Newsletter Articles
What is a Signature Ministry?
A key element of the Learning Journey for participants in our upcoming Transforming Leaders Initiative is the experience of visiting sites of vital ministry we are calling Signature Ministries. A key question is what does a Signature Ministry look like? Our Learning Journey design/build team is now working to define the characteristics of a Signature Ministry, and identify them across the ELCA so we can enlist them as mentors to help equip a new generation of missional leaders.
Many Different Shapes and Sizes, Sharing Essential Characteristics
Our goal is to equip leaders for the church of the 21st century. Given the growing diversity of our society, to effectively reach people for Christ will require many different forms and expressions of church. The ELCA has struggled to move beyond being a white, middle class suburban church.
We hope to equip leaders for large churches and small, for urban, suburban and exurban communities. We want to touch different cultural and ethnic contexts, men and women. To do so, we need mentoring churches that reflect the diversity that has emerged in our society. Wayne Gretzky said, when asked how he achieved his phenomenal success in hockey, “I don’t skate where the puck is, I skate where it’s going to be.” We have to help equip leaders for the church of tomorrow, not the church of today or yesterday.
Healthy Body of Christ
First and foremost, we are looking for healthy churches to mentor our future leaders. At the core of these churches is a healthy body of Christ, where people discern their gifts and calling, where they are equipped and empowered and sent into the community to serve using those gifts.
No one leader possesses all of the gifts necessary to grow a healthy discipleship community. Only when we lift up the gifts of every disciple, and each finds his/her valued place in the community does a truly healthy body of Christ emerge.
Bill Easum describes it this way. In a healthy church community, people are drawn in as they are invited by their friends or family. They are changed by an experience of the living God. With the help, guidance and support of the community, they discover how they are gifted, discern what God is calling forth from their gifts, are equipped to use the gifts, and sent out to serve the community and draw others to Christ.
Commitment to Discipleship
In his book, Power Surge, Mike Foss did a wonderful job of contrasting our Membership Churches with the first century discipleship communities found in the Book of Acts. Many churches across the ELCA have adopted a vision of becoming a discipleship community, and this is core to our vision of a healthy Body of Christ. We seek mentors who have successfully drawn people into discipleship, and have seen the power surge of the Spirit in the life of the community flowing out of renewed focus on practicing spiritual disciplines. (See Building Discipleship Communities: Where do we start?)
Growing Spiritual Leaders
Bill Easum taught me years ago that transformation begins with Spiritual Leaders. I have seen numerous pastors attempt to move their culture to Discipleship without an understanding that unless the leaders buy in, the church will not follow. We are looking for ministries where the core lay leaders are committed to discipleship and are drawing the culture deeper and deeper into a spiritual journey with its many rich practices and disciplines. We also find that spiritual growth often happens best in small groups, and so we seek mentors where small groups are proliferating, drawing people in and changing lives.
Servant Leadership
I learned most of what I know about servant leadership from secular sources. I’ve wondered for years why this model of leadership is not high on the teaching agenda within our church. Since adopting this model several years ago, I would agree with those who say this form of leadership is not just the most effective for work in the church, but for leadership in any organization. Ken Blanchard does a great job of dissecting the servant leader in his book of the same name. (See Servant or Self-Serving Leader: How do we know?)
Missional DNA
Scripture tells us that all gifts are given for service to our community. Too often churches turn inward, focused on those already here. As someone who was baptized as an adult into the Lutheran church, I have always wondered why there is not more concern with the unchurched. We are looking for mentoring congregations with a clear focus beyond their campus, on meeting the deep needs of the surrounding community and drawing others to Christ. We look for places where this concern moves beyond the pastor and staff to become an entrenched part of the culture, deeply felt and lived out by the laity.
Gift-Based Ministry Teams
Moving beyond time and talents, beyond committees to Gift-Based Ministry Teams is a key transition we hope to foster in our participating church communities. These teams are fueled by passion and giftedness, and eschew monthly meetings just for meeting sake. These teams have a bias for action, and spring out of the Spirit’s nudging us to find and use our gifts for the Kingdom. So, we are looking for mentor’s who have a robust process of helping people discern their gifts, and live them out in ministry teams. (See Gift-Oriented Ministry)
Clergy/Lay Shared Leadership Built on Trust and Empowerment
The clericalism that exists in the ELCA is not healthy or Biblical. The view of ministry as the “pastor’s job” is crippling our church. In a healthy Body of Christ, clergy and laity share the leadership roles. We are looking for churches where the gifts of lay leaders are recognized, celebrated and integrated into a collaborative leadership team. Collaboration is the key to synergy in the Body of Christ (see article of the same name for further explanation here).
Shared leadership in a healthy church has a foundation of trust. We can only truly value the diverse opinions of others when we have built upon trust. It begins with trusting God. Once we can trust God, the next steps are to trust ourselves, be trustworthy, and finally trust others. Where this trust exists, we can build a permission-giving environment that empowers and trusts others to lead. Micromanagement screams to the people, “I can’t trust you to do it right, I have to control every step.” (For a deeper look, see Building Trust in the Body of Christ)
Multiplying: a growing Discipleship Community
Finally, for those who say, “It’s not about numbers,” I would respectfully disagree. A look at the early Christian communities in the Bible clearly shows that multiplication was a strong principle. If we are a healthy, missional, discipleship community, others will be attracted into our gravitational pull. In this context, numerical growth is not a goal, but a result of growing health of the community.
So, we are looking for mentoring churches that have learned how to draw others to Christ and help them find a vital place in the Body of Christ. Christ gave us the mission. We can say it a hundred different ways, but the essence is this: Be Disciples, Make Disciples, Feed the Sheep. We seek mentors who are living out the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. (For more on multiplication, see Multiplication: a growing church may be closer than you think).
If you find a perfect church, don’t join it, because you will ruin it.
Well, these characteristics set the bar pretty high. The headline above is something I heard many years ago. We are not looking for perfect churches. There may be no church that reflects all these characteristics (I’ve certainly never experienced one). We invite those who see these elements of health emerging in their church to enter into discernment and dialog with us to see if you are being called into mentoring as a Signature Ministry. To explore this idea further, contact Gregg Burch, atl@TransformingChurch.com.
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Comments on this Entry:
Some thoughts:
Over the years I have emphasized four ministry priorities for congregations to consider. They are…
Youth and children’s ministries
Worship and hospitality
Small groups
Community service. (In regards to com. service I have always acknowledged this to be a ministry unique to each given community context, and that it’s not something I, as an outside consultant, could teach to another congregation.)
While your article identifies healthy churches as having a strong small groups ministry and extensive involvement in the needs of the community, I would suggest you add youth/children’s ministry and worship/hospitality as possible “signature strengths.”
With worship and hospitality we are dealing with a very “teachable” ministry emphasis. This is something that can be both caught and taught during a weekend on-site visit. Also, I believe this ministry has a greater potential impact on a congregation’s growth than any other single ministry. (A big part of this topic would involve the subject of worship music.)
In the case of youth/children’s ministries we are recognizing that, with the unchurched, there is no life stage where they are more motivated to consider church involvement than the nesting stage. Bottom line is that we often reach these parents through their children and youth. I believe that most congregations need to be willing to invest a disproportionate percentage of their financial resources (e.g., staffing) in these ministries. (Possible exception would be congregations located in Sun City, AZ.) And by the way, even though Boomers are now in the empty nest, the Millennials, their offspring, will start having kids of their own over the next 20 years.
Next, I would encourage you to seek out teaching ministry sites with at least two signature ministries. My guess is that there are probably numerous congregations with three or four.
Given my setting in Oregon—which, along with Nevada and Alaska—ranks as one of the most unchurched state in the country—I hope you will include growing churches in the most secular regions of the country. For example, I’ve spent most of my life in Southern California. I can tell you that Oregon is much more secular than SoCal.
Also, I find there is a huge credibility gap between small congregations and congregations approaching “mega-church” status. I know you’re already planning on matching “students” with mentors from congregations one “size” larger. However, the implications of this are that you will need many mid-sized signature sites and not so many large-church sites. I recall that the last survey out of church-wide was that average attendance in the ELCA is 139.
One of the challenges in this kind of ministry is what I call “pastor-envy.” We are so easily put off, partly out of jealousy, by pastors of very large congregations. I believe congregations of similar size—from different denominations—have more in common than congregations of very different sizes from the same denominational culture. And as you know, congregational size now—more than ever—is a huge factor when it comes to growth potential. Larger churches have tremendous advantages over smaller congregations when it comes to reaching new people.
Finally, I really appreciate your comment that this is—in part—about numbers. Have you noticed how the ELCA repeatedly downplays the national statistics? The latest example was the editorial in the last Lutheran titled “Numbers Up, Numbers Down.” Amazing!
Posted by: Don Brandt at November 17, 2007 11:35 PM
Good thoughts, Greg, but I don't think you have gone far enough. The general malaise of the Western Christendom church cannot be cured by just trying to "do church" better.
George Barna, in his book "Revolution", estimates that by 2025 only 30% of professing Christians will be involved in the institutional church.
I agree that we need to "do church" better, but there are many cultural obstacles which will hinder this, including the clericalism which permeates the church culture of today. I would suggest that what is needed are radical thinking and risk taking. Subversive questions need to be asked.
*How do we do church without a building? Do we need one?
*Why aren't all the "ministry" gifts mentioned in Eph 4 recognized as being in operation today? Why is the church "pastorcentric?"
*Are our traditions, doctrines, and dogmas cultural or biblical?
*Who do we look to for guidance? Man? God?
*How can we preach the gospel to the world without being "preachy?"
*Why is the church hierarchical? Should it be?
*Why does dualism have such a strong foothold in the church?
*Do we really believe what we say we believe? How do we know?
I strongly believe that these are some of the questions we must ask & at least begin to answer if we are to bring the Good News to this postmodern fragmented world.
Posted by: Joe M. at November 28, 2007 07:06 PM
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