The Multi-church Dilemma 

by Loren Seibold, Editor, Best Practices for Adventist Ministry

According to the FACT 2000 survey, 58% of our NAD churches are in multi-church districts served by one pastor. It's my opinion that these are generally manageable in terms of basic pastoral care: a district of 2 to 4 small congregations may only have a fraction of the number who need visiting, counseling, baptismal studies, funerals and weddings that you'd have in a single larger congregation. Sure, it takes a lot of driving, but it is quite possible to do the work.

The dilemma is that the one task that most signifies "pastoring" to the average congregant is preaching at a worship service. Every congregation wants to have worship at 11 AM on Sabbath morning - and each wants you there.  

• Some pastors have solved this by time-shifting worship. You preach at 9, drive to the next location, preach at 11, drive, and preach at 3. It makes a full day for you, but it works. That is, if you can get them to change worship times! Expect heavy resistance. (I've known districts with rolling worship times, so no one congregation has to have afternoon worship every week. How would a visitor know when to come?) And what if your churches are simply too spread out - not uncommon in the sprawling western states and provinces - to get to every location in a day?

• On the other hand, sometimes small churches are geographically so near one another that it would make perfect sense to combine them so you could worship with what you'd hope would be a larger group in a single location. Good luck with that. Most will cling tenaciously to building and identity even if they're breathing their last gasp. And 2 + 2 rarely equals 4 in these mergers.

• There's a good argument to be made - and it has been made most persuasively by Hispanic pastors who come from fields where a pastor may have to circuit-ride 20 congregations - that not being there every Sabbath makes the church more self-sufficient, and actually leads to more overall lay involvement. Haven't we been talking for years about equipping lay leaders to do ministry (a la Ephesians 4:12) instead of letting them assume the pastor will do it? To the point of worship, perhaps we could improve lay preaching by teaching preaching classes. Still, it's hard to build a consistent message in any church if your speakers are all over the map theologically. I have occasionally winced when church members recounted another preacher's sermon when I wasn't there - heartfelt, perhaps, but not necessarily constructive. You can teach someone to preach, but it's harder to teach good judgment.

• Some are experimenting with streaming AV technologies to preach to all one's churches at once. It needs to be tried, but the obstacles here are significant, too. Beyond equipment and set-up, add inevitable technical glitches. And getting several worship services to time themselves so that they're ready to listen and watch when you're ready to speak sounds risky. 

So what do we do to solve the multi-church worship dilemma?

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Media

Jesuit to become new chaplain of the House of Representatives. Quote: The Rev. Patrick Conroy "will be sworn in as the 60th chaplain of the House of Representatives on May 25, when he will become the first member of his order and second consecutive Catholic priest to serve the House."

Ever heard someone try to sound scholarly by speaking of the "literal" meaning of the word in Greek? According to S.M. Baugh, the literal word isn't necessarily the most accurate.  

WSJ: In honor of Harold Camping's predicted rapture on May 21, a skeptic explores "The Enduring Appeal of the Apocalypse." 

"All the misery makes me think of a great French general, Ferdinand Foch. He's the one who defended Paris at the Battle of the Marne in World War I. During the darkest hour of the fighting, he is supposed to have looked around him and said:

'Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent - I attack!'"

 - Brett Arends

"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

 - A. A. Milne (Christopher Robin to Pooh)

"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage."

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson  

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

 - Albert Einstein

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

 - Winston Churchill

One man with courage is a majority.

 - Thomas Jefferson

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

 - John F. Kennedy

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

 - Benjamin Franklin

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

 - Theodore Roosevelt

"What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us."

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Important, from Adventist Risk Management: Federal Regulation Forces Crib Replacements in Church Nurseries! The U.S. federal commission responsible for setting safety standards of consumer products has tightened manufacturing and use regulations for cribs, forcing retailers and child care facilities to replace cribs that do not comply with new federal standards.   

• From Bernadine Delafield: On the heels of In the Beginning: Making Sense of the Creation-Evolution Debate, we publish this special edition of REACH North America News to share the feedback received from host sites and Ron Clouzet's evaluation of the event. How can we grow professionally and in our outreach attempts if we don't listen to the experience of others and learn from it? 

• Aileen Sox recommends this newsletter by Lee Strobel called Investivating Faith. Strobel works in connection with BibleGateway.com. 

• Future: This is almost bizarre: a paper smartphone? (To think some of us started life when mimeograph machines were cutting-edge!) 

• Michelle Stotz lets us know about a new series and event, May 25-28, from It Is Written called Babylon Rising. This is designed to be a friendship evangelism event, viewed at host locations.     

• Vibrant Life magazine has introduced a special sharing issue that ties in with a theatrical documentary film entering nationwide release at the beginning of May. The documentary, titled Forks Over Knives, is about how choosing healthy foods with your fork can actually prevent disease and decrease your chances of having to go under the knife for surgery. Even though the principles outlined in the film are old news to Adventists, the buzz around Forks Over Knives creates a springboard for sharing with friends and neighbors. The expanded special issue of the magazine includes an interview with the "stars" of Forks Over Knives, and compiles some of the plant-based recipes recommended in the film. For information, go to the Adventist Book Center site, or call 1-800-765-6955. 

• The Hope of Survivors has designated August 1 as Clergy Sexual Abuse Awareness & Prevention Day.
  

  Will you join us in this endeavor? If so, please send a short paragraph or two as an endorsement that can be used on the website or in press releases, showing your support and recognizing the necessity to take action against this devastating pandemic. We will include your name and organization on the website to show the world that you are taking a stand to help end clergy sexual abuse. If you're willing to conduct an event of some type

  on August 1 or during the month of August, please let us know so we can add that to the calendar.

  For more information, please visit www.clergysexualabuseawarenessday.com.

• Previous resource links:  
• Andrews Study Bible 
• The Hope of Survivors, ministry to victims of pastoral sexual abuse 
• iFollow website 
• Dissertation on house churches from Milton Adams 
• NAD NewsPoints (formerly Friday Fax): by email, or on a web page.    
• Cluzet - Standish presentation on creation and evolution  
• Back issues of REACH North America News