My Understanding of My Call to Ministry as a Commissioned Minister in the United Church of Christ

Recently, I invited my friends to be with me during an Ecclesiastical Council where I will be examined by the Eastern Association of the Southern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ.  As I talk with people outside the United Church of Christ, they wonder just exactly what I am doing.  I explain that I am being examined by a group of individuals who represent a part of the United Church of Christ who will determine if I should be authorized for ministry as a Commissioned Minister.  That usually gets me a,”Huh?  What does that mean?”

When people think of someone becoming a “minister,” they usually think of someone being a pastor or a priest; someone who leads a congregation, preaches, teaches, does weddings and funerals, offers communion, and cares for people’s spiritual needs.  While this does describe a minister, it describes what most denominations would refer to as an Ordained Minister.  According to the Constitution and Bylaws of the United Church of Christ, there are three forms of ministry that require authorization: Commissioning, Licensing and Ordination.  Each of these recognize that God calls certain members of the United Church of Christ to various forms of ministry in and on behalf of the church for which ecclesiastical authorization is required.

An Ordained Minister of the United Church of Christ is someone called by God and ordained “to preach and teach the gospel, to administer the sacraments and rites of the Church, and to exercise pastoral care and leadership.”  This authorization of ministry is the one most people think of when they hear “minister.”  This is not where I believe I have been called; at least not now.  I say that because one thing I have learned in this whole discernment process is that you must allow yourself and your community the freedom to discern your call without trying to define it or put boundaries around it.

A Licensed Minister is someone whom God has called and who has been recognized and authorized by an Association to perform specified duties in a designated local church or within that Association, mainly preaching and conducting services of worship, for a designated time within a covenant of mutual accountability that includes appropriate supervision and guidance of that Association. The license may be renewed.  This is different from Ordination in that the authorization for ministry is specific to the ministry that person has been called.  When they leave that specific ministry, they no longer have authorization and would need to seek authorization for a new ministry.  Additionally, this authorization must be renewed annually.

Commissioned Ministry is a very different calling within the United Church of Christ.  Some denominations, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) for example, view commissioned ministry the same as licensed ministry.  this makes it all very confusing to anyone from outside of the denomination, and many within the denomination as well.  The Constitution and Bylaws of the United Church of Christ state,

“26 Commissioning is the act whereby the United Church of Christ through an Association, in cooperation with a person and a Local Church of the United Church of Christ, recognizes and authorizes that member whom God has called to a specific church-related ministry which is recognized by that Association, but not requiring ordination or licensing. By this act the status of Commissioned Minister is conferred and authorization granted to perform duties necessary to and for the specific ministry, and voting membership in that Association is granted.

27 A Commissioned Minister in the United Church of Christ is one of its members who has been called by God and commissioned for a specific church-related ministry.”

     Commissioned Ministers are lay persons authorized to minister on behalf of the United Church of Christ in specific ministries that “are vital for the faith formation, continued spiritual growth, and empowerment of the children, youth, and adults of our local churches to live as a people of faith in an ever-more-volatile society and are undertaken on behalf of the entire United Church of Christ.”  According to the Manual on Ministry, Commissioned Ministry is a ministry that does not require ordination or licensing, is vocational (there is a sense of call to the ministry), and is a church-related ministry (carried out on behalf of a local congregation or another setting of the United Church of Christ).

Tomorrow, I will be considered for authorization as a Commissioned Minister for Finance, Administration and Communication.  You might wonder why someone would need special authorization to work in areas of finance, administration or communication.  There are many people who do this very type of work in businesses and non-profits all over the world.  Some people have even asked me, “isn’t that what you already do?  If you are already doing those things, why do you need some special ‘authorization’?”  These are all important and valid questions.

First, the United Church of Christ recognized that all people in the church are called to ministry.  The Constitution and Bylaws state:

The United Church of Christ recognizes that God calls the whole Church and every member to participate in and extend the ministry of Jesus Christ by witnessing to the Gospel in church and society.  The United Church of Christ recognizes that God calls the whole Church and every member to participate in and extend the ministry of Jesus Christ by witnessing to the Gospel in church and society

     Each and every member of the church has the privilege and responsibility to participate in the ministry of the church.  We have all been given gifts, talents and passions that are intended to be used to demonstrate God’s love and the ministry of Jesus Christ in and to the world through the church.  1 Corinthians 12:4-7 teaches us that there are different gifts, different ways of serving, and different activities but all of these come from the same Spirit and that each of these gifts are given to provide for the common good of the community.

Second, we must understand what it means to be “called.”  Barbara Brown Zikmund wrote about this for Theology and Identity; Traditions, Movements and Polity in the United Church of Christ.  Her chapter was entitled  Empowerment and Embodiment; Understanding of Ministry in the United Church of Christ.  In this writing, Zikmund reflects on the historical understandings of what it meant to be called into ordination by the antecedent denominations (those who eventually joined together to form the United Church of Christ) and how the United Church of Christ tried to synthesize the two understandings.  Although this writing specifically addresses ordination, I believe the same is true of all forms of ministry that require authorization.  Zikmund explains that the church, in recognition that we are all called to ministry, has downplayed authorization of ministry as being special.  The authorization is simply a calling forth of someone from within the members to lead.  This is empowerment.  On the other hand, the church recognizes that God has blessed some with special gifts to enrich the church.  This is embodiment.

Early in my faith journey, I sensed God was calling me to ministry.  Over time, I discerned, with the help of various communities along the way, my gifts were in areas of leadership, administration and evangelism.  This understanding of my call was very clear and is what pulled me along in my journey to eventually take the position I now have.  I believed God had embodied me with special skills, talents and passions to serve the Church.  After growing in my understanding of Congregationalism and discerning that God chooses to bless us by working through us as a community rather than simply as individuals, I began to understand that we as a community call forth individuals to lead.  We empower people to perform ministry.  This understanding wasn’t exactly clear to me until I read this writing of Zikmund.

When I learned about the form of ministry called “commissioned ministry” and read the definition and purpose, I immediately said, “that is me!”  That is exactly the type of ministry to which I have been called.  As I read the Constitution and Bylaws of the United Church of Christ and the Manual on Ministry, I realized that calling is both being embodied with gifts, talents, passions and skills that God wants us to utilize in service of the Church and an empowerment by the community to serve the Church in a special way, ”on behalf of the whole United Church of Christ.”  This is when I began preparing for the discernment process.

What makes me different from an administrator in a business?  What about me needs to be authorized?  Why do I believe I have been called by God and why do I want my community to call me?  I believe God has given me special gifts, passions, talents and skills to be utilized in service to the Church.  I believe these skills are desperately needed in the Church.  I believe that the utilization of these gifts, passions, talents and skills are more than just professional services I offer; they are a ministry.  I am being considered for authorization as a Commissioned Minister for Finance, Administration and Communication.  Behind those business sounding terms are a calling to be a steward, a shepherd and an evangelist.  God has blessed me with the gifts of administration, leadership and evangelism.  God has given me the desire to utilize these gifts to serve the body of Christ, to help support the mission and ministry of the Church.  I now, in humility, recognizing that all I am is a gift from God, ask my community to empower me to serve Jesus Christ and the Church with those gifts, talents, skills and passions.

Some great resources about Commissioned Ministry:

Commissioned Ministry (a brief summary from Parish Life & Leadership)

Commissioned Ministry (a brochure from Parish Life & Leadership)

Commissioned Ministry recognizes specific calls of lay members to ministry (2003 article in UCNews)

Affirming The Essential Role of Commissioned Ministry as an Authorized Ministry of the United Church of Christ (resolution passed at General Synod 24)

Manual on Ministry, Section 6: Commissioned Ministry

Community That Reveals Hidden Wholeness

     Parker Palmer is a Quaker who discovered how to connect his inner self to his outer self when he allowed himself to experience the practices he outlines in this book.  He shares some of his journey and how experiencing community with others in an environment that is safe allows us to discover the true self within us; the one we once knew, but have either lost touch with or have squelched because of the demands of our world.

      Palmer shares an approach to developing a community that allows people to explore their soul without judgment; allowing the soul to emerge and share with us all that it desires to be and do.  Through the development of “Circles of Trust” we can connect our inner self or soul to our outer self or the person who we appear to be in this world; eventually connecting these two and creating for ourselves a wholeness that allows us to thrive.  This wholeness allows our lives to fee the soul and the soul to guide our lives.

      As we engage in a circle of trust and follow the guidelines of such a circle, we in effect learn to live non-violently towards others.  We learn to be true soul mates for others; supporters who do not offer judgment, advice but help hold the soul of that person in a safe place where it can be discovered.

     I particularly enjoyed Palmers description of Clearness Committees.  As a current “Member In Discernment”, I believe this is what I would hope my discernment committee could be.  This is a group of individuals who come together to probe with specific guidelines about how they will engage a person in order to help draw out the wisdom of the soul.

      This is an excellent book for leaders in the church.  There are concepts in this book that can be applied to a variety of situations and groups, but more importantly the development of specific Circles of Trust within our communities can bring wholeness and vitality to those whom we serve.

Tattoo Your Heart!

  “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.  It’s a covenant between equals…Compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship, of true kinship.
             - Fr. Gregory “G” Boyle

 

     This book should come with a warning label:

 WARNING: This book has been known to induce both uncontrollable laughter and tears, often at the same time.  This book will force you to examine your own heart.  Reading this book may cause you to experience an overwhelming sense of God’s compassion.  Do not attempt to read all pages at once.

     I recently finished readhing Karen Armstrong’s book, Twelve Stepos To A Compassionate Life.  Armstrong, with all of her knowledge of the many religions of the world clearly demonstrates how compassion is a central theme in most faiths.  It was a wonderful book and I finished it intent on implementing her twelve step plan.  Soon thereafter I chose to get started on this book, Tattoos on the Heart.  I had heard Fr. Gregory Boyle speak recently at an event and was moved to purchase his book.  “What a storyteller.  I bet this is going to be a great book!”, I thought to myself.  I don’t think I could have picked a more perfect book to follow Armstrong’s.  Fr. Boyle and his ministry with gang members is a living testimony that could most easily define compassion in it’s full meaning.

     Fr. Boyle has served as the pastor at Delorres Mission in Boyle Heights, California.  His parish is at the heart of the most concentrated gang activity in Los Angeles.  For twenty-one years he has served this community; helping gang members to discover who God is and who God created them to be.  He has walked with them and built a kinship with them.  He has suffered with them and for them.  His life devotion to serving these folks is an amazing testimony and what a story his life is to hear. 

     But that is not what this book is about.  This book is filled with the stories of the homeboys with whom he has worked.  The pages are filled with their triumphs, their failures, their discoveries and their tragedies.  In Tattoos on the Heart, Father Boyle or “Gee” as he is called shares the human-ness of those whom many of us would think of as something less than human.  He shares their hearts.  He shares their passions.  He tells of their struggle to find any sense of worth in a world that tends to shun them and he does it in such a way that rivots your heart.

     I think this has been the most inpiring book I have read in years.  This past week has been a roller coaster of emotion as I have been consumed by this book for only an hour or so at a time.  Although this book is short and very easy to read, you cannot finish it in one, or even two sittings.  The raw emotion that is shared, consumed and evoked as you read cannot be taken in all at once.  In fact, now that I have finished this book, I am not quite sure how I will fill the void.  I don’t think I am ready to pick up another book just yet.  I am not done “marinating” in the compassion of God this book revealed to me.

     I have the hardcover edition of this book, but highly recommend the investment in the audio version (I downloaded that one later).  It is read by Fr. Boyle and is so powerful as you can hear his wonderful storytelling and sense in his voice much of the emotion of the book.  Remember my warning above; this book, if you allow it to, will place you into the center of God’s compassion.

Please Don’t Kill Me

In my various roles as a staff member at the Southern California Nevada Conference and as a board member of three organization, I staff or attend more committees than I care to count.  Meetings can be effective ways to collaborate, opportunities to be innovative, and reliable ways to pull a group together to solve a problem.  They can also be exhausting, unproductive, frustrating drudgery!

As I consider some of the meetings I have taken part in over the past few years, one of my favorite books on the topic comes to mind: Death by Meeting, a leadership fable written by Patrick Lencioni.  Lencioni is an excellent author with many best selling titles on leadership.  Most of his books are written in fable which make them very easy to read.  Death by Meeting is one of his longer books (260 pages) and I finished it in one sitting (not a normal reading pace for me).  Here is my summary of the book.  For those of you who are in meetings with me, I hope this whets your appetite.

This leadership fable describes a small software company owner, Casey McDaniel, who is challenged with an under-performing company with low morale.  In an attempt to provide larger rewards to his employees, Casey allows his company to be purchased by a larger software company.  This resulted in stock being distributed to the employees, gaining short term results in morale.

Now Casey reports to someone else and the pressure is on him to get things done.  He is visited by a corporate officer with a tough reputation and the results put Casey under the gun.  His weekly executive meetings are disturbing to the corporate man and although Casey would agree the meetings are a drudgery, he doesn’t see why they would be the cause of his job being on the line.

Casey hires a young assistant who turns out to be the answer man for Casey’s problems.  After sitting in on a few of the meetings, this new assistant begins to analyze where things are going wrong and why they really matter.  The young assistant gains the ears of the executive team and begins to challenge them to re-think the use of their meeting time.  The end results are nothing short of a success story.  Casey and his executive team learn valuable lessons about meetings that enable them to energize their company and produce the results needed to excel in their industry as well as keep Casey’s job secure.

As Casey and his executive team learned from their young assistant, there are two primary components necessary for a successful meeting.  They are drama and contextual structure.  Without these two components, meetings are boring, dull, ineffective and unproductive at best.

Meetings need drama!  They should be interactive.  A meeting should allow for interjections, comments, criticisms and challenges.  At the outset, the leader of the meeting should “hook” the participants.  The leader must cause the group to see the importance and urgency of the content.  Giving the participants in the meeting a reason to care is vital to their active participation.

In addition to providing a reason to care the leader of a meeting must create a climate that encourages active participation.  Caring alone does not result in a successful meeting.  Each person must be willing to take risk and share their opinions and passions with the group.  This will naturally produce conflict.  Conflict is vital to a successful meeting.

It is in the free exchange of ideas, opinions and passions that the group will be given all the important and relevant information needed to make the decisions the group is discussing.  After all, it is vital that everyone has the full range of knowledge available to them to make the best decisions possible.  It is these decisions that affect the future of everyone in the meeting and throughout the organization.

It is vital that the leader of the meeting mine for conflict.  Many people naturally will avoid conflict with their peers.  They do not want to be embarrassed or embarrass others.  Unfortunately without everyone’s honest and open input, no one will be able to make the best decisions.  Additionally, when someone in the meeting does not voice their opinion during the meeting, they will often be resentful of the decisions made later.  The leader of the meeting must facilitate this openness by ensuring that everyone is safe to voice their opinions without retaliation.  The leader must also actively purse opposing views of the group members to help foster the conflict and debate.

The second component that successful meetings need is contextual structure.  Casey and his team learn there are four types of meetings:

1. The daily check-in meeting
2. The weekly tactical meeting
3. The monthly strategic meeting and the
4. Quarterly off-site meeting. 

Each meeting serves a different purpose and meets a different need.  Choosing the wrong contextual structure for a meeting can cause the meeting to be frustrating and unproductive.

The first type of meeting is the daily check-in.  This meeting is used to avoid confusion about how priorities translate into action on a daily basis.  They also help eliminate unnecessary communication back and forth to coordinate schedules.  These brief meetings simply allow each member to report on their activities for the day.  The meeting should take no more than five minutes.

The second type of meeting is the weekly tactical meeting.  This meeting can be weekly or bi-weekly and should run between 45 and 90 minutes.
The purpose of this meeting is to have regular meetings focused exclusively on tactical issues of immediate concern.  These meetings should be attended by everyone. Every time.

This meeting should be disciplined and structured and contain these three elements:  The Lightning Round; a quick, around-the-table reporting session in which everyone indicates their two or three priorities for the week.  A Progress Review; routine reporting of critical information or metrics.  Real-Time Agenda; An agenda developed on the spot as a result of the information shared in the other two components.

The third type of meeting is the monthly strategic meeting.  This meeting is the one where the executives wrestle with, analyze, debate, and decide upon critical issues that will affect the business in fundamental ways.  These meetings allow the executives to dive into specific issues in depth.  The length of the meeting will vary in time depending on the topics being considered.

The fourth type of meeting is the quarterly off-site review.  These meetings should include comprehensive strategy review, team review, personnel review, and competitive & industry review.  These meetings should not overburden the participants or be over-structured.

Holding each of these types of meetings is crucial for the success of an organization.  Too often, leaders spend countless hours on the phone, writing e-mails and roaming the halls to clarify what should have been made clear in the right type of meeting.

Death by Meeting
Author: Patrick Lencioni
ISBN: 0-7879-6805-6
Published 2004

More on Patrick Lencioni:
Website: http://www.tablegroup.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/patricklencioni
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Patrick-Lencioni/133626265614?ref=ts&v=wall

What Social Media Should I Use?

    
     When I have talked with people about using social media, I am often asked, “Where do I start?  Which sites should I use?”  I have joined many social media sites and more pop up all the time.  Below, I will list the sites I have joined and give my thoughts about how to use them for your church. 

 

     I have some overarching thoughts about using social media.  First to answer the question “Why?”  Well the answer in general is simple: to be part of the community.  More and more people are online.  More and more are joining social networks and utilizing social media.  These sites enable more interaction for the community that you are already a member.  These sites also allow you to reach out to people and communities that you otherwise would not have access due to location or lack of an organized group offline.

     The next question to address generally is “Which sites should I join?”  The answer to this question depends primarily on what you are trying to do, who you are trying to reach and which sites those people use.  At the same time, the reality is these sites keep poping up and you never know who will be the next big thing.  I would encourage you to explore many sites so that if it does become a huge success and a great tool for you to use in building community, you are ready to take advantage of that site. 

     My final overarching thought is don’t approach social media as a way to simply disciminate information.  You certainly can share what your church is doing and links to your blog but social media is an interactive tool.  It was designed to be a marketing tool.  The idea behind social media was to provide marketers an opportunity to hear their customer, meet the need of the customer and receive immediate feedback from the customers.  The church can use these tools in the same way.  Listen to your congregation.  What are the needs being expressed?  What are the anxieties?  How can you minister to those needs now?  What is happening in society?  How can you lead your congregation using these tools to take action?  Social media is a great tool for communication.  Just remember it is not one way communication.  It is dialog. 

O.K. here are the social media sites that I am a member of and my thoughts on them for the church:

Facebook
Currently Facebook is the hottest site on the internet.  Facebook currently has over 500 million active users and claim that 50% of those users or logged on in any given day.  There are over 900 million “objects” (defined as pages, groups, events and community pages) available to connect to on Facebook.  The average user is connected to 80 of these objects.  Facebook is a great place for a church to start.  You have access to a broad spectrum of tools and applications to help you communicate with your congregation and community.  You can schedule events and send invitations, share pictures and links, have discussion groups, interact and dialog with your congregation at any time.

Twitter
Twitter has over 100 million users and new users are signing up at a rate of 300,000 per day (according to an article from April 2010 the Huffington Post).  Twitter is a microblog which means you are limited in the number of characters you can share (140).  Twitter is a great place to share quick updates, thoughts of the day, events, links to your blog, links to articles.  It is also a great way to communicate quickly with your community.  37% of the tweets on twitter come from cell phones.  Members of your congregation can be reached to ask questions, announce meetings, give emergency or last minute instructions.  Twitter is a great site for dialog.  Again, the main reason to use social media is building community.


YouTube
The uses for YouTube are endless: Inexpensive promotional pieces about your church, broadcasting your services, a video blog, a video-diary, community building, highlighting your youth, a virtual tour of your church, showing off your choir…Use your imagination!

LinkedIn
This is a site dedicated to business professionals.  It allows them to upload their resumes, collect recommendations, share and collaborate on files, and join in discussion groups.  This is a great way to reach the professionals in your congregation.  Not only is LinkedIn a great online rolodex of professionals you know (available for search by category, name, company, etc) but it allows you to communicate with those professionals.  You can send updates, link your profile to your twitter account, recommend reading lists, share powerpoints that you might use as tools to minister to your professionals (maybe a short message on how to bring God into your work).  You can also start a group for discussion.  This could be a great way to start dialog around a social jutice issue or a book study.  

 Plaxo
This site is like a hybrid between Facebook and LinkedIn.  You can make conections much like Facebook and share updates and links in a similar way.  This site also allows you to store contact information and search it by industry, personal vs business contacts and more.  This site easily connects to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn so that your activities on those sites are also shared on Plaxo.  Depending on who in your congregation uses this site, you may find it a valuable tool in connecting with your community.  You might also take a look at Xing

Care2
This is a site dedicated to making it possible to connect to causes you care about.  This site is a great resource for being aware of activities taking place in relation to causes you care about.  You can search through their database of causes, find links to petitions and more.  I find this site to be mainly a great resource of information that can be shared on your other social media sites.

Digg
Digg is a social bookmarking site.  As you discover articles or websites that are meaningful to you, you bookmark them.  Others in the Digg community can review your bookmarks and reivews and “digg” them which provides a ranking of relevance for any search on the site.  This would be a great tool for storing your own bookmarks of articles, websties and other resources on the internet for sermon preparation or for any other presentation or group preparation you might need to do.  It is also a great place to send your community to find your bookmark on a specific topic.  Maybe you are discussing a paticular topic in your sermon.  You could send your congregation to your Digg site to follow your bookmarks to the online documents you refer to on Sunday morning.  Other social bookmarking sites allow for more organization of bookmarks.  I haven’t spent much time on these sites yet, but I see great potential here.

Photobucket or Flickr
These are two great sites for storing pictures and organizing them around ministry teams or events in your church.

Skype or ooVoo
These two sites are streaming sites.  You can use these sites for online meetings with two or three people.  For a small fee you can do even more.  These sites are great for making meetings convenient.

WordPress
You are on my WordPress blog reading this.  It is one of many good sites for hosting a blog.  I think this is an invaluable resource for sharing thoughts, ideas, book reviews, sermon follow-up and more.  The posts can easily be linked to other sites.  One of our UCC Sites uses WordPress to host their webiste.  Our Conference is in the process of moving our online magazine, Connecting Voices to WordPress.  It is convenient, easity to use and very interactive with other social media sites.

This is a short list of social media sites I think are valuable tools that could be used for building community in your church. 

Other sites I am on
You can also find me on these sites.  I don’t use them as much or I don’t yet know how you could use them for your church.  They each of their own unique features and if you are on them, connect with me:
Spoke
Xing
ZoomInfo
foursquare
Jigsaw
43 Things
NetLog

Now it is your turn!
Social Media is a tool for building community.  It is a place to listen and a place to share.  I have shared my thoughts.  I am certain you have ideas, thoughts and comments about what I have listed and what I have not.  Please share!  Share what I didn’t about the sites above.  Share what sites I haven’t listed and how a church might use that site. 

 

Proper Training is Worth the Investment

     I have seen several of our churches run into issues as they have either transitioned from one bookkeeper to another or have discovered issues with their financials as the economy slowed down and money suddenly became tight.  Often in, smaller churches the budget doesn’t allow for a professional bookkeeper and therefore the person performing the bookkeeping is often unfamiliar with standard practices. 

     One of the most popular accounting programs used by these churches is QuickBooks.  QuickBooks is a program designed for the non-accountant.  It is a very simple program to use and it does all the “accounting stuff” in the background.  The problems arise when the person using the software isn’t properly trained on how to use it.  Instead of entering transactions as designed, the user attempts to make the program work differently than it was intented.

     I invested several hours in training before I began working in QuickBooks and I am glad I did.  I discovered there are tools and “tricks” within the program that can be utilized to help make producing the right reports easier.  Also, I learned how to avoid some of the pitfalls I so often hear about when a local church calls me with a question.  I gained so much from the training I received I decided to become a Certified QuickBooks Advisor and a Certified Public Bookkeeper.

     I recommend providing some basic training for the person you will have perform bookkeeping in your church.  This is true for whatever software you use.  Online training, training through DVDs or local classes are available for many of the software packages.  The investment of a few hundred dollars is worth having proper reports and not going through the hassle of recreating your system later.

Here are some resources for those who use QuickBooks:

From Intuit (the creators of QuickBooks): http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/training/quickbooks-training-solutions.jsp
From the National Association of Bookkeepers: http://www.nationalba.org/training.cfm

Here are some resources for PeachTree:

From Sage (creators of PeachTree): http://www.peachtree.com/supportTraining/getTraining/
PeachTree University: http://peachtreetraining.com/

Training for Church Windows:

http://churchwindows.infosaic16.com/shop/custom.aspx?recid=36

Flying On One Wing

 

Angel Interfaith Network

“We are each of us angels
with only one wing,
and we can only fly
by embracing one another.” 

 

 

 

- Luciano de Crescenzo

I hadn’t seen Donald Smith in years, having lost touch with him after leaving my job at Cokesbury Bookstore.  That was about to change and I was excited to be able to reconnect with him. 

After 25 years with the Presbyterian Synod, he had also moved into a new ministry, serving as Executive Director of an organization unknown to me.  What exactly, I wondered, was the Angel Interfaith Network (AIN)?  Checking out www.angelinterfaith.net, I learned he was working with patients of the Los Angeles County and USC Health Network, people with great needs and little means. 

The more I learned about the Network, the more excited I became, the more questions I had.  Donald and I communicated frequently via e-mail and Facebook.  My need for answers eventually led to a lunch where Don explained what Angel Interfaith Network was all about – in depth and great detail.

Social workers throughout the L.A. County and USC Health Network refer patients with very specific physical or spiritual needs to the Angel Interfaith Network.  Among those needs are temporary shelter, food, clothing, transportation, clothing and baby supplies.  AIN has, for example, provided beds for children in homes where the entire family slept on the floor and refrigerators for people with no place to store perishable medications.

I was fascinated to learn AIN has only one full-time staff person and one part-time one and that they work with churches and other non-profit organizations (throughout Los Angeles County), helping them “adopt” patients and provide needed equipment, medication, supplies, etc.

Other volunteers deliver meals or “new baby” care packages to recently released patients or spend their time in the office doing data entry or answering the phones.  Another group, made up of developmentally disabled individuals, comes to AIN’s office to help organize donated goods. 

When Donald explained they were looking for someone with experience in communications and accounting to join their board, I realized I needed to serve, to help some of the neediest individuals in our community, and volunteered.  My hope is to contribute in some small way to the work of this well-networked yet too little known organization.

I encourage you, too, to find ways for you and your church to contribute – through financial support and by volunteering – to one or more of the many organizations doing great work in Los Angeles County (or wherever you live).  In particular, if the Angel Interfaith Network intrigues you as it does me, I urge you to contact them at (626) 799-2858 and ask how you can help!

No New Year Resolutions For Me

I am not much for New Year’s resolutions.  I think they are short-sided.  Years ago, I would spend the days before New Year writing out my goals for the next year.  I thought somehow this was better than a list of resolutions.

All of that changed for me when I was introduced to what is now one of my favorite books, Inspire, What Great Leaders Do.  In this wonderful book written by Lance Secretan, he talks about leading from Inspiration rather than motivation.  Here is a short clip from him on that topic:

He goes on in this wonderful book, to explain how we must first be inspired, before we can inspire.  He takes the reader through a  ”Why-Be-Do” self-inquiry process to help them discover their Destiny, Cause and Calling.

After, reading this wonderful book, I realized that goal setting was simply a way to motivate myself to accomplish certain things.  Instead of focusing on goals, I now focus on my ”Why-Be-Do”, my Destiny, my Cause and my Calling:

My Destiny: To promote Excellence and Optimism
My Cause: To Inspire Others to Strive for Excellence
My Calling: To Lead and Serve Through My Gifts of Administration & Leadership

I no longer sit down once a year (quarter, month) evaluating my performance.  Instead, I consider why God put me here, who he wants me to be and what he has called me to do (Why-Be-Do).  Instead of focusing on performance, I focus on understanding who I am and how to be the best me I can be.  Instead of being motivated, I am Inspired. 

I hope you consider picking up a copy of Lance Secretan’s book.  It will give you a new way to look at life and leadership. 

Have a wonderful and Inspired New Year!

Establishing Healthy Trust in the Church

Our churches are sacred spaces.  The people who come to visit our churches come with an unusually high level of trust, even on their first visit.  They leave their kids with complete strangers in Sunday school, they hand their cash over to people they have never met and never give a thought to anyone violating the trust they so freely give to us.  This is a church after all.

How do we honor that trust?  Do we honor it?  We better!  For the day that trust is violated, it will be severely damaged if not completely lost. 

So often is the case where a church suffers a violation of trust and everything is thrown into chaos.  Leadership begins a flurry of reactionary measures to prevent the church from being exposed to the same violation in the future.  People begin finger-pointing.  Blame, gossip, anger and suspicion take the place of trust, fellowship and joy.

Does your church have a Safe Church Policy?  Do you perform background checks on the people who volunteer in your Sunday school classes?  Do you have adequate procedures established so that no one individual has unsupervised access to your offering?  Does your accounting system segregate duties in such a way that no one person has the ability to manipulate the system?

So many churches neglect these areas.  “We’ve known Bob for years, he would never do that!” is a common response I get when I question policy.  Unfortunately, too often it is “Bob” who has been going through circumstances that drive him to consider doing the unthinkable.  Too often it is Bob who we later find out had a history of doing these things and we never thought to check.

As leaders in our churches, it is our responsibility to honor the trust of the congregation.  It is this trust that allows us to do the ministry we are called to do.  We cannot just accept this trust from the community and hope that nothing will ever go wrong.  It is our duty to live up to the trust that has been given.

The expectation is that nothing inappropriate will ever happen in our Sunday School or on a Mission Trip.  The expectation is that the money we give to God will be carefully guarded in order that it might be used to serve the purpose God has for it.

This takes diligence.  This takes the willingness to consider that it could happen here.  It takes the perseverance to move past the “Bob would never do that” mentality to a place where we can say “we have removed all obvious temptation Bob might have to do it.”

Examples of a Safe Church Policy:
Policy of the Southern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ
Another example

Resource on keeping kids safe:
From UCC.org
From the UCC Insurance Board
Resources from Cokesbury Bookstore

Resources for establishing internal controls:
From ChurchLawToday.com
From Ministry Business Services, Inc
From Frieze Consulting
A great article from Vonna J. Laue, CPA, Partner Capin Crouse,LLP

What Are You Doing?

If you have joined Twitter, you are familiar with that very ominous question, “What Are You Doing?”  Maybe you are on Facebook, there the question is “What Is On Your Mind?”  or if you are on LinkedIn, the questions is “What Are You Working On?”

There is a major shift taking place in our culture.  Social Medial has changed how we connect with others.  Twitter is not only keeping people informed about what their best friend ate for lunch.  Facebook is not all about “What Disney Character Are You?” 

According to Erik Qualman, “Generation Y will soon outnumber Baby Boomers.  96% of them have joined a social network” The sharing of daily activities is only one part of what is happening in these networks.  People are rallying together in support of issues in which they believe.  They share their opinions about their work, the products they purchase, their values and the organizations they believe in.

Businesses are taking note of this change in our culture.  They are realizing that what is being said about their business on these social media sites can dramatically affect their business.  Many are shifting marketing dollars from traditional marketing channels to social media.  Schools are utilizing social media to increase enrollment.  Some businesses are finding ways to sell through social media.  Dell claims they sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter.  Really?

So Pastors, Church Leaders and Administrators, What Are You Doing?  What are you doing about this shift in our culture?  Are you ignoring it?  Are you embracing it?  Are you connecting with your family and friends through it?  Have you given thought to how this might be a tool for your ministry? 

Who is representing you and your church in these online social communities?  What are they saying?  Are they saying anything?  Your church members are on these sites.  Are you using them to help yourself stay connected with them?  Are you providing them a place to share their support of the church with their social network?  Is it something to be excited about?

Recently a pastor told me that Facebook allows them to know about birthdays, anniversaries, special celebrations and even death’s in the family better than anything else.  As leaders of the Church, it is our responsibility to give thought to these new communication tools and discern how they can be utilized for ministry.  We must give thought to how they might open up new ways of sharing the Gospel. 

We must also lead the way in discerning how these tools change our ministry.  How do we protect our youth and children in these open communities?  How do we protect ourselves?  How do we establish healthy boundaries for our ministry, our personal lives and the people in our congregations?

It is time to tackle the question.  It is time to start answering the questions: What Are You Doing?