Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
Let us not give up meeting together,
as some are in the habit of doing,
but let us encourage one another.
-- Hebrews 10:24-25
The single most revealing measurement of a congregation’s health and spiritual vitality? Attendance at worship. That’s why the attendance number is reported every week by our churches on the Conference Dashboard.
That’s why I and the Cabinet have set for ourselves a goal of 4% increase in attendance in our churches in 2009. Church attendance among Christians in Alabama is the second highest of any state in the nation, so this is a goal we can reach.
“Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing,” says the writer of the Hebrews. It’s sort of a comfort to know that, even in the early church, some Christians had to be encouraged to come to church!
It’s also a reminder of how important it is to be together. “Christianity is a social religion. To turn it into a solitary affair is to kill it,” said John Wesley. You just can’t follow Jesus alone. Discipleship is never do-it-yourself. Christianity is a group thing.
Who is a Christian? Someone who has not given up meeting together. That’s not all that needs to be said about Christianity, but down through the ages we have no record of a single faithful disciple who refuses to gather with other fellow believers.
“That we may spur one another to good deeds.” This statement is a reminder that worship together is not only a way to love God but also a way to love our neighbor, to fulfill our responsibility to be “our neighbor’s keeper,” to “spur one another to good deeds.”
“I didn’t get anything out of your sermon,” says someone emerging from church. This statement betrays a misunderstanding of Christian worship.
Most of us learn that the supreme test of worship is not what I get out of it but also what my neighbor got out of it.
One reason why people may avoid Sunday meetings together is that it is so much easier to be vaguely spiritual, to cling to your cherished notions, and misconceptions when you have no fellow Christians to challenge and “spur one another.”
All over our Conference, in churches large and small, this Sunday about 100,000 of us North Alabama Methodists will convene. We haven’t given up on Jesus’ promise to meet us when just two or three of us gather. We will gather, praise God, seek divine guidance and correction for our lives, and spur on one another, by the grace of God the Father, Son, and Holy, Spirit.
Will Willimon
What are the attendance patterns at your church? Click on “Church Stats” on the North Alabama Conference website and you can see a picture of your church’s faithfulness.
Last week we noted that the most important single factor in a congregation’s commitment to our shared giving program (apportionments) is a pastor’s commitment and ability to lead in the ministry of giving. Jesus commands us to be givers more than receivers.
The good news is that, even in tough economic times, most of our pastors and most of our churches are finding the means to be faithful in their stewardship. The vast majority (about 70%) of our pastors and churches pay their fair share of Conference administration and mission funds in full.
Marcus Singleton was recruited by us to Alabama from North Carolina to help turnaround our historic St. Paul’s church in downtown Birmingham. We are fortunate to have this talented young pastor among us. Last Sunday Marcus noted, in his sermon, that at St. Paul’s the economic downturn appears to have had no effect on people’s fidelity to the work of the church – those people who were faithful before the economic downturn have continued to be faithful during the recession. The reverse, sadly, is also the case noted Marcus. A new member joined St. Paul’s at the end of the sermon – one of the many who have joined since Marcus’ arrival. St. Paul’s is showing the greatest growth in the congregation’s recent history, thus validating my hunch that people will respond to the truth about their money!
The same week, Clauzell Ridgeway Williams, fresh out of seminary, serving Sweet Home in Gadsden -- a church that has been in precipitous decline for two decades, a church that was routinely receiving $20k in salary support from the Conference – will be totally off salary subsidy support by the end of this year and will pay 100% of their apportionments! I’ve often said that financial problems, the inability to pay fair share of apportionments (which rarely amounts to more than a mere 10% of a congregation’s income) is invariably an indicator of weak spiritual health. I’ve been to Sweet Home recently and can testify that this financial wonder is validated by the spiritual energy there on a Sunday morning.
Allen Beasley recently sent me pictures of the beautiful new building at Russellville, a building that was built to house the congregation’s rapidly growing ministries. Allen noted that this achievement is particularly noteworthy because Russellville has been hit as hard by the recession as any place in Alabama and from the beginning of the project the church vowed not to be delinquent in its payment of its fair share of apportionments.
The same week as Clauzell, Allen and Marcus were giving strong witness in the area of financial faithfulness, Mike Pope was concluding an entire month of messages on stewardship. Mike simply asked everyone to “give God a raise.” If someone was giving 10%, they were asked to give a little more. If someone was giving 5%, give a little more. “I mentioned how Jesus is worthy of a raise. He is never late, never calls in sick, never uses any vacation time… Second, I asked everyone to give Jesus a bonus.” The budget at Tuscumbia First was a bit behind so Mike asked for everyone to make a one time gift for the budget. Mike even led by example: “I sold my bass boat and gave all the money to the church.” Mike’s creative approach yielded fruit: “On October 4, 2009 we had an offering of over $121,000. We called it ‘Miracle Sunday’ and indeed it was miraculous!”
I agree. It was a miracle. But it was also the result of pastoral commitment to the ministry of stewardship.
I’ve just seen the District Financial reports. Two of our Districts, Mountain Lakes and Southeast (both in some of the hardest hit areas of our state) are ahead of last year’s apportionment payments. I’m certain that this is a testimonial to the leadership of those DS’s and to the pastors and churches in those districts.
Years ago I remember a wise old preacher saying, “Show me your checkbook stubs and I will tell you your theology.” Show me a congregation’s record of giving; it is an unerring testimonial not only to its theology but also to its pastoral leadership.
Bishop Al Gwinn, who is doing some great things in the North Carolina Conference, shared with me a study that was done in the West Ohio Conference related to the impact of pastoral leadership on the fair-share giving (apportionments) of a congregation. I found it interesting:
In the late 90’s Dr. Don House of the University of Texas ….had his graduate students run correlations on all the statistics of all the churches in the denominations to determine what were the critical factors in the payment of apportionments. The single biggest predictor of a church’s level of payment was its previous performance. This related directly to the pastor, i.e., the strongest correlation was to the pastor of the church. As the pastor moved, so did the apportionment payments. The second strongest correlation was with the district superintendent; the third was with the bishop.
In West Ohio, I’ve run studies of pastors and churches to see if patterns existed. This was done by looking at the payment history three years prior to a pastoral change, all during the pastor’s tenure at a church, and then three years following the pastor’s leaving for every appointment in the pastor’s career. Different conditions gave different results.
A. If a pastor with a history of paying apportionments in full was appointed to a church that had a history of paying in full the church always continued to pay 100%.
B. If a pastor with a history of paying less than 100% was appointed to a church that had a history of paying in full, the church stopped paying at the 100% level within the first year of appointment. If the pastor was appointed somewhere else within three years, the church returned to 100% payments within a year following the pastor’s departure. If the pastor stayed more than five years with the church paying less than 100%, it seldom returned to 100%.
C. If a pastor with a history of paying 100% was appointed to a church that had a history of paying less than 100%, the church usually moved to payment in full within two years and sometimes within the first year of the appointment.
D. The combination of a church and pastor with both having a history of less than 100% usually decreased payment from the highest point that either had ever attained. It often went to zero.”
Pastor
Church
Result
Pays 100%
Pays 100%
Pays 100%
Pays <100%
Pays 100%
Pays <100%
Pays 100%
Pays <100%
Pays 100%
Pays <100%
Pays <100%
Pays <100%
Stan’s conclusions were that if appointments were based solely on placement in order to gain payout percentages, you would put:
(1) 100% pastors in 100% churches and less than 100% churches who have high apportionment balances and
(2) less than 100% pastors only in less than 100% churches with the smallest payout pastors going to churches with the smallest apportionment levels.
Our Annual Conference continues to have a low level of apportionment participation (when compared with other SEJ Conferences). I am sure that the findings of this study would apply directly to our Annual Conference. We have some pastors who have not led a church to full mission giving participation in their entire ministry; we have many more pastors who have never served a church, in any location or situation, that has not fully participated in our giving.
What this says to me is that the Cabinet (our DS’s receive salaries that are based, in part, on their proven ability to lead churches to participate in apportioned giving) need to take greater note of a pastor’s record of stewardship leadership in appointing pastors.
It also reminds us that apportionment participation is a testimony to a pastor’s leadership gifts in this area. Pastors who are truly committed to mission giving produce churches that pay 100% of apportionments regardless of that church’s financial situation. Pastors who aren’t committed to mission giving produce churches that are unfaithful in this area. Period.
Will Willimon
How has your congregation done in its giving patterns last Sunday, last month, over the past seven years? Click into the NAC website at “Church Stats” and find out.
In the past months I have met with dozens of our congregations whose life is being transformed through Natural Church Development.
NCD is one of the many exciting innovations that Dale Cohen has brought to our Conference. The program has now been augmented by the appointment of Lori Carden to focus fully on NCD work and help take our NCD efforts to the next step.
People, once said, “Why are we starting new churches and not revitalizing older churches?” NCD is now a Conference Priority and our chief means of congregational transformation. Three times more churches are engaged in NCD than the number of new congregations.
While the NCD process offers many gifts, I would like to highlight just one: the ministry of truth-telling.
Time and again I’ve hard from pastors that the best thing about NCD is, “More truth has been told in this congregation through NCD than has been told in twenty years.”
One of the most significant moments is when a congregation, after a congregation–wide assessment focuses on its “maximum and minimum factors.” Truth is told in that moment. In fact, a major reason why churches fail to enter into the second year of NCD is the inability to face the facts of their situation and a fear that they have not the God-given resources to handle the challenges before them.
Of course, I’m a preacher, so I’m supposed to be in the truth business on a weekly basis. We also worship a Savior who is not only the way and the life but also the truth.
One of my leadership guides says, “A leader helps an organization face the truth that it has been avoiding for decades, all with the faith that the organization has the resources to deal with the truth.” I have that faith for the churches of our Conference. God has given us what we need to transform ourselves, to grow, to move more dynamically into the future – if we will avail ourselves of the God-given opportunities for transformation like NCD. Thanks to Lori Carden and to Dale Cohen for their great leadership in NCD.
In many ways, this summer has revealed this to be the worst of times and the best of times for raising money for the work of Christ’s church. Historically, churches feel the effects of a financial recession about a year after the recession’s beginning. We are certainly finding that to be true. Our Conference receipts both for mission and for clergy benefits have taken a dramatic drop. We could receive the lowest percentage of apportionments this year in the last decade. Anticipating a shortfall of many hundreds of thousands of dollars, we have made some painful cuts in our Conference staff and budget. (Sadly, few of our congregations have had to cut their budgets as much as the Conference has been forced to cut its budget -- a commentary on the trend of some of our churches to keep more money within the confines of their own congregation.)
On the other hand, this was the summer that our churches raised over $400,000 within a couple of months to save Sumatanga. This was an unprecedented outpouring of support for our beloved institution. I have not seen such generosity since our response to Katrina. On top of that Matt Lacey tells me that this summer saw a marked increase in short term mission teams being sent from our churches to places of need all around the world.
I’m sure that there are many lessons to be learned about stewardship in this worst of times, best of times. In order to learn as much as I could, I read J. Cliff Christopher’s Not Your Parents’ Offering Plate: A New Vision for Financial Stewardship (Abingdon Press, 2008). Christopher chides church leaders like me who sound the alarm and plead for more money for ministry:
The church is the only nonprofit I know of that seems to believe that the more you cry that you are sinking, the more people will give to you. The exact opposite is true. No nonprofit I know of would ever send out a donor letter stating that they are running a horrible deficit and they just want the donors to help balance the budget. They know that such a letter actually discourages giving rather than motivates it. A nonprofit board will deal with budget matters in a board meeting but never publicize such to its donor base. The church goes out of its way to do just that.
In the nonprofit world, two institutions continue to outperform most of the others. The Salvation Army continues to get more donations each year than any social service agency or group. Harvard University leads all universities in endowment-giving year after year. Do they send out a message that they are dying on the vine and must have one more contribution to stay afloat? No, they say, “We took your money last year and we did great things with it. If you will give us more, we will do more great things.” And people give and give to them. People want results and these institutions give positive results!
Above all, Christopher stresses that “money follows mission.” He asked a group of pastors why people give:
They started blurting out, "taxes, guilt, involvement…" No one was even close. Finally, a lady who had been sitting quietly in the back raised her hand and said, "Number one is a belief in the mission. Number two is a regard for staff leadership, and number three is fiscal responsibility." She was right. I was stunned. I asked her where she was a pastor and she sheepishly said, "I am not a pastor, but my pastor told me about this seminar and thought I might learn something. I am the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity."
The one absolutely most important factor in why people give is mission:
People want to make the world a better place to live. They want to believe that they can truly make a difference for the better. There is embedded in us, it seems, a desire to finish out our work on this earth with a sense that we amounted to something. To sum it up, people want to be a part of something that changes lives.
The best way to raise money for your church is simply to DO YOUR JOB! I get frustrated reading newsletters of church after church that tell me how the men's group is going to have a breakfast on Saturday and the women are going to have a bazaar next Thursday and the youth will have a dance next Friday after the ball game. Then, over in the corner, usually separated by a bold line so that it stands out, I see financial statistics, which usually indicate that a certain amount was needed and a lesser amount was received, with a quote underneath, "God loves a cheerful giver."
When I see that I want to say, "What have I got to be cheerful about?" Did you show me one life story in this newsletter about how the church has been making our world better? Is there one life-changing story in the entire document? Do you really just exist so that men can have breakfast, women a bazaar, and youth can dance? What is it exactly that you want me to support?
I have noted, in our churches, that apportionment giving seems to be a barometer of the spiritual health of a congregation and of the congregation’s confidence in their pastor’s vision. Christopher confirms this:
What I have learned after working with over two hundred churches is that the person leading the flock makes a lot of difference in whether today's donors contribute as completely as they can. When they see a pastor who has a great vision and shows excellent skills in leadership, they will invest in that pastor's vision and trust in his or her skills to make the hopes of the donor come true.
How is your church doing in its stewardship fidelity? Log into the Conference Website and check out your church’s current giving patterns under our “Church Stats” page. Let us all see the current financial crisis as a time to reconsider our commitments, to focus on the main mission of the church, and to enable all our people, through their giving, to be part of Christ’s mission.
Will Willimon
This week I’ll be with our Order of Elders meeting at Sumatanga, exploring ways that our elders can be more effective in our leadership of the church
In spite of Jesus’ repeated warning that if we faithfully follow him we were sure to be crucified with him we keep thinking that the Christian faith is a technique for smooth sailing in life (Joel Osteen).
During a recent discussion with a conflicted congregation one of the leaders said, “If this were a truly Christian church, we wouldn’t be having these problems.” The assumption was that the congregation’s crisis was due to a failure to be real Christians.
Sometimes that’s the case. But not always. Sometimes we find ourselves in a painful, conflicted and difficult mess not because we’re not faithful to Jesus but because we are following Jesus! In Judges 6, amid all sorts of defeats and struggles related to the conquest of Canaan, an angel appears and tells the Israelites that God is with them. Gideon impudently asks the angel, in effect, “If the Lord is really with us, why are we in this mess?” The implication is that, if the Lord were really behind us, we wouldn’t be failing.
But when the Lord promised to give Hebrews land, the Lord did not promise it would be easy. When Jesus promised us salvation he did not promise it would be painless.
Jesus calls us not only to get along with one another but to love one another, to forgive enemies, to love the truth which is Jesus Christ more than we love comfort and security, to both honor the past and be faithful to a living, loving God. That’s tough.
Most human institutions are content to survive, to make it from one year to the next in solvency. The church must make disciples, be light to the world, tell a deceitful, death-denying culture the truth, etc. In other words, Gideon, sometimes we’re in a mess because the Lord is really with us! And we find ourselves in peril because we’re really with the Lord.
Our church faces many challenges – financing ministry in a recession; managing a complex far-flung organization; attracting people who have so many options in their lives, etc.
Let us remind ourselves in worship this Sunday that our greatest challenge is that which it has always been – loving and serving a living, truthful God!
William H. Willimon
This coming weekend Patsy and I will be at the Clergy Spouse Retreat at Sumatanga. I hope to greet many of our clergy spouses at this great gathering.
Knowing where you are going is more important than know how you will get there. - Gil Rendle
North Alabama Conference Priorities: New Congregations Natural Church Development Effective Leadership for the 21st Century Empowering a New Generation of Christians Missions
After church consultant Gil Rendle met with the Cabinet in 2006 we devised a set of Priorities to recommend to the Conference and to focus our work. One of the challenges our church has had is to identify and to focus upon “the one thing needful” in our work. There are so many things we could do; what is the most important thing for us to do in this time and place?
These priorities have acted as magnets, drawing us forward, pulling us into a more vital future. The priorities have given us some tangible successes:
We quickly became a leader in starting New Congregations. We are still closing three times more churches than we open, but we now have a structure for equipping new church pastors and supporting new communities of faith and we have reorganized our efforts so that we are starting a greater variety of new churches.
A couple of hundred of our established congregations are experiencing renewal and vitality through their participation in Natural Church Development. At last we have a proven, effective way of equipping pastors and congregations to move forward.
Empower a New Generation. Our Board of Ordained Ministry has reorganized itself to seek and ordain new young clergy. Although this has been a priority that has proved difficult to attain, the average age of our candidates for ministry is the sixth lowest of any Conference.
Effective Leadership. We have defined clergy effectiveness in terms of ability to lead growth. We now have (in the Conference Dashboard) up to the minute measurementof results and fruit in key areas of growth for every congregation. We have exited some of our least effective clergy and we are attempting to administer our clergy appointment system with greater attention to fruit. Yet (judging from our results in terms of continued declines in giving and in attendance and membership) we have much more to do. Our Lay Leadership needs to take much more responsibility for effective, accountable leadership.
Missions. Our newest priority is linked to the attainment of all our other priorities. It is also an area that shares much activity in all sorts of churches. And yet our poor Apportionment support and the number of congregations who are not participating in mission show that we’ve got lots to do.
How does your congregation look when measured by these priorities? The good news is that God is giving us new fruit. The challenge is that, we still have pastors and congregations who have yet to experience the joy of being drawn forward by this vision. And yet, by the grace of God, we are experiencing documented forward movement. Thanks be to God.
Fleming Rutledge (an Episcopal priest in New York) is one of the brightest, best biblical preachers whom I know. She has written some wonderful books of sermons and has been an astute critic of some of my preaching. In her essay “A New Liberalism of the Word,” Fleming suggests that the core problem with much of today’s preaching is theological in nature. (Perhaps, at the core, this is always the most significant challenge of preaching in any age – to keep our talk in the pulpit as talk about God in Jesus Christ.)
Fleming says that our theological problem as preachers, “can be precisely identified in the words of Jesus to the Sadducees: ‘Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?’ Jesus’ point against the Sadducees is that the power of God is able to create an entirely new reality that transcends all human categories.” Rutledge notes that the scriptures and the power of God are inextricably related. The scriptures mediate the power of God, a power that has in it the potential to transform and make new. The word is the unique, God-ordained vehicle for God’s transforming power. To know God’s word, to stand and speak God’s word, is to know the miraculous way God uses the word to raise up the church in every age.
Preaching is powerful when it is biblical, when it takes the biblical witness with primary seriousness, when it is first interested, not in the limits of the hearers, or in our felt needs and cares, but in what God, in power, wishes to say to us, how the Holy Spirit, in power, wants to transform us. Nothing can create the church, nothing can raise up a new generation of Christians, we believe, other than the originating, fecund, life-giving power of the word.
Let us meditate on that as we gather in our churches and submit to the Word this Sunday.
Will Willimon
(Fleming’s essay is found in Loving God with Our Minds, ed. Michael Welker and Cynthia Jarvis; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004, p. 252.)
P.S. This month Abingdon Press publishes Undone by Easter, my newest book on preaching. It's a study of the way that preaching keeps fresh by working with God's time.
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