A link to Verse Card Maker, a really useful site that, mostly, automates the process of making memory verse cards.

I’ve heard lots of people talk about Family Worship, the process of intentionally setting aside time each day, as a family, to worship God. Rarely have I found much detail on what to do and what’s appropriate. Well, there’s a new website http://familyworshipguide.net that provides everything from the Biblical basis to resources to an actual Family Worship Guide that covers 3 months. I’m hoping to start this tonight. Super excited about this great new site.

As a past, and future, community group leader, I know that sometimes the discussion flows and sometimes it’s like pulling teeth. It’s the responsibility for all members of a group to participate fully in the discussion, but sometimes people don’t know how they should participate and what makes a “good” community group member. Coram Deo in Omaha has provided these helpful indicators in “evaluating your participation as a healthy MC member”

LISTENING

• Lots of people can talk, not many are skilled at listening. If people are listening well, the following indicators will come much more naturally.
• Do you find yourself easily distracted, thinking about other things, or pondering what you are going to say next?

SPIRITUAL INQUIRY

• Put simply, this is following up, digging in, and inquiring into how people are doing spiritually.
• Does the way that you respond to people draw them out and encourage deeper conversation?

ENCOURAGEMENT

• If you see that someone handled a situation in a spiritually mature way, make note of that by encouraging him or her. If you see that someone is taking a step of faith in a new area of their life, encourage them with words of affirmation.
• Do people feel encouraged by you during a Missional Community discussion?

PRAYER

• One of the ways to model the Gospel to Christians and non-Christians is by revealing your dependence upon God and the unique relationship you have with God as your heavenly dad.
• Do you stop in the middle of your MC discussion to pray for what is being shared?

CHALLENGE/REBUKE

• Speaking truth in love while confronting others with a spirit of humility, calling them to turn from sin and trust in the finished work of Christ.
• Is your Missional Community tolerating unrepentant sin?

STUDY SCRIPTURE

• 2 Tim. 3:16-17 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”
• Do you talk about the Bible naturally in the context of conversation?

GOSPELIZE

• Helping each other apply the good news of Jesus and the work that was accomplished on the cross. The Gospel is for Christians and non-Christians alike and is a message that you will never outgrow or mature out of.
• When someone asks for insight or counsel, do you respond with good advice or good news?

Michael Mckinley recommends a booklet that helps people learn how to listen to sermons. It is written by Christopher Ash and is entitled Listen Up! A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons.The fact that society has many fewer opportunities to listen to spoken word for long times almost necessitates a book like this be required reading for all church attendees.

Jesus tells us to be careful how we hear (Luke 8:18).  Yet many Christians approach the Sunday sermon with little to no game-plan for listening well.

To address that problem, Christopher Ash has written and outstanding booklet: Listen Up! A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons.

The booklet is very accessible.  It is short (only 31 pages), well designed, and written in an informal, catchy style.  And the content is pure gold.

It is broken into several sections.  The first and longest part is devoted to seven ingredients for healthy sermon listening.  They are:

1. Expect God to speak.
2. Admit God knows better than you.
3. Check the preacher says what the passage says.
4. Hear the sermon in church (as opposed to solely listening to sermons on the internet).
5. Be there week by week.
6. Do what the Bible says.
7. Do what the Bible says today — and rejoice!

Each of these “ingredients” comes with practical examples and a list of “practical steps to take” at the end.

The second section deal with listening to “bad” sermons, particularly dull sermons, biblically inadequate sermons, and heretical sermons.

The final section reminds us that congregations often get the kind of preaching they tolerate and encourage, and then provides seven suggestions for encouraging good preaching,

I found this booklet very, very helpful.  If you are a preacher who wants to train your people to listen well to God’s Word, this is the booklet you want to use.  If you are a regular hearer of God’s Word, this booklet will give you a great perspective and a ton of practical strategies for improvement.

Great post from Jonathan McIntosh about the need for church leaders to take steps to be part of groups as an outsider to gain insight into barriers that may exist at your church. Julie and I have experienced this feeling a lot as we looked for a new church last year and our search has greatly influenced what I believe the local church is called to do and be.

When the people in our churches only become a nuisance to us, we’ve lost touch and lost compassion for those that we are called to love and shepherd.

We forget easily how daunting it can be for people to try and join a new group.

If you are new to church, frankly it can be scary:

• to take the time and effort to attend a worship service with hundreds (or even thousands) of people you don’t know.
• To email the leader of a church.
• to try to join a small group.
• to reach out for help.
• to try to belong to something.

What can you do as a church leader who is naturally an insider, to regain the perspective of what it’s like to be an outsider?

Attend an event by yourself.
There are plenty of churches that have services on off-times (like Saturday and Sunday night) so that you could easily attend another church one weekend. If you simply can’t get away to another church, attend a mayor’s breakfast event or large civic function in your city. Go by yourself.  Don’t tell people who you are. If you’re an extrovert, don’t talk to people – try to imagine the experience from an introvert’s perspective. What does it feel like to go somewhere new and not know the protocol, not know where to park, where to sit or even where the bathrooms are? How does it feel to be ignored while large groups of people talk amongst themselves? Try showing up late – how does it feel to walk in with all eyes on you?

Try to join a group.
I know, you’ve got so much free time on your hands. But trying to join a local group like the Rotary Club or the Chamber of Commerce will do more than put you in contact with other key leaders in your area – it will remind you just how daunting it is to try to join a group as an outsider. As pastors or ministry leaders, we are at the very center of our church social circles. When was the last time that you were actually an outsider, and felt the insecurity that comes with that? You’ll get better at crafting pathways for new people to connect when you know again what it’s like to try to belong somewhere as an outsider.

Email someone you admire.
This sounds weird, but pick someone you respect who is not likely to respond to you personally. Take some time and actually craft an email introducing yourself and thanking this person for their work or impact. If they reply to you, great. But if they don’t, it’s good for you to feel what it’s like not to get a response, or worse yet, to get a canned response to something you took time to write. Every time someone new to your church or organization takes time to write, call or email – it’s a big deal to them. Is it a big deal to you?

With everything on our plates, it is so easy for us to forget the big steps we often ask & expect people to take in attending church for maybe the first time in a long time, signing up for a new group, and trying to get answers to key questions from us or our staff. And ultimately we forget that the Ultimate Insider became the Ultimate Outsider – for us.

Moving from irritation to appreciation takes more than mere observation. It takes actually sitting in the seat of another.

From Michael Mckinley at the 9Marks blog. This list of how a sending church can serve a church planter is especially helpful as we look to the day that Grace Ann Arbor sends us out as a plant.

1. People — You can plant a church without a team of people.  You can also build a house by yourself.  But there’s a reason that people usually do things like this in groups.  Help the church planter put together a team of people that includes at least some who are very mission minded and sacrificially committed.  I would strongly encourage you to send an elder/leader with the planter.  It will help alleviate a tremendous burden.
2. Money — Money can’t solve your problems, but it can make a lot of things a lot easier.  Again, this is a burden that you can take off the planter’s back so that he can focus on spreading the gospel.
3. Connection — Church planting can be lonely and difficult on the family.  Appoint an elder that can remain connected and involved in making sure the planter and his family are OK.
4. Encouragement — View the plant as a mission of your church, not a would-be competitor.  Refer visitors to your church to the church plant if they live close to it.  Help with evangelism programs or projects.  Pray for them and do everything you can to see them succeed.

From Michael Dennis of North Village Church comes this very helpful list of how to move from “a burden for something different within the local church” to activity

Observing Context: Spend time in a community, neighborhood, city getting to know their rhythms. Ideally, you are already from this context and it is just taking the time to articulate what you already knew was there, however, if not take the time to listen and learn. Talk to people. Talk to strangers. Ask them questions about their community. Most people love where they live and they will enjoy talking about their community.

Gathering Others: If your burden is something that doesn’t peak curiosity in others then it might not be a burden but more so just something fun to blog about! This can’t be done alone. There must be others. It will make it messy, complicated, slow it down, but without others you are just some weird person.

Common Vision: After taking the time to connect with others and find like minded people we began to spend some time sharing our vision and dreams with one another. We Gathered with meals once a week in our home and spent time looking through scripture, discussing spiritual backgrounds, spiritual perspectives, and encouraging one another. The intention is to share and build community at the same time. Most people don’t accomplish something purely because of a common vision. There has to be relational connections and we wanted to spend the first 1-2 months establishing a common vision.

Common Values: After spending time discussing and sharing our vision and burdens we wanted to begin to establish common values. What is most important to us? What do we want to replicate? What do we want to avoid? For our group we are big on Jesus and getting to know him and live like him so we spent the next 1-2 months establishing common values. We continued to share a meal together, dialogue, involved a little more teaching from scripture and even invited others to participate in this journey with us.

Implement and Activity: After 2-4 months of talking about something, finding common language, sharing ideas, and understanding one another it is time to implement. It can’t remain ideas forever. We need activity. For us it was a huge bonding moment when we partnered together to expose some of our vision and values to the community. For our group one of the biggest values was being a benefit to the community so for us we wanted to do something for the community. In the end it was something that added momentum to our group and helped us to refine our vision and values even more.

Neighborhood Gatherings: At this point we would began to find others who were intrigued and interested by our vision and values and we wanted to provide a place for them to go through this experience with us. We created “neighborhood gatherings” which is simply meeting in someone’s home, sharing a meal, and continuing in this journey with us. We spent 2-4 months in this phase.

Public Gatherings: As we continued to meet in homes, continued to refine our vision, and implement activity it became appropriate to host public gatherings. We meet every Sunday morning at 10am to encourage one another and continue to make progress toward our vision and values. It has been a lot of fun.

Colin Adams asked the elders at a potential pastorate the following questions before he accepted the call. These are great, although obviously particular to his locale.

A. Theological Questions

1. What is the church’s statement of faith and how did the church devise it?
2. What has been the most vexed theological question the church has faced? Has there ever been a church split over theology or practice? Why?
3. On the wider scene, what theological trends and strands of false teaching would the elders at Ballymoney be particularly concerned about at the moment?
4. What are the key functions/roles of an elder at Ballymoney?
5. What is the elder’s relationship to the pastor? (For example, is the pastor an elder? Do the elders perceive themselves as, in some way, subordinate?)
6. What would the church’s position be on the role of women?
7. What is the church’s position on the function of charismatic gifts?
8. Is there a different kind of membership for someone differing on secondary issues? Would it ever be considered?
9. What kind of church government structure is practiced? How does it work out in practice?

B. Ministry-Philosophy Questions

10. What is the process of being baptised and becoming a church member? How is baptism and membership encouraged?
11. What are the expectations laid upon church members?
12. How does the church practice church discipline? (What sort of discipline has been practiced in the past?)
13. Do the elders have any plans for expansion of the building or church planting?
14. What, if anything, would the elders want to see change or develop in the future? (each elder might want to answer individually!)
15. Do the church members generally (and happily) follow the lead of the eldership?
16. Can the elders give evidence of an openness to growing in their role? (by eg. reading resources on eldership, attending conferences, having a weekend away with pastor, etc)
17. In what ways (if at all) do you think my young age might affect my reception both in the church and among the eldership?
18. What would be the minimum and maximum expectations be of the frequency of the pastor’s preaching? (ie. is one Sunday evening off in preaching a month the minimum acceptable; on the other hand, would preaching every service without fail be deemed unhelpful)
19. What items in the current services are non-negotiable? What other items are deemed acceptable and have been featured in the past? Is the pastor responsible for putting together all orders of service?
20. Is the current practice of communion (format, timing, gap between service and communion) set in stone?
21. What sorts of things do the Ballymoney elders feel the pastor should not be doing with his time?
22. What are the congregational/eldership expectations (these two may be different) regarding pastoral visitation?
23. How often are business meetings conducted? Does the pastor moderate this? Are they productive and generally positive? What is typically discussed?
24. Does the church have a yearly budget and if so, how is it put together?
25. What is the church’s attitude and approach to missionaries?
26. Who is responsible for the website and library and how easy would it be for the pastor to make a significant input into each of these areas? (Note: I believe these resources would have some relation to my teaching function as a pastor)
27. Has the church ever had Fellowship Groups? If so, what is the leadership’s feeling about their significance?
28. What are the leadership’s views concerning counselling?
29. How would you sum up the spiritual health of the congregation in qualitative terms (against measurements like prayer, heart for evangelism, love for one another)?
30. What kind of impact have ‘the troubles’ and its aftermath had on the Ballymoney congregation?
31. Pardoning the expression, are there any ‘sacred cows’ in the church?
32. Would the congregation consider adding an additional paid staff member at any point?

C. Personal Questions

33. Would the elders have any objection to the pastor working from a church office? (my preferred place for sermon prep)
34. What is the view of the elders regarding the pastor resourcing himself? (conferences; the odd retreat to read & plan, etc)
35. Are there any expenses for things?
36. What is the rationale regarding days off and holidays?
37. Is there any scope for ‘preaching away’ from Ballymoney? (Note: I would be very cautious about doing much of this, especially early on, however)
38. Do you think it would be relatively easy for a young family to settle into the church/town? What challenges might Nicki and the children face?
39. What role would the pastor’s wife be expected to have in the church?
40. What are the schools like in Ballymoney?
41. How easy might it be to buy an affordable house in the Ballymoney area?

Sojourn Community Church in Louisville is doing great things for the glory of God. I really enjoy reading their SojournKids Blog. This was a recent post about changes to their programs.

Beginning with our Infants classes, our Sojourn babes will be prayed for and loved on intentionally through blessings we have been taught in the Bible.  Beginning Labor Day weekend, our servants will find prayers and blessings for children posted throughout the nursery for servants to say or pray while changing a diaper or when snuggling in a rocker (and especially to pray when children are wailing!).

Also, with our oldest Nursery group, the 12-24month class, we will introduce a curriculum that tells 4 basic Bible stories to the young children over and over again throughout the year.  Repetition is the key to learning–especially at this young age, and our teachers will also learn creativity as they tell the same stories over and over.  If you are interested, there is an opportunity to “adopt a story” by serving in the 12-24 months class once per month.  If  you are serving the first week of every month, for example, you will tell the first of the four Nursery stories every time that you serve.

Their focus on repetition is especially valuable as that’s the way young kids learn. It’s unfortunate that more church curriculum isn’t geared specifically to the different learning styles of age groups.

Posted by Michael on the Sojourn Church Planting Blog as gleaned from the last session in the Foundations course from Global Church Advancement church planter training

1. A Biblical View of Success:
   - A false view of success involves having big numbers and a lot of money
   - A false view of success usually is quantitative and not qualitative
   - A false view of success is built around career achievement and professional recognition
   - A biblical view of success is measured in terms of faithfulness
   - A biblical view of success involves finding one’s identity in Christ, not in finding one’s identity in one’s success.
2. Managing Your Time vs Managing Your Life:
   - Do not prioritize your schedule, but schedule your priorities
   - Spend more time with God and with your family
   - Maybe you can show your faith in God by working less and stop trying to do so much
3. Understand the Difference Between Your Goals & Desires:
   - Goals are within your control while desires are not
   - Work for your goals; pray for your desires
   - Sharing your faith this week 5 times is a goal, but having 100 in your church by next month is a desire
4. Pursuing the Grace of God or the God of Grace?
   - What is the ultimate quest of your life? God or a successful ministry?
   - “Is God a means of grace in your life and ministry or is grace a means to God?”- John Piper
   - Yes, you are God’s servant and soldier, but you are also his son
5. The Way Up is the Way Down:
   - “God is opposed to the proud but He gives grace to the humble. ” James 4:6.
   - The more you humble yourself the more God will be glorified in your life and church community.
   - Live a life of repentance.
6. The Priority of People Over Programs:
   - Jesus’ plan to reach the world with the gospel was to invest his life in people.
   - Show your love for Jesus by loving his people (See John 21:15-17)
7. Process Living vs Product Living:
   - Do not live for the “Next Big Thing.”
   - 99% of life is process and only 1% is product
   - Learn to find joy in the process of living each day
8. Making the Main Thing the Main Thing:
   - The main thing is not ministry
   - The main thing is loving God and loving people (Matt 22:37-39)