C O N V E R G E M A G A Z I N E // S U M M E R 2 017
Strengthen your
core
Leading your church to long-term health 10 // Stuck! Hit an invisible ceiling?
12 // Got you covered
14 // What’s your game plan?
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FROM THE PRESIDENT
Church Planting churchplanting@converge.org Church Strengthening strengthening@converge.org International Ministries missions@converge.org converge.org ConvergeWorldwide @convergeww converge_ww
VOLUME 9 // NUMBER 4 EDITOR Bob Putman
Strengthening your core Several months ago, I had a conversation with my son Jon about his career. He studied kinesiology in college in order to become a personal trainer. In a candid conversation about physical health, I asked, “So, is there one area of your body that deserves greater focus than the others?” In other words, I was hoping his answer would give me a shortcut to staying in shape. “It’s this, Dad,” he said as he flexed his hands around his midsection like a State Farm “discount double check” commercial. “It’s your core. Taking care of your core will affect every other area of your physical health. Neglect it and problems will arise in areas you think are unrelated, but they are not. Everything rises and falls on the health of your core.” The core of our ministry is leaders strengthened in their walk with Christ and sold out to proclaiming and living out gospel truths. The health of our leaders has an unparalleled effect on the health of our churches and ministries around the world. This is why our district leaders and national staff work so hard to help leaders stay connected with God, each other and our common mission. We agree with the heart of the apostle Paul, as he writes: “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ — to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:9-11). We hope this issue inspires you to move forward with the vibrancy of your walk with God and a ministry that flows from connection with him and with each other.
DESIGNER/PRODUCTION MANAGER Pam Nelsen CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Better Together,
Fran Anderson, Allison Hurtado To add or remove your name from our mailing list, call 800.323.4215, M-F, 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. est point@converge.org Point (ISSN/1546-3257) is published quarterly (with a special edition in December) by the Baptist General Conference, 2002 S. Arlington Heights Rd., Arlington Heights, IL 60005. Printed in the U.S.A. Nonprofit Standard postage paid at Arlington Heights, Ill., and at additional mailing offices. © 2017 Baptist General Conference. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Point, 2002 S. Arlington Heights Rd., Arlington Heights, IL 60005-4193. SCRIPTURE REFERENCE Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. REPRINT PERMISSION Permission is granted to photocopy articles in small quantities for personal, church or school use. Please protect our copyright by writing or typing before copying: “Reproduced from Point by permission.” This permission does not extend to articles reprinted from other publications, reports for another publication or large quantity reproductions. For such purposes, written permission must be obtained from Point or from the original source.
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Scott Ridout President, Converge
ERIC JOHNSON
Converge is a movement of over 1300 churches working to help people meet, know and follow Jesus. We do this by starting and strengthening churches together worldwide.
MOVING COACHING FROM TO One of Converge’s 10-year vision goals is that every pastor have a coach and be a coach. But where will we find all these coaches? BY DAN CARLSON
Ever since I got on board with our Converge pastor coaches training, taught by Converge Church Strengthening director Bruce Hopler, I’ve received the kind of emails every district executive minister loves to find in his inbox. Like this:
He’s referring to the training he received to be a pastor’s coach — helping pastors with their spiritual, ministry and personal life and holding them accountable. When I first learned of coach training, I knew it was something North Central district needed to do.
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JOSH NICHOLSON
“ Thank you, Dan and Bruce. I honestly feel this coaching experience is the equivalent of my leadership classes in seminary — all those classes and books jammed into practical 9 0-minute Zoom-call sessions each month. I love it! It has been life-giving for me, my staff and our leadership team.” — A Converge North Central pastor
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d e v e lo pi n g a pl a n to r e ac h o u r g oa l At an executive ministers team meeting in September 2015, Bruce talked about our Converge goal: Every pastor have a coach and be a coach. I’m an early adopter, so I immediately told him, “I want in.” This opportunity brought clarity to what I had been thinking — many of our Converge North Central churches and their congregations want to grow in their ministry impact. I also saw that if we wanted every pastor in our district to have a coach and be a coach, we had to train coaches. To do this, we needed a plan. Bruce and I talked over the phone for the next three months, exploring collaboration. Then at our North Central office February 17-19, 2016, our Church Expansion and Growth director Joel Nelson and I met with him. We put together a plan with the goal that each prospective coach commit to being coached and to training one to three other pastors to coach. As a foundation for our training, we used the six vital signs identified by the “Close the Backdoor Task Force”: n Spiritual formation (healthy pastors) n Biblical visioneering (discerning where God is leading) n Effective strategies (church systems) n Leadership culture n Expansion beyond themselves n Supportive networks
each church/pastor personal investment in the process and covered the costs of materials, assessments, retreats, etc. It also provided personal accountability and follow-through on their investment. May 1, 2016, I sent an invitation to 55 North Central pastors and in June followed up with an initial Zoom-call to describe our purpose and process and ask the pastors to participate. Thirty-four said yes. Of these, two declined for personal reasons. Joel and I developed four cohorts from among the responses so that our monthly 90-minute Zoom-calls would occur in groups of 7-12 pastors.
i m pl e m e n t i n g o u r pl a n We began Zoom-calls in August 2016. To cover the four cohorts, we made two 90-minute calls each on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In each call, I reviewed what we had already covered about the training and set the stage for the logistics and direction of upcoming calls and retreats. Bruce introduced and taught the ministry tools on supportive networks. Joel Nelson presented the assessment tools and facilitated assessment team leaders Marlan Mincks and Steve Dahl.
Jerry and Steve Dahl of Strategic Team-Makers helped us select assessment tools to enable pastors to understand their individual gifting and calling. We scheduled monthly Zoom-calls [video conferencing] and two retreats and determined the cost of training per individual. This allowed
6 vital signs of strong churches Spiritual formation Biblical visioneering Strategic thinking Leader mentoring Expansion beyond Supportive networks
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September 19-20, 35 Minnesota and Iowa pastors participated in the first Coaching Cohort Retreat, held at our Trout Lake Camps in Pine River, Minnesota. Bruce and I taught coaching principles and demonstrated ministry tools for church leaders, focusing on spiritual formation and biblical visioning. A participant said, “I went away [from the retreat] very refreshed and greatly encouraged by the new tools and cohort discussion around the table. The personality test discussion was also very helpful… liberating.” Another said, “These are great tools and notes to have in our hands. I can confidently say we have been blessed tremendously through this coaching, and many under our leadership are being blessed by extension. A huge win for the kingdom!” After the retreat, Bruce and I led Zoom-calls for North Central in October, November and January. We further discussed biblical visioneering and strategic thinking. Twenty-seven of the 34 Converge North Central pastors who were committed to coaching participated in a second
coaches training retreat, at Pine Lake Camp, Eldora, Iowa, February 27-28. On day one, they reviewed case studies from their churches, using coaching tools and skills to respond to the scenarios they presented. On day two, Bruce introduced new coaching tools for leader mentoring and discussed the seven vital signs of a healthy church. Pastor Brian Haynes of First Baptist Church, Roseau, Minnesota, wrote to me: “Dan, thank you for being an early adopter. The coaching is a huge help to me and is giving me the confidence and courage to lead fbc. I consider it a blessing to be doing God’s kingdom work in Converge North Central.”
‘Immediately applicable’ As Bruce Hopler was teaching, I noticed one of the cohort members smiling and rapidly taking notes. When it was time to interact on the tool Bruce presented, this pastor was the first to respond. “Wow, just learning this one tool today is fantastic and immediately applicable!” he said. “Last night at our board meeting I was given an assignment to rework our 10-year vision. What you just taught us gives me exactly what I need as a framework for what we were talking about last night. I’m so grateful and can’t wait to share this with our team this week. It profoundly impacts the direction of our ministry.”
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Our Zoom-calls with Bruce on April 4 and 6 and May 2 and 4 wrapped up his involvement in this initial training process with discussion of leader mentoring and of expanding beyond.
where do we go from here? More pastors in our district want to become part of our coaches training. One said, “I read about it in Point magazine. It said to contact your district executive minister, so I’m reaching out about this.” I immediately connected him with coaches in his area. Because of this positive response, we are considering asking the pastors who were already trained to re-up for monthly Zoom-calls with their cohorts to share their coaching experiences. In addition, Bruce and I will share a new tool quarterly with groups that choose to continue. We also will offer a second district coaches training experience to develop more coaches. Our model worked very well. I’m very grateful for this opportunity to live out our Converge value: Better Together.
Partnering with Bruce profoundly impacted our pastors and our North Central region. The growth our participating pastors and leaders experienced has positively infected their churches. They learned new tools, formed relationships within their cohorts, bounced ideas off one another and challenged each another to grow. We’ve become better connected to hold one another accountable in personal leadership growth, church discipleship and commitment to making an impact in our communities and beyond. Last November 2, Bruce launched the coaches training process with eight selected churches in Converge Northwest district. I know they and other districts will benefit as we did from this learning experience. I look forward to continuing our Church Strengthening ministry. To learn how you can receive coaching or train to become a pastor-coach, contact your district office. n Dan Carlson is Converge North Central executive minister.
Unengaged. Unreached. She lives among a people group with no known believers and no one working to establish Christ’s church. We can’t keep them waiting. Send a missionary. Support a missionary. Become a missionary. Answer the call at converge.org/send. 6 POINT // SUMMER 2017
Congratulations Converge Retirement Plan celebrates 50 years of faithful service to pastors, missionaries, district and national staff. A NOTE OF APPRECIATION BY JOHN PIPER
I encourage every church to make such proI write this note of thankfulness and celebration to mark the day when the very first Converge visions for their pastors. I don’t believe in “repension check was deposited in our bank actirement” as conceived in popular culture. It’s not a biblical reality. The point of a “pension” count — February 2, 2017. I am 71, my wife is not to fund a season of leisure between voNoel is 69, and this monthly check will come, Lord willing, as long as one of us is alive. I made cation and death. (In fact, I still work full time note of it in my journal with a huge sense of for Desiring God.) The point is to support God’s thankfulness to Bethel University and Bethleservant when earning powers may be diminhem Baptist Church. ished but untold possibilities of In 1974 I was 28 and took ministry remain. The aim is not my first real job teaching Bibto fund a decade of sloth but to create freedom for service lical Studies at Bethel College. If your church has yet to assist your paid staff members by according to one’s strength. For the six years I taught there, establishing a lifetime income Our experience in these rethe school paid into a pension through the Converge Retirement account. In 1980 I was called cent years of transition is that Plan, don’t delay any longer. to pastor Bethlehem Baptist Contact the Converge Retirement the staff of the Converge plan Church in downtown Minneaphave been remarkably accesspecialist at 847.879.3240 or retirement@converge.org. olis. Those six years of accusible and helpful. Things could not have gone more smoothly mulated funds at Bethel were from our standpoint. Now our prayers are that rolled into the bgc pension fund, and then for 33 we will be good stewards of these years and years Bethlehem contributed to the Converge these funds for the glory of Christ, and that the Retirement Plan for us. What a huge kindness rest of God’s shepherds will be cared for as from the Lord and from the church that they generously as we are. n would care for us in this way.
Don’t delay
John Piper is founder and leader of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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YO U R
superpower CAN TRANSFORM A N Y R E L AT I O N S H I P BY SHAUNTI FELDHAHN
We like Marvel superhero movies in our house. And we have superpower too, though most of us don’t realize it. We are completely blind to the superpower God has given us. We are missing it completely in our lives and in our relationships. We don’t intend to. We don’t do it on purpose. It’s classic blindness. Does your mother-in-law make you want to pull your hair out by criticizing every move you make? Maybe your wife doesn’t appreciate all the things you do for your family, or your husband takes you for granted and always seems angry. Perhaps you dread going to work every day because your boss talks down to you, and you’ve had enough. Or maybe yours isn’t a bad relationship, but a good one. And you want it to be great. What if you had the power to transform your relationships into those that are positive and bring joy into your life? I’ve got great news: You do have the power — it’s called kindness. Kindness is an incredible supernatural power. And it’s not our power, but God’s that makes it effective. Let me explain. I’m a social researcher. After years of studying what we call The 30-Day Kindness Challenge, we found three actions anyone can take to transform any relationship. Targeted kindness is a potent weapon and will soften any heart, including your own. Here’s what to do in The 30-Day Kindness Challenge. Pick someone with whom you want a better relationship. Then for 30 days: 1. Say nothing negative about the person — either to them or about them to someone else. If you must provide negative feedback (for example, to discipline a child or correct a subordinate’s mistake), be constructive and encouraging without a negative tone (Prov. 31:26, esv). 2. Every day, find one thing you can sincerely praise or affirm about the person and tell them and also tell someone else (Col. 3:12, nasb). 3. Every day, do one small act of kindness or generosity for them (Eph. 4:32, nasb).
That’s it. So simple. And in our research we found that with kindness 89 percent of relationships improved. What does The 30-Day Kindness Challenge look like in practice? Well, suppose you and your teenage daughter have been pushing each other’s buttons for weeks. Not knowing what will set her off, your every conversation with her is like a minefield. During The 30Day Kindness Challenge, you resist the urge to ask, “Why did you wait until the last minute to do your homework?” (No sighing in exasperation, either.) And you completely stop yourself from venting about it with your spouse or your friends. Instead, you look for things to praise. You notice and tell her it was really nice of her to take her little brother to get ice cream. You thank her for it — and then you tell others about the nice thing she did. You’re also looking for little acts of generosity to do for her each day. So when you know she wants to meet her friends at the coffee shop after dinner, but it’s her turn to clean the kitchen, you sincerely say, “I’ve got this. You go ahead and go. Have a great time.” Trust me. Starting this process will show you a lot about what needs to change, not just in the other person, but in you. You will see just how negative you have been, in ways you never realized before. (In my Kindness Challenge book, I outline seven distinct types of negativity we found in our research, ranging from exasperation to overt criticism to suspicion. I strongly recommend that you recognize your negativity patterns, so that you can watch for them.) As you do this, you will also see something amazing happening: your feelings are changing. Not only will you experience more joy and feel better about yourself, you’ll also start appreciating the other person more. You’ll see their defenses lowering. And you may see enjoyment and positivity in the relationship that you haven’t seen in years. An effort toward kindness won’t solve every problem — especially the big ones like addiction — but kindness will make them easier to resolve. n Shaunti Feldhahn is a social researcher, speaker and author of The Kindness Challenge. She spoke on “Kindness Changes Everything” at Converge’s Transform 2017 conference.
Shaunti and Converge’s Bridge Network Dynamic speakers and authors such as Shaunti Feldhahn are an example of what Bridge Network, the women’s ministry component of Converge, offers. If you would like to recommend a speaker for a future conference or want more information about Bridge Network and how it supports, equips and encourages women, please email Twanna Henderson, Bridge Network director, at Twanna.Henderson@converge.org.
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STUCK!
If you’ve hit an invisible ceiling, it may be time for a checkup. BY BRUCE HOPLER
Churches and pastors across the nation find themselves hitting what appears to be an invisible lid. To put it simply: they’re stuck. Statistics show that over 80 percent of U.S. churches are stuck or in decline. In fact, if this trend continues, “The percentage of the population that attend church in 2050 is estimated to be at almost half of 1990’s attendance — a drop from 20.4 percent to 11.7 percent.”1 How do churches get stuck? Truthfully, most of them just slip into it. In their well-intentioned efforts, they find themselves in survival mode. Perhaps they had a string of bad circumstances, or turned inward-focused, or the community changed around them or the leaders grew tired. There are a thousand paths to being stuck. Churches can easily find themselves struggling to keep the machine of church running from week to week — and losing the ability to bring transformation through intimate connection to Christ.
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There are also times when a church is in critical condition. Its decline may result because leaders or the congregation are unhealthy, systems are broken and finances are failing. The leaders might be in denial, just hoping for the best, or do not even recognize their need to seek help. Often, this results in pastors of stuck or declining churches feeling frustrated, not knowing where to begin.
WHAT IS CHURCH HEALTH?
A healthy church, while enjoying what God is doing today, is actively advancing in preparation for what God is leading them to tomorrow. They are engaged in church planting and missions — locally and globally — because they are more concerned about God’s kingdom than about what they gain. They are functioning according to their purpose and mission, and therefore see frequent conversions. The leaders are healthy, as are the systems that support the ministry. Quick fixes are not the answer to becoming unstuck. And many tools and resources don’t quickly deal with the systemic issues causing the church to decline. The secret of being a successful church is a commitment to long-term health rather than short-term fixes. Sustained health leads to long-term fruitfulness.
THE HEART OF BECOMING UNSTUCK
To know where God wants you to go, you must assess where you are now. Carefully selected assessment techniques and exercises, combined with an outsider’s fresh perspective, can objectively determine the current health of your leaders and church. And they can provide specific steps to maximize your God-given potential to fulfill your mission. A strategic plan will help your church ensure all working parts are developing and growing together. But it’s not all about assessments, strategies and plans. Church health and leader health are first about the heart. The heart transformed by Christ is full of hope, wisdom, energy, love for others, peace and perseverance. It cannot be dissuaded from Christ’s mission. It has been and continues to be discipled by Jesus and therefore produces disciples naturally. It is in alignment with Christ in five areas2:
n Spiritual life. How does your church help its leaders and attendees develop a healthy and passionate spiritual life? Vibrant growth in their relationship with Jesus leads to personal and corporate transformation. How does your church help people build an identity in Christ in the deepest part of their souls? n Vision. Is your church’s vision in alignment with God’s vision of seeking and rescuing the lost? Called to be a transformative presence in a broken world, we follow Jesus’ model of helping prodigal children unite with the Heavenly Father.
If one or more of these five critical systems are offline, your church won’t be healthy until they are addressed.
n Evangelizing. How is your church equipping people to reach their friends? Is this approach effective? Seek ways to help people see how their story can be a part of the story of God.
GETTING UNSTUCK
hurches don’t need to be stuck. Health and C growth are not pipe dreams; they are God’s will and plan. Through our local Converge district teams we can carefully assess the areas in which a church is stuck and identify the systems that need to be repaired. A triage process will help a declining church face where it needs help and guide it to a solution. We have trained “coaches,” Converge pastors who are certified to lead you through a process that will help you bring your systems into alignment. Together we can develop practical ways to establish and maintain healthy systems to bring your church back to a state of health. To learn more, contact your district office today. n
n Discipling. Is your church’s plan for discipleship working? Small groups and Sunday school are simply tools. How do you evaluate their effectiveness? What might be a better tool for your specific situation? n Leadership Training. Without effective leadership pipelines, churches will never break the lid that is causing them to be stuck. How does your church identify the leaders God has placed in your midst? How do you coach, mentor and train them?
Bruce Hopler is Converge director of Church Strengthening. “7 Startling Facts: An Up-Close Look at Church Attendance in America,” by Kelly Shattuck; ChurchLeader.com, December 29, 2015, page 5. 2 Converge partner Church Equippers (churchequippers.com) identified five critical church systems and developed the book Triage for the Stuck Church. 1
IS YOUR CHURCH STUCK? Contact your district office to learn more about the Triage process: converge.org/districts START. START. STRENGTHEN. STRENGTHEN. SEND. SEND. 11 11
got you covered A parable in Luke suggests four ways a seasoned pastor can provide a ‘covering’ for other pastors who place themselves under his guidance. BY JOHN JENKINS
Over the past 20 years I have pastored other pastors, taking the role of providing “covering” for them personally. It’s a little different from accountability. Although there is a component of accountability, in the covering relationship the pastor’s pastor has a level of authority. I illustrate this from Luke 15:22-24, the waiting father’s response to his prodigal son’s return. The father gives his son four things: a robe, a ring, sandals and a fatted calf, which the father kills for a welcome-home banquet. His generous response and care are his covering for his son, the “covered.” Here’s how it works out between a seasoned pastor and other pastors under his covering.
THE ROBE
THE RING
THE SANDALS
THE FATTED CALF
symbolizes the father’s willingness to cover his son’s challenges. For the covered pastor, this may be a personal problem or a marriage or financial issue. He or she has a safe place to confess, deal with issues and recover. I expect truthfulness.
symbolizes identification. I ask pastors to inform their elders or leaders that they are in relationship with me. These church leaders can tell me when the pastor is out of whack or not listening. They have the right and responsibility to make me aware of the challenge.
represent guidance, direction. If pastors seek me for guidance, I expect them to give what I say more weight than if they were talking to a peer.
the father kills in preparation for the banquet represents his willingness to invest in his son’s future. I use every resource available to me to help pastors succeed personally in their marriage, family and ministry.
covering The robe hides and covers the pastor’s inadequacies. I commit to providing the cover pastors and their families need when faced with personal or ministry challenges. I hold these moments in utmost confidence.
the covered I expect pastors to be willing to openly and honestly share when there are problems or areas that need to be addressed. I consider honesty and openness corner stones for strong and successful relationships.
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covering The ring acknowledges the relationships that exist. I commit to identifying with pastors as their covering. This identification makes the resources and tools within my realm of authority available to them.
the covered I expect pastors to share the nature of our relationship with their church leadership. This includes giving them freedom to contact me if they ever feel there are problems or situations that appear to be impenetrable. I make clear that my relationship is not with the church but with the pastor.
covering As a pastor, making decisions can be lonely. I commit to being available to discuss areas that are a concern.
the covered I ask pastors to have a spirit and heart to believe God can use our relationship to provide guidance for their lives. It’s not my intention to lord authority over another, but there may be times when I give direction they may not agree with. I expect them to submit to my counsel. Demonstrating submission is a vivid illustration of the principle of “structured authority” — a principle every church must implement to be successful.
covering I commit to investing my resources, time and finances in the pastors’ future. I sincerely believe God blesses us as we bless others.
the covered I ask each pastor I cover to contribute financially, based on his or her ability and heart, toward the ministry we provide to help him or her (Phil. 4:10-19; 2 Cor. 9:6-8). n John K. Jenkins Sr. is pastor of First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Landover, Maryland.
DISCOVER YOUR CALLING. THEN PURSUE IT WITH EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT.
Children’s and Family Ministry Christian Thought Church Planting Divinity Doctor of Ministry Marriage and Family Therapy Mental Health Counseling Theological Studies Transformational Leadership
www.bethel.edu UNDERGRAD | GRADUATE | SEMINARY | ONLINE START. STRENGTHEN. SEND.
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WHAT’S YOUR
GAME PLAN? Every pastor needs a game plan to last in ministry and avoid the pattern of ‘fail out, burn out or walk out.’ BY SCOTT RIDOUT
The call came as we pulled into a parking garage in El Paso, Texas. We are a football family, so every year I try to take my kids to a college bowl game during their Christmas break. The six-hour trip from Arizona to Texas was a small price to pay for seeing my alma mater, Virginia Tech, play in the Sun Bowl. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” said the person on the other end. I recognized the voice. He was on the board of one of our sister churches, and I had been a friend of his family for over a decade. Knowing we had arrived at the game with plenty of time, I motioned to my kids to follow me down the stairwell on our short journey to the stadium. “Sure… what’s up? Everything okay?” I questioned. “Not at all,” he responded. Over the next few minutes he told me an all-too-familiar story: another pastor was asked to step out of leadership. The play-by-play varies in each scenario, but the final score is always the same — devastating defeat for everyone. I’ve seen leaders in every size church fail out, burn out and walk out for a number of reasons. However, I’ve also seen that having a few plays in your game plan can make the difference between winning and losing. DEVELOPING A WINNING GAME PLAN Inner life When I was a seminary student, God used three men to train me in developing a game plan to last in ministry. Dr. Johnny Miller was president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary when I was a student there. In my final year, I had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Miller every other week. At our first meeting, I asked if we could use our times together to invest in making me a better leader. For 12 sessions he pounded into me the message of Psalm 101. Many scholars believe this was David’s coronation speech. He makes commitments in this Psalm to let his private and public life be resourced by an overflow of his inner life, his walk with God. Dr. Miller taught me that ministry must flow from a personal, vibrant relationship with
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Jesus. He taught me that effective long-term ministry will be an overflow of the leader’s inner life. He challenged me to develop solid character built on God and his Word. In the words of leadership consultant Larry Osborne, “No amount of competency can make up for a fatal flaw in character.” In the words of Jesus, “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Inner circle I first met Dr. Bill Jones, now president of Columbia International University, when he joined Columbia’s team as the Youth Ministry specialist. A student there, I heard
him speak in chapel one day and thought, This guy knows a lot more about ministry than I do. So I contacted him, and he invited me to join him and a few other leaders in weekly conversations about leadership. We worked on a few youth ministry projects as well. Each team member had talents the others did not have. Learning from each other made all of us better. It was truly an “iron sharpening iron” experience (Prov. 27:17). A leader’s success is often determined by his/her inner circle. Team chemistry — the way teammates coalesce, collaborate and challenge one another to great heights — has become a huge factor in the health of leaders these days. Having “project people” (those who get things done) is essential and having “people projects” (those in training but not yet ready to lead) is also a positive thing, because ministry is a relational endeavor. However, the larger a church gets, the fewer “people projects” a leader can afford to have in the inner circle. Leaders who don’t have people around them they enjoy and who God can use to build up their souls will be susceptible to burnout. Creating a healthy, high-functioning inner circle is essential for leaders of every ministry. Interworking Perry Bowers was senior pastor of the church Lisa and I attended while I was in seminary. He had taken on the revitalization of a church and invited me to join him. My front-row seat enabled me to watch Bowers lead this
church to grow from 16 people to 250 in five years. Ironically, my greatest insight from this experience was that most of our troubles came from within. While the Sunday morning crowd seemed pleased, the ministry core never came to agreement. Leaders held onto territory, programs were all deemed essential and longtime members cried “foul” every time a change was proposed. When Perry left, it didn’t take long for the church to implode under these dysfunctional patterns of interaction. Although it seemed a defeat, I learned a crucial lesson: The interworking of a team will make or break its ministry. Your church may have gifted and godly leaders, a great plan and abundant resources, but your team must trust each other. They must humble themselves to coordinate, communicate and collaborate with each other, or your ministry will never reach its full potential. In the words of business guru Peter Drucker, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The culture of a team far outweighs the competencies of its individual members. The interworking of an average team fully devoted to Christ, each other and the community over the long haul will outperform an elite group of individuals every time. Inner life, inner circle, interworking — these are essential for every leader. The Converge district and national teams, churches and missionaries are here to help our churches stay healthy, strong and focused on the task of making disciples of all nations. My prayer is that each leader will design a game plan to win. n Scott Ridout is president of Converge.
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Baptist General Conference 2002 S. Arlington Heights Rd. Arlington Heights, IL 60005
“
Cornerstone caught the vision of our setting up shop in a part of our city that desperately needed it. Their shared vision back when we bought our first building made it a no-brainer to choose them again when we had the opportunity to buy a strip club out of business. Now, because of Cornerstone’s help, we have additional parking and a place to create a small community center to bless our neighbors. But more than that, we are the proud owners of a property no longer being used to exploit women and enslave men. We couldn’t be happier about how God has used Cornerstone to make this happen for our church and our city.” — Pastor Jeff Mikels, Lafayette (Ind.) Community Church
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csfund@converge.org | 877 228 8810 cornerstonetoday.org
TERM INVESTMENT ($100 minimum) Rates subject to change.
This shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such an offer, solicitation or sale is not authorized. The offering is made solely by the OFFERING CIRCULAR. The offering involves certain risks, which are more fully disclosed in the Offering Circular under the heading “Risk Factors.” These investments are not FDIC or SIPC insured. In the event the Fund exercises its right to redeem a Certificate prior to maturity and upon 60 days notice to the holder thereof, payment of the outstanding principal and interest will be made to the holder to the date of redemption, rather than to the Certificate’s maturity date.
16 POINT // SUMMER 2017