GPS and the Acts 16:5 Initiative's Principles

Not too long ago, I was driving somewhere I’d never been before.  I did not have a GPS, but I did have directions courtesy of Googlemaps.  I was doing fine for a while, but then, even though I was following the directions, I began to get the feeling that I had missed something.  That something wasn’t right.  Maybe there was a mistake in the directions I had.  Maybe I had missed a turn.  I kept checking the directions and I seemed to be following them, but I still had the feeling I was off-track.  The road I was on just didn’t look like I thought it should look.  It didn’t feel like I was making progress toward my destination.  It seemed to be taking longer than it should.  I was tempted to turn off on a road that seemed like it would get me where I was going faster.  But I resisted that urge and kept on following the directions I had. And just shortly after that, it became clear that the way I was going was the right way.  The directions I had were correct.  I just had to keep going, keep following them, even though it felt like maybe I wasn’t going the right way.

I think this happens sometimes when we are in the midst of engaging the principles and practices of Acts 16:5.  We have good directions.  The gatherings and manuals provide a GPS of sorts for the journey we embark upon when we begin the adventure of the Acts 16:5 Initiative.  But then we start to dream about what God wants to do in our church.  We get excited about the vision God gives us, and we begin to map out directions towards that vision.  We get a few Action Learning Teams working on opportunities and challenges we see around us.  

And then it happens:  we don’t feel like we are making progress toward the vision.  The way we are heading doesn’t look right, doesn’t feel right.  Maybe we had missed a turn.  Maybe our directions weren’t good.  And we begin to second-guess the directions and either turn back the way we came or turn onto another route.

When you get to this place—and you surely will get here at some point—let me offer you some advice:  Keep going!  Trust the directions—the principles and practices detailed for you in the manuals and the gatherings.   They have worked for many, many churches as tools for vitality and growth. 

Sometimes God does have to ‘recalculate’ our directions because we’re working with a faulty map.  But very often we have a good map, but we fail to trust that map, a map that—if we continue to follow it, in spite of how it looks or how we feel or how difficult the route—will get us to where God wants us to go.

So take the adventure God has for you!  And trust the directions.  They will lead to vitality and renewal and new possibilities in your church and community.

Wishing you JOY for the journey!

Kathi Busch

LOL

Do you know that LOL is now an official word?!  It’s true: as of March of this year, LOL can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary.  We use it all the time in our texts and emails and social media:  we’re ‘laughing out loud.’  But of course, the person to whom we are writing it can’t hear us laughing or share our laughter with us, because we’re not actually together.

I’d like to propose another meaning for LOL, a way to describe the Defining Practice we call the With-Me Principle.  LOL means Life on Life.  Our lives as followers of Jesus are not meant to take place in isolation or even in the artificial kind of community we experience on Facebook.  Our lives as disciples are meant to be lived Life on Life.  Jesus' life on my life, my life on your life, your life on my life, and our lives on the lives of those in our communities and even the world.  Our God is the ‘with us’ God, and He created us to live a ‘with me’ life:  to experience deep communion with God and deep community with one another.  It’s LOL:  Life on Life.

So who are the people you have invited to be with you?  Who do you LOL with?  Are you in a small group or a one on one or two accountability group?  Maybe the Ministry Team in which you serve is intentionally working the ‘with me’ principle into what they do.  Whatever you do and in whatever setting—home, work, neighborhood, or church—make sure you LOL a lot!  Invite someone to be with you, to share life on life experiences together.  Not only will you grow and learn together, but I’m sure there will be lots of LOL, too!

With joy,

Kathi Busch

Drawing People to Your Church and Ministry

In his book, Sticky Church, Pastor Larry Osborne (Zondervan, 2008) says that the best way to “Velcro” people to your church is to “Velcro” them to the two things they need most to grow as disciples:  the Bible and other Christians.  We have found VCI’s Pray Daily devotional booklet to be a simple yet significant way to Velcro people to the Word of God and to each other.  Which has the added bonus of Velcro-ing them to our church’s mission and ministry.

It’s simple:  groups of three people commit to the 90-day adventure in prayer, reading a short passage of Scripture each day, reflecting on some aspect of their life in the light of that passage, and then lifting to God whatever is on their heart that day.  Each day’s reading, reflection, and prayer can be completed in about 15 minutes, but can fill as much time as one wishes to devote.  Sounds like any other devotional book we might recommend, right?  But here’s the difference:  once a week, the triads commit to meeting face-to-face for one hour.  In that hour they:

·       share which was the most meaningful Scripture from that week’s readings and why

·       share one blessing they experienced that week and one prayer request; and

·       have the opportunity to pray aloud for each other, though no one is required to pray out loud.

It is these face-to-face meetings that have been so significant.  Here are just a few comments I’ve received from our folks: 

“I have found the weekly meetings to be so special as I get to know my partners a little bit better and we get to pray for one another.  When one tells you that they almost didn’t come the week before because they were feeling down and then come back and tell you that after that get-together their whole week fell into place and they feel so much better it makes it so worthwhile.  It’s amazing how many of the Scriptures are just what you need on a particular day!”

“Pray Daily has been good for me, as I am doing a much better job at being disciplined.  It probably would not have happened otherwise.  Plus, it is wonderful getting to know your partners better and having them specifically pray with and for you.  All in all, it is terrific!”

“This 90 day adventure has been most meaningful because of the sharing and praying with each other and discussing the scripture passages as they relate to our relationship with God and one another. We also act as accountability partners in our faith journey as a result of being together each week.”

We used Pray Daily coming out of our annual Leadership Retreat with our elders, deacons, and staff.  We just had people count off by threes and put them together in groups. The only rule was that they must not be related to each other or already in another face-to-face group, like a LIFE Group or ministry team.  Some of the groups include people who might never interact with each other on this level in any other way in our church.  What a simple way to get people reading and reflecting on Scripture, discussing it with one another, and praying with and for each other.  This 90-day adventure in prayer engages our folks in the principles of Witness-Prayer-Care-Word and With-Me.  Then each week, they Send one another into their families, workplaces, and neighborhoods with prayer and blessing.  Simple, but oh so catalytic for spiritual growth.

In Christ, 

Kathi Busch

Leading Transformation Face to Face in the Information Age

It’s the people stuff that really sucks the life right out of me.  I’ve just been through a week that started with an email on Monday (note to self:  Don’t read email on your day off!) from a church member that began this way:  “Although it saddens me to write this, I feel compelled to share my feelings.”  The attached document was filled with anger about the way an HR issue was being handled and assumptions and accusations that were incorrect and frankly, just mean-spirited.  It was sent not only to me, but to another staff member, the chair of the Personnel Team and the clerk of session.  Game on.  Now the rest of the week would be devoted to conversations and meetings to process what had been done and said and to attempt to bring reconciliation and resolution.  Did I mention that it’s the people stuff that really sucks the life right out of me?

I have two rules for email that I’ve stolen (er…borrowed…) from Stan.  “Email is for information and for affirmation.”  Email is great for giving or getting data:  What time the meeting is or who said they would bring soup and who’s bringing the salad.  It’s also fine for giving an atta-girl or an atta-boy.  But that’s it.  Anything else, pick up the phone, or better yet, get face to face.  When there are powerful negative emotions involved, it’s even more important to get face to face.  But email makes it so easy to hit and run that it’s become the weapon of choice for those who want to criticize, condemn, and complain without having their opinion or complaint challenged in any way.  And the collateral damage relationally can take hours to resolve or heal.

When leading transformation in a congregation, it’s almost guaranteed that somebody—perhaps several somebodies—will be upset, hurt, offended, or just plain angry about some of the changes we plan.  And you’ll probably get an email like the one I got last week.  When I get an email like this, I just refuse to play, if I can. I don’t mean that I ignore it, but I do resist the urge, strong though it may be, to just fire back my own version of the issue. I immediately contact the person and attempt to get face to face with them so that the issue can be (hopefully) quickly resolved.  Very often, there has been some kind of misunderstanding which can be put right.

Fortunately, I was able to persuade the writer of the email to meet face to face with me and the chair of Personnel within a few days of his note.  We did the best we could to respond to his concerns, apologize for anything we did to create the misunderstanding and hurt feelings, and ask for forgiveness.  The meeting was also a good chance to remind us all that the best way to communicate hurt feelings, anger, and frustration is in person, rather than through email.  At our session meeting next week, I’ll be reminding our leadership team about my email rules:  information and affirmation ONLY.

Yes, it’s harder to share feelings and opinions in person that you know have the potential to lead to conflict or disappointment, but we must operate this way.  God says we belong to one another. (Rom. 12:5)  As difficult as the “people stuff” is sometimes, ministry is all about people.  So let us take to heart Paul's words to the church at Ephesus in the first century—for surely they are written also to our churches wherever they may be in the 21^st century.  

Let us live (and email!) “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph. 4:2-3, NRSV)

In Christ - Kathi Busch