Archives For church planting

Retail Reflections: CartBoy

September 17, 2009 — 1 Comment

Since leaving a position as pastor of a local church this summer, I’ve been hunting for work wherever I thought it could be found. Recently, I was provided with a job at a retail store, but this wasn’t the first retail interview I had experienced as of late (a couple of interviews led to job offers which needed ‘very open availability’–read “Sunday-Saturday 8AM-10PM available”–with very low pay and no guarantee of more than five or eight hours a week).

But as I’ve gone through the process of interviewing for and engaging with a job much different than my last one, I’ve been struck by some of the lessons/practices which could be used by the Church in its pursuit of invading the world with Christ’s love & power. I’ll share some of them here in between the next few Joshua posts. Here’s the observation for today–simple and obvious, but worth mentioning:

Discern Stengths and Abilities
One of the jobs I interviewed for was CartBoy (not the industry term) for a popular big-box home improvement retailer. You may recall earlier the mention of little pay and few hours and, as you can imagine, “CartBoy” is a position that mostly requires interacting with shopping carts. Still, this particular retailer knew that even CartBoys and CartGirls can strengthen or undermine a positive customer experience. So, before the interview for a low-paid, very part-time CartPerson position could be completed, I was assigned another employee who would observe my interactions with customers on the salesfloor.

Either I would be comfortable and able to engage customers or I wouldn’t function well within the structure and focus the organization had. Rather than wait to find out if I had no personality, the store mananger didn’t want the interview to go forward without a sense of my strengths and abilities.

You know what they didn’t check? My knowledge of pushing carts. Cart-pushing technique–and, oh yes, there is a technique–can be taught. Chemistry with the customer can’t. The store could have just settled for a guy or girl who was willing to push a bunch of carts, but the skill was less important than preserving the purpose of the store: to serve the consumer.

The lesson here: just because someone has a skill doesn’t mean they are right for a given position or service opportunity. We can teach whatever skill we need; but finding the right people and getting them in place is harder work. If we ignore this lesson, though, we end up with burnt out, tired, frustrated people with hearts of gold… when all they needed was the opportunity to fulfil their purpose and that of the church in a way that can’t be taught but is incredibly valuable.

In church church, church planting, personal

Today…

September 1, 2009 — Leave a comment

…I’ll be spending the day with a great group of people who are dedicated to creating a movement of church multiplication in what many would say is an unlikely place. I’ll be meeting with the Church Multiplication Task Force for the Western Pennsylvania District of The Wesleyan Church or TOOMANYLETTERS if you’re making an acronym.

Say what you will about our penchant for too-long names, but the fact is the people I serve with are passionate about seeing new churches planted. Now, you may find yourself wondering why Western Pennsylvania needs new churches, anyway. If you were to take an even cursory glance at many of the communities in this area, it would seem most of them need yet another church like most communities need yet another abandoned storefront.

But here’s the deal: just because you may see a lot of churches, that doesn’t mean there all that many who are connected with a local church. More than ever before it seems our communities—large and small; rural and urban; new and historic—are in desperate need of churches who will bridge the divide between culture and the hope, love, and power of Christ. Those very communities may not even recognize this need, but it is there and it is almost palpable.

So, today, I get to take part in what God is doing to make the dream of new churches a reality… as part of the dream of seeing the lives of those yet unreached in our own neighborhoods invaded with the light and life of Jesus. Our thinking is that every local church exists because somebody at some time had the courage and foresight to start it…

They Did. We Will.

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What if you are someone God has given the foresight and passion to start something new in the name of his Kingdom in order that more people will know what it is to be called ‘sons and daughters of God’? Will you step out of what is comfortable to cross cultural, generational, and conventional boundaries?

They did.

Will you?

To find out more about church planting in Western PA, check out theydidwewill.org and theydidwewill.blogspot.com.

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Image courtesy of slonecker

In church planting church, church planting, The Wesleyan Church

CPAC Reflection: Fear

August 28, 2009 — Leave a comment

<image courtesy of oddstock>

As I’ve spoken to people who have experienced the Assessment Center, and to people who are a little timid about going—I’ve been struck by the discussion on how nervous they were in coming into Assessment. You can count me among them: part of being nervous is the fear of the unknown, and part of it has to do with a misconception of ‘how much is riding’ on a person’s performance. Here are some things which might help in settle your own nerves if you’re thinking of attending.

First of all, the Assessment Center is not the end-all of church planting. There’s a fear that enters when we think of being assessed as pass/fail or somehow having to perform well in order to ‘advance.’ The assessors make it very clear that their assessment is simply a recommendation; whatever agency the potential planter will be working with still has to make the call about who will be planting and what that will look like within their own paradigm. As said before, I personally think your best bet is to view any kind of assessment as a tool for discerning how God wired you… so a ‘red light’ shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Secondarily, only the potential lead planter is being assessed. Sarah (my wife) and the spouse of another potential planter both expressed a fear that they might some how ‘wreck’ the experience for their husbands, “What if he gets approved, but I don’t?” Now, part of Assessment is an evaluation of relationship health if you’re married, and that evaluation is important. But Sarah’s ‘role’ in all of this was definitely to participate, to answer some questions, and for this to be ‘our’ thing rather than ‘mine’… but she was not the one being assessed. Spouses, if you are not the one feeling led to be a lead planter, there’s no sense of ANY pressure on you. Just be there, love your husband/wife, and walk through it together.

Finally, there is no sense that if you assess well then you MUST plant a church. As the title of this site indicates, I’m aware we’re all on a journey; maybe CPAC or something like it is part of your journey, but even a strongly positive assessment doesn’t mean you must do something. As with anything, though, be open… and be ready for God to blow the lid off whatever box you’ve been operating within. He likes doing that; and he’s very, very good at it.

In Assessment Center church planting, CPAC, Encouragement, The Wesleyan Church

CPAC Reflection: Priorities

August 26, 2009 — Leave a comment

<image courtesy of iprole>

As promised, I’m posting some general (or maybe specific?) reflections about my recent experience at the Church Planter Assessment Center last week.

The first thing I think each of us were struck by was the sense of ‘priority’ communicated: early on in the experience, the potential planters were told the focus of CPAC is on advancing the Cause of the Kingdom. Because no tool in our ministry arsenal is as effective at reaching those who don’t know Christ as a new church, great emphasis is being placed on planting new churches. While the more cynical among us might assume that a denominational emphasis on starting new churches is a solely self-sustaining move (The Wesleyan Church currently closes more churches in a year than it opens), there was never any sense of ‘we must plant new churches or the denomination will die.’ There was great urgency in planting new churches so thousands of people will enter into relationship with Christ.

Because church planting is a bit of a different animal when it comes to ministry, the purpose of the Assessment Center is to evaluate potential planters on their likelihood for church planting succes. But this was explained to demonstrate the desire of the assessors and denomination to help people find their ‘sweet spot’ in the life of the Kingdom, because when everything is in the right place, the Body functions much more effectively.

This immediately took pressure off to see CPAC as a pass/fail scenario. Instead, it is meant to be a discernment tool in understanding how God has wired an individual. I have a friend who very much disliked the whole Assessment experience because they saw it as pass/fail and nothing else. When you understand it as a tool to help find where you best ‘fit,’ it becomes a very freeing, informative experience.

The idea of ‘priority’ is also seen in the way Assessment is paid for—if a potential planter is given a green or conditional-green (yellow) light, the denomination sends a grant to the home district of the assessed party in order to significantly defray the cost. CPAC costs about $1500 to attend, on top of travel, lodging, some meals, and about $80 worth of pre-assessment personality and strengths finding tools. Speaking for our own district, they placed such a high priority on all of this, they went out of their way so the folks from WPA wouldn’t have to incur any of the cost associated with attending.

I’m definitely not into the ‘my-denomination/district-is-better-than-yours’ discussion, but I can say I feel privileged serve in a district and denomination which puts such a hugh priority in reaching people disconnected from Jesus and helping its ministers find the place they can be most effective.

Next time, I’ll share some of why a lot of the nervousness people feel going into Assessment is unfounded.

In Assessment Center church, church planting, CPAC, The Wesleyan Church

CPAC, Day One

August 18, 2009 — 1 Comment

Today was a great ‘introduction’ day—the three couples here for Assessment got a chance to get to know each other, and we were given a glimpse of the process involved in CPAC before jumping in headlong. Before we go any further, though, it’s worth noting that it was communicated time and time again that this process is much more about discovering who God has created us to be and to find the best ministry fit than it is about any kind of pass-or-fail scenario. The advice given to us: have fun and enjoy the incredible gift of having three days full of people taking the time to help us understand who we are and how God may be leading us. Sounds like very wise advice to me.

We began with each potential planter delivering two messages: five minutes to a ‘room of unchurched people’ on why they should consider Jesus, and five minutes attempting to convince someone to join you in a ministry endeavor. Following their ‘talks,’ each couple had a few minutes answering questions in front of the group.

That led to our first interview time—each couple was assigned an assessor and was privately interviewed for about two and half hours (there will be more interviewing tomorrow). The ‘interview’ was a lot like filling out a verbal questionnaire about past experiences. What is likely to be is best found by what has already been; in other words, how someone will act/react/perform can be pretty well predicted by how they’ve acted/reacted/performed in the past; so the assessors use questions that help identify themes and constants throughout the life of the potential planter. The times of interview, so far at least, haven’t been overly uncomfortable or super invasive, but very conversational in tone.

After our interview sessions, everybody regrouped for supper (us ‘assessees’ all sat together to enjoy some more get-to-know-you time and conversation—it’s amazing to spend time with people who are so passionate about what God not only can do but desires to do in our world.

But now it’s time to get some rest—tomorrow will be a long, full day. All of us are excited to see how God uses this time to prepare our ‘next steps.’ But before I head to bed, I would like to make a request of those who may happen to be reading this—all of our talk today has been focused on being used by God to advance his Kingdom and the glory of his Great Name, and I’m reminded of one of Jesus’ commands in terms of what we should pray for.

Matthew 9:

³⁵ Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.“

So, my request is that you would ask the Lord of harvest to send out workers into his field. A bit of warning before you do that, though: you just might find yourself being sent into that very field… across the street or across the globe. And maybe part of that journey for you is taking part in an assessment much like this one…

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This entry is also posted at theydidwewill.blogspot.com, the blog of the Church Multiplication Task Force of the WPA District of the Wesleyan Church.

In Assessment Center church, church planting, personal, Prayer