent NAE Update highlighted World Food Day, which is observed in more than 150 countries each year on October 16.

NAE encourages churches and Christians to use this occasion to learn about where food comes from, why so many are hungry and what responsibility Christians have. Doing so softens our hearts and reminds us to be grateful for God’s blessings.

There are a variety of ways for congregations and individuals to get involved in World Food Day. For resources put together by NAE, click here.

 

 

Parents and children’s ministers will find helpful the video embedded below, in which Paul Tripp offers some helpful insights concerning raising Kingdom-minded children.

http://youtu.be/hSJ0jYCFTqw?t=13s

Here’s sound advice from a seasoned pastor in the form of Ten Reminders for Christian Life and Leadership:

• No matter what other people tell you…Don’t think that you have all the answers. (That omniscient position has been permanently and effectively filled.)
• Don’t think that you should have all the answers. (Just wrestling with the right questions is hard enough.)
• Don’t think you know exactly what others should do. (While we can lead in biblical paths, we must leave final footprints to God.)
• Don’t think you can resolve every problem. (If you could, Jesus would be unnecessary.)
• Don’t ever motivate someone by using guilt. (While it may seem to work in the short-term, it always creates deep wounds and anger.)
• Don’t ever absorb someone else’s guilt. (Martyrdom is a call to be accepted, not a long-term profession to be perfected.)
• Don’t think that ministry is supposed to be easy. (If you do, you haven’t been reading your Bible enough.)
• Don’t allow secrets, but keep confidences. (The difference is that the first is based on maintaining power, while the latter seeks to protect the weak.)
• Don’t forget that trust is a powerful but fragile, priceless thing. (Once trust is broken, the glue of repair seems to take forever to dry.)
• Don’t think you can change others. (You can teach them, lead them, support them, and love them and model health for them, but you cannot change them. Only the Holy Spirit does long-term persuading.)

© March, 1997 / Rev. Brad Strait, used with permission.

Steve Sabol, the creative force behind NFL Films, died this week at age 69. Steve was considered by many to be a great cinematic story-teller. He was fond of saying, “Tell me a fact and I’ll learn; tell me the truth and I’ll believe; but tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” This is an important observation for film-makers, and also for those who seek to participate with Jesus in his ministry of proclaiming the gospel — telling the greatest story of all: The Story of God.

For a video that powerfully presents the gospel in dynamic narrative fashion, watch this:

Found on YouTube at http://youtu.be/A4WL0w3it0s.

– From Ted Johnston, GCI ministry developer

Pastors and ministry leaders have many important responsibilities. One is to help shape within their congregation or ministry a culture (or “environment”) that is expressive of the love and life of Jesus Christ. A critical aspect of such a culture is having an evangelistic orientation–a passion for sharing actively in what Jesus is doing to reach out in love to share the gospel with non-Christians.

But how do leaders do that? Though there is no one-size-fits-all formula, there are helpful practices. Here are four, offered by LifeWay president Thom Rainer in a recent blog post:

1. Model passion for evangelism. As a leader in your church be active in sharing the gospel with non-believers. Then share your experiences with your church family. Doing so is much more impactful than a dozen sermons or Bible studies about evangelism. Passion for evangelism is more caught than taught.
2. Ask one of your small groups or classes to become an evangelistic group for one year. This fosters accountability on a small scale as that group understands that it has been selected to be an example for the whole church. Watch how the group becomes more intentionally evangelistic–more prayerfully creative and excited to reach people with the gospel. Then share their stories with the whole church.
3. Begin a small-scale evangelistic mentoring program. Doing so is another way to foster accountability. The mentor should teach their protégés how to begin a conversation about Jesus with a non-believer and how to include in that conversation a clear presentation of the gospel.
4. Regularly pray in church services for the lost. Most members are not hesitant to pray for the physical needs of people. But it is rare for churches to pray together for the conversion of non-Christian family, friends and neighbors. As a church begins to pray consistently this way, God often begins to demonstrate clear answers to those prayers. As that happens, you will see your church becoming more evangelistic in its culture.

-Ted Johnston, CAD ministry developer

By living and sharing the gospel, we are participating in what Jesus is doing through the Holy Spirit to fulfill the Father’s mission to the world. In Matthew 28:19, Jesus defined the fruit of his ministry as the multiplication of his disciples (followers) throughout the world. Indeed, it is our calling and privilege to make disciples with Jesus.

Sadly, churches sometimes lose sight of this calling by focusing on merely gathering people, instead of helping them become active disciples of Jesus. Tony Morgan makes this point in “Avoid the Funnel of Doom,” an article in which he urges churches to move away from an “event mentality” to focus on providing three things that help people become and then mature as followers of Jesus, who is the Truth:

1. Solid biblical teaching by which people hear the truth.
2. Mentors that help people catch the truth.
3. Systems that facilitate spiritual disciplines and mission engagement so people practice the truth.

Note the progression–what we in GCI refer to as a discipleship pathway (see the diagram above). Effective churches help people travel this pathway–progressing from being blind to the truth (Jesus calls such people “lost”); to eyes-opened believers; to actively engaged workers (with some workers becoming leaders who multiply ministries and churches). To download this diagram as a PowerPoint presentation, click here, and note the information at http://mindev.gci.org/strategy.htm.

GCI’s Church Administration and Development (CAD) team offers Transformational Church consulting services that help congregations develop a discipleship pathway fitted to their circumstances. To learn more about these services, see http://www.gci.org/CAD_Services.

– Ted Johnston, CAD ministry developer

In GCI, our vision is for “all kinds of churches, for all kinds of people, in all kinds of places.” In a rapidly changing world, “all kinds of churches” will, no doubt, include new expressions of church.

As a GCI ministry developer I keep my eyes open for churches experimenting with new expressions. Sometimes these experiments work and sometimes they don’t–either way, I appreciate it when folks are willing to “think outside the box,” trying new ways to “do church” for the sake of the gospel mission.

Recently my wife Donna and I visited an innovative worship service conducted by a United Methodist church in western Florida. They call it Flora-Bama Worship @ the Water. It is designed to reach out and connect with the community (including its many transient visitors) along the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico in the area that spans the Florida-Alabama border.

The service is held on Sunday mornings in a tent on the beach that is part of an iconic honky-tonk bar named Flora-Bama Lounge, Package and Oyster Bar. Like the bar itself, the worship service is quite an experience (it’s not your mother’s church!). Click here for their FaceBook and here for a Huffington Post article.

The Flora-Bama service reminded me that we need new expressions of church of our own–not to be trendy, but to reach new people, many of who will not step inside a traditional church.

I wonder if anyone reading this feels called of God to start such a church in GCI. If so, your friends in Church Administration and Development (CAD) are here to help–feel free to email Randy.Bloom@gci.org. Randy leads CAD’s Church Multiplication Ministries, which helps individuals, congregations and district networks start new kinds of churches, for all kinds of people, in all kinds of places.

A good place to start, is to launch a FaithTalk group. This is a special type of small group designed to connect with un-churched people. We resource such groups online at FaithTalk equipper.

– Ted Johnston, CAD media & communications

Some congregations include a short children’s sermon as part of their worship service. Listed below are links to five-minute long discussion-based sermons for children (PDF format). They were written by Sarah Strub who ministers to children in GCI’s congregation in Big Sandy, Texas. These and other resources for discipling children, teens, young adults and older adults are available on the Youth and Family Ministry resources page of GCI’s Generations Ministries website.

• A Secret to Being a Good Friend
• Baptism Saying I Do to God
• Begin School — He is With You
• Care Share Bear
• Choosing Friends Wisely
• Dealing with Worry
• Faith Comes By Hearing
• Friends of God
• GOD
• God’s Valentine
• Home Sweet Home
• Honor Graduates
• Love Your Neighbor
• Obeying God
• Offering Time
• Olympics-New Life with Christ
• On God’s Mission
• Remember
• Respect
• Spring Flowers
• Trust God
• Woman at the Well

People make hospital visits for all sorts of reasons, including duty, friendship, repayment of favors. But a call that truly ministers the life and love of Jesus to the patient attends to the patient’s soul. For some helpful tips concerning hospital visitation, see the recent Leadership Journal article titled, “7 Essentials of a Healthy Hospital Visit.” Click here to read it.