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 "There's a way to preach the Bible unbiblically...You can use the Bible as the springboard for all kinds of ideas, can't you? Look around in here and find something that fits your fancy and then launch a rocket off it. People say, 'That was amazing, wasn't it? Remarkable what he got out of that.' Well of course it is because he put it in before he got it out." ~ Alistair Begg  |
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GLENVILLE: A YOUNG-ADULT-CENTERED CHURCH
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 Roger Hernandez, Southwestern Union Ministerial DirectorIt is no secret that youth and young adults are missing from our churches - across the land, there are a thousand Adventist churches with none. Recently I visited the Glenville church in metro Cleveland, Ohio, a 95-year-old, inner city, mostly African-American church that is intentionally reaching out to young adults. This church doesn't claim to have all the answers. Yet when I see 80 teens at a Friday night program and several young adults in the leadership team, you know they are doing something right. It's important to understand that even though I'm sharing program ideas, Glenville's real secret is a passion to connect, involve and develop young adults in church. Connect: As I sat down for lunch, the pastor pointed out several young adults in attendance that used to be disconnected from church, but are now active participants. In You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church...and Rethinking Faith, author David Kinneman says that 47% of absent young adults never had a significant connection with an adult in their church. This church is intentionally connecting with young adults through visitation, participation and events geared for them. They connect personally and through active websites ( church, Praizevision) and Twitter ( church, Pastor Myron Edmunds). Involve: Glenville has young adults in the praise team, the media team, and the leadership team. If there was a team, there were young adults in it: - A young adult leads a Community Development Organization, and is using his gifts to increase community involvement in the church.
- A business manager is trying to leverage his associations with a real estate tycoon to further the church's mission in the community. (Kinneman says that young adults who left say they never learned how to connect what they did for a living with their Christianity.)
- A young adult spends the sermon hour tweeting the sermon's most important ideas.
- Young adults help run a block party for the community where over 1,000 book bags are distributed and several community members started to attend the church.
- Young Adult friendly evangelism is not just going after new people, but also reclaiming those that left.
Develop: Glenville has a Leadership Academy that young adults attend regularly. It's an opportunity for the pastor to identify and deploy leaders who have the tools to minister effectively in the 21st century. A program that caught my attention is called "Forty 4 Family" - a call to family worship and personal revival that starts in the home. This idea has developed into a resource ("40 Days 2 Life Changing Family Worship") that will be available soon. Guest speakers come for 40 days to present on various topics related to family, and the emphasis is returning the emphasis of true spirituality and spiritual development where it should be: the home. Please pray for this church and their ministry. Drop them a line of encouragement. Connect with their leadership team to interchange ideas. We can, with God's help, turn this around. Discuss this with Roger on our Best Practices Facebook page.
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LEADING WITH HEART
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 Dr. William Davis, Equip 2 Lead Leading with heart focuses on the followers as much as on the task or goal at hand. Where the treasure is there will the heart be also. If the heart is with the people then the leader will: Love the People as Christ Loved To lead with heart you must really care about the people you lead. Come close to them and seek their good. Pastoral visitation is key. As you get into the homes and lives of those you lead they become real people and not just names on a list. Show your care for them and they will most often return loyalty. As you know them they will know you and trust will be built over time. This is the self denial love seen in the Gospels, and especially at Calvary. Know and Recognize People's Giftedness.Whether it is through Spiritual Gifts Seminars or home visits and personal conversation, seek to know what gifts your people have. Recognize those gifts and empower them to use them. Too often we encourage people to discover their talents and then disallow them the free exercise of those gifts. Guidance and monitoring is needed but in an encouraging role, not as an inspector looking for faults. Share your HeartMost people come to church for basic needs, but as those are met they seek higher levels of satisfaction that only come from involvement. Cold hard facts never motivated anyone. It is when the people see passion for ministry in the leader that they become passionate themselves. We ministers became involved in ministry because of passion. Let that passion show and see if it is not contagious. People follow leaders with vision! Leading form the heart requires sacrifice. It takes time and energy. It requires mental and spiritual stamina. We can only develop these as we take time with God and the Word in personal times of worship and devotion. Empowered by this time go out and lead with heart so the church can be the people of God set on a hill that no one can ignore! Discuss this topic with Bill on our Best Practices Facebook page. |
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READING FOR PASTORS
| Could there be anything harder than firing your best friend? Quote: "Ultimately, the firing conversation should not be a surprise to the person being fired.... team members should know exactly where they stand with their boss. If not, check your practices as a leader and be sure you're equipping your team effectively."
Seth Yelorda asks, is getting up early the best way for a pastor to get things done?
Jesus burgers?
Infographic on pornography and addiction, from xxxchurch.com.
Nice piece from USA today on the growth of multi-cultural churches. Quote: ""When we get to heaven, the kingdom of God isn't going to be segregated. So why should the local church be segregated?"
Could crowdfunding work for churches? Impact Church in New Orleans wants to find out!
The rise of corporate chaplaincy. Quote: "Employees are 'dramatically' more likely to use workplace chaplains than standard mental-health benefits, according to preliminary results from an ongoing study by David Miller and Faith Ngunjiri of Princeton University's Faith & Work Initiative. At least half of 1,000 employees surveyed have used the services of a workplace chaplain-far more than those who use standard assistance programs."
This pastor preaches against outside-of-marriage sex, but hands out condoms, hoping to prevent disease. How do you react to this kind of mixed-message ministry?
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TO THE POINT: PREACHING
| "Preaching is to much avail, but practice is far more effective. A godly life is the strongest argument you can offer the skeptic."
~Hosea Ballou
"If you think practicing what you preach is rough, just try preaching what you practice."
~Bowen Baxter
"The world looks at preachers out of church to know what they mean in it."
~Richard Cecil
"Every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned and well placed, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music. This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter can not well improve their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals."
~Benjamin Franklin
"I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
I'd rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way:
The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing, but example's always clear."
~Edgar A. Guest
"Some plague the people with too long sermons; for the faculty of listening is a tender thing, and soon becomes weary and satiated."
~Martin Luther
"If the truth were known, many sermons are prepared and preached with more regard for the sermon than the souls of the hearers."
~George F. Pentecost
"When it's foggy in the pulpit it's cloudy in the pew."
~ Cavett Robert
"The object of preaching is to constantly remind mankind of what they keep forgetting; not to supply the intellect, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions."
~Sydney Smith |
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IDEAS, EVENTS, RESOURCES, ANNOUNCEMENTS
|  Andrews University Press Releases Homosexuality, Marriage, and the Church, Biblical, Counseling, and Religious Liberty Issues.
"Much as it might like to, the church can no longer evade questions about homosexuality and same-sex marriage, for society is, with increasing stridency, forcing Christians to confront them."
-From the Preface, by Nicholas Miller
Church Plant Coaching Certification 60-hour courses are being offered by the NAD Evangelism Institute, September 28-30 in Saskatoon, Sask., and November 9-10 in Berrien Springs, Mich. If you have church members or pastors interested in church planting, they should attend a certification course to become as effective as possible.
Humor? If you can't control your thoughts when you see someone attractive, perhaps you need modesty glasses!
General Conference International Field School of Evangelism- The full International Field School of Evangelism will be conducted from June 7-29, 2013, with visiting evangelists arriving on Wednesday, June 5 and an orientation meeting on Thursday, June 6. Visiting evangelists will begin their meetings on Friday evening June 7, or Saturday night June 8. International Field School classes will begin on Sunday, June 8 at 10:00am. They will be conducted three days a week, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, from 10:00am to 1:00pm. On Mondays and Wednesdays each visiting evangelist will be free to meet with the pastors they are working with in their evangelistic series. All afternoons will be left free for personal preparation for the evening evangelistic meeting or visitation of interests.
- The intensive International Field School of Evangelism will be conducted from June 23-29, 2013, for pastors, evangelists, and departmental directors who may not be able to spend the entire month in New York, but who desire to participate in an intensive evangelistic seminar. Classes will be conducted five hours a day for six days from Sunday to Friday for thirty hours of classes. Attendees should plan to arrive on Thursday, June 20, for an orientation on Friday 21 at 10:00am, and leave on Sunday, June 30. On Sabbaths and evenings during the week, attendees will be attending evangelistic meetings throughout the city.
- There is NO FEE to register or to participate in the School of Evangelism.
All Field School Classes will be conducted at the Greater New York Conference Adventist Community Center complex, located at 41-26 58th Street, Woodside, NY 11377. 4.3 miles from LaGuardia International Airport (LGA); 11.5 miles from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK); and 18.8 miles from Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). For more information, contact Robert Costa. Previous resource links: |
Best Practices for Adventist Ministry is published by NAD Ministerial. Editor:Loren Seibold . Managing Editor: Dave Gemmell. Copyright 2012 North American Division Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists. v(301) 680-6418
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