George Bullard's Journey

Calendar « Wired Parson

Check out the teleconferences and webinars from Wired Parson. The next teleconference is with Stanley Hauerwas on Monday, October 1st at 3:00 p.m. EDT.

Link: Calendar « Wired Parson.

Is This the Next Generation of Mission Context Analysis?

Maybe. Could be. Perhaps. Probably. Certainly if you get involved with it. The answer could be a stronger “yes” depending on how you respond to this new resource.

Mike Regele, Peter Wernett, and Chuck Salter, some of the folks who brought to the church demographics and psychographics world CIDS/Percept, have now teamed up to create what they are proposing as the next generation of mission context analysis.

MissionInsite has just been launched. If you want to check it out, go to www.MissionInsite.com. Click on the Client Login tab to view a schedule of web cast workshops being held on a weekly basis now through the end of October.

I had the opportunity to be part of a web cast last week about this new mission context analysis resource. Here are some of my affirmations, applications, and at the end some challenges for MissionInsite.

Affirmations

1. I affirm that it is web-based. It can be accessed anywhere by anyone who has login credentials.

2. I affirm that the philosophy is that as many people as a regional denomination or congregation desires can access the information.

3. I affirm that it seems to have many different options for customizing, and actually taking a denomination or congregation through a decision tree.

4. I affirm that on the front page it talks about this analysis as assisting with strategy development.

5. I affirm the depth of information present in the sample region currently available. It will be of tremendous help in strategy development.

6. Because a close cousin of MissionInsite is a system for working with schools on context analysis, the opportunity will exist for congregations to connect and partner with schools in looking at their area.

7. I affirm the commitment of the founders--Regele, Salter, and Wernett--to help congregations and denominations reach their full kingdom potential.

That is enough to start the dialogue. I hope you will go to www.MissionInsite.com and draw your own conclusions and share them with me at GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org.

Valet Parking at Church? You Have Got to be Kidding!

No. I am completely serious. It is a great hospitality idea for many congregations to consider. I suspect it has more applications than you might think. As a starting point, I would suggest seven times when congregations ought to consider offering valet parking.

ONE. The obvious time is when a church does not have available parking. This is particularly true for in-town or downtown churches without sufficient off street and on street parking.

TWO. When there is a chance people--particularly guests--might have to park more than 400 feet away from the entrance to the building. Guests might be hesitant to allow their car to be valet parked the first time they visit a church. But, I also suspect word will get around that you offer this service.

THREE. To assist senior adults. This will be particularly helpful when a congregation has a large number of senior adults, many of whom want to park close to the building. It is often not possible to provide enough senior adult parking places close to the building. When you do not, they park in the guest spaces.

FOUR. To assist disabled or handicapped persons. Even when handicapped spaces are provided, they may not be as close to the building as they need to be. It could be the driver needs assistance getting a passenger in and out of the building, or the passenger has to wait at the door while the car is parked.

FIVE. An increasing number of churches have situations where one parent is bringing multiple children to church without assistance. This occurs when there is a one-parent household, when a spouse travels for work or military obligations on the weekend, when one spouse does not attend church, etc.

SIX. Bad weather days are a great time to offer valet parking. This can be when it is cold, windy, raining, snowing, or following a snow or ice storm when the parking lot and sidewalks have not yet been cleared. Since these times cannot always be predicted, it is a tougher challenge to staff these Sundays.

SEVEN. Special occasions when the parking lot is likely to be filled would be a great occasion to use valet parking. Its availability can be part of the publicity about the event. Typical events might be Christmas Eve, Easter, special musical or drama events, homecomings and anniversaries, weddings, and funerals.

I have recommended valet parking to many congregations. Few have seriously considered it. Often the dialogue is shut down by the thought of increased liability for the congregation, the possibility teenage boys might want to get into the act, and the feeling since there would not be enough volunteers to do it, that it is another cost to the church. Besides, how many people would really use it?

Well, two thoughts. First, a lot of restaurants, country clubs, hotels, shopping malls, and special venues have worked through the liability issue and find it to be an added value for which people will pay. I am not suggesting churches ought to charge. I am only suggesting the demand might be higher than is at first thought.

Second, there are congregations doing this. Like with so many topics, I do not keep a file on this because you are continually creating the files for me. I just went to www.Google.com and typed "church valet parking" to discover congregations using valet parking in some way. Among the congregations I discovered are these:

• Abundant Life Church, Grapevine, TX.
• Community Bible Church Mansfield, OH.
• First Assembly of God, North Little Rock, AR.
• Frederick Presbyterian Church, Frederick, MD.
• Old Stone Church, Cleveland, OH.
• Vista Grande Baptist Church, Colorado Springs, CO.

Special Note: For the sake of my own liability, let me say I am not endorsing any of these churches or their method/practice of valet parking. I am only providing leads for you to see examples of some congregations who are using valet parking. None of these have been clients of mine.

One more thing. In my Google search, I discovered that during 2006 the mayor of Washington, DC in responding to the double-parking problem in DC on Sunday mornings around churches suggested one solution might be valet parking.

That made me think of my youth in Baltimore, MD. One urban legend--and perhaps true--reason why the Baltimore Colts football team became the Indianapolis Colts is that too many churches were located around Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. It was impossible, due to parking problems, to get the fans in the stands in time for a 1:00 p.m. televised football game. As a result, the Colts lost millions of dollars every year in television revenues.

By the way, what do you think about valet parking? Do you have stories to share about it? Click on the "Comments" button below and leave a comment, or send me an e-mail at GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org. I look forward to hearing from you.

Are All Congregations Ready for a Spiritual Strategic Journey?

No. As many as 60 percent of all congregations are not ready for the type of Spiritual Strategic Journey described in Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation.

For every 10 congregations in need of a new/renewed Spiritual Strategic Journey, six will choose to do nothing in response to that need. Two will choose to do some cosmetic things to fix some problems in their church. This will provide only short-term relief.

The final two out of ten will choose to engage in the transition and changes necessary to achieve transformation and long-term solutions to their opportunities and challenges.

Where is your congregation in this? Would you like to talk about it? Contact me at GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org.

Preparing Your Congregation for a Spiritual Strategic Journey

Surprise! Surprise! Not every congregation is ready for transition and change activities that might lead to transformation. What does it take to be ready for transformational transition and change?

It takes passion, spiritual, leadership, and strategic readiness. This is no small order for almost two out of three congregations. I suspect that only one of three congregations has a sufficient amount of readiness to launch a spiritual strategic journey.

Often congregations have attempted change efforts before. Some parts of the effort have succeeded, and some parts have failed. If this is you, I urge you to consider these questions.

What are the implications of the need for a congregation to have readiness for transition and change? Was your congregation truly ready for transition and change the last time you tried to lead them through some type of renewal or transformation activity? Could that by why it did not achieve the renewal or transformation for which you had hoped? What would you do differently this time?

Chapter two of Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation deals with how to address the readiness factors.

Go Ahead! Tuck the Pew Bible Under Your Arm and Take It With You.

One recent Sunday I was visiting a church in the Dallas area for worship. When it came time for scripture reading, the pastor asked the congregation to stand in honor of God's Word.

This felt respectful.

He indicated the page in the pew Bible where the passage could be found.

This felt user-friendly.

Then he said something for which I was not prepared. He said if we knew a person who needed a Bible we should feel free to take that Bible and give it to them.

This felt missional.

This is not a big idea. It is not going to save the world. It is not going to be the germinating idea for a ministry book that will sell hundreds of thousands of copies. But, it does speak to an attitude of caring and sharing that should characterize all churches.

The more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it.

To whom could you give one of these Bibles? A family member? A co-worker? A neighbor? A stranger? A friend? An unchurched person? A pre-Christian? Someone in an institutional setting? A prospect for your church? First-time guests at the church could be encouraged to take one home with them. Who else?

Does it matter what version of the Bible is given? Yes. It should be the one read aloud in the services of your church. It should be a version easy to read and understand. It should be a version in the language of the person to whom you give it. What else ought to be true of the version?

Other than the 66 books of the Bible, what else should be in or with the Bible? It would be great if it is an edition of a Bible that has helpful devotionals or collections of scripture for people to read during various times of hope and challenge in their lives. It should have information about a spiritual discernment process, especially about beginning a Christ-centric faith journey.

Should there be information about the church who has provided the Bible? Certainly. It should start with information on how to connect with someone in the congregation who can respond to the questions and spiritual needs of the person receiving the Bible. A place should exist for the person giving the Bible to write their name and contact information.

General information about the church and the programs, ministries, and activities it provides would be appropriate. Definitely include the Internet address for the church's web site, as well as its telephone number and the names of key staff.

What have I missed? What are additional aspects to this low key scripture distribution action that might enhance it as an authentic and genuine ministry? Please click on the comments link below and share your thoughts so all of us might benefit from them.

The Transformational Question

Years ago I became intrigued by the transformational question asked by futurist Joel Barker. It was his attempt to get organizations to think about a future about which they could not fully conceive at the present time.

I am sure Joel Barker was not the first person to come up with this question. Perhaps the specific words were his. It was also not a Christ-centric, faith-based question the way he asked it. But he was not speaking to an exclusively Christian audience, nor making that his primary target.

For years I wrestled with how to ask his transformational question in a way that would be inviting to the Christian church. Here is my current version as included in the book, Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation.

"What, though seemingly impossible today, would transcend the current depth of your congregation's life and ministry and radically transform its ability to serve in the midst of God's kingdom?"

Well, what do you think? How would you improve on it? How would you ask this question in your congregation?

Feel free to share your thoughts with me at GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org.

Do You Blog?

During a recent coaching session with a pastor-client the subject of blogging came up. We spent the remainder of our session talking about actions that would empower the effectiveness of his blogging. He had just started, and was testing this medium of interactive communication with his congregation.

Do you blog? Is it effective as an enhancement of you ministry and a sharpening of communication with your congregation?

Following the coaching call, I decided to survey a group of six dozen pastors involved in the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence process funded by the Lilly Endowment and headquartered at Hollifield Leadership Center near Hickory, NC. [Truth in blogging: the Hollifield project is one of 63 throughout the country currently being funded by Lilly.]

Just from this group I came up with some interesting case studies:

One pastor has been blogging for a few months. In all honesty, he admits, he uses the blog primarily to post outlines and audio files of his sermons. Occasionally he writes a post reflecting on life and ministry. Although he has promoted its existence to the congregation and linked to it from the church web site, it does not get a lot of traffic. He is in a small community, and they do not rush to embrace all this new-fangled, high tech stuff. He was inspired to blog after reading The Blogging Church by Brian Bailey. [Check it out at www.Amazon.com.]

A second pastor blogs about more than just his leadership of the congregation. He includes a wide variety of thoughts and issues. He provides links to others in his congregation who have blogs of their own. Providing these links is not without controversy. Getting a large number of comments is also a challenge for him.

Another pastor has been on a sabbatical over the summer. He started a blog to keep his congregation up with his activities. He plans to continue the blog now that he has returned.

Getting assistance from the congregation in co-creating the worship service--including the sermon--for the coming Sunday is the motivation for one's pastor's blog. In the few months he has been doing this, he has seen both the advantages and disadvantages to the openness of this approach.

Similar to the sabbatical of the pastor mentioned above, another pastor and his wife have taken on a project to fully understand the concept of the missional church and its various practices. They traveled 7,000 miles this summer to visit congregations who claim missional as their focus. They created a blog to share their journey, and have invited various persons with perspectives on the missional church to provide posts for their blog.

Last winter another pastor started a blog to create dialogue around cutting edge issues of ministry focused on clergy. He was not blogging for his congregation. This fall he is starting to post podcasts from 21st century Christian ministry throught leaders and respected practitioners. He will also be adding teleconferences and perhaps Webinars to create dialogue among clergy.

What do you do when the median age of your congregation is about 25? You move beyond blogging to the use of a MySpace page where you provide comments. Because not everyone is connected with MySpace, his has a link in his e-mail signature.

Do you blog? If so, how about sending me the link to your blog so I can learn from you. Send it to GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org.

BTW, you are reading this article on my formal blog. On my informal blog at www.BullardJournalBlog.org, I have loaded links to several blogs mentioned in this article/post.

BTW, thinking about various tools to help with blogging and neat posts, I wrote this article/post on Windows Live Writer available for free from Microsoft. I have set it up to automatically post to my www.Typepad.com/ blogs.

A final BTW, the blogs I share on my informal blog were snagged and uploaded to my blog using SnagIt I downloaded at http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp.

Let's keep the dialogue about blogging going. Will you provide a helpful comment for all of us to learn from you?