I follow my e-friend Will Humes on twitter, and I read his blog, “One Thing I Know,” from time to time. Will is a United Methodist pastor and is in tune with lots of good things going on in the church.
Will posted today about a blog entry by Will Williman, a Methodist Bishop and someone who has been writing about church life for quite some time. Williman and others in the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the UMC came up with a list of characteristics of “Effective Congregations:”
EFFECTIVE CONGREGATIONS:
Love their particularly community. Their pastors have found a way not only to love their congregations but also their neighborhood. Effective pastors help their congregations move beyond love of themselves, turning their congregations outward.
Rise above mere contentment with things as they are and do what is necessary to expect and welcome change, disruption, and movement, similar to that of the Risen Christ.
Find a way to welcome the stranger and to practice radical hospitality in the name of Jesus Christ. They find a way to be as interested in those who have yet to join the church as those already in the church.
Have a clear sense of their primary purpose and keep focused on their primary God-given missions.
Enable lay leaders to lead, not just manage. Lay leadership that feels a strong sense of responsibility for the future of their congregation.
All have a strong, change oriented, gifted pastor.
Make growth a priority and figure out how to grow.
Keep focused upon Jesus Christ as the originator of, and the purpose for the church (rather than church as just another human oriented institution).
Will’s take is more simple:
As far as these things go, it is a fine list. But I have read over 50 books on church growth, renewal and effectiveness. I have attended more seminars on the same subjects than I care to remember, and over the past 20 years or so, I have grown tired of all the emphasis on these things.
For me there are only two marks of an effective church, which can be phrased as questions. First, does the church provide an opportunities to worship God and connect with the divine? Second, is the church making disciples for Jesus Christ? Everything else flows out of these two things. At least that’s how I see things.
These things have me thinking about what it means to talk about a church as “effective.” I gather that depends on what you think church is for, because that ecclesiology will be a major factor in whether you judge a church to be effective.
Willimon is writing as a Bishop who is concerned not just with individual church functioning but also pastoral/congregation dynamics and such. I get why he wants churches to love their communities, for that is what is essential for a church to move from just doing church to being church in the neighborhood, from maintaining an inward focus to having a heart for outward presence (which is what I take the term “missional” to mean).
Humes’ summary isn’t all that off, either. Connect with God; Grow in discipleship.
I’m not really sure, but I’m thinking about it. I’m convinced that Roeminations has a good purpose, a place for blogging and communication about all things ministry here at Southminster. I’ve pondered what it means to blog personally here, and part of that is the reason for the radio silence these past several months.
I’ve decided to bring back a personal blog which I call kairosblog. There I’ll blog about my own perspective on faith, culture, ethics, media, love, you name it. Here I’ll blog about things pertinent to this community of faith. Sometimes those will overlap, and I might crosspost or refer to one blog or the other.
I think this will be a way for me to keep the two worlds clear while allowing an important distinction of purpose. But Roeminations really ought to continue. Here’s to me working on that…
Every year, my dear wife’s family has an Oscar picking contest. Some families fill out March madness brackets; mine chooses favorites for art direction and original score. After a few years way behind, this year I scored 14 correct guesses, and tied with my father-in-law for the victory. This year’s reward: easter M&Ms!
This week, The Church Geek pointed me to this wonderful list of 100 “spiritually significant films.” We don’t get to see movies as much as we did pre-twins, but we try to see some now and then, and we used to go see quite a few. So, I was surprised that, like the Church Geek, I’d seen so few of what this author lists as the top 10 (two, actually: The Miracle Maker and the Gospel According to Matthew). Though, part of that has to do with the fact that most of the top 100 seem to be foreign films…
The youth group received a check last week for $41.18. This was our inaugural installment of funds from GoodSearch, a search engine that uses engines like yahoo! but which redirect a portion of their advertising proceeds to groups like us.
We’ve not pushed this very hard at Southminster, and yet we still got $41 for our workcamp. Thanks to all who are using this, and imagine what we’d get if more used GoodSearch in just some of their web browsing.
Give it a shot! Type ‘Southminster Presbyterian Church’ in the box that designates where you want your funds to go…
Update: There’s also a way for you to add a special toolbar for ie or a special GoodSearch entry in your firefox searchbox. Look for these at http://www.goodsearch.com/Toolbars.aspx
Today I joined some 160+ ministers and elder commissioners, and some visitors, at a called meeting of Heartland Presbytery. What follows is a long post about what transpired today, and my blogging about some of the events elsewhere under the moniker ‘kairos’. If you aren’t interested, or don’t have much patience for the inter-church squabbles of a mainline denomination and its polity, you are free to skip it; if you are, feel free to read on… I’m sorry its so long, even as I skip a lot of details.
My college class newsletter arrived yesterday, where various members of the Grinnell College Class of 1997 write in with updates about their life, and I was pleased to see that I was included:
Chad Herring is associate pastor of Southminster Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas. He and his wife, Brook Bailey ‘98 had infant twin girls, Nora and Tessa, in August 2006. Chad tells me that he feels called to do this particular kind of ministry, to be in a church that’s at the core of his faith tradition–in his words, “warm, accepting, and grace-giving.” Chad blogs at www.southminsterpres.com/roe/.
I thought that was pretty cool! Welcome, Grinnellians…
Blogrolls are lists of other blogs on a particular subject. I’ve started expanding my blogrolls, and you might find some of the links of interest. Because of the number, for now they’re available through the ‘links’ tab above.
I plan a few categories:
decently and in order, for those blogging that claim affiliation with the presbyterian church (usa) in some capacity,
emergent-esque and faith musings, for blogs that are trying to explore what this contemporary movement called the emergent church is all about,
amusing blogs, for those blogs I think are well done but that defy definition,
news and political commentary, which should be self explanatory,
official pcusa sites, which should be self explanatory, and
pcusa advocacy.
I’m going to try to put up links that represent a broad range of thought, so you might find all sorts of links up there, conservative to liberal, red state to blue state, and all things in between. So I don’t take responsibility for those to whom I link, but I’ll try to keep the list focused to some good stuff. Enjoy!
An early new-year’s resolution: I am going to start tending to Roeminations to make it a better blog. Don’t worry; I won’t wait until January to get started.
What makes for a good blog? This has long been an interesting question to me, but I think it is some combination of regular attention, original insight or at least some pointer to the same, a particular lens through which one views the world and articulates a vision, and a measure of intellectual honesty. What makes a good blog on issues of faith and the church includes all the former, and adds a commitment to the best ideals of Jesus Christ in the writing.
I aim for this blog to become more active in the weeks and months ahead. I hope for it to become a better blog than it currently is, so I’ll try to attend to the points listed above.
One of the difficulties is, I think, that my writing this blog links me in some way to the church and denomination I serve. This in many ways cannot be helped, and that is not in itself a bad thing. I am a minister of word and sacrament in a particular denomination that feeds my spirit and in a particular church that gives context to my ministry. I love my church and my denomination which gives vibrant expression, in my judgment, to the gospel.
I’ve tried blogging under a pseudonym before, though, in part because I thought (and still do) that the freedom that it would offer was important–being able to write commentary without it being identified as a specific pastor of a specific church. In some ways that worked well, and in other ways it did not. But that venture is pretty much over for now, and I am back to Roeminations…
A few things that will become pretty clear. The blogging that I do here is not in any way the responsibility of Southminster or the Presbyterian Church or the like. I am related to them through ordination and installation vows; I am one of their pastors and representatives. My work and my life is intertwined with them, and Southminster hosts this website for the time being.
But this blog is not a Southminster blog; it is my blog, about things of interest to me or about things that I think are important, whether it is important to the life of Southminster or to Johnson County, Kansas, or to the wider world. This is an important distinction that I want to emphasize. And I gather that, just as I am afforded the freedom, and indeed am expected to exercise it, when approaching scripture for the purpose of exegesis and sermon preparation, the same will be presumed for this forum. Any failing you find on this page is solely my own, and I take responsibility for it.
So I might (or might not) talk about a whole host of things: various issues of theology or biblical exegesis; matters of church and state, thoughts about the wars we’re in over in Iraq and Afghanistan, what it means for our country to adopt torture as an “enhanced interrogation technique,” or things like that. In fact, that last one has captivated my conscience for quite a while now, and I think the church in America has lots to say about torture.
So, the commentary, vision, commitments laid out on these pages are my own, and I take sole responsibility for them. I don’t plan to be intentionally political, but I don’t plan to shy away from it either. I am who I am. I do not think a case can be made that Jesus Christ was a-political, either. Issues that he cared about–poverty, purity, peace–intersect with the public realm and thus have a political dimension. The church has something to say about things that are happening in the world.
However, I also know that you are who you are, and I love you for it. I will endeavor to write with respect for honest differences of opinion, with candor and humility, and with love and faith for God and God’s creation. I promise, like I do in every aspect of my life, to conduct myself with as much integrity as I am able, living my life in such a way that commends the gospel as I am able to articulate it.
I don’t suspect that everyone in my church or that all those who stumble across the blog will agree with the whole substance of the posts I make, but that is ok, since I believe in the importance of diverse voices at the table when discussing these matters.
If you would like to, I encourage you to comment as you wish. I tend to allow quite a bit of leeway with comments, though I will not permit comments which are in my sole judgment spam (of course), vitriolic or abusive, off topic, or beyond the pale. I don’t take responsibility for what others write there, but I’ll try to keep it both as free as possible and as upright as possible. I admit, that’s a hard balance. Take it for what its worth.
December 10, 2008 
Posted in Faith 
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Chad Andrew Herring :: creature of dust :: child of God :: husband of 9 years :: 
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