Body Talk

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.”

1 Corinthians 12:12-14

Writing during Advent, anticipating our celebration of the birth of Jesus, reminds me that God was not content to be an “idea” or an “ethereal presence” but that showing up in the flesh, in a real life human being, is central to God’s mission. In the same way, it is essential to ours.

Among Paul’s most common metaphors for Christian community is his use of “body talk.” Living human beings coming together from all walks and stations in life around the promises and presence of God. This is the Church. It is the only church we will know this side of the grave. We are a body. The Body of Christ.

When we talk about church “membership” or church “members”, we often fail to see the implications of Paul’s metaphor. To be a “member” of a Christian community is not the same as being a “member” of a country club or any other institution that maintains “membership” lists. To be a “member” of a Christian community is to be a living, breathing, human being who is actively engaged in a growing life as a disciple of Jesus. Healthy “body talk” will challenge us to reconsider what health looks like in terms of our “membership” in a local church.

We often use “body talk” when we talk about stewardship, especially the stewardship of our time and talents. We talk about “everyone a minister”, we might even use spiritual gift inventories to help our people appreciate their unique callings within the work of the whole. My sense is that this kind of “body talk” is crucial and we need to do more of it, not less.

What would it mean if we took “body talk” seriously when considering the mission and ministry of local congregations?

Our Heart – At the center of our work as Christian congregations, as the Body of Christ, beats the heart of God’s love for and our Great Commandment calling to love one another (ministry) and the world around us (mission.) If that isn’t happening, if our heart isn’t beating, we are dead. Heart healthy practices are the basic disciples of Christian discipleship – worship, prayer, reading scripture, fellowship, stewardship of time/talents/treasures. Every local congregation has a heart and it will keep beating strongly as we care for it.

Our Hands – Our hands are what we DO in ministry and mission. The hands we extend to one another, the hands which share food with the hungry, the hands which touch the world with God’s love. Every local congregation has a calling to be helpful in the world.

Our Legs – Our legs are where we GO in ministry and mission. It is good that we “go” to our church buildings regularly (ministry) but we are also called to a broader mission field. When we leave the building and go into the wider community in any number of ways, the Body of Christ shows up to be helpful, we are fulfilling the mission side of the Great Commandment.

Our Mouth – Our mouth is all that we do as the Body of Christ to communicate what we are about, what our values are, what we believe. This includes all that we write, all that we say, as a church “body” and as members of that body. It includes what is said in worship and learning, what is projected out into the community through our printed materials, our websites, our use of advertising or community announcements.

All of this is how we often think of the Church and its ministries. But my sense is that there is more to it than that. Much more.

Our Brain – This is one of the areas of our “body” that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. A congregation’s “brain” is the way it goes about thinking and planning strategically. Far too often we just do things the way we have always done them. We spend time in meetings “brainstorming” without realizing that if you keep gathering the same six people in the same room with the same goal of “brainstorming” you will never think strategically. To function well, our brains need fresh ideas and they need to think strategically as they coordinate the other parts of the body.

Where do we get fresh ideas? We access them by reading what others have written, by listening to what others are saying, by observing others in action. Continuing education is expected of pastors precisely for this reason, to keep us fresh and to keep challenging us. A wise pastor will not only do continuing education but will also expect and provide the same for the members of his/her own congregation.

But then beyond fresh ideas, we need to think strategically about where we want to go and the smart (strategic, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely) steps that will take us there.

Our Skeletal System – Like our brains, we often take our skeletal system for granted. We assume it is just “there” when in fact our bones are absolutely crucial to the healthy functioning of our bodies. A congregation’s “backbone” are the behind the scenes practices like parish administration, record keeping, leadership structures, leadership development, performance planning and performance reviews.

The truth is, we can never out-grow our skeletal system. If we don’t continually upgrade our leadership structures, our organizational backbone, then we will be limiting what we can do as the Body of Christ.

For example, we often fail to notice the degree to which fresh thinking or new ministries can be hindered if we expect everything to flow through a micro-managing organizational structure. We might forget that everything rises and falls on leadership so that if we fail to consider leadership development within our whole congregational program, we will fail to grow through a lack of fresh leadership.

Christmas will soon be past and a new year will stretch out before us. We would do well, heading in the season of council retreats and planning, to pay attention to “body talk” as we envision the future God is calling us into.

Improving Our Preaching

I was on internship, attending a conference on evangelism, the first time I heard someone say “Over 90% of effective spoken communication lies in non-verbal body language, attitude, passion, eye contact, etc. Less than 10% of the effectiveness of our communication is about the content of what we say.” It isn’t all about “what” we say but also about “how” we say it.

As a Lutheran-pastor-to-be whose preaching training involved going over the “words” with a fine-toothed comb with little or no attention to style, I was shocked. Maybe I would have felt better if it was more like 50-50 or something but the bottom line told me that I had not been receiving the kind of training I would need to one day become an effective preacher.

Like it or not, for many people attending worship, and for just about all who visit a congregation for the first time, the quality of the preaching they will hear matters a great deal to them. Shoddy, ill-prepared, scattered preaching that doesn’t clearly communicate the Gospel in ways that reach through ears into hearts just won’t be effective today.

So how can we improve our preaching? Here are six ideas:

1. Become coachable.

If we don’t want to improve in some area of our life, or we don’t want to add new skills in our ministries, we won’t. We all can become better, more effective, more engaging, and more helpful preachers but we won’t get there unless we are willing to learn.

I asked Bishop Rinehart for his ideas and he was crystal clear – “Read, read, read, read and pray, pray, pray, pray.” In other words, if we aren’t open to new ideas, interesting ideas, fresh ideas, our preaching will get dull and repetitious. And if we aren’t cultivating a vibrant personal spiritual life, we won’t have anything to share.

Decide to work hard on improving.

2. Listen to great preaching.

I was tempted here on #2 to start listing some books we might want to read but instead I decided to skip that suggestion altogether. As preachers, we have all probably read plenty of books on preaching. What would do us a world of good would be to intentionally do what we seldom get an opportunity to do – listen to as much great preaching as we can. Many congregations now make pastors’ sermons available on the Internet through their websites, podcasts, etc. Spend a couple of hours with Google and you will certainly find some models that you can learn from.

You can also do continuing education around preaching. Every year there several national conferences on preaching – one source can be found at www.preaching.com. (Except next year due to the recession.)

This year’s Disciple Project (June 27-July 1 at Texas Lutheran University) features a special learning track about preaching for pastors. The teacher is Paul Scott Wilson, author of “The Four Pages of a Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching.” I’ve read it and found it very helpful, especially given the visual culture we live in. Buy the book and spend a week learning from a very effective homiletics instructor.

3. Regularly video-tape yourself preaching and watch it

Again, I was tempted at first to just say regularly “tape” your sermons because I am still such a “content-thinker” – but the real key is to video-tape your sermon. Do this regularly. At least monthly if you really want to improve. Don’t just listen to the content but pay attention as well to the distracting little ticks you do that you don’t realize you are doing. Sometimes people learn that their attempt to be “casual” or “real” or “authentic” by wandering around the chancel or the floor is simply distracting rather than helpful.

We might learn we say “ummm” too much or we don’t modulate our voice very well. “Loud” is not the only way to be passionate in preaching. Watching yourself preach is painful painful painful but it is also extremely helpful. Perhaps nothing is more helpful. Pay attention as well to what you do that you really appreciate about your own preaching – we are, after all, our own worst critics.

4. Ask your lay people for help – Or – Offer to help your pastor improve his/her preaching.

We’ve all heard people complain about (or forgive) their pastor’s preaching. The truth is, no one can please everybody. Few pastors can preach with enough varying styles to connect with all who might hear them preach. But complaints don’t help – only asking for and offering help will help.

One way to get that done is to ask for a small group of people in your congregation to join you in improving your preaching. Meet with them, walk through the upcoming texts, ask for specific help doing research, seeking illustrations and stories. Test drive your ideas with your small group. Survey your congregation. Pastors sometimes meet in such groups with other pastors but that is only marginally effective as pastors seldom if ever get to actually hear a colleague preach.

5. Use online resources well

I’ve read the suggestion that busy pastors need to let go of the expectation that they write their own sermons when so many resources are available now on the internet. That troubles me at many levels. Personally I find it impossible to imagine preaching someone else’s sermon with any sense of passion or integrity. On the other hand, other written sermons can spark new ideas, new directions, great stories, and, by the time a pastor with integrity is through editing and changing and making it their own, it would ultimately become their sermon. To each his/her own on this one.

But there are lots of other online resources that we might find help with too:

o Bishop Rinehart’s weekly devotion is a gold mine for thoughtful sermon ideas.

o Luther Seminary has a new website, www.workingpreacher.org that is full of great help.

o For many years, I subscribed to a tape series from Preaching Today that allowed me to hear great preaching as I drove around Houston in my truck. They also included workshops that I found very helpful. They still produce good resources, just go to www.preachingtoday.com

o www.textweek.com is another place to find help with content, with video clips and graphics

o Google just about anything and you’ll start down a helpful path.

6. Join Toastmasters

The only thing I know about “Toastmasters” is that I have had several members of my congregation over the years use that program to improve their ability to speak in public to help them move forward in business. Google just told me there are over 150 clubs in Houston and southeast Texas. There is probably one near you. If you want help to improve your preaching, that might be a good use of continuing education money for a year or two. Google “toastmasters” and see where it takes you.

At the end of the day, there isn’t much we can control as pastors. But we do have a great deal of influence. Little that we do to influence the mission of a congregation or help the people we serve is more effective than our preaching. We only get a little time each week to wield that influence. Let’s do it as well as we can.

(While writing this I ran across a very similar list of other suggestions at http://www.joshhunt.com/mail69.htm)

Re-Thinking Our Prayer Lives

When it comes to discovering a fresh fire in our passion to connect new people with the faith and be more effective as mission centers, there are certain things we know for sure. Among them:

o Everything rises and falls with leadership. We need to be working hard to do the right things and that takes leadership.

o The Law of the Lid – Unless the leadership is growing, no one is growing.

o God cares more about the present and the future of the mission of the church than we do. God has promised to be present in all of our “Great Commission” work. We need to plug into God’s power on a daily basis.

The following is from Bishop Rinehart’s weekly devotion before Christ the King Sunday. I thought it was absolutely excellent so I wanted to reprint it here. I do so as an invitation to all of us, both clergy and lay, to follow the wisdom of our bishop in drawing strength, purpose and inspiration from God. From Bishop Rinehart:

As we draw towards the end of the church year, perhaps it’s time for a new groove.

Over the years our prayer lives morph. There are different patterns for different seasons of life. Here’s a simple pattern your could try on for size if you’re looking for something new to spark your prayer life.

Four parts:

1. PRAYER FOR THE NEW DAY

2. JOURNAL YESTERDAY

3. SCRIPTURE (&/OR DEVO MATERIAL)

a. Read

b. Silence

c. Write reflections

4. PRAYERS FOR FAM, CONG, ETC.

The fruit of Silence is Prayer.

The fruit of Prayer is Faith.

The fruit of Faith is Love.

The fruit of Love is Service.

The fruit of Service is Peace

– Mother Teresa

An unexamined life is not worth living.

—Socrates

If the only prayer we ever prayed was “Thank you,” it would be enough.

– Meister Eckhardt

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isa. 40:31)

1. PRAYER FOR THE NEW DAY

When you wake up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee and find your way to the sofa or porch. Find a good place where you can go each day. If you go to the same place repeatedly, over time, just being in that place will calm your spirit and put you in a prayerful mood.

For a couple of years my place has been the living room sofa. Even the dog knows it and sometimes is waiting for me there when I arrive. When Yuliana wakes, she often comes to cuddle while I pray. It has become sacred space.

Begin with a short prayer like the one below, or write your own. In a short time it will be memorized and become part of your consciousness. Luther says to cross yourself and remember your baptism.

Almighty and everlasting God, you have brought us in safety to this new day. Preserve us by your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome in adversity, and in all we do direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

2. JOURNAL YESTERDAY

Reflect on yesterday. Examine your life. Write one paragraph starting with the word “Yesterday…”

Often I wake up with something on my mind. We mull things over in our sleep. Things rise to the surface. I consider this the work of the Spirit, and of the spirit. Listen. Capture the work. What is God saying?

This morning I woke up with a crystal clear sense that something I had been putting off, needed to be attended to today. It turned out to be true. Had I barrelled into the day without reflection this fleeting sense on the edge of my waking consciousness might have been lost. Prayer is about listening for God’s voice.

Your prayer for the new day takes one minute. This journaling part can take 5 minutes if your morning schedule is tight, but for me usually takes more. The morning I wrote this, I journaled for 25 minutes.

Don’t journal the whole day. Your goal is not your exhaustive memoirs, but attentiveness to the Spirit. Skim off the cream that rises to the surface.

By the way, I have never, ever, had a devotional life on Sunday. I’ve tried. I commend those of you who do/can. Worship is my devotion.

3. SCRIPTURE

God speaks through Scripture. Read a portion of Scripture. At times I have let the lectionary guide my daily reading, but I prefer to have readings beyond sermon preparation. We do enough skipping around as it is. It’s nice to read a book through. Some epistles can be read in 10-15 minutes. If you have more time (perhaps a day off), The gospels can (and should) be read in one sitting. It takes less than an hour. Our fractured reading of Scripture muddies the unique plot and character development of each of the gospels.

God speaks through Scripture, though not in the literal, two-dimensional way people seem to be using the Bible in this current time. We listen not to the text only, but through the text to what God is saying to us. After reading take some time for silence and let it sink in. Thoughts will emerge. Chase them. Questions will emerge. Go back and read it again to check your query. Sermon ideas will form. Write them down in your journal. If you have time, go for a walk and ponder the text.

Sometimes I’ll use this to read the Spiritual Classics as well. A portion of Scripture then a passage of St. John of the Cross, or C.S. Lewis.

Write a sentence or two in your journal: what passage you read and what thoughts emerged.

4. PRAYERS

Finally pray intercessions. I pray for my family and for the congregations of this synod, then for specific requests like Phil Oestreich’s family, or Ben Lake, or Kerry Nelson’s son. You might keep a congregational photo directory with your Bible at your chair. Pray a page a day. Visualize your people as you pray. Stuff will come to mind. Be prepared to write things down as they rise to the surface. You will find yourself inclined to call some of the people for whom you pray.

As you can see this could take a very long time. Luther spoke of praying for three hours at times. Don’t cheat your prayer time because you’re busy with too many tasks. Prayer will impact the tasks you choose to do, and it will shape the way you do them. Nevertheless, prayers can also be disciplined into 30 minutes. We humans are constrained by time. The bus. The office. The spouse. One minute for the opening prayer, and ten minutes for each of the other three parts makes 31 minutes. It can be done, and sometimes it must. Better to have a short prayer time than no prayer time.

Starting the day like this makes all the difference. It’s like starting a journey in the right direction.

Give it a try. Adapt it to your needs and situation. Just do it. Make time for God. We need to empty ourselves to be led. As Mother Teresa said, “God cannot fill what is already full.”

The Contagious Christian Seminar

Thus far I have led three Contagious Christian seminars in our synod – one in Brenham, another in League City and a third in Houston. I’ve learned things from each of them and wanted to share those discoveries here.

The idea behind my willingness to offer preview seminars into the “Becoming a Contagious Christian” program grew out of a conversation I had a year ago with a dedicated member of the congregation I served. After telling me that he had long been on board with all that I had taught and all that we had done in evangelism, but he said something was missing.

In his words, “I don’t feel equipped to do evangelism on a personal level. You need to teach us how.” I think he has put a finger on a blind spot in how we as Lutherans tend to practice the faith. The “Becoming a Contagious Christian” program is the most accessible and most helpful tool I have seen in offering a helpful response to his question.

In my evaluation of the program, I really appreciated the three different ways it could be used – as a one day workshop, as a stand alone six week small group experience or as a six week congregational campaign using Sunday worship, small groups, culminating in a special outreach oriented worship service that would hopefully include guests who had been specifically invited to attend. If I was back in the parish, I would use it all three ways.

At the same time, there are clearly some theological hurdles that most pastors would need to offer interpretation and alternatives to. I find that work fun to do but I realize doing that sort of “Christian apologetics” isn’t something every pastor is comfortable with nor has the time to do. Therefore, instead of just recommending the program, I decided to do some preview seminars so we could talk through the theological and practical alternatives.

The first time I presented the preview seminar, at Salem Lutheran in Brenham, we only had (thankfully) me, two other pastors, and four lay people from Salem. I say thankfully because it was the first time and I’m glad we had such a small group that left much room for conversation.

A significant comment that really struck me was “I have spent my whole life as a Lutheran minority within a Baptist majority and I’ve been thought of as a ‘second class’ Christian the whole time because I can’t point to some kind of dramatic ‘conversion experience’. I believe in the grace of God poured out in Baptism.”

Frankly, I believe in the grace of God poured out in Baptism too but there are lots of young adults to older adults whom we could reach who have not had that experience. They weren’t baptized as children and, even if they were, they might not have been raised in the faith or they might have rejected the faith long ago. Their experience will be very different from “cradle to grave” Lutherans, not only their life experience but also how they would experience coming to, or even coming back to, the Christian faith. We need to equip our people to have those kind of conversations.

By the second seminar I had “Lutheran-ized” the seminar powerpoints. I changed the language in key areas through the presentation, added a different way of speaking about turning points in the faith, different questions in guiding someone to write their faith journey story and added a different visual “napkin speech” description of the Gospel. This one went better.

Soon after beginning the third seminar, the people from one congregation chose to leave after the first break. They were disappointed to discover that I was only offering a preview of the materials rather than engaging them in the actual program. The beginning didn’t capture their imagination. The remaining participants valued the experience and one congregation is currently planning on using the material as their Lenten program.

So….what have I learned?

I think what this program intends to teach is sorely needed in our congregations. If we continue to shy away from developing confidence to share the faith with un-churched friends, family members and others in our lives, we will never come to understand what personal evangelism means. We need to help our people develop that confidence.

So I will continue offering the ½ day seminar preview event to any cluster of congregations willing to promote it or potentially interested in offering the full program in their ministry.

I am also wiling to offer the program as a one day workshop – that is, covering all the material and engaging the participants in doing the actual work of the program. I don’t think that would be as effective as having six full weeks to work through it all but it would be a start.

Remember, no one lights a candle only to hide it under a barrel.

To learn more about the seminar materials, go to www.contagiouschristian.com

Ministry, Mission and the Twin Commands of Jesus

The fundamental, foundational purpose of the Christian Church is captured in the twin marching orders that Jesus left with his disciples – the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

The Great Commandment (John 13:34-35) is the call to love one another and world around us: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) is the call to go into the world and make disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

None of this is new to any of us. Most of us can’t remember when we learned about the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Like the song, “Jesus Loves Me,” we just know it. The trouble is, even here, familiarity breeds contempt. We might know it so well that we have long since forgotten to pay careful attention to what these twin marching orders ask from us.

We forget, for example, that both of these commands involve both mission (outreach, that which happens outside of the walls of our church buildings, during times apart from Sunday morning worship) and ministry (inreach, what happens inside the walls of the church building or the times and places when we gather together as the people of God.)

The Great Commandment involves both mission and ministry.

Great Commandment ministry includes all the caring ministries which we do inside the church and among our membership. Fellowship groups, prayer groups, hospital visits, mutual support, all of this is ministry. Food pantries, homeless shelters, clothing stores, hosting recovery groups, disaster relief, all of the caring actions which extend out into the community are mission efforts answering the call to the Great Commandment.

Re-rooting, the strategy we are encouraging to help congregations rediscover the neighborhoods, learn about the unmet needs in their own communities and create ministries to meet them, is mission work rooted in the Great Commandment.

The Great Commission also involves both mission and ministry.

The ministry side includes baptizing people and then joining with them in the life-long process that is Christian discipleship. This includes Christian education, worship and everything else we do that helps people grow up in the faith.

Then finally comes the mission side of the Great Commission. This involves relationally engaging people out in the world, having conversations, raising questions of spirituality, and sharing, out of our love and our experience, the good news of God’s forgiveness and love for people. More than just inviting people to church, the mission side of the Great Commission means inviting people to faith.

This last piece, the mission side of the Great Commission, is where we as Lutherans find ourselves in a strange new world. We don’t think this way. We assume this is “what the Baptists do.” This is our blind spot.

Our people expect Great Commandment behaviors in their congregational lives. We respond well to opportunities to extend that love out into the community. And we do care about the ministry side of the Great Commission. We want people to learn and to grow up in the faith.

But that last piece…personally sharing the faith with someone else, feeling confident about our own faith experience and theological convictions, feeling capable of sharing a spiritual conversation with a person who just doesn’t believe it, knowing not only THAT we believe but also WHAT we believe and able to share that faith with someone else – that is our blind spot. We need to help our people get past that blind spot. It is scary and it requires teaching good theology combined with practical help, but it is a place where our people long to go.

Whatever it takes to reorient our thinking and our practices around the mission side of the Great Commission will be well worth the effort. It will reignite a passion, not only for the faith, but also for people who live their lives estranged and cut off from God. We need to get there, for our own sake and for the sake of the world.

Targeting Your Invitations (HINT: Think Christmas Eve)

Many of us have spent years exhorting our people to “invite a friend or family member to church” and…some do…but most don’t. Few people seem to have an “Invitational” personal evangelism style. Actually, that is understandable. It would be very uncomfortable to invite someone to a church service when you don’t know on the front end whether or not they will have a meaningful experience. So we have to help our people in extending an invitation. Here is how that might work:

Every day people open their mailboxes to discover several pieces of unsolicited solicitations. Why, given that most of are simply irritated by it, is direct mail (junk mail) such a popular form of advertising? Because, to some degree, it works.

An advertiser can create one flier, postcard, or brochure and then send it to as many households as their budget allows. The cost? A large color postcard might cost $.79 each. Covering 2,500 households would cost $1,975 plus the cost of the list. With a return rate that is often 1% or lower, a congregation might attract 2 or 3 visitors.

The return rate improves if you repeatedly send the same piece of mail to the same households of if you send a series of mailing to the same people, each one building upon the last. But remember, every mailing will cost nearly $2,000.

Direct mail works much better if you target your invitation.

One way to target your invitations is to choose a geographic target audience – a section of a small town, a series of subdivisions, etc.

A better way is to invite your congregation to help develop your target audience. Here are 10 steps to making that work.

1. Pick a Sunday several weeks in advance of a significant opportunity to invite people to worship or a special program at church. (HINT: Christmas is just around the corner.)

2. On that Sunday, be prepared to hand out Impact List cards to all of those attending worship. Ask each person to list 3-5 people who they know and care about who are un-churched or don’t attend worship. Ask your member to include their own name so you can follow up with them later.

3. Make copies of the total names generated by the Impact List and send them out to your Prayer Team. Begin praying that the Holy Spirit might start working in their lives, preparing them to receive a special invitation to come to the selected congregational event (HINT: Christmas is just around the corner.)

4. Have a team of people prepared to make phone calls to all of those who listed un-churched friends or family members. Use those calls to collect mailing addresses for everyone on the congregational Impact List.

5. Send a series of three mailings, one each week, to everyone on the Impact List. Tell them a little bit about the ministry of the congregation, the warmth and hospitality a visitor can expect to find, the healing ministries offered through the congregation and the good the congregation does in the community. Don’t forget to invite them to a special congregational event (HINT: Christmas is just around the corner.)

6. Each Sunday, give each person in worship a copy of the mailing that will go out that week. Include special petitions in the prayers for those who will be receiving invitations from the congregation.

7. Out-do yourself in providing hospitality at the special congregational event (HINT: Christmas is just around the corner.) Plan the most excellent worship experience possible. Plan everything with the needs of visitors in mind. Make sure to give attendance cards to everyone who comes to worship so that you can continue to extend hospitality by visiting the visitors.

8. Plan a sermon series that will be especially interesting and helpful to people in their lives which will begin the following month or following Sunday. Make sure and invite all who gather at the special event to come to the new series.

9. Visit the visitors. Call them, make an appointment, and show up simply to listen to their story and respond to their questions.

10.Make sure you have something that can function as the “next step” for people who are new to the Christian faith. Make that “something” a guide to a life of discipleship rather than a congregational infomercial.

Then, next year, pick another date and do it all over again, generating a new Impact List. (HINT: Mother’s Day is the 3^rd highest attended Sunday of the church year for most congregations.)

Effective Church Advertising

There are three ways that people will “see” your congregation before deciding to venture into worship on a Sunday morning, or any other congregational gathering, learning experience or servant project: 1) Location, 2) Print advertising, 3) Word of mouth invitations.

Location: Obviously the most expensive of these is location. There isn’t a whole lot you can do about where your church building sits. Either you have good traffic flow by the building or you don’t. The building is “attractive” to people or it isn’t. The two most effective ways of maximizing the visibility impact of your location is to increase signage and improve landscaping. Signage includes the main church sign, vinyl banners, directional signs, etc. The most important aspect of signage is that it needs to be SEEN. You can improve the likelihood of being seen by changing your message, adding new signs, or increasing the “flutter factor.”

The “flutter factor” is why some businesses put plastic gorillas on top of their building or drape banners over the top of a car lot. This catches peoples’ eyes as they pass. They notice things that change. Without change, over time, buildings (including church buildings) disappear. If your church sign is outdated and you would like to make a major investment in community visibility, consider the addition of a new personalized monument sign with an LED message screen. One company in Houston that works very well with churches is the National Sign Company, http://www.nationalsigns.com

Church landscaping puts another kind of “flutter factor” into play. A well kept lawn, trimmed trees/bushes, the splash of color of flowers, interesting pieces like fountains, a well painted and maintained building – all of this catches peoples’ attention and influences their sense that you just might be as hospitable, faithful and caring about what happens inside the building.

Print Advertising: Print advertising includes everything from your website to yellow pages, community newsletters, flyers in store windows and direct mail. If you are going to do any of these, do them well and start with your website! More and more, people will go to “Google” looking for a church just like they do looking for anything else. Even if they drive by your church building every day for years, if something happens in their life that influences them to try out your church on a Sunday morning, they are going to check out your website first. Have an excellent website!

As you design your website, remember the difference between “web presence” and “web ministry.” Web presence means you craft a website that communicates the values and spirit of your congregation and shares the kind of information that doesn’t frequently change. You put all of that online and it just sits there waiting to be utilized. You still need to update it periodically (checking that links still work, etc.) but it doesn’t take much of your time. Use lots of pictures and design whatever you say from the point of view of the potential visitor to your congregation. You will also use your website to help your current membership to access information but design everything from a “new” person’s point of view.

“Web ministry” is interactive information that changes frequently. Out of date information on a website communicates a lack of care and quality. If you put things online like class schedules or church calendars, keep them updated. If you provide email links to staff members or other congregational leaders, make sure the links work AND that email gets answered personally and as quickly as possible.

It is very inexpensive to include audio, even visual, access to sermons or other congregational information. We all need to learn how to do this and do it well.

The Internet has birthed a new atmosphere of collaboration and sharing. If you come across a congregational website that you find very effective, scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for a webmaster email link, or go to the staff page and find someone else that you can email to ask for advice on how they built and how they maintain their site. People love to share that information.

Other print advertising includes free inclusions in community newsletters, local newspapers, etc. Make sure you have the address (most often now the email address) of where to send the information and the rules (size, deadlines, picture policies, etc.) for inclusion. If you also purchase a “spot” in the publication, the odds of your congregational information being included are increased.

Word of Mouth Invitations: Of all the ways that someone might find their way to your congregation, or find any other goods or services, the single most effective form of advertising is word of mouth. When a friend tells you about a new place to eat you are likely to try it. When a friend offers to take you to church, you are more likely to go. And when you get to a church for the first time with a friend, the friend suddenly and unconsciously is doing visitor follow-up, explaining the vision and mission of the congregation, and providing the first line of potential new member assimilation.

The problem is, Lutherans aren’t generally the most willing to offer such invitations. But they will – if we do congregational life in a way that is fulfilling, exciting, meaningful and helpful. If what we are doing the kind of congregational life that is spiritually fulfilling and equipping people for life as children of God, our people will talk about it!

And when that happens, we will be a network of growing, Christ-centered, outwardly-focused congregations passing the faith to the next generation through congregations that look like the neighborhoods in which God has planted them.

Healthy Growth Strategies for Smaller Congregations

According to Ron Crandall, author of Turn Around Strategies for the Small Church and Turnaround and Beyond – A Hopeful Future for Small Membership Churches, a smaller congregation has less than 200 members or less than 100 people attending worship each weekend. In these books, Crandall identifies that kind of transitions in ministry style and direction that redirects a smaller congregation from “surviving” to “thriving.”

Given that about half of the congregations in our synod are that size, and that many of these have actually declined to that size, many pastors and lay leaders might benefit from reading, studying and implementing what these books suggest.

I learned about these books in a note from Pastor Sunny Kern. Pastor Kern has served Hosanna Lutheran in Mandeville, LA for over 15 years. During his tenure, the congregation has grown in average worship attendance from 169 to 257, added staff and has relocated to a new site.

In describing a strategy for how we might make use of these books across our synod, Pastor Kern wrote the following as his personal reflections:

Here are the twelve strategies…I am including a description of how I tried to implement them in my context in order to provide a concrete illustration as to how they might be implemented.

1. Enhance congregational confidence and hope in the future. I tried to do it at Hosanna by cheering what they were doing right and reminding that they were not alone. If they would act in faith God would help fill in what they were lacking.

2. Stimulate concern for unreached persons in the community. I tried to do this by encouraging members to identify people who needed Jesus in their life or who needed a light bulb moment and by encouraging members to pray for these folks and to act by inviting them to them to worship, to Alpha, and other events.

3. Engage in proactive and effective pastoral leadership. I changed my leadership model from expecting the church council to lead on their own with me as an encourager and equipper, to a model with the pastor as initiating leader who works with leadership while encouraging and equipping.

4. Encourage an open, loving atmosphere in the congregation. In preaching and teaching I tried to help people see that we are all different and God accepts us as we are. We need to accept people as they are, not as we want them to be. Preaching and teaching about personality and giftedness helped people understand and act those things out. In addition, small group ministry helped to foster this openness and caring.

5. Clarify our own personal vision and be an example. With council’s help I worked to tweak the mission statement to reflect the vision I believe God had given me to be a congregation of people who knew their gifts and calling from God individually and teamed together those gifts to bring God and his love to others.

6. Help develop a clear, shared, congregational vision. I tried to used the purpose driven model to help the vision to be clear and shared.

7. Work and pray for spiritual renewal among members. I encouraged members to invite people to participate in spiritual growth opportunities like youth camp, Alpha, Via de Cristo and Cursillo, and to pray for attendees that God might accomplish his purposes in them. Small Group ministry helped to provide a setting in which regular spiritual growth could occur.

8. Provide high-quality preaching and inspirational worship. I tried to address the subject in preaching and worship from the point of view of Evangelism. Rather than a seeker oriented service I sought to do what I call Worship-Evangelism. For me Worship-Evangelism means plan worship that attempts to connect people to God, removes things that a 1st time attender might stumble over and encourages guests to return. While we have an eye on the guest to speak to their needs and concerns, we still worship and attempt to speak to members in their faith journey.

9. Lead the effort to reach new people and grow. I attempted to do this through preaching, conversations with individuals, lifting up the idea at meetings, emphasizing the empty chair among small groups and suggesting outreach things like Alpha. God raised some up independent of me like members who sensed God’s call and began ministries like Divorce Care and Journey to Comfort (encouragement for folks suffering with chronic pain).

10. Emphasize and practice prayer. I attempted to do this by encouraging the formation of a prayer team, emailing weekly prayer thoughts, and encouraging prayer for people – particularly as they were disconnected from Christ.

11. Develop new programs, especially for children and youth. I tried to build on existing youth ministries and encouraged their expansion. Some of the things we did was build a stepping stones ministry that tried to teach and incorporate children and youth into the life of the church. We began a remembering of Baptism for 1st and 2nd graders, 1st Bible and 1st communion, We used things like camp and Sunday evening fellowship for 5th grader through high school.

12. Plan to take risks and take them. I tried a lot of new things some of which succeeded and some of which failed, but I wouldn’t say I took a lot of risk. If had taken more risks I am sure God would have been able to do even more than he has. NOTE – “After sharing this point with members some shared that they thought I took risks by empowering and entrusting members with ministry. They said that while I didn’t consider it a risk they thought many pastors would have considered doping so to be risky.”

In addition, I held annual Spiritual Growth Campaigns which encompassed the twelve above principles in various degrees depending on the campaign. So, for example, one year the theme was “Developing a Servant’s Heart” with the theme getting to know your giftedness and emphasizing serving. That meant number 4 became the primary focus.

Thank you, Pastor Kern, for your work and your insights. If you want further information, feel free to contact him at pastor@hosannalutheran.com

Mission Support Per Person

Earlier this month (October 2^nd), I shared a strategy that Pastor Steve Kelly of St. Martin’s Lutheran uses in communicating the need for financial support to his congregation. He breaks the actual costs of doing ministry down to “bite-sized pieces.” Perhaps it might be helpful if we did the same in communicating the need for mission support for the synod and churchwide ministries as well.

According to the most recent figures available, we began 2009 with about 44,600 baptized members in our synod. The total budget for the ministries of our synod, including the 50% of our income that we forward on to churchwide, is about $1.65 million.

In other words, fully funding the mission plan for our synod requires about $37 per year from every baptized person in our congregations. Together, my wife and I have four children. Our share of mission support to our synod/churchwide ministries would be $222. We spend more than that every month on our cell phones.

What if we could put in place a “dream synodical mission plan”? A plan that would include an additional $200,000 to fully fund two new mission starts each year? That would raise the synod’s mission plan by $400,000. Our dream budget would require $46 per person – $276 for the Nelson family. We give away more than that in two weeks.

Think about it this way… this is how much these aspects of our mission cost this year at $37 per baptized person in our synod:

Mission Support to the ELCA (50%) – $18.50

Direct contributions to ministry (6%) – $2.22

All that Bishop Rinehart does (10%) – $3.70

All that the assistants to the bishop do (13%) – $4.81

All that the administrative staff people do (8%) – $2.96

All that the youth & family people do (4%) – $1.48

All that we provide for campus ministry (2%) – $.74

Everything else in the synod budget (7%) – $2.59

Think about what that means for each congregation in our synod:

2000 members – $74,000 for 2009 – $92,000 for the dream plan.

1000 members – $37,000 for 2009 – $46,000 for the dream plan.

750 members – $27,750 for 2009 – $34,500 for the dream plan.

500 members - $18,500 for 2009 - $23,000 for the dream plan.

350 members – $12,950 for 2009 – $16,100 for the dream plan.

150 members - $5,500 for 2009 - $6,900 for the dream plan.

When we break down what it costs per person to actually do the ministries in our synod, including what we pass on to church-wide, it seems clear that there is no reason why we can’t fully fund our synodical mission plan, let alone a dream plan.

Even a small member congregation (150) doing its part would only be passing on $133 a month to fully fund a dream plan.

I encourage you to have this conversation with your church council and congregation before considering your mission plan for 2010.

o How does what your congregation’s mission support compare to $37 per baptized member?

o How much of a stretch would it be to reach $46 per baptized member?

o Would you like to see us have the ability to fully fund two new mission starts next year? We could do it with a dream mission plan.

o What would doing your part look like per Sunday?

o Are you willing to grow your mission support to and beyond a tithe?

Two Doors and a Table

This week I finally got around to reading Larry Osborne’s book, “Sticky Church.” Once again, although I very much appreciate the age of the internet, I am also grateful to God for pastors who find the time to share what God is teaching them through writing books. Well-written books are portable wisdom. “Sticky Church” is a must-read.

Osborne helped me see again what is too easy to miss, or easy to forget. He helped me imagine the church as a room with two doors and a table. This is a conversation starter well worth the time with ministry staffs, church councils, Sunday School classes and small groups.

The Front Door of the Church is the multitude of ways that people find themselves entering a Christian church on a Sunday morning. Osborne argues, and I heartily agree, that the single best way for the church to bring new people in the front doors is through people bringing people and word of mouth advertising.

There is nothing wrong with marketing and ad campaigns – other than the danger of disappointing people when the experience falls short of the hype. There is nothing wrong with Special Emphasis Sundays and Big Event Sundays – unless people come back the next week to “business as usual” and never come back again. There is nothing wrong with Friendship Sundays – unless a stranger walks in on any of the Sundays before the big day and finds himself or herself labeled as the “unsaved” or the “unchurched” or the target audience.

People bringing people, word of mouth advertising, is a built-in path to hospitality, to visitor follow up and to engaging the People of God to BE the People of God. Every member becomes an evangelist in a way that is as natural as their friendship.

Once people come into the fellowship, the Table awaits them. Through Word and sacrament, song and prayer, God comes to those who have come. The Table is the reason for which people have come that morning and the Table is what will sustain them in the week to come. A healthy church will make sure that healthy food is served for all at the Table that lies at the heart of their communal lives.

But then there is the door we far too often forget about. The Back Door. Far too often we focus so much time, energy and attention on opening the front door as wide as possible, to as many people as possible, often for reasons of very mixed motives, but then we forget about the Back Door. `

If we do that, we run the risk of doing what Osborne describes earlier in his ministry: “I hate to admit it. But before I killed the dream, I wasn’t dialed in on tending the flock God had entrusted to me. Instead, to be brutally honest, I was using the people I already had to reach the people I wanted to reach. They weren’t sheep to be cared for; they were tools to be utilized. And while I doted on every new person who came through the front door, more and more were walking out the back door.’

Ouch. I know I spent years doing the same thing. Ouch. They never said it, but I’ll bet the people I was called to lead felt it.

Osborne argues that a “sticky church”, one with the Back Door firmly closed, allows us to more fully handle the “teaching them to observe” aspect of the Great Commission. It allows people time to walk the journey of faith at their own pace. It even makes it far more likely for the church to actually grow. A church that loses 70% of its people out the Back Door over 10 years needs to reach 834 people to grow from 250 to 500. But a sticky church that retains 70% of its people needs to reach 357 people to see the same growth.

Also in the book, Osborne details his strategy for becoming a sticky church using sermon-based small groups. But you’ll have to buy the book to learn more about that.

Until then, why not take some time to look back over the last ten years of ministry in your congregation. How many new people came into membership through the Front Door? How many did you lose out the Back Door? Are you willing to do what it takes to become an ever more “sticky” church?