Funding Building Needs Versus Ministry Needs

Please remember this:

A nice house does not mean a family is happy...

…a deplorable house does affect the happiness of a family.

In other words, maintaining a well cared for facility will not grow a church or make people happy! However, if the facilities are not maintained; yes indeed, that will detract us from growth. And yes, people will complain!

Therefore, there is always a balancing act between the needs of the facility and financial support to expand ministries to glorify God, make disciples, and serve others.

Nevertheless, make no mistake the latter is more important than the former!

You can have a beautifully appointed facility

with empty pews on Sunday morning

and an empty parking lot all week!

OR

You can have vibrant ministries that:

Glorify God,

Meet people's needs,

Nourish them to grow as disciples,

Send them into ministry,

Challenge them to thank God with their financial support,

And then, have the money to maintain and expand facilities

It is easy to raise money for the building; it takes godly leadership to provide financial support for vibrant ministries. 

Joyfully,

Linda Jaberg

A Church Leadership Idea

In the Acts 16:5 Initiative, we often speak about developing church leaders.  One simple way we develop leaders in the church I serve is through a one-hour, monthly meeting we call, “Council.”  On the first Tuesday of every month our elders, deacons, ministry team leaders, and staff gather in the same room.  The Council agenda each month has two parts.

For the first 30 minutes, we talk about leadership.  The discussion may come from a book excerpt, a magazine piece I give them, a You Tube video I show them, or a leadership-related question I pose to them.  For 30 minutes we talk about leadership as it applies to our role as leaders in our congregation. 

These conversations are always engaging and fruitful. 

For the second 30 minutes, I work through a list of current church topics I want our leaders to know about or about which I want to receive their feedback.  This list might include everything from a review of the Christmas Eve services; to information about an upcoming sermon series; a monthly update on youth ministry; or a reminder to get their annual team goals submitted by the end of the month.  In other words, it’s a time to keep us all on the “same page” of church life.

Just this month, I included a new piece to our Council meeting.  Last Tuesday, with about ten minutes left in the hour-long meeting, I directed them to the back page of the agenda on which I had printed about 25 church-related items for prayer.  I then asked them to spread out in the room in groups of two or three and spend the final few minutes in prayer for our congregation using the listed topics as a guide.  It was moving to participate in and listen to the many prayers of our leaders being lifted up in those final minutes of Council. 

So moving, we’ll do it again next month!

By the way, I encourage our ministry teams to meet the same night as Council.  So, Council meets from 7-8 pm, and then, ministry teams meet from 8-9 pm.  In this model, then, our leaders come out one night for two meetings.  They (and I!) appreciate this more efficient use of time.  Our monthly meeting schedule also allows me to easily touch-in with all of our teams on a regular basis.  I rotate from team meeting to team meeting from 8-9 pm offering support and input.

A Council meeting night like I just described will take some time to introduce and become part of the fabric of church life.  But after many years of practicing this simple monthly pattern of meeting with our leaders, it has become the best ongoing opportunity I have to encourage their growth in church leadership.   

With joy,

Steve Ebling

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

God's Vision: Seeing What He Is Doing in Our Midst

I often return to the first shift concerning vision and expectation that Stan Ott talks about in the Acts 16:5 Initiative and in his book, Twelve Dynamic Shifts for Transforming Your Church.  The reason I keep going back is because I need to be reminded to “see” what God is doing in our midst.  In my personal experience, and in the experience of many I interact with across the denomination, what we imagine in our mind’s eye is sometimes not a very encouraging picture.  The first time Dr. Ott talked about having this kind of vision, I am embarrassed to say that it was like a light bulb that lit up in my mind.  Why hadn’t I thought of asking God for a vision?  Why hadn’t I thought of praying for a vision?  And, much worse, why didn’t I have much of a vision at all?

“How you picture that future has a great deal to do with what will happen by God’s grace.  Imagine your church as a vibrant, transformational fellowship that pulses with life and energy.  How would it look?  How would it feel?” (Ott 25).

How would your church look?  Where does God take your imagination as you dream, pray, and envision the liveliness of your community of faith? 

Personally, as I began to dream about the church where I serve, I started seeing people interacting with energy and with smiles on their faces.  I began to see people who were studying the word of God and were moved by their love of Christ to share it with people in their lives.  The picture kept coming to my mind of people being the hands and feet of Christ as they left our doors, spreading joy out into the community.  A while back, a mother and daughter I had known in a previous church came to visit.  After the service they commented on how lively our congregation is.  Could it be that God was fulfilling the vision, and it took someone from outside to help me see it?

The Dr. Ott’s second question above is equally important.  How would your church feel in a transformational situation?  Answering this question well might take real imagination.  How do the hands we clasp during the passing of the peace feel?  How hard or soft is the chair or pew?  Is the fabric covering it smooth?  Who is sitting next to you?  What does the music “feel” like?  Does it wash over the congregation with notes of warmth and harmony? Is the music lively and energy generating?  Is it like listening to angels singing?  Do you find yourself thanking God when the music elevates like a prayer?    What words of inspiration and faith does the preacher say that lifts your hope to a higher plane?  How do those words “feel”?  What does holding the elements in communion feel like?  Is the bread soft or like a cracker?  Is it wine or grape juice?  How do they taste?    One could walk through every element in the life of the congregation and imagine what it feels like.  If you do this exercise and what you find is not very uplifting, perhaps that is the very place your prayer life and God’s vision need to focus.  Can you imagine it even if it is not happening right now?

I invite you to form a prayer team or ask another person to join you in this work of imagination.  Working through you, God has the ability to do powerful things.  “Remember, ministry begins as an act of faith in God”  (Ott 27).  And may it be so!

In Christ,


Anne Clifton Hebert

A Transformational Defining Vision, Part One

A few years ago, the church where I serve adopted our church vision: Worship God, Prepare Disciples, Serve the World.  It is similar to the Acts 16:5 Initiative focus of glorifying God, making disciples, and meeting human need.  Since most of us in churches are starting a new program year, I thought it would be helpful to revisit the vision and see how it is playing out in three areas: our personal lives, our ministry teams/groups, and in our congregations.  In three blog entries, I’m going to ask a series of questions that I invite you to pray about and to act upon from the standpoint of where your congregation is.  In this article, I invite you to reflect on these questions in regard to your personal life.

In Personal Lives:

            1) Are you taking time to glorify God in your own life?  Are you attending worship

                        services on a regular basis?  Are you taking time to worship God daily?

                        Are you reading the Bible and spending time with God?  Are you inviting

                        others to worship with you or to attend a worship service with you?   What

                        worship service in the last six months really got your heart pumping in

                        God’s holy presence?

            2) In what part of your life are you being prepared as a disciple?  Are you in a small

                        group, a study group and/or a church school class?  Are you not only reading the

                        Bible but also studying it?  With what portion of your life are you devoting

                        and developing mature faith in Jesus Christ?  Who are you inviting to walk

                        with you in discipleship?  Who are you discipling in the Christian walk?

            3)  How are you meeting human need?   How do you offer service in Christ’s name to

                        others?  When is the last time you participated in a service ministry of the

                        church or in a community organization?  To what form of mission is God

                        nudging you to pursue?

It might be overwhelming to read all these questions.  You may have answers to some of them and not to others.  I encourage you to pray about these questions and, then, to write answers to them in a journal or record them in the notes section of your smart phone.  Later you can go back and see what movement you have made, with God’s help.  Perhaps the vision doesn’t fit with where you are in your personal life.  You may want to form your own vision.  Whatever your vision is, God gives all of us opportunities to glorify God, make disciples. and meet human need every day.  It’s a vision that offers us a great adventure in faith. 

Vital and energized people create vital and energized churches!  That is what God has called us to be and d0.  May we reflect our love of God in the way we personally live and fulfill God’s vision.

In Christ,

Anne Clifton Hebert

God Sized Vision

“So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Elul, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations were around us were afraid… for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.”  Nehemiah 6:15, 16

Nehemiah’s calling was bigger than his ability.  The scope of what God wanted to do in his people was greater than that people’s treasury.  What people though impossible, God accomplished through weary people in fifty-two days.  What the church needs is God sized vision.

It was about a year ago that I was moved to begin to pray a very specific prayer for the congregation I serve.  As I looked at all of the activity of our congregation, I saw a lot of hard work coming to fruition.  People were joining the church in impressive numbers.  The congregation had unanimously approved the search for an associate pastor of family ministry.  Our bottom line was well in the black.  Ministries were going well across the board.  Attendance was up in every facet of church life.  There had been very positive “same-minded” discussions around where we were headed as a church.  I was very busy planning, teaching, leading, and visioning toward a bright future.

Then, in a time of prayer and reflection one morning I was overcome with conviction.  I had been busy and prayerful concerning things within the ministry over which I had a lot of control.  Most of my prayers involved God using me for His purposes in the life of our wonderful community of faith.  Never one short on vision, I saw God answering those prayers faithfully.  But with this wave of conviction I was moved to pray in a different way.  I felt God was moving me to begin praying for something over which I would have no control.

Books I had read, passages of scripture, and a sense of smallness flooded my conscience at once as I became aware that I ought to be praying for something much more significant than what God could use me for.  I was used to being pretty specific with God about what I wanted Him to do through me.  But here I was, at a loss for words, as I was moved to pray for God to begin an awakening that at the end of the day couldn’t be credited to good leadership, a healthy budget, creative preaching, or a forward thinking session.  I was moved to begin praying that God would do something that only God could get credit for; something beyond my ability to vision or bring about.

I had no clue what I was praying for.  This prayer was unattached to programs, facilities, music, or events.  I could not see what I was asking for God to do.  It was pleasantly humbling to discover that God doesn’t need me to bring about the awakening he laid on my heart to begin praying for.  I found myself saying, “Lord, you might not need me for this, but I want to see it when it happens.”

One of the dynamics of the Acts 16:5 Initiative is creating a hope-filled expectation of God sized activity in and through your congregation.  If the hopes and expectations of a church are pastor sized or session sized, then we are expecting far too little of God.  Nehemiah’s vision was a God sized vision.  And at the end of the day God got the credit and the glory, even from His enemies.

Grace and Truth,

Scott Castleman