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June 20, 2007

 

 

 
In this Edition:
Practitioners: Jared Miller
What's a "Vervent?"
Bits and Pieces: The Obituary of Someone Else
Cutting Edge Book
Resources & Ideas
Events
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Click here to request placement on our mailing list. Best Practices is offered to pastors at no cost, by Vervent, the North American Division Church Resource Center.

To the Point:
  • "'Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.' Cherish a supreme reverence for justice and truth, and a hatred for all cruelty and oppression. Do unto
    others as you would wish them to do to you. God forbids you to favor self, to the disadvantage of another." Ellen White, RH, April 13, 1905
  • "An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations."
    Charles de Montesquieu
  • "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." Mark Twain in Pudd'nhead Wilson
  • "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
    Kurt Vonnegut     in Mother Night
  • "War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory."
    Georges Clemenceau
Got a favorite quote? Send it to BestPractices@ameritech.net. 
Dave Gemmell Practitioners:
Jared Miller, Iowa
Here's something that's always troubled me: although there are a lot more small churches in multi-church districts than large stand-alone churches, denominationally we focus most of our attention and programing on the bigger churches. I asked Jared Miller (who, with wife Katie, came straight from Union College to a four-church district in Iowa) to reflect on his experience. LGS 

For most of my life I attended a college church with thousands of people. Katie and I had heard about districts with multiple little churches, but never dreamed we would be pastoring one straight out of college. Suddenly I'm the pastor of Ottumwa, Fairfield, Albia, and Centerville. It's challenging, but an experience I wouldn't trade.

One Sabbath recently we had five people at our smallest church.  Those Sabbaths can be discouraging. We have to remind ourselves that we belong to a bigger body of believers. I have tried to remind my district of that, too, by having a district newsletter and district rallies quarterly.  Larger gatherings and guest speakers bring to mind the bigger team we belong to.

Our worship services are often very simple, with canned music, singing a cappella, or sometimes no singing at all. Special music is a rare treat.  When I can't be there to preach, the sermons may be videotapes--not quite as nice as a live preacher, but God still blesses. 

The future is uncertain for these churches. They were built with great expectations, but instead of growing, they're shrinking. When a church is left with an older membership, the energy and enthusiasm can be low. There comes a resigned attitude of "we already tried that and it didn't work". In those situations we remember the promise that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). These are His churches, not mine, and He has plans for them.

Here are ten things I have learned in my first year of ministry:
  1. Keep my eyes on Jesus and lift Him up, and He will draw all to Himself (John 12:32).
  2. Have a date night with Katie once a week and do not let ministry get in the way.
  3. All churches have problems.
  4. I can't solve all their problems (I have enough of my own).
  5. I should not and cannot do everything--delegate and get others involved in ministry.
  6. Encourage a sense of ownership among the elders, membership, and youth--they are the church.
  7. Don't be controlled by the phone (let the answering machine get it).
  8. Think outside the box to reach people for Jesus.
  9. Continually educate myself.
  10. Ask Conference leaders and/or personal support group for help/advice when needed.
The list could go on; I have so much to learn. The first year of ministry has been a blessing, and I am excited about what God has in store for the future.

Write Jared at jaredandkatiem@hotmail.com.

Are you or a colleague doing something especially interesting and innovative in ministry? Tell us about it at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
Dave GemmellWhat is "Vervent"?
We ask Dave Gemmell
Dave and I went to AU seminary together; I always knew that Dave would be a successful leader--he's creative, with the ability to see his ideas through. So I wasn't surprised to hear he was a leader of Vervent--except I wasn't sure what Vervent was! LGS

Loren: Dave, we're noticing the word Vervent on some materials from the NAD--but we're not sure what it means.
Dave: We'd been struggling with the title of our organization for awhile. "The North American Division of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Church Resource Center" really doesn't roll off the tongue. It doesn't even fit on a business card very well!

You wanted something easier to remember.
Organizations now create a short, memorable, but unique names to brand themselves. After many months of brainstorming the word 'vervent' emerged.

So what does it mean?
Nothing yet. It is a new word. It sounds kind of like fervent, reverent, and verdant, and is related to the word "verve", which means lively. We hope that some meaning from all of these words will flow over to Vervent. But we expect that the word will gain meaning from our success in offering something useful to pastors and churches.

What do you want Vervent to mean?
We want people to think of Vervent when they need resources that can help enliven their congregation. Vervent tries to provide the very best tools that Adventist congregations can use to improve their vitality.

That's a tall order. How do you do that?
We consider the 5,000+ congregations in the NAD our research and development sites. Almost every solid resource that has been developed in the our denomination was first conceived of and tested in a local congregation--i.e. Pathfinders, prophecy seminars, ingathering. So we try to keep an eye out for congregations that have invented solutions to mission challenges. We adapt those ideas for other congregations around the NAD.

Part of our rich Adventist heritage is taking ideas from other denominations, too. Sabbath School, and vacation bible school for instance.

How about problems without a solution?
We do original research to develop resources for challenges that really haven't been addressed. Take KIDS in Discipleship, for instance.

In the end, we take direction from you. We want you to consider us as your associate pastor for resource development. So if you've got a problem that needs to be solved, talk to us about it.

Comments on Vervent? Write dave@vervent.org.

Bits and Pieces
for sermon or newsletter
I make no claims for the originality of this stuff. You may have already gotten this 75 times in an e-mail. But just in case... LGS
The Obituary of Someone Else.
 
Our church was saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our most valued members, Someone Else.
 
Someone's passing creates a vacancy that will be difficult to fill. Else has been with us for many years and for every one of those years, Someone did far more than a normal person's share of the work.
 
Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone's list, "Let Someone Else do it."
 
Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results; "Someone Else can work with that group."
 
It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the most liberal givers in our church. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed Someone Else would make up the difference.
 
Someone Else was a wonderful person; sometimes appearing superhuman. Were the truth known, everybody expected too much of Someone Else. Now Someone Else is gone! We wonder what we are going to do.
 
Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it? Who is going to do the things Someone Else did? When you are asked to help this year, remember: we can't depend on Someone Else anymore.
 
Cutting Edge Book

Point: There's a larger story being told and you have a crucial role to play in telling it.
Key word: Story; "I had always felt life first as a story--and if there is a story, there is a story teller."--G.K. Chesteron
Pros: Knowing the "rest of the story" changes one's response to it
Cons: In a few months, many of the illustrations except the ones from the classic films cited will be irrelevant
Why you should read it: This is the most riveting 104 page recap of the The Great Controversy in modern day language, using modern day movies as the illustrations of the Scriptures, that I've ever read.
--Review by Mike Fortune

Got a cutting edge book that informs your ministry? Write it up in this pattern, and send it to BestPractices@ameritech.net
Resources & Ideas
  • Here's something I'd like: Bible modules for my mobile phone. Download (by Web or by WAP) the version you'd like. http://www.biblephone.net/
  • Georgia Grown started out as an e-newsletter from Harold Cunningham in the Southern Regional Conference; it's recently graduated to blog format. There are some excellent resources here. http://georgiagrown.blogspot.com/.

Got a tool or resource that you like a lot? Share it with us at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
Events

Do you have an SDA-sponsored event that you'd like to invite NAD pastors to? Tell us about it at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
NAD Church RESOURCE Center

Best Practices is an e-publication of Vervent
NAD CHURCH RESOURCE CENTER
Editor: Loren Seibold