Church Planting publication

Posted on March 31, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

If you’re a church planter – or a leader of a church that is engaging culture and trying to reach people for Jesus – you need to check out Cutting Edge put out by the Association of Vineyard Churches USA. You can find pdfs of the past issues at their website. You can also find information about how to get yourself a free subscription.

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On Not Knowing What We’re Doing…

Posted on March 31, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

If you’ve been following my posts over the past year, you’ll know that the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church is undergoing a major change initiative. The major impetus for this change – in personal terms – is our bishop, Janice Riggle Huie. In impersonal terms, the impetus is the reality that our churches haven’t been reaching people for Christ. In plain english, we’re doing a lousy job at reproducing – at making new Christians.

If we only look at ourselves, we’re not doing as bad as most annual conferences. We actually grow in membership some years. But when you compare the rate of change of our membership (or our attendance) with the population of our region, you see pretty quick that we’re not even close to keeping up. Instead, we fall farther and farther behind.

So what are we doing about it? After last years district realignment, 2 big things come remain. First, the conference is instituting more minute accountability for pastors and churches. Second, conference finances are being realigned so we can move toward planting 10 new churches a year.

I don’t think the average church member grasps the increased accountability yet. So many other local issues are closer on their radar. We pastors, however, are quite aware. We report our statistics regularly (attendance and professions of faith weekly, people in “hands on mission” and apportionment payment monthly). We’re now all supposed to be in accountability groups. We have more “trainings” and meetings to go to than ever. Some of us are finding it a challenge to find the hours in our schedules to do more things beyond the local church – while being expected to grow the local church.

The local church may notice the financial realignment a bit more. Church camp went from $160 per kid last year to $200 per kid this year since funds have been moved away from our camp. Campus ministries are also feeling the pinch – we hear that some may even be closed. Note: I’m a strong believer in campus ministry. I know we have at least a few in the conference that have been very effective, not only in making disciples, but as places of call for many pastors now in the conference. But I’ve also heard of several where only a few students attend, while requiring all the expenses associated with employing an ordained Elder (we’re much more expensive than our take home pay alone indicates).

Will all these changes work? Will they reverse our decline? Those of us on the bottom of the line – local church pastors and leaders – can get the impression that the folks at the top of the heap know exactly what they’re doing. After all, we’re paying thousands for consultants and new programs. Surely they know what they’re doing.

Personally, I have my doubts. But that’s ok.

Why do I think it’s ok for our leaders not to know what they’re doing? First, because I’m doubtful whether this is an area where one is likely to find certainty. If they went around claiming to know that what we’re doing will bring progress (they’re not), then I’d surely doubt them. Second, while change for the sake of change is frequently not a good thing (though it does seem to be something we Americans enjoy), in this case I think it can serve the important task of breaking us out of the inertia of doing what we’ve always done. We desperately need to break that inertia.

So – do we know what we’re doing? On one level, probably not. On another level, sure we know. We’re trying to follow Jesus – we’re trying to figure out how to lead our people to obey the Great Commission in early 21st century East Texas. And that’s a good thing.

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Why Kidnap British Sailors?

Posted on March 27, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

You’ve probably all heard about the Iranian kidnapping/capture of 15 British sailors. Why would they do that? Assuming that they’re not just (a) exercising a bad habit of holding hostages as a foreign policy tool, or (B) trying to take the heat off their nuclear proliferation, or (C) trying to staunch the flow of defectors, what might they be up to?

If you follow the oil markets, you’ll note that this event has brought oil prices back up. After falling for several months, they are back up over $60 a barrel. When oil was getting cheaper Iran (and some other OPEC types) wanted to institute production cuts so the price would go back up. Saudi Arabia and others who were njto friendly to Iran decided otherwise. So what do you do if you need high oil prices to fund your nuclear aspirations and prop up your ramshackle economy? Why, the answer is obvious: create a crisis that strike fear into the hearts of the oil traders. They’ll take the prices back up for you and you won’t even have to cut production. Ka-ching.

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Free Creativity

Posted on March 20, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

At the end of the second service Sunday, while we were singing the last hymn, my wife and Rhett M came up to join me. This is typically the time people come to join the church. Both are already church members, so I knew that wasn’t what was going on. Christi had been off doing children’s church, so for all I know something bad had happened over there. Rhett told me he had something to tell the congregation – that’s all I had to go on.

So, after the hymn, I give Rhett the floor. He announced that it was “Pastor Appreciation Day,” and they’d prepared a big lunch for our family as a way of saying thank you for our ministry. The next hour or so was filled not only with food, but with most everyone coming by and thanking us for our ministry. It was a great event.

It was also a total surprise.

I’d heard of groups like Focus on the Family sponsoring “Clergy Appreciation Month,” but that was in October. So it came from clear out of the blue. It’s nice when the things that come out of the blue are good things.

I was impressed by the creativity and coordination of so many people to pull off the event. Though it’s great to be appreciated, it’s even greater to know I’m part of such a creative group of people. Our church has an awesomely huge mission. Reaching the people of Pittsburg, Camp County, and beyond is clearly beyond our (current) ability. If we’re going to accomplish this mission, it’ll take lots of our people stepping up with creative ministry ideas and “just doing it.” It’ll take people with the courage to step up and do things, even (and especially!) things we’ve never done before.

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Assessing Changes in the Texas Annual Conference

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

Bishop Huie, Rick Goodrich, and District Superintendent Jerry Neff led the 2 hour meeting in Longview yesterday. This meeting was mandated last year as a way of assessing the changed in the Conference. You can find a power point version of what they shared at the Conference website (http://www.txcumc.org) or you can get a pdf version (much smaller file) here. I turned in my sheet (which was much too small) with some of my questions and comments. Here are a few of the things I wonder about.

First, a number of pastors are still skeptical. They’ve been in the System long enough that they’ve seen big plans for change come and go. The latest was Vision 2000 which was supposed to turn us away from decline, but for most churches did nothing lasting. They figure this is just another occasion of people at the top telling the lowly peons in the churches to be quiet and do what they’re told.

While some of the leadership seems to frame it this way – last week at Elder’s retreat a response to some questions was put in those terms – I very much doubt that is what Bishop Huie intends. Unfortunately the trust level is so low in some parts of the connection that she has to work overtime to get the pastors to believe her. As for the laity, my perception is that the vast majority don’t have a clue what’s happening yet.

Following closely on the first point is the issue of discontent. In his work on leading change, John Kotter says one of the most important things leaders need to do is create discontent with the status quo. My reading of the church on the conference and the local levels is that we have plenty of discontent, but that discontent is not aligned, it’s not about the same things. Bishop Huie (and at least some clergy and lay leaders) have a primary discontent with the lack of success in winning people to Christ. The bishop’s articulation of that discontent is what makes the project so important to me. But in our churches we have many other discontents: our buildings, our programs, our staffs, our ever-rising apportionments. Here in Pittsburg we’ve done pretty well over the past few years. Attendance and giving is up. People are feeling good about what’s happening. When people are feeling good it’s harder to create discontent. “Didn’t 6 people join last Sunday? Isn’t that god enough?” Well, if we’re trying to help people come to know Jesus, it’s not enough that some saints have moved to town and joined us. That’s a good thing, but not enough.

I’ve served on a few committees in the local school district, so I’ve had many occasions to interact with teachers. Their field is also dealing with calls for increased accountability. In Texas education accountability means doing well on the TAKS. Because the TAKS is the Measure of accountability, they are finding they much teach to it. This “teaching to the test” goes as far as scripting the whole teaching process on some grade levels. And this at the same time more demands are put on teachers to be “highly qualified.” A third thought is that this looks an awful lot like what we’re seeing in the TAC. We need increased accountability. We make that happen by offering more programs and “trainings” to go to. So pastors, who are required to invest years of their lives and tens of thousands of dollars getting their education to be pastors, are now treated as program-using-automata. From what I hear, this is especially true with regard to summer camp. Without including local camp coordinators in the evaluation process, the powers that be have decided that all camps will use a uniform curriculum. If we’re going to get buy in from these leaders (and we say we want more clergy leaders involved in camp) we need to find better ways to draw on their creativity, education, and experience.

At the same time, and I will stop here for now, we need to find ways to multiply the options. If the vision is, “Vibrant growing congregations changing lives and reshaping futures for Jesus Christ,” and the mission if to “make disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world and to the glory of God,” then surely there are multiple ways to do that. Granted we have discovered many ways of NOT doing that over the past generation. I suspect there are more theological reasons we’ve failed in our mission than our talk admits to, but our practices (and lack thereof) have also contributed to our decline. We have a wide diversity of churches in a wide diversity of settings across the conference. Surely we can develop multiple models for achieving our goals. Perhaps we can rely on something like the Open Source model used now in much software development (you can find some discussion of that phenomenon here). We shall see.

Posted in church growth, Evangelism, Leadership, Local church, United Methodism | 1 Comment

Kids & Families

Posted on March 4, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

The Wall Street Journal tells us it costs from $279,000 to a million dollars to raise a kid nowadays. Reading their article one sees pretty quickly that they’re talking about the rich folks of America. These are the families that think their little kids need $1000 birthday parties, $800 strollers, private schools, and daily music downloads. I know kids are expensive. I don’t think the government does, though. Or they think that kids get less expensive as they get older. While I have been led to believe finding transportation (and insurance) would raise our expenses, now that our son will be turning 17 this year, this is also the age at which the tax code eliminated child tax credits. Hmmm.

I also read today that the insitution of marriage, while seriously in decline, is claimed most often by the educated and affluent. Here’s the report from the Washington Post:

As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock.
“The culture is shifting, and marriage has almost become a luxury item, one that only the well educated and well paid are interested in,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, an expert on marriage and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Anecdotal evidence shows that despair over the possibility of a good marriage is a major cause:

Arguments that marriage can mean stability do not seem to change their attitudes, Smock said, noting that many of them have parents with troubled marriages.
Victoria Miller and Cameron Roach, who have been living together for 18 months, are two such people, and they say they cannot imagine getting married.

She is 22 and manages a Burger King in Seattle. He is 24 and works part time testing software in the Seattle suburb of Redmond. Together, they earn less than $20,000 a year and are living with Roach’s father. They cannot afford to live anywhere else.

“Marriage ruins life,” Roach said. “I saw how much my parents fought. I saw how miserable they made each other.”

Miller, who was pressured by her Mormon parents to marry when she was 17 and pregnant, said her short, failed marriage and her parents’ long, failed marriage have convinced her that the institution is often bad for children.

Is marriage worth doing something about? Though I’m not as convinced as some that supporting the institution of marriage is a direct imperative of Christian faith, I think it can be seen as an indirect imperative. Here are a few reason, in no particular order:

  • The institution of marriage is a gift from God. Obviously we haven’t all done a good job living within that institution. But it’s still a possible blessing from God – if we’ll take it up.
  • Marriage seems to be a strong indicator for financial stability. Many things in life are easier to afford when a husband and wife work together – even in cases when both are not employed.
  • A two parent household is, in general, better for kids. Obviously it’s not always better, but on the average (from studies I’ve seen) it is very much better. I know I’d be hard pressed to raise my kids alone. My wife says the same thing about her own ability.

    • My hope is that we Christians can demonstrate to people that marriage is the best way to do family. Clearly we have our work cut out for us.

    Posted in Current events, Economics | 3 Comments

    Good Americans?

    Posted on February 16, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

    I received this piece in the mail recently:

    CAN A MUSLIM BE A GOOD AMERICAN ?
    Theologically – no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.
    Religiously – no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)
    Scripturally – no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).
    Geographically – no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.
    Socially – no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.
    Politically – no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and Destruction of America, the great Satan.
    Domestically – no. Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).
    Intellectually – no. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.
    Philosophically – no. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.
    Spiritually – no. Because when we declare “one nation under God,” the Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Quran’s 99 excellent names.
    Sharia (Islamic Law) – no. The Sharia should be opposed for its imposition of theocracy over democracy, its abuse of human rights, its institutionalized discrimination, its denial of human dignity and individual autonomy, its punishment of alternative lifestyle choices, and for the severity of its punishments.
    Therefore after much study and deliberation….perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both”good” Muslims and good Americans.
    Call it what you wish….it’s still the truth.

    Since I’m not a Muslim, I don’t know how to handle all these charges. As a Christian, however, I’ve often wondered if I can be a good American. If the standards asked of Muslims in this piece are asked of me, I think I’d fail for sure.

    Theologically? My primary allegiance is to Jesus and his kingdom. I’d like to see America and its people (us) do well, but my standards for what I count as “doing well” are based on the values of the Kingdom of God.

    Religiously? Well, I know that in most Muslim countries non-Muslims are at best second class citizens. But just as many Muslims believe Islam is true (and other religions are not), I think Christianity best expresses the truth about God. I guess I’m a bad American too.

    Scripturally? While in some ways the Quran functions in Muslim theology in a way analogous to the way Jesus functions in Christian theology, I understand what it is to have allegiance to the word of God.

    Geographically? Well, Islam seems to have a geographic basis that is unlike what I find in Christian theology. I do see many American Christians that seem to have a similar attachment to Israel – or perhaps practice a version of British Israelism and treat America as the center of God’s world. As I read the New Testament, I find it all hogwash.

    Socially? I’ve seen some passages in the bible that seem to indicate that we should have nothing to do with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6) – I’ve even known a few separatists over the years. Are these Christians bad Americans too? On the other side, I have made friends with Muslims before. I had no indication they were faking it or would take themselves to be unfaithful to their religion.

    Politically? It’s hard to find any politicians to be excited about. As for what the Mullahs say, whoever wrote this piece is very deluded about the unity of their message. Sure, some Mullahs say evil things. Many others don’t.

    Domestically? I don’t care for much of what I’ve heard of the Muslim teaching and practice regarding marriage & family. But of the Muslims I’ve met in America, I don’t know any that act like they need 4 wives. All the ones I’ve known are monogamous. And what’s the American way? Serial polygamy? Promiscuity? I don’t find either option particularly Christian.

    Intellectually? Hmmm. Why the original author links this to the constitution, I’m not sure. I wonder which biblical principles in the constitutions he’s thinking of. I know many (most?) Muslims would not reject all biblical principles, since parallels can be found in thr Quran. While the believe the bible is corrupted, they don’t believe everything in it is wrong. Also, as a Christian, my allegiance is to the Kingdom of God before it is to the US Constitution. Can I fault a Muslim for have another allegiance?

    Philosophically? Hmmm again. Is democracy compatible with Islam? We don’t know yet. There are folks who say it can’t happen. In the past there were folks who thought Christianity was incompatible with democracy. After a few centuries maybe we’ll know. Even so, however much I like democracy – and I (usually) do – it does not garner my highest allegiance.

    Spiritually? So Americans have to think God is loving? I don’t remember reading that in the Constitution. Sure, it might be hidden somewhere in the volumes and volumes of laws that have come out since. But I have my doubts. I also doubt that all Muslims are convinced that God is not loving.

    Sharia? I’m not a fan of what I’ve heard of Sharia law. I’ve heard too many stories of Christians suffering because of it. I don’t want to live under it. But I’m afraid I think it would be a good thing if Americans lived under more Christian morality. So if I judge the Muslims to be bad Americans, I guess I’d have to put myself in the same place.

    So where do we end up? Can only nation worshipping bible thumpers be good Americans? Not by my standards. Can a Muslim – a Christian – a Jew – an atheist – be a good American? As far as I can tell. But by my standards being a good American isn’t the most important thing in the light of eternity. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s certainly not the best.

    Posted in Current events, Islam, Politics, Theology | 5 Comments

    Church Transformation

    Posted on February 7, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

    Dave HermanWe’ve spent the last three days listening to Dave Herman, a pastor from Florida and a representative of DNA Coaching, as he taught on church transformation. The Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church is in the beginning stages of a process that will take at least three years.
    Why the transformation work? The simplest way to put it is that our churches have not been fulfilling the Great Commission. While the population of the region has been growing over the past several decades, church membership has, at best, been flat. Even in areas where the church is growing, it is being outpaced by population growth. More ominously, 46% of Texas Conference churches do not win a single person to Christ in a year. Bishop Huie recognized this trend and decided to do something about it. 25 churches in each district are beginning the process now, with the goal of eventually having all churches go through it.
    Monday we began with Dave Herman speaking to the pastors and lay leaders of the 25 North District churches. He spoke of what results we’re aiming for in transformation:

  • Increase in professions of faith (that’s UM talk for people becoming followers of Jesus)
  • Increase in worship attendance
  • A shift from declining church systems to health systems
  • Becoming the church God has called us to be

    • All these are good, but I especially like the last point. Our Texas Conference churches are in a wide variety of communities. Some places growth comes easy – put up a building, have a half-way decent program, and people flock in. Other places the community is in decline. Regardless of our demographics, God has a calling for each church. That this new movement is not trying to shove churches into a box or use a cookie cutter approach is a real plus.
    Yesterday Dave met with the pastors of the 25 churches. Our leadership is essential to healthy transformation. For the best part of what he said (over and over again) was that real transformation is rooted in prayer. We need more than programs, more than structure, we need God.
    Finally, today, Dave came by our church to observe our setting and give some comments on what he saw. Not surprisingly, he said we need more signs so visitors can find their way around. We also need more greeters. Instead of just 2 or 3 greeters stationed in the sanctuary each morning, we need teams of at least 2 outside every entrance, to help people find their way in.
    We clearly have a long way to go, but I think we’re off to a good start.

    Posted in church growth, United Methodism | 3 Comments

    Ethical Student Leadership at Wiley College

    Posted on January 29, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

    Wiley College, a United Methodist school in Marshall, Texas, hosted its first annual Ethical Student Leadership Conference this past Thursday through Saturday. While the speakers were good (I was a speaker), the high point for me was getting to know the student participants and hearing what they had to say.

    The students were not only from Wiley College, but also from Huston Tillotson, Jarvis Christian, Paul Quinn, Texas College, and Birmingham Southern. If you didn’t know, all of these but Birmingham Southern are historically black colleges. I’ve sometimes heard white folks in my congregations gripe about having to pay an apportionment for black colleges. What I think they miss is that these are Christian schools. While most – not all – of the students may be black, the ethos of these schools, from what I’ve seen, is more distinctly Christian than most of the other United Methodist colleges out there. What I saw in the lives of these students gave me solid evidence that when we give to these schools we are making a sound investment.

    Posted in Current events, Higher Education, United Methodism | Leave a comment

    34 People

    Posted on January 24, 2007 by Richard Heyduck

    Last night at our Administrative Council meeting I presented the challenge to win 34 people to Christ this year. They unanimously approved the goal. But I’m not sure what I ought to think.

    If they had said, “You are utterly insane to think we can increase the number of professions of faith by over 1000% this year,” I would have known they understood what I was talking about. But they just quietly said it was a good idea so let’s do it.

    We pastors are held accountable for what happens in our congregations. While the main thing we used to be held accountable for was paying apportionments, we’re now (finally!) being held accountable for leading people to Christ. The commonality between these two is that neither is something we can do on our own. Oh, I can tithe and contribute to paying apportionments. I can lead people to Christ on my own. But the challenge is for us to do it as a church. It’s something we do together.

    We need a move of God. That’s the only way I see it happening.

    Posted in church growth, Leadership, Local church, Prayer | 7 Comments