Monthly Archive for January, 2008
I was talking with a buddy today about what is at the core of Street to the Seat (STS). The best way I can describe it is a “tour guide”. Do you recall the discussion on clarity from the book Simple Church. Rainer and Geiger speak to “please, no more travel agents” on page 132-133 of the book. It is for that reason that Street to the Seat is a TOUR GUIDE.
A tour guide:
- has a love for the journey
- takes the journey with you
- takes you along the journey he has traveled
- does not instruct from a distance
- is with you
- in on the bus with you
- is in
- if things do not go as planned, he is in
- been where he is taking you
- able to instruct because he is familiar with the journey
- speaks from a place of personal authority
- is not perfect
- is credible
- guides through the process
Being a TOUR GUIDE is the heart of Street to the Seat. Come join the journey.
If you get in the boat, the ministry process will come alive. The ministry blueprint will make sense then. It will be clear.”
Rainer & Geiger
Saddleback Church endorses Pastor Kerry Mackey and the launch of his ministry, “Street to the Seat”.
As the Membership Pastor at Saddleback Church Kerry had a wide range of responsibilities: Overseeing and Teaching the Membership class, oversight of the totality of the C.L.A.S.S. system and the responsibility of getting people from the street to the seat, the look and feel of Saddleback Church.
Under his leadership the C.L.A.S.S. system was streamlined and the church became more efficient in the assimilation process of moving people into Membership, then to Maturity to Ministry, and finally to Mission.
First impressions are extremely important for a church trying to reach its community. As the Pastor responsible for street to the seat, Kerry had a keen eye for “first time impressions”. He worked with the leadership of the Operations team to continually define and refine the look and feel of the Saddleback Church campus to ensure a felling and appearance that would bring people back to Church.
On weekends Kerry’s pastoral presence was seen and felt in each or our 6 services. Through his leadership of the volunteer greeters, ushers, traffic, medical, baptism, communion people the flow of the weekend services was always great.
Kerry is regarded as a leader who also posses managerial skills. He is a mentoring person, detailed and very well organized. He is also know as a person who gets results. He is strategic in his thinking and has great ability to execute.
Kerry had responsibility for leading a team of 7 full time staff and 1,014 volunteers. Volunteerism is highly regarded at Saddleback as a mark of leadership. During Kerry’s tenure he increased volunteerism by over 30% in his area of ministry.
Kerry has a deep love for the local church; his heart and passion and his desire to serve Pastors is the reason Kerry decided to resign from Saddleback staff. His pastoral leadership and presence at Saddleback will be missed.
We would recommend him to any pastor who wants to hire a consultant to develop processes, training, and organizational structure for his church or as an Executive Pastor in a local church.
Saddleback Church
Lake Forest, California
How the Church can Respond…A Great Hope for the Future, Kimball’s final thoughts about the church in, “They Like Jesus But Not The Church”.
- The church is an organized community with a heart to serve others.
- The church is a positive agent of change loving others as Jesus would.
- The church holds women in the highest respect and includes them in the leadership of the church.
- The church is a loving and welcoming community.
- The church is respectful of other people’s beliefs and faiths.
- The church holds beliefs with humility and strives to be thoughtful theologians.
Just another thought!
Dan capstones his book with a quote from Nenri Houwen:
When we have been wounded by the Church, our temptation is to reject it. But when we reject the Church, it becomes very hard for us to keep in touch with the living Christ. When we say, ‘I love Jesus, but I hate the Church,’ we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church.
This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness, at least not officially. But the Church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness.
It is important to think about the Church not as ‘over there’ but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer.
Nenri Nowen
Bread For The Journey
Here is a good one…page 250 in Dan Kimball’s, “They Like Jesus But Not The Church”. I love this paragraph. Let me put it in bullet points for simplicities sake.
- We need to offer and apologetic to correct misperceptions.
- We also need to offer an apology when the church hurts people in the name of Jesus.
- We need to offer an apology for arrogant and shameful things we’ve said and for presenting as truth our fallible opinions.
- We need to offer an apology for straying from the mission of the church and becoming self-absorbed citizens of the bubble.
- We need to apologize whenever the beautiful bride of Christ is prostituted for a church leader’s or a politician’s agenda.
- We need to apologize when we aren’t honest with people and become so seeker-friendly that we don’t tell them the hard truth about sin and repentance.
- We need to apologize when we say that we are all sinners saved by grace but show contempt for those who are still in sin.
This really made me think.
When we say, ‘I love Jesus, but I hate the Church,’
we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness.Henri Nouwen
Bread For the Journey
Chapter 13 in “They Like Jesus But Not The Church” rings of being prepared to have some answers for the emerging generation. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “…always be prepared to give an answer to everyone…with gentleness and respect.” We sometimes forget the “gentleness and respect” piece of that scripture.
Dan Kimball proposed the following set of questions that are good for all of us to wrestle with as we think of the great hope for the future.
1. Who are you having ongoing relationships and conversations with?
2. Are you training the people in your church to have a missional heart?
3. Are you creating in your church a culture and encourages people to hang out and develop relationships with those who like Jesus but not the church?
4. When you answer questions, do you do so with “gentleness and respect”?
Something else for us to ponder. Dan Kimball addresses the unlikely people Jesus misses most on page 241 of his book, “They like Jesus but Not the Church.”
The highly unlikely whom all have access to the kingdom of God if they are washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of Jesus.
See if you see yourself in one of theses?
- murderers (Acts 8:1)
- Tax collectors (Matthew 10:3)
- sexually immoral
- idolaters
- adulterers
- male prostitutes
- practicing homosexuals
- thieves
- greedy
- drunkards
- slanderers
- swindlers (1 Cor. 6:9-11)
Just a thought!
Dan Kimball also proposing a few questions I believe we should start each day asking ourselves.
1. Am I numb or neutral to people outside the church?
2. Do I intercede daily for people outside the church?
3. Who am I praying for now who is not a Christian?
4. When’s the last time I had coffee or dinner or gone to a movie and just hung out with someone who is not a Christian?
Before reading chapter 11 in They Like Jesus but Not the Church, Dan Kimball states you should keep three things in mind.
1. We shouldn’t change to match what people wish church were like.
2. When asked what they wish church were like, they described the worship gathering.
3. God uses a wide variety of churches to reach and disciple emerging gernerations.
With that as a preface…
What They Wish Church Were Like - Dan Kimball
1. I wish church were not just a sermon or a lecture but a discussion.
2. I wish the church would respect my intelligence.
3. I wish the church weren’t about the church building.
4. I wish church were less programmed and allowed time to think and pray.
5. I wish the church were a loving place.
6. I wish the church cared for the poor and for the environment.
7. I wish the church taught more about Jesus.
Two additional observations Dan makes is that, “I’m hearing that they don’t want to be totally separated from their children all the time and would want to experience ‘church’ together as a family.” They value diversity, older people to mentor them, and the appreciation of art as an expression of worship.
These ring true for my wife and I as we lead a family small group, love having our children worship with us, enjoy diversity, mentoring relationships and the expression of the arts in worship.
One last thought, “They want someone to ask them to be part of a church.”
Once again this is a research weekend for me and I’ve been finishing up a book by Dan Kimball. I’ll share several learnings from my readings over the next several posts. Dan’s response to what emerging generations think about the church and the church is full of fundamentalist who take the whole bible literally.
Dan says on page 204-208, “What Can We Learn From This Misperception?”
1. We need to teach people in our churches basic Bible study skills.
2. We need to be careful not to teach our opinions as what the Bible says.
3. We need to teach how to have fundamental beliefs without being a fundamentalist.
4. We need to be prepared for a new wave of questions.
5. We need to use the Bible with love.
The church holds beliefs with humility and strives to be thoughtful theologians.
Dan Kimball