BestPractices
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August 26, 2009
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 I'm delighted to invite you to our very first Best Practices webinar: "How to Do Strategic Planning With Your Congregation." It's scheduled for Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM EDT. (For those of you who are new to this, a webinar is an online class, that you can participate in via your computer. You don't need to be a computer expert to link up.)
We've got our denomination's best consultant on this topic, Dr. Monte Sahlin, to teach the class. Monte can only take a limited number of people, so I'd encourage you to sign up right away. You can go here to register and reserve your place. You also need this document on strategic planning as reference.
IC5, the National Conference on Innovation, is coming up next week in Columbus. I do hope I'll see some of you there. I'll also be at Innovative Impact in Nashville, October 11-13.
Blessings
Loren Seibold
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Practicing Pastor
|  Making Friends with Newly Baptized Members
by Orlando Moncrieffe, Allegheny East Conference
The need to integrate new members into the full fellowship of the church family as quickly as possible is well established. Various methods have been employed to initiate, accelerate, support, and sustain the process. I have developed for my church a baptismal candidate profile form - one for adults and one for youth - to be filled out by the candidates prior to their baptism, to help church members become acquainted with new members.
As the candidates are presented to the church on the day of baptism, I introduce each one to the congregation. I focus on one individual at a time: just prior to the public examination, I ask each candidate to stand facing
the congregation as I make a narrative presentation (see below) about
him or her using information drawn from the profile form. I want it to be a warm and personal introduction, and not just some
data about the candidate. When I am through, the candidate is seated and I
invite
another to stand.
My intention is to encourage congregants to initiate contacts and establish personal relationships with the new members based on shared interests such as word games, fishing, cooking, gardening, or whatever hobbies or interests they may find in common. This supplements the more formally structured programs that are in place to assist the new members in becoming acquainted with the church family, integrated into its fellowship, and engaged in its nurturing and outreach activities.
Here's an example of a new member profile:
 Michael Henry was born in Antigua. He is married and has three adult daughters, two of whom are in college. He worked for many years as a truck and bus driver. He has also been a waiter on an ocean liner, and a store detective at a supermarket. His hobbies include cricket, cooking, and gardening. As a teenager Michael attended Sunday night evangelistic meetings in his home country, at the invitation of some Adventist friends. More than four decades later, the seed planted in his youth prompted him to search for an Adventist church in Teaneck, where he has resided since 1984. His quest led him to the First Seventh-day Adventist Church of Teaneck. After months of regular attendance and Bible studies, he was baptized. His favorite Bible passage is the Genesis Creation story, and his favorite Bible character is Job. He is now actively involved in Men's Ministries, and is a member of the Sanctuary Choir and the Men's Chorus.
Orlando is senior pastor of the First Seventh-day Adventist Church of Teaneck, New Jersey.
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Reading For Pastors
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Christians and the language we use:
From Monte Sahlin: Study shows American congregations are in decline. Quote: "Most congregations report that attendance is declining, not increasing.
Most congregations report that their finances are in worse shape. Most
congregations report that spiritual vitality is down. More
congregations say that most of their members are uncertain about the
mission of their church. Many congregations have an aging membership,
with fewer young adults."
How often are pastors sexual predators? According to this Washington Post piece,
"One in every 33 women who attend worship services regularly has been
the target of sexual advances by a religious leader." (Some Baptists
have taken this problem to the webwaves, in a most blunt way.)
Uh... seriously? The founder of Jediism, a religion based on Star Wars, is suing a supermarket chain because they asked him to remove his hood while shopping! Quote: "Jedis are very welcome to shop in our stores although we would ask them to remove their hoods. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all appeared hoodless without
ever going over to the Dark Side and we are only aware of the Emperor
as one who never removed his hood. If Jedi walk around our stores with their hoods on, they'll miss lots of special offers."
Denomination vs. congregation: The First District Court
of Appeal rejected a San Francisco congregation's attempt to leave the Reformed Church of America rather than submit to closure over dwindling attendance. |
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Reading For Pastors
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The Path of Meaning
By Marcel Schwantes
Think of a recent situation at the office or in your congregation that triggered your emotions - your amygdala sent an emergency signal. We've all been there, right? Now step through this little process I call "the path of meaning."
- Event - what caused it? (For example, a belligerent member confronted you about the theology of a sermon)
- What conclusion did I come to? (The story you're telling yourself in your head includes some very unflattering things about this saint.)
- What emotions did it drive? (Anger, frustration and rage may have now controlled you)
- How did I act or behave? (Did you react by saying something back you shouldn't have, and it escalated?)
Why
would you want to consider a different outcome? Because our emotions
often get in the way of our ability to think. IQ is not enough. Even
the smartest of people (including pastors!) can do very dumb things.
Marcel
Schwantes is a certified life/leadership coach with a virtual office
open to clients across the country. Visit his website at www.marcelcoaching.com. |
| To the Point
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I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.
- Martin Luther
Be thou comforted, little dog, Thou too in Resurrection shall have a little golden tail.
- Martin Luther
Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.
- Martin Luther
The victory lies not with us, but with Christ, who has taken on him
both to conquer for us and to conquer in us. The victory lies neither
in our own strength to get it, nor in our enemies' strength to defeat
it. If it lay with us, we might justly fear. But Christ will maintain
his own government in us and take our part against our corruptions.
They are his enemies as well as ours. Let us therefore be "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his
might" (Ephesians 6:10). Let us not look so much at who our enemies are as
at who our judge and captain is, nor at what they threaten, but at what
he promises. We have more for us than against us. What coward would not
fight when he is sure of victory?
- Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
Anyone who is to find Christ must first find the
church. How could anyone know where Christ is and what faith is in him
unless he knew where his believers are?
- Martin Luther
By becoming a Christian, I belong to God and I belong to my
brothers and sisters. It is not that I belong to God and then make a
decision to join a local church. My being in Christ means being in
Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This
is our identity. . . . If the church is the body of Christ, then we
should not live as disembodied Christians.
- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church
Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.
- Martin Luther
For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel.
- Martin Luther
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News, Ideas & Reminders
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- From Tim Mitchell: "You may be way ahead of me on this, but I am finding Google Scholar
to be a helpful tool for sermon prep. By using Google Scholar to look
for legitimate articles you can omit a lot of the crazy stuff on the
web. You can also consult a single, specific chapter of a book that
would cost you $30 to buy for one sermon. Recently I preached on the Lord's Supper from 1 Corinthians 11. Here's an example of a helpful and practical resource I found online in about two minutes: Google Scholar --> G. Theissen, 1 Corinthians 11. --> Social Integration and Sacramental Activity: An Analysis of 1 Cor 11: 17-34. Send me resources you find too, ok?"
- The Center for
Youth Evangelism and Pastor Ron Whitehead invite you to receive our free 411 Newsletter monthly e-newsletter, designed for Adventist Youth
and Youth Leaders. It will keep you up to date on Adventist events, news,
and resources from around the world! To sign up, please visit our website, www.adventistyouth.org.
Got a tool, resource, site, article, idea or seminar that you like a lot? Share it with us at BestPractices@ameritech.net. |
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Upcoming NAD Events
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- IC5: The Fifth Annual Conference on Innovation, October 4-6, Columbus
- K.I.D. University (Discipleship training for churches)
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November 8-11, Collegedale, TN
- InMinistry classes from the Seminary available
in each union, Nov 1-12, 2009
- Innovative Impact, October 11-13, Nashville
- Conference on Marriage, Homosexuality and the Church,October 15-17, Andrews University.
- NAD-IAD Health Summit Orlando 2010 -January 24 - February 7
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Best Practices is a Vervent publication of NAD CHURCH RESOURCE CENTER. Editor: Loren Seibold, Senior Pastor, Worthington Ohio Seventh-day Adventist Church. E-mail:
Best Practices. You are free to republish pieces from Best Practices in your own
newsletter or blog, with attribution to the Best Practices newsletter and the
author of the piece. |
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