SHIFT, STEP, STEP
November 19, 2010
Okay, pastor, so you’ve got a vision for the powerful, life changing ministry to which the Holy Spirit is calling your congregation...
Shift, Step, Step
by Kathi Busch, Pastor, Church of the Covenant, Wilmington, DE
Okay, pastor, so you’ve got a vision for the powerful, life-changing ministry to which the Holy Spirit is calling your congregation. You’ve even got great “buy-in” from your session and other key leaders. You’ve begun to make those first three “vision shifts” that the Acts 16:5 Initiative describes and encourages churches to embrace:
1) Shift from your present hopes for your congregation’s future to the high expectation that God has a vital future for your church;
2) Shift from merely running programs to implementing a vision for ministry; and
3) Shift from a maintenance mentality to a sustaining and advancing vision.
Great! But have you noticed how hard it is to keep everybody on the same page, moving in the same direction, constantly focused on the vision and keeping the vision in focus? We think about this stuff all the time, but our leaders have real jobs and families and other commitments that demand their energy and attention. It’s easy for the vision to fade somewhat, to get fuzzy. Ministry teams begin to drift back into working like committees. We’ve done it that way for so long that the tendency is to return to what we’ve always done and always known and frankly, what some of us have always loved. What’s a pastor to do?
We have found it absolutely crucial to gather our leaders periodically for a time of fellowship, focus, and celebration – outside of their regular Ministry Team meetings. We call it CORE, because that is who is invited to attend: Elders, deacons, staff, and all members of Ministry Teams. The CORE of our ministry leadership. CORE Meetings take place quarterly and the concept is really very simple: We share a time of fellowship [read: dessert and coffee]. We are reminded of our vision and mission, perhaps focusing on some new shift we are working through or some new ministry initiative that fulfills our vision and mission. Then all present are invited to share celebrations: What they see happening in their Teams or in the congregation at large that they are excited about. Finally, in their table groups, they share prayer requests and pray for and with one another.
This first part of the meeting lasts one hour. For the second hour, the Ministry Teams meet separately, that way CORE does not require an extra evening out.
At first, people thought we were just adding one more meeting to their already overloaded schedules. But there is something wonderfully energizing that takes place when we gather in this way. CORE is an opportunity for a quarterly “course correction”, a chance to realign ourselves and our teams around the vision our congregation has adopted. A chance to recommit ourselves and our teams to that vision. But there is something else. There is something very exciting and nourishing—holy, even—about all these leaders coming together, chatting and laughing over a cup of coffee, sharing their enthusiasm for our church, celebrating successes, lifting up their own personal needs for prayer, and being reminded what we are really about as we do this thing called ‘church.’ And most especially, we are reminded that we do it together.
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Kathi Busch is pastor of Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Wilmington, Delaware. She has served as the Moderator of New Castle Presbytery, Delaware.
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