CRAIG GROESCHEL ON WISDOM FOR GENERATIONS

There is an unfortunate and divisive tendency for generations to underestimate what is to be learned from each generation.  In our church we have three weekly worship gatherings, essentially three congregations that have formed generationally (but not exclusively).  Because worship style seems to be so much of the expression of someone’s Christian identity (another unfortunate reality), we do not always seek to know, understand, and learn from each generation.  Many of our leaders have read Craig Groschel’s IT (an excellent book about vision and leadership).  At a recent conference Craig shared some thoughts that I believe we would do well to consider and embrace for the long-term health of the church.

At Catalyst Dallas, Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK) discussed wisdom for the older and younger generations.

I believe God wants us to work together as younger and older generations. I believe the devil wants to add division between generations.

To The Older Generation

• Don’t resent, fear, or judge the emerging generation. Instead, believe in them.
• You were different at one time from those who went before you.
• If you aren’t dead, you aren’t done.
• Don’t be threatened by younger generations. Realize that they need you.
• Many of us don’t know how to delegate. We think delegating is giving people something to do. Delegating tasks creates followers. Delegating responsibility creates leaders.
• Younger generations need your wisdom.
• Just be yourself. Don’t try to be cool. Authenticity trumps cool every single time.

To The Younger Generation

• You need those who have gone before you.
• Studies show that the younger generation is most often described by employers as entitled.
• Because the emerging generation feels entitled, when it comes to ministry, you feel you need to do it all now.You want to be in leadership, but you can’t speed up maturity.
• You often overestimate what God wants to do through you in the short run, and you often grossly underestimate what God wants to do through you in the long run.
• Always show your leaders honor. Honor publicly results in influence privately. Do not treat your leaders as common or ordinary.Dishonor and faith in the leaders before you limit your church.
• Some people need to repent for dishonoring the God-ordained position above them.
• Your generation is the most cause-driven generation of modern history.You are a chosen generation.
• I believe that you can do what I couldn’t do.

I am doing what I am doing right now because of the previous generations that have invested in me

MONDAY MORNING ENCOURAGEMENT – WE CHOOSE TO REMEMBER

Michael Rhoads, a friend of many of us and a former member of our Saturday Night Spirit Worship Team shared this video on his Facebook Page.

IT'S FRIDAY AND SUNDAY'S COMING – REMEMBERING

Landisville and Salunga are famous for their mile(s) long and deep Garage Sales on Memorial Day.  But if you are in town be sure and join us in worship Sunday.  Two simple, thoughtful, and moving worship experiences are planned.  Pastor Barry will bring the message “Remembering” focusing on the sacrifices people have mad to give us freedom and the ultimate sacrifice made by Jesus Christ that we would be free from a tyranny greater than enemy human enemy.  We will also be at the altar of the church in each service and we remember the Lord’s death and its result in our new life as we share in communion.  The Church of God of Landisville practices open communion.  This means that all persons who asked Christ to be their Savior (Forgiver) and Lord (Leader) are welcome at this table regardless of church membership, age, or religious background.  Our Sunday Schools will be meeting on their regular schedule. This will also be the final performance of the choir for this season.

Please note the church office closes today (Friday) at noon and re-opens next Tuesday, May 31st.

CHURCH DROPOUTS – WHY PEOPLE FIND IT EASY TO LEAVE

This past Saturday Sam Ruggiero and I attended a workshop led by Chris Walker, the Evangelism Coach. Part of his presentation focused on a problem most churches have, especially if they don’t have a commitment to and a specific strategy to overcome it.  As more and more new people come into the church through our outreach programs, I find myself asking, “How can we close the back door before they slide on through?”  Read this article from his archives. I’d appreciate your feedback – Dr Steve

I’ve been a church drop out twice, once while I was an associate pastor.  Isn’t that funny?

As I reflected on those experiences through the lens of church growth strategies and evangelism, I want to set aside the data that is out there and just share my own experience.

Why do we make all the efforts to share the gospel with people, get them connected to a local church, and then let them drop out?

Why was it easy to drop out?

1.  No place to serve.

This sounds funny having been the associate pastor.  I could tell stories, but this venue isn’t the place to air them.   Let it simply be said that after a few years, I had nothing to do.  All my duties had been given to someone else.  There is no point in figuring out all the why’s and hows of that development, but the end result: no purpose, no job, no joy.

In the second place, we stayed for two years yet never found a way to serve in a way that fit the church’s schedule with our life.  We tried one ministry, but it was do disorganized that it hurt to serve.

2.  Not enough connections or deep friendships.

It was very easy to leave because there was hardly any social network to withdraw from.

In other words, it didn’t hurt to leave.

We didn’t really have anyone to say goodbye to.

Sure we had a few friends, but we saw them in other ways, spent time at their house, our children played together.  We still had meals together and talked on the phone.

But the pain of saying good bye to close friends didn’t exist.

After we left, it didn’t feel to us that anyone noticed our absence either.  With one or two exceptions, no one called to see why we were missing.

3.  Not enough common experiences

We eventually saw that we were missing out on various community building events.   We missed them for various reasons, most of which are good and understandable.

But the end result — we lacked the communal experience that bonds a group of people together.

We didn’t get to build a house together with Habitat.

We didn’t get to serve together in a neighborhood outreach.

We didn’t get to connect or contribute in small groups.

We didn’t get to grow with people through common experience. . . .

We didn’t get the announcements of events that were happening. . .

I even wasn’t invited to go on a pastors retreat with the rest of the staff I was on.

The end result: Marginalization.

We didn’t drop out the back door over theology.

We didn’t drop out the back door because of how the pastor treated us.

We didn’t drop out the back door some offense between someone and ourselves.

We dropped out the back door because we were in the margins

We couldn’t stay in.

We couldn’t get in.

The therapist will wonder what root behaviors caused this to happen.

They psychoanalyst will try to find fault in my family of origin.

Others will try to find some kind of problem within our family that caused this to happen twice.  Still others will blame the church.

We don’t.  It’s life, it happened, we go on.

I am not sharing this to have people counsel me, but to look at my story from a church growth / evangelism perspective.

If it was easy for me to drop out the back door, what can you do to help close that door.

Closing the back door.

1.  Build systems that allow friendships to happen.

As you think of your visitor assimilation process, what can you do to help new church visitors build relationships and keep them in your congregation?

Small groups, cells, service events are all excellent ways to provide a context for friendships to happen.

I came across a statistic that said that at least in North America, if a visitor doesn’t form a primary relationship with someone other than the pastor in the first six months, they will leave.

Close the back door by helping people develop new and meaningful relationships around faith.

2.  Help people serve and contribute

There are many practical ways people can serve in a church.  Ask the already overworked volunteers what they’d like to delegate, and you’ll find some new spots for new people.  Or, use spiritual gift inventories to help new people discover where they can serve out of their gifting and passion.

Close the back door by empowering others to serve out of their gifting and passion.

3.  Plan common experiences

Some of my closest friends walked with me for 5 years as we did youth ministry together.  There were lots of common experiences around camp fires, retreats, events, prayer times and play times. Some spent time at a pancake house after Sunday services, others spent time at my house on Tuesdays.

We simply had opportunities for life together.

Take the principle and apply it to a church level — what are some common experiences that you can plan that will help your church bond with each other?  For many, it’s various community service outreach events.  For others, it might be an adopted mission project — this is what “we” do.

This weekend for example, the men of our church are going fishing (we are a small house church, so this is easy in our context).

Close the back door by building community through shared experience.

4.  Foster the DNA of care and seeking

In otherwords, encourage people to always be looking for who is missing.  This is obviously very easy when the group is small.  It gets challenging when churches get bigger.

How you do this is contextually dependent.

But developing the DNA to notice the missing and care for the hurting will help keep your people from walking out the back door.

Close the back door by caring for those who hurt.

Close the back door by noticing who is dropping out.

MONDAY MORNING ENCOURAGEMENT – BE STRONG IN THE LORD

Our BIBLICAL JOY On-line Bible study has just begun Ephesians 6. Those of us who were in the 2009 Tsaile VBS will remember this wonderful little song. BE STRONG IN THE LORD. Unfortunately we did not tape our version of it.

SAFE PLACES REQUIRE TRANSPARENCY

One of the blogs I read is called SOUL CITY BLOG. It is a congregation that takes seriously the idea of being a safe place for people in need. This blog post reminded me of an important dynamic to maintaining our core value that all people matter to God. – Steve

Asking for Help!

My kids regularly ask for my help. From getting dressed to building Legos to cutting waffles. They need my assistance on a regular basis. It’s not like when they were both infants—they couldn’t say the words, “Will you help me?” They are 5 and 2 now, so their independence has increased. But now I feel like I hear that sentence all the time. They long for my involvement in their activities and look for me to help.

Most of the time, I joyfully want to jump in on whatever they are doing and offer my aid, but I was having one of those days: I was tired and lacking in the patience department. I felt depleted and all I wanted to do was get the kids bathed and in bed as quick as possible. Jarrett had been out of town, we were without a nanny, and we were trying to pastor our young church and parent our young kids. I could see the finish line for the night until Elijah and Gigi needed more help. I responded abruptly and sharply and my 5 year old said, “Why don’t you want to help us?”

My heart sank with his question. He saw my impatience. He saw my frustration and perhaps more importantly, he felt it. I quickly apologized and explained that even mommies get tired and impatient.

My kids are not afraid to ask for help. In fact, they need help every day. They communicate their needs regularly, but in that moment, I didn’t want them to be needy.

That moment acutely reminded me that I was more like them then I realized.

I also needed help—I just wasn’t asking for it.

I had gotten too familiar again with one of my old false selves that never wants to appear needy. I have broken tendencies towards being a perfectionist: never appear in need, drive and achieve, rely on yourself, and always be strong. Over the years I have been grateful to do an excessive amount of internal self-work and personal assessment that I know that not asking for help is sudden death for my personality type.

I know that asking for help actually allows others to enter into my world, to experience my fears and remind me of truth.

It reminds me that I AM very needy. That I need help. That I have questions without answers. That I’m tender and scared some days and in desperate need of help.

Oh how I wish I would have never learned that art of closing myself up and painting on a self-protective smile. Oh how I long to be more like my kids that need help from their parents every day—because I am just like them.

I need the help and protection and care of my Heavenly Father every day. So today, instead of solving problems and charging through my task list, I’m going to begin by getting comfortable with being needy and asking for HELP.

Maybe you can do the same. What’s one way you can ask for HELP from your Heavenly Father today?

–Written by Jeanne Stevens. Jeanne is one of the pastors of Soul City Church.

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IT'S FRIDAY AND SUNDAY'S COMING – SIMPLY WORSHIP

Four out of the last five Sundays we have had some high-powered emphases – Kuyasa Kids, Easter, Mother’s Day, and Good News Club Sunday.  All good reasons to celebrate, but this week we are simply going to worship. Coming into His presence, sharing in praise, praying for one another, and hearing God’s Word.  SIMPLY WORSHIP.  Dr. Steve’s message is also on this vein, It’s called “Get Some Rest.”

"Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Be sure and join us. No BIG event but a big God who have the privilege of a personal relationship with.

Just some other important things to pass along as the weekend approaches.  T.I.E. (Two or Three is Enough), our new ministry of accountability partners will have its  first organizational meeting during the Sunday School Hour at 9:30.  Meet with Steve in the church library off the overflow section of the library.

You can still sign up this week for our Feeding Team. This group will be serving a meal to the poor and homeless of Lancaster at Christ Lutheran Church in the city on Thursday.  The team leaves the church at 4:00 and begins serving at 5.  Or you can meet them there, but please sign up in the mail room.

TWO NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN OUR CHURCH LEADERSHIP

Last night the church’s Administrative Council met, taking action that involves our leadership.  Karen Haldeman was elected as the new chairperson for our Communications Commission. She assumes her duties next week as she steps down after several years as Director of the Agape Center (which is the next position we will be filling).  Karen had earlier served as our Promotion Committee chair. She has a passion for marketing and in telling the story of God’s Church at work.  Karen succeeds Lynda Fry who stepped down earlier this spring to take on a greater role with our BURN student ministry.

Upon recommendation of the Elders, Stacie Reber has been employed as our Youth Director.  This position takes affect on June 6, 2011.  Stacie has been serving as Interim Youth Director.  She has carried out this role with great vision and insight, and is already beginning to develop our student ministries beyond the foundations laid by Jeremy Moyer, our previous Youth Director.  One of her plans is to reinstate a youth group ministry in the fall with particular emphasis on junior highs and to continue to work to help our unchurched BURN students and their families become a part of the core congregation of Landisville.

We are truly blessed by these two wonderful Christian disciples and their leadership gifts.

IT'S FRIDAY … SUNDAY'S COMING–THE CHILDREN ARE IN THE HOUSE!

The children are in the house!  This Sunday at 8:15 and 10:45 we will be featuring our growing and highly effective children’s ministries at the Church of God of Landisville.  We are calling it “Good News Club Sunday.”  Lisa Kilgore, our Children’s Director and Kathleen Walters, the parent volunteer who leads our Landisville Primary Center Club will be leading the service. Kids qnd volunteers from our two Good News Clubs, GLOW (our ministry for elementary age girls) and the Children’s Sunday School will share God stories and music to help us honor God and what He is doing in and through our children.  Do not miss this unique and powerful opportunity to share in the blessing God is pouring out.

Because of Good News Club Sunday and a brunch for families during the Sunday School hour, our initial meeting for T.I.E. Accountability Groups has been pushed back to next Sunday, May 22nd during the Sunday School hour.  You can still become a part of this by contacting Dr. Steve or filling out a registration card in the mail room.

Sunday night at 6:00 pm is our bi-monthly Prayer Service led by Sam, Bulah, and Nancy.  The elders will be on hand to pray and anoint those who need healing.

CHEERFUL GIVER