While doing some research in the CDM archives I came across this sermon message from Kent Hunter from 1977. A meesage worth repeating for today.

Perhaps we have become tangled by hatred or gossip, selfishness or greed. Maybe we feel we are caught up in the tangled mess of guilt to the point where it seems you’ll never get out. Or perhaps we have become involved with temptation and found that we have gone too far — and the current of sin is pulling us down the tubes.

The Good News is that God has spoken to us through His Son. This is the real message of Christmas: that God has come to this earth to rescue us. That candy cane reminds us that He came to pull us to Himself — to bring us back to the people God created us to be. To be free from the burdens of guilt, to be filled with forgiveness and the peace of God, to live with new life and meaning — this is God’s purpose behind Christmas.

Source: Kent Hunter
Sermon
Our Savior Luther Church
Detroit
Christmas Day, 1977

Merry Christmas from Church Doctor Ministries!

As we celebrate and prepare the way for the coming of the Lord we are reminded of the joy and hope this season brings.We are also reminded of what an honor and privilege it is to serve the Kingdom by helping churches and Christians all over the world fulfill the Great Commission. We are thankful for the relationships and partnerships that have developed in 2009 and we look forward with great joy and hope in continuing to build those relationships in 2010.

To show are continued appreciation for your support we are offering a free 30 minute “House Call with a Church Doctor” telephone call to any pastor, ministry leader, or anyone involved in any ministry effort. You can use this free 30 minute telephone consulting call to discuss any ministry question or challenge that you have with one of our trained ministry consultants or coaches. This is our gift to you this holiday season with no obligation.

This has been a difficult year for many churches and Christian leaders and we have been blessed to be able to help hundreds of pastors and ministry leaders in 2009. We believe we can help you too.

To schedule your free 30 minute “House Call with a Church Doctor” telephone consultation please contact Tracee Swank at traceeswank@churchdoctor.org or call us toll free at 1.800.626.8515.

Merry Christmas and God’s richest blessings for the coming year from the entire Church Doctor Ministry Team.

The new Church Doctor Report is available to read below. This edition is written by Church Doctor Associate Consultant Alan Chandler and edited by Church Doctor Leader and Founder, Kent R. Hunter.

http://tinyurl.com/cdrNOV2009

As consultants, we find some common challenges, even though we would never treat churches with a “one size fits all” approach. I had a nice discussion with a nurse when I had my knee surgery who said they find certain pathologies or recovery elements that are recurring at large rates and common. They have a name for that: “clinical pathway.” As church doctors, we see this as well. Just one example: few churches have written a “Philosophy of Ministry Statement.” This is twelve to fifteen paragraphs identifying values, priorities, and the uniqueness of the church. The absence of a well-known, written philosophy of ministry leads to lack of focus, division, poor ministry alignment (which deters missional velocity), people on the wrong bus, or the wrong seat on the bus, and all sorts of human resource challenges among full-time, paid staff.

Years ago, my mentor, Lyle Schaller, and friend, Rick Warren, encouraged me to write on the subject resulting in the book, Your Church Has Personality. We find our consultants frequently recommending the development of a philosophy of ministry. I often have had second thoughts. Are we in a rut? Can’t we think of something new? I hate people thinking we are just trying to sell books (especially those I have written). However, at the end of the day, it is a key element of church life often lacking. It happens also in medicine and in churches, also. It is a “clinical pathway.” What clinical pathways do you see in your church?

I’ve been thinking of the new ways we are going to measure the actual size of our churches. In a previous history, it was always membership. Then, wise church consultants realized many churches have people on the membership rolls who live in another state, they can’t locate, or might even be dead.

The next phase was to measure the size of a church by its worship attendance. That has seemed to work fairly well over the last few decades.

Ready for something new? In the emerging church, it is going to look different. I began to think about this in conversation over dinner with Mick Woodhead, the pastor of St. Thomas Anglican Baptist Church in England, one of the fountainhead sources of the emerging revival spreading throughout Europe, and spilling into Australia, New Zealand, the Far East, Africa, and sprinkled throughout the United States–though still under the radar screen.

Think of this way of measuring your church by the following categories:

1. The Core Group - these are people who support the church financially, the staff recognizes that they “get the vision” and they are part of a small group (cell) or other mission-related, ongoing ministry (in most churches that does not include the Women’s group, Men’s group, typical Bible classes, Boards, Committees, and youth groups–which are mostly maintenance oriented). It would include the missional clusters that are a centerpiece strategy of outreach and mission in the Sheffield Model.

2. People who are involved in outreach mission activity, excluding those from group 1, but who are in process of moving toward Christ, primarily because of the missional character of the group.

3. A segment of the church called the “wider church.” This would include the children, siblings, and parents in your daycare, preschool, and grade school. It would also include ministries of recovery groups, ongoing ministries to homeless people, outreaches to university students, church plants that are under the DNA and covering of your church, etc. Think of how this implies your responsibility for mission in ministry activities to this group!
So when you take an audit concerning the size of your church, you would report the (1) Core Group; (2) Cluster people (those in process toward Christianity involved in relationships with groups that nurture the faith; and (3) the wider church, those who have connections with and should be cultivating for faith in Christ.

How’s that for a different and maybe future way of looking at sizing up your church? Let me know what you think!

After working with a lot of churches over the last 30 years, I’m convinced that 95% of what most churches do is just fine. It’s the other 5% that makes 100% of the difference. But focusing on the 95% and recognizing what God is accomplishing in the church, focusing on core competencies and strengths of the church, and thanking and praising God for what is working is great motivation by victory.

I’m troubled by some of the Revitalization Movement that is legalistically geared and focuses on putting all the church’s energy to fix what’s broken. My complaint is not the willingness to tackle what’s broken about churches, but the motivation flaw. It’s Law, not Gospel. It’s also my opinion that it isn’t biblical to not give some attention, with thanksgiving to what’s working well, giving the credit and praise to God. I’m biased, of course, but I like the affirm and build model of Church Doctor Ministries. It just feels more biblical than finding what’s wrong with a church and focusing everything there. How motivating is that?

Once people catch the motivation by victory and recognize what God is doing, then they can focus on the ceilings that hold a church back. They can use the catalyst and momentum from the strengths of the church to improve that 5% that will help the church become more missional in the future.

Recently I received yet another e-mail challenging the integrity of my Christianity. The e-mail implied that if I’m a real Christian I’ll show God how much I love him by forwarding the message onto my friends. Really????

Seriously, have we come to the point where the whole of our Christian experience has been reduced to the click of a mouse? Will God really love me more because I click Send? More to the point: will He love me less if I don’t?

It may not seem like much, but the ramifications are huge! “Spamming in the Name of Jesus” is highly detrimental when it comes to making a difference in someone’s eternity.

Why any Christian wants to associate the grace of Christ with something people dislike is beyond me. Yet every time we forward these e-mails that is exactly what we are doing!

Make no mistake, forwarding these e-mails is called SPAM. As a general rule, people don’t like SPAM. They go to great lengths to filter SPAM. Along comes an e-mail from a trusted friend, but instead of warm words of greeting it’s religious guilt in the form of SPAM.

Sure, your Christian friends may or may not care; but what about the person who is hurting, and really needs to know the power of the Gospel? Is the best we have to offer them a trite “If you love God send this e-mail to your friends?”

Allow me to be blunt: Through the endless forwarding of Christian SPAM, the perception of irrelevance toward the church has gone viral. Which begs the question, why would any Christian want to do this?

So is there any sin associated with clicking send? Yes, there is… but that is the topic of another post.

I was working with a Presbyterian church in the Midwest. It’s an inner-city church that conducts some ministries with an Anglican church (that has left the Episcopal Church) about eight blocks away. Both churches are declining rapidly. Both churches suffer from seriously deteriorating buildings that they couldn’t possibly afford to restore. I recommended they relocate and share a new facility somewhere else. This is not a merger, but two churches serving the same building. I recently met a pastor in Lansing, Michigan, who leads a Vineyard church and shares a building with a Free Methodist church and an Independent Charismatic church.

With the cost of construction and the tough financial times, I think we’re beginning to see a trend where many churches share the same building. For years I’ve known about a church in Palm Desert, California, that is a Lutheran church, but uses a Seventh-Day Adventist facility. These types of economical arrangements are not mergers into one church, but two or more separate churches using the same building. I predict we’ll see a lot more of this in the future and I think it’s not a bad idea at all. The church in Palm Desert has even designated 50% of its budget toward missions and can afford to do so because it doesn’t have a mortgage. The money that’s paid to the Seventh-Day Adventist church has allowed them to build an additional youth facility, which the Lutheran church can also use on Sundays. This is a trend not unlike a gas station and convenience store that has a Dunkin’ Donuts on one side and a McDonald’s on the other, all wrapped into one building.

“We need more accountability.” This is a comment I am hearing more and more as I work with churches. In follow-up I ask, “How so?” Almost always the response is directed at holding the pastor more accountable.

Interestingly, when I ask the people I interview if there is a need for more accountability of church members, their response is not as enthusiastic.

There is a great deal of confusion in the church regarding accountability. Mainly, accountability has been redefined and made synonymous with control. Let’s revisit the opening paragraph.

Usually “holding the pastor accountable” is translated into holding the pastor accountable for his or her actions. Digging deeper: “…for their actions” really means making sure pastors don’t do anything we don’t want them to do. In other words control!

There are all kinds of underlying issues here: Biblical worldview, consumerism, entitlement, inherited forms of church government… the list goes on and on. However, in wide-angle view, I think it comes down to one truth. Control is easier than accountability.

Voting yes or no (more often no) is relatively innocuous and takes very little time or commitment. True, biblical accountability, however, is messy.

It requires an investment of time. It requires commitment to very personal relationships with other believers. It requires vulnerable transparency of our daily spiritual lives.

Most of all, biblical accountability is not just for the pastor, it is for everyone.

For the record: I believe there is a need for more biblical accountability in the church, but there is also an equal need for diminished control.

What do you think?

Have you ever sat through a congregational meeting that felt filled with tension, division, and unrest?

Have you ever wondered how to get the right people with the passion and gifts to serve in the church without it feeling like you were just filling in blanks on a nomination form?

Ever wondered how to make the most of your meetings at church, how to make the most efficient and effective decisions based on God’s will, not someone else’s agenda?

I can offer a resounding “YES!” to each one of these questions. As Christian leaders we all face the frustration of leading our church in the important work of ministry. It can be quite painful at times to be a leader in a congregation. Ever wondered why?

Many of the struggles of being a leader in the local church come from the structure and methods that are used to make decisions and identify and place people in leadership positions. Many of our churches have fallen into the trap of being governed by a constitution and set of by-laws rather than something more biblically founded. Something, perhaps like seeking God’s will. The Bible seems like it would be a good way to organize and make decisions in a congregation. Too often, however, way too often, when a decision needs to be made or leadership roles need to be filled we go running to our constitutions instead of our Bibles.

Isn’t it interesting that we freely and prayerfully let the Word of God influence and govern how we raise our children, interact with our spouses, deal with our neighbors, treat the homeless, impoverished, and the least among us, yet we do not let the Bible govern how we actually go about God’s work of the local church? We let the Bible guide us in what we should do in ministry, but we fall short in letting the Bible tell us how we should go about doing ministry.

If you are a frustrated church leader ask yourself this question:

How are you letting the Bible and seeking God’s will be the foundation to the decision making and leadership development in ministry within your congregation?