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Gotta Love The Students We had the students of Park Lake over for SEED this past Sunday night. We enjoy having them over. It had been a while since we had the living room under renovation. I did get to finish most of it before Christmas decorations went up. We even had the fireplace going.When in doubt...be redemptiveI'm not exactly sure how this is going to come out. I am not finished completely thinking through this whole thing. But here it goes.
Right now I am the only full-time minister on staff at the church. With a handfull of interim music, youth, and pastor people since our pastor resigned I have had time to think about being the only minister to a group of people, a local church. There are a likable lot. At times they have suprised me with there ability and depth of insight and spirit. We have our faults and at times even our ugly flaws. But together we make up a church.
It is easy to slip into dividing the people into piles of useable and unuseable. Especially when they are not only acting like fallen people, but are also making your life a little more difficult than normal. But, you love'em, guide'em when they'll let you, and Biblically confront them when you have to. Nowhere in scripture do you see Jesus being anything but redemptive with his disciples. Even when Jesus roughly rebuked Peter when he refused to accept Jesus' coming death it was to identify Satan's way of thinking, not Peter's worth as a disciple.
I find myself again at a point of choosing how to deal with a member who's performance is in question. As his minister I will be redemptive. Whatever others may be expecting of me, my God given responsibility is to him, not to others. His job performance is not my concern. His growth as a disciple is.
I care deeply for the people of the church. I am in awe that God would ask someone like me to be responsible for them and their growth as disciples.
Finalizing the ReportOur Transition Team here at Park Lake is about to meet to finalize our report to the church for the banquet next Sunday. We have four very good recommendations for the church. I think they will be challenging to in that they will cause us to travel in different paths as we go through our "cycles." Some of them seem common sense, but they are more involved than most realize.
So, here we are standing on the edge of changes. The first part is almost over and the rest is yet to come. We must communicate clearly not only the report, but the journey that led us there. In some small way the church as a whole must have a picture and understanding of how the journey went and what we saw along the way. And they have to "own" it. Only then can we effectively implement together the recomendations.
I'd better go open doors and turn on lights.
[EDIT: Fixed spelling of title - 200-11-14] Meet Our Interim Pastor
Come by Park Lake if you want to hear some good preaching. Still WithoutWe are still without a pastor or interim pastor. I am scheduling men to preach. A few have said they are available to serve in the interim as pastor, but we have not made a decision yet on that. Don't get me wrong, I like the opportunity to hear different guys, getting the lineup together, and being the lead facilitator of what God is doing at Park Lake. But, I'm an Ed/Admin guy. I need a pastor.
Our pastor search committee is buzzing like bees. They have been meeting faithfully, well every other week and this makes the third time. I have been moved by the spirit and diligence of our Transition Team and Pastor Search Committee. They have been "spot on" and have truely made themselves open and available to God. We have the observance of the Lord's Supper coming up on World Communion Day (Oct. 7) and "Round Up" Sunday on the 14th of Oct. As it sits now we will have guest preachers for both. Lunch at MCC
Last Wednesday Dottie Edquist, Judy Brister, Buster & Louise Shiflet, and myself went to MCC and served nachos at the BSM's Weekly Bible Study & Free Lunch under the Student Center. We served food until it ran out. All that was left were a few Diet Cokes. The rain held off for lunch, but we were under cover. As students finished eating worship included a prayer, a song by a MCC BSMer, and a message by me. Texas Baptist Student Ministries serve the students in Texas colleges and universities by encouraging Bible study, reaching out to students with the Gospel, promoting local church membership and loyalty, and supporting missions. We are honored to be a part of the work at MCC.
The Transition TeamAt the beginning of the summer we formed a transition team at the church. We had been without a pastor for about three months. Some of you are saying "ah ha, a transition team." Others of you are saying, "a transition team?"
A Transition Team is an idea from the intentional interim pastor program. Churches that have lost a pastor can use this program to help prepare them for a new pastor and put them in the best "place" to be healthy with that new pastor. As a church we looked at the program. We decided against the intentional interim pastor, but liked the Transition Team idea. So as Baptists are apt to do we did it our way.
We did have an interim pastor, and a good one. He started as the Transition Team was about to meet for the first time. We had actually planned it that way. After about 10 weeks he resigned due to some health issues. As you can see from the previous post we miss him and consider the time we had with him blessed. In the absence of an interim pastor it has fallen to me to "moderate" the team. The person who moderates the team is supposed to be a person with "nothing to lose." I don't really fit the definition. The team has been very gracious and I hope have felt free to work.
The Transition Team has five tasks, well ours does: (1) reaffirm who we are, (2) review the membership and how we organize to make decisions, (3) clarify the church's mainstream theology, (4) define our church's sense of purpose, direction, and what distinguishes us from other churches, and (5) review and suggest changes to our constitution and by-laws. So far we have completed 1 through 3 enough so that the team can make a report to the pastor search committee. When we began one goal was to complete the first three soon enough for those things to be helpful to a pastor search committee. Our pastor search committee meets for the first time this Sunday, so mission accomplished.
I have been encouraged by the results of our meetings. Over the past ten weeks we have looked prayerfully at ourselves and what God wants to do through us. The team wants to see revival in the church and wants to be catalysts to make that happen.
Perhaps the most difficult part is next. Team members each seem to either have their own version of a vision for the church or they are drawing a complete blank. It can seem very overwhelming and the weight of the responsibility for seeking out the Lord and hearing Him correctly for the church can be paralyzing. I know as the full-time staff guy I have my opinions and what I think we should do. Certainly we need to be inbetween somewhere. With humility we should approach the task together with prayer and resolve to complete the work and not fall into the temptation to abdicate responsibility.
Pray for us as we continue. We have been asking for God to move in us: to do something unexpected and to stir revival in the church.
[2007-08-30, 10:30 PM - EDIT: I added a word to clear up paragraph six.] You Will Not Be Forgotten
This past Tuesday I received a call from our Interim Pastor Dr. Bill Austin. With a heavy heart he told me he needed to step down as interim pastor due to his health. We will miss him. The time the Lord gave us with him has been a blessing. We plan on keeping up with him and still claim him as a Park Laker. Bro. Austin, Your Not Forgotten Charles
Here is your long overdue "eprops" Charles. Glad to have you. The New Guy Is Now The New GuyI know a month and a half is a little long for a hiatus. I apologize and will do better about keeping the blog updated. Now to the post...
WELCOME ABOARD CRAIG!!! Community LostThere is no easy way around it. There are times churches just drop the ball, and sometimes in a big way. Many things can be said, like, "Membership goes both ways." That and some other things are true, but... I had just read about this kind of thing happening a couple of days before.
Last week we lost two members of our church. It was not on the highways in an accident or due to some evil deed. It was right across the street from the church. The two loved each other very much. In their old age and deteriorating health they made a pact with each other wishing to face everything as one. Instead of waiting to be seperated by death they ended their earthly lives together in their home.
I say they were members of our church. They moved their letters (that is one way Baptists do it) the first part of the 90's. They are, however, not on any Sunday School class list, homebound list, really no list at all except a card in the roladex. No one I asked knew who they were or that they were members of our church. Even I, having typed all church members names, addresses, phone #s, etc. in my computer did not know their names. For whatever reason, they were never connected to the "community" of our church.
I attended the funeral today. It was all I could do to sign the guest book. I did not know the family. The family does not know me. I don't even know if the family knew the two had been members at Park Lake. A gentleman I do not know presided at the funeral. In a difficult time he led the service well. Family members who spoke admitted the couple had become very reclusive, focusing upon each other and the love they shared. They did everything together.
While it can be said "community takes both sides", community lost is not what a God who knows us each intimately had in mind. Youth Led ServiceSunday morning the youth at Park Lake led the church in the worship service. They did a good job. They stumbled a few times, but didn't give up. The church was very supportive of the students. Becky, our interim Youth Minister this Spring, brought the message. She had us standing up a sitting down (in a good way) as she preached on spiritual gifts. Way to go students! Our New Interim Youth Minister Got another one. Craig Golden has just accepted a call to be our Interim Youth Minister.
Craig and his wife Melissa are coming to us from Arkansas. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge nine days ago. He has served as Youth Pastor at First Baptist Church in Viola since 2004. He will be attending George W. Truett Theological Seminary this fall. Our Interim Pastor
Storm Damagelast week we had some bad weather here in Waco. Wednesday morning we came into the office and the phone system and the phone lines were down (internet too). We thought we got off lucky. Unprotected computers merely tripped off and started up with no data loss. Everything else seemed to be working, until I tried to adjust the sound system in the worship center for the choir. I couldn't believe it, half of the channels on the board were dead. By the time I finished crawling around and making it so we had sound on Sunday I found we had lost several pieces of equipment. O, and then there was Sunday. We found out our organ had two voices: one for the top keyboard and one for the footpedals. The bottom keyboard and everything else was shot.
Luckily we have insurance. We are about to find out how good that insurance is. I've got a good guy coming to look things over. I'll let you know how things pan out. Change Without ChangeI met the former pastor of one of our WRBN churches today. He has been away for quite awhile and commented to me his disappointment in the fact that the church he once pastored is now looking at its last days. He recounted how many church plants the church had made. Successful churches that had out-grown and out-reached the mother church.
Since the 70's the church's community changed. The ethnicity and economic stance of the community became something completely different from the church. The church did multiply, but is now on the verge of irrevalence in the community it belongs to.
I guess this did not come out very clear. My thoughts were of how a church can take the steps to plant new churches, but refuse to take the steps it needs to remain healthy. We can be so blinded by the things we do we miss the basics. Planting a church can create a great deal of perceived change in a church: the expenditure of resources, time, and possible church members who may move to the new church. Perhaps it allows people to feel they are doing something new without ever risking what is familiar.
May we always be willing to do what it takes to be relevant in our communities. |
During my "quiet time" we were blessed at Park Lake by the addition of a new staff member, Charles Yale. He is our part-time Music Minister. He is a major in the Air Force reserves and is the lead architect for the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System.
You remember that guy, Craig Golden, the one we brought on as interim Youth Minister at the church? Well, the church just voted recently to ask him to be our regular Youth Minister. Over the summer we have been blessed by Craig and the ministry God is able to do through him. He and Melissa have moved into the youth house and I hope they will be with us for most if not all of his time at Truett. We are "pounding" them both this Sunday night. It is not much, but it is a way we can express our gratitude for God bring them both our way and the admiration we have for him and the ministry God is doing through him.
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