The Transformational Journey: Walking toward Emmaus

As churches (and a presbytery) who seek to grow ever deeper into the mission dei, the mission of God, and who live in an evolving society that finds “no religious affiliation” and “done with church” (the nones and dones) as faster growing segments of the population that “mainline Christian,” we must ask ourselves what it looks like to walk the transformational journey toward the faithfulness, courage and compassion we are called to have for the sake of Jesus Christ. Put another way, what does it look like when, as a congregation (or presbytery), we’re just stuck in the same place? What kind of leadership is required to get unstuck?

Jesus’ walk to Emmaus with Cleopas and the other disciple is an excellent illustration of the kind of leadership required to get unstuck. Jesus takes six leadership actions that help Cleopas and his brother discover a new sense of God’s purpose:

1.      Jesus comes alongside. “As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them…” (Luke 24:15) Leadership is relational, connectional, a contact sport.

2.      Jesus asks questions. “He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" (24:17) Leadership is inquisitive, interested in the insights, opinions and input of others.

3.      Jesus listens to their answers. “‘About Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied. ‘He was a prophet… Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see’" (24:19, 24). Leadership is open to others’ stories and experiences; leaders intuit implicitly that transformation begins from a particular time, place and circumstance.

4.      Jesus interprets what is happening. “’Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (24:26-7). Leadership frames our communal conversations, helping guide and direct them without controlling the outcome.

5.      Jesus lets the disciples determine their own future. “As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’So he went in to stay with them” (24:28-9). Leadership allows others the freedom to respond in compassion and courage, in faith, in hope and in love.

6.      Jesus reveals to the disciples their shared community. “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him…” (24:30-31). Leadership cultivates community and caring, the sense that we are all in this together.

Cleopas and the other disciple returned to Jerusalem and ignited a revolution. Can we do the same after our encounters with Jesus? With God’s help, all things are possible. But before we seek to ignite transformation in our congregations (or presbytery), we might do a bit of self-reflection. As leaders, how would we rate ourselves? At which of these six actions are we most like Jesus and least like Jesus? How can we lean into our strengths? How can we invite and enlist those around us to help us minimize the damage we do because of our weaknesses?

Change is not a four-letter word,

Brad Munroe

The Way Forward: Money follows Mission

One of the prevailing temptations in ministry is to leap too quickly to solutions, especially for the kind of folks reading this note, the vast majority of whom are leaders in their churches. Leaders become leaders by solving problems, by being perceived as capable and willing to tackle the difficult work of bringing God’s good news into people’s lives and the life of our communities. As leaders, then, we are tempted to leap before we look, for problems come fast and hard and the next one is just around the corner.

Nowhere is this temptation more prevalent that when dealing with money. “Being good stewards” is our polite way of raising concerns about money; “Butts and Bucks Anxiety” is sometimes closer to the truth. When money concerns present themselves, leaders’ leap before we look impulse often kicks in with renewed vigor, for, unlike the federal government, churches must live within a budget. Such a response is natural, inevitable and is indeed being a good steward. However, in the urgency of the moment we sometimes fail to distinguish between the short-term, limited and provisional decisions that must be made right here, right now and the longer-term, broad and wide, strategic choices that must be made for the health of our congregations. Or, in this instance, our presbytery.

As I have discussed these past few weeks, the presbytery is beginning to engage in a conversation about our budget, about how we spend money, for we have an unsustainable budget deficit of $180,000 caused by a complex array of factors. In the short-term, we will make some limited and provisional decisions about how to decrease the deficit, review reserve funds toward possibly redesignating them and look at gaps in our current structure that might save us a few bucks. Much more significant will be the ever broadening, ever widening conversations focused on the longer-term, strategic choices that must be made. To give focus to these more strategic questions, I have proposed a set of three questions with which to approach our budget. These questions work for a local congregation just as well as they do for a presbytery:

·         What are we constitutionally required to do?

·         What are our core commitments that are a function of our identity and call from God?

·         What are other considerationsthat are, perhaps, important yet do not reflect our deepest identity and calling?

These three questions suggest a hierarchy of values, and as such function as a lens through which one can examine and explore who a presbytery (or congregation) is, what kinds of things they must do to remain true to their identity before Christ and their unique calling from God, and what may be one or more things that are bound to make Jesus happy but which are not foundational to the shared missional vision of the congregation (or presbytery). All this is a way of speaking the truth leaders have known for years: money follows mission; first mission, then money. Yes, we need to talk about the budget deficit. But first we need to know who we are and whose we are; we need to examine, explore and embrace our mission.

Resisting the temptation to leap before I look,

Brad Munroe

The Way Forward: Engaging Adaptive Questions

Last week I summarized the Presbytery’s current fiscal dilemma ($180,000 budget deficit in 2015) and suggested the way forward together will require us to move beyond merely discussing things in terms of technical fixes but rather engaging the adaptive challenges associated with our life together (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfLLDvn0pI8).

Today I would like to suggest some questions that help organizations such as a presbytery (or your congregation) engage the adaptive challenges presented by our ever-evolving world of complexity:

o   Questions to ask that are already being discussed

o   Questions to ask that no one seems to be talking about

o   Issues we see that need to be addressed, at least from our point of view

o   Opportunities before us that are either (a) a bit outside the box kind of thinking, (b) really outside the box, (c) wild hair ideas, or (d) whatever is beyond a WHI

o   People who need to be around the table of conversation (beyond us)

o   Sacred cows that no one seems to want to talk about (remembering sacred cows make gourmet burgers)

o   Elephants in the room (a more extreme example of the above)

What would it look like for your Session to have the kind of conversation in which these questions are engaged? Such a conversation requires implicit trust, radical humility, deep sensitivity, uncommon honesty and a willingness to listen, listen, listen. Only communities of care are able to engage in such conversations.

My wife, a licensed therapist, likes to tell couples that she is “on the side of the relationship,” which is to say that a healthy relationship means all parties listen and all parties are heard; yet each party also takes personal responsibility to serve the relationship with both courage and respect. Only communities of care are able to engage in such conversations.

What will it look like for our presbytery to have the kind of conversation in which the above questions are engaged? We are about to find out. I am bringing these questions to the Resources Committee, to the Leadership Team and, in April, to the Presbytery meeting in plenary. And I invite you, through whatever cohort or sub-group in which you participate (e.g. CNAM, Hispanic Fellowship, one of the theological cohorts), to begin to engage these questions. Together we will be a community of care able to engage in such a conversation.

We are all on Team Jesus,

Brad Munroe

Seeking Congregational Renewal: Presbytery Transformation Grant 2

It is with great pleasure that I announce that your presbytery leadership has finalized our grant application to General Assembly for a Presbytery Transformation Grant. Pending approval by General Assembly, this grant will help fund retreats, educational seminars, online training, personal coaching and demographic studies to be utilized by congregations to catalyze their efforts toward congregational renewal. These activities will be designed to benefit both ruling elders and teaching elders, as our conviction is that shared leadership for ministry is essential to congregational transformation!

Our presbytery’s transformation grant application focuses on several themes:

1.      Promoting Congregational Evangelism – skill development for individuals, ideas for congregations, sharing the Gospel in Word through faith sharing

2.      Leading through Change – skill development for pastors and Sessions on steps required to lead a congregation in changing contexts, with adaptive rather than technical processes

3.      Cultivating Multi-Cultural Ministry – steps that encourage movement in the direction of becoming more multi-cultural as congregations, and what steps that stifle such movement

4.      Initiating Congregational Renewal – learning to evaluate one’s changing neighborhood, demographics and ministry challenges and concrete steps to take toward discussion, planning, and action

5.      Moving toward Missional Ministry – learning the theology and specific practices that help congregations move toward building community and compassion with and for their neighbors: mission + relational = missional

6.      Ministering to Millennials – learning the new cultural ethos of younger generations and how churches can respond in helpful ways relationally, missionally and, of course, technologically

The grant request to General Assembly is for $50,000 and is a matching fund grant. Our portion of the matching funds will be taken from our mission priority reserve account. We will use these funds to underwrite the aforementioned retreats, seminars, online training, coaching and demographic studies. If approved by General Assembly, transformation grant activities will begin in August in conjunction with the combined presbytery meeting, so…Stay Tuned!

Seeking to Row in the Same Direction,

Brad Munroe

Seeking Congregational Renewal: Presbytery Transformation Grant

It is with great pleasure that I announce that your presbytery leadership has finalized our grant application to General Assembly for a Presbytery Transformation Grant. Pending approval by General Assembly, this grant will help fund retreats, educational seminars, online training, personal coaching and demographic studies to be utilized by congregations to catalyze their efforts toward congregational renewal. These activities will be designed to benefit both ruling elders and teaching elders, as our conviction is that shared leadership for ministry is essential to congregational transformation!

            Our presbytery’s transformation grant application focuses on several themes:

1.      Promoting Congregational Evangelism – skill development for individuals, ideas for congregations, sharing the Gospel in Word through faith sharing

2.      Leading through Change – skill development for pastors and Sessions on steps required to lead a congregation in changing contexts, with adaptive rather than technical processes

3.      Cultivating Multi-Cultural Ministry – steps that encourage movement in the direction of becoming more multi-cultural as congregations, and what steps that stifle such movement

4.      Initiating Congregational Renewal – learning to evaluate one’s changing neighborhood, demographics and ministry challenges and concrete steps to take toward discussion, planning, and action

5.      Moving toward Missional Ministry – learning the theology and specific practices that help congregations move toward building community and compassion with and for their neighbors: mission + relational = missional

6.      Ministering to Millennials – learning the new cultural ethos of younger generations and how churches can respond in helpful ways relationally, missionally and, of course, technologically

The grant request to General Assembly is for $50,000 and is a matching fund grant. Our portion of the matching funds will be taken from our mission priority reserve account. We will use these funds to underwrite the aforementioned retreats, seminars, online training, coaching and demographic studies. If approved by General Assembly, transformation grant activities will begin in August in conjunction with the combined presbytery meeting, so…Stay Tuned!

Seeking to Row in the Same Direction,

Brad Munroe

Facts, Facts, Facts…Congregational Growth

            Hartford Seminary recently published its latest research findings from a longitudinal study of U.S. congregations (FaithCommunitiesToday.org). In Hartford’s report on church growth, research director David Roozen writes, “…in today’s world growth and decline are primarily dependent upon a congregation’s internal culture, program and leadership, and therefore a congregation’s ability to change and adapt” (emphasis added). In other words, if a congregation is willing to change, it can grow.

            Change for change sake, however, is NEVER the answer.

            So, what did Hartford Seminary’s researchers discover? Among the most interesting findings included:

1.      There is a clear correlation between growth and the sense that a congregation is spiritually vital and alive along with a clear mission and purpose.

2.      Where a worship service is considered joyful, a congregation is more likely to experience substantial growth. And congregations that involve children in worship were more likely to experience substantial growth.

3.      Growth in predominantly white congregations is less likely, in part because this population has zero growth demographically. The members tend to be older as well and less likely to have contemporary worship services.

4.      Congregations whose members are heavily involved in recruiting new people have a definite growth advantage, as do congregations that use multiple methods to make follow-up contacts with visitors, that regularly invest in special events or programs to attract people from the community, and whose senior clergy spent priority time in evangelism and recruitment.

5.      Congregations that saw themselves as not that different from other congregations in their area tended to decline.

I find most interesting points 1 and 5, as they are the photographic negative images of one another. In background paragraphs that discuss key findings, Roozen comments that a statistically significant majority of growing congregations have a strong sense of personal identity and uniqueness; that is, they can individually and corporately tell you who they are! This ability to speak identity is compelling and winsome when discussing one’s church with friends, colleagues and neighbors. This ability to speak identity creates clarity of mission, which in turn fuels passion. My takeaway from this research is that congregations will always benefit from knowing who they are and whose they are, will be blessed by embracing their sense of call from the Christ who has embraced them and calls them to be a blessing.

Thoughts for the season of ordinations and installations,

Brad Munroe

Sexual Misconduct Prevention Training: Every Year, Everyone, At Least One

I am pleased to announce that this fall both de Cristo and Grand Canyon presbyteries approved
new sexual misconduct prevention policies requiring annual training for all (a) active teaching elders, (b) honorably retired teaching elders currently serving in ministry, (c) commissioned ruling elders currently serving in ministry, and (d) candidates and inquirers for ordination. If you are one of the above, you are asked during calendar year 2016 to take either at least one of the online training courses or attend a face-to-face training session to be scheduled in the Spring (date to be announced). All online courses are offered through the presbyteries’ association with Hugh Wood / Insurance Board and are available for all members of both presbyteries. One’s church does not need to have insurance through HW/IB to utilize these training opportunities.

To sign up yourself, staff or church officers, the session clerk should send the following information to Carolyn McBurney at the Presbytery office:

1. Individual’s name
2. His/her role with your church (staff, elder, deacon, volunteer with ____ program,
3. His/her Phone number
4. His/her email

Carolyn will enter them into the system, after which, they will receive an email from
ARMATUS with their login ID and password. They can then access the website and
take the training on their own time.

Please allow five to seven business days for processing. 

Because protecting our children and preventing sexual predation is the work of entire
communities, I believe we need “200% accountability,” by which I mean the expectation that everyone learns, grows and stays current with best practices (100% accountability) and that each of us expects the same of everyone (200% accountability).  I have taken all of the courses offered, but that was last year.

Thus, again this year in 2016, I will take one of the refresher courses: every year, everyone, at least one.

P.S. Churches interested in utilizing the Presbytery to conduct background checks, may do so at a 60% discount for churches enrolled with the Insurance Board ($5.00). Those churches not enrolled may participate, but will pay the full rate ($12.00).  An application form is available on the Presbytery website under the Clerk’s Corner.  Complete the form and mail or fax to the Presbytery office (never email something containing social security numbers.) Your church will be billed for each background check.