December Newsletter Articles

Session
The session met this month and did a lot of hard discernment. We talked about the responsible ways to save for the future while still encouraging ministry in our present. We talked about how to improve our music ministry in a way that challenges the many members we have who do have musical talents to use them... This may mean reorganizing how we do music ministry or how we think about it. And finally, we talked about how to train better leaders. Ruling Elder Lydia Frias provided the session with what is now our approved method for training Ruling Elders-Elect prior to their examination and ordination/installation.

1. Teach the beliefs of the church and how these affect our service and lives
1. Sovereignty Of God
2. Centrality of Scripture
3. Centrality of Grace
4. Centrality of Faith
5. Discipline - personal and corporate
2. How to do a one on one visit
1. Visit at least 5 members
3. Investigate and understand the needs of the congregation
1. Do this through individual visits and through at least 2 committee meetings.
4. Prayer - how to do it, especially publicly
5. Identify what God wants for my life and share that with the session
6. Basics of the Book of Order
7. Basics of the Book of Confessions
8. The committee structure
9. The budget

But we will need your help. The first steps in training are visiting... so we need folks that are willing to be visited. We recognize that there is no responsible method to discern God’s will for our congregation if we do not know our congregation... so be patient with us as we improve our visiting talents.

Especially lift in prayer Patty Martinez and Doug Abernathy as they enter into this training process.

Please note: anyone else is also welcome to join in this training process, especially those already ordained as Ruling Elders.

Buildings and Grounds
We are excited that the electrical lines are installed for the third projector to be placed in the fellowship hall. The lights and fans have been installed and are working in the women’s shower. We are doing research on the handicapped entrance and how much it may cost to replace this older unit. We are also getting bids on putting jasmine ground cover on the hills that are hard to mow. Finally, we are happy to report that we got all of our fire extinguishers inspected and they are good for the next 6 years. Go Church!

Christian Ed
We had a great fall festival and are doing well incorporating an increased attendance in Sunday School. We will be working to organize our items in the blue room soon. If you are interested in helping Astrid in the classroom, please speak up. We are a Godly community when we work together.

Evangelism and Mission
We had 7 folks walk in the Jingle Bell Run the first Saturday in December: Rev. Lindsay, Rev. Andy, Berna, Estela, Robert C and his two grandkids. Great job! More than $150 was given in support of the Arthritis Foundation through their registrations and other donations.

Garden Weeding Day will be December 8th, Saturday, at 8 am. We will be covering each bed with newspaper and mulch. Tacos for any volunteers.

C3 - Coffee to Community College - is doing great in its ministry. George and Vickie R., Robert C., Robin O., Rev. Lindsay, Susie Sanchez (and Susie Marie), as well as some others all chip in and help make this possible. We have contact with about 20 students or community folk every week, and many are “regulars” who are getting to know us and we are getting to know them. Look for their prayer requests in our weekly prayer list.

Fellowship and Care
Advent Decorating Day is the first Sunday in December and is a potluck. Please stay and fellowship as we decorate the church!

Trine House is coordinating a team to go out caroling this year. Please speak with her about your availability, interest, and where you would like to go.

SAP
We continue to work on the transition from one to two treasurers. We welcome Alonso Rodriguez as our second treasurer. Eventually, our goal is to have an income treasurer (Sam Frias) who will handle all offerings, and an expense treasurer (Alonso Rodriguez) who will handle all expenses. Since Sam F has been a one man show for so long, please be patient as we work out the transition together.

Worship
It’s that time of year again... at least this year our pastor is not on maternity leave!

Special Advent Services: December 2, 9, 16, 23. Each will have interactive sermons that help us meditate on how the coming of Christ personally affects us. The 23rd, being the closest to the Longest night of the year, will include a special moment of prayer for healing and hope (and perhaps communion) for all who have experienced different kinds of loss. Thanks to Lana B., Vickie R., and Susie S. for their help!

Christmas Eve Service: December 24th, 6:30 pm. If you have any special music or a special presentation to include, please let Rev. Lindsay know before December 9th as the service order will be finalized before the 16th.

New Year’s Eve Party and Service: December 31st, starting at 8 pm, Worship at 11 pm. Board Games, pot luck, and more! Worship service to include our year end slide show. Please submit your pictures to Rev. Lindsay electronically prior to December 16th as these slide shows take a while to put together.

Hide Lock Take
As much as Gethsemane’s neighborhood is lower crime than it once was, we still live and worship and serve in a city where many are desperate and make poor choices. Some have had things taken from their unlocked cars recently. So, please do the basic safety reminder: Hide your belongings. Lock your doors. Take your keys. And we should add, pray for those who are so lost as to commit these crimes.

The Christmas Waiting Room

Advent is a time to wait for the coming of Christ, and I find it ironic that because we love the festivities of Christmas so much, we end up doing almost no waiting. We are busy, busy with events and shopping and visits and cooking.

But as Christians, which is ultimately our most important identity, we are called to be waiting first, and doing later.

I’ve been thinking of this since Gethsemane is incredibly good at waiting room ministry. Having grown up in churches too big to do such a thing, I found it odd and amazing to be part of a church that insists on having folks sit in waiting rooms when someone is in the hospital. These folks are not invited or asked... they come. They wait. They pray. They wait some more. It is one of the most heartfelt, genuine, loving ministries I have ever seen done. My congregation has done more crossword puzzles, drunk more coffee, slept in more uncomfortable chairs than any I could imagine. They do it for members, for family of members, and for folks they meet through our ESL ministry. We sit and wait...

The reason I feel it is our greatest ministry is because it shows the constant, vigilant love of God... a God who makes time for us. A God who waits for us. It also shows hope. We are not afraid of pain or bad news... we will be there, because we trust that God is going to be there.

And so this Christmas, I wonder who is sitting in God’s waiting room? Which of us is taking the time to sit and wait for the birth of Jesus? Which of us is willing to set aside our busy schedules to sit in uncomfortable chairs, drink bad coffee, and do crossword puzzles, praying and waiting so that we can be the first to hear the hope that God has for us?

Think about that the next time you look at your packed to do list this month. After all, God has been waiting in the waiting room of your heart a long, long time.

Blessings,
Rev. Lindsay

Lord, Help us to Discern, not just make Decisions

That was one of the prayers of one of Ruling Elders-Elect at our session meeting last night, and I thought it was incredibly insightful.

The session met last night. For those of you that don't know, in Presbyterian Churches, we do not make decisions with the entire congregation, and we certainly don't let the pastor make decisions on her own. Calvin believed discernment and leadership should always happen in groups, because the Spirit moves more faithfully and we are held to a higher accountability that way. Our session is made up of Ordained Ruling Elders. Other churches may call them lay leaders, because they are not pastors and most do not have seminary educations. But we believe they are called by God and we put our trust in them to discern the will of God and thus lead the congregation and make the leadership calls for the congregation.

Our session at Gethsemane met last night. We could have made decisions about finances and buildings, but instead, we did a lot of discernment, which takes longer.

For instance. We talked about Gethsemane's music ministry. We talked about hiring a musician... that is a decision. It could have been pushed through, we probably could have had a unanimous vote. We could have identified the problem and fixed it and figured out budgets and amounts. Instead we did discernment, or at least started it. Discernment demands that we consider, proactively where we are called, not reactively how to fix a problem. So, we began to talk about what musical talents we have at Gethsemane. We have folks that like to sing, but we don't always organize well, and we don't always sing with passion. We have a praise band, but it doesn't always practice. We have a guitarist, a violinist, several drummers, several pianists, youth that play a variety of different instruments, younger youth interested in learning instruments. We talked about what we would dream for us... special music, solos, individuals sharing gifts once in a while, special programs... what would it take to make those things happen? What are we missing? How do we keep on missing it?

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the session members got frustrated with myself because I wasn't able to explain clearly what discernment was or how we could be sure that what we came up with in the end was from God.

Discernment is a struggle. It is analyzing what God has given us in particular, both gifts and passions, and based on those figuring out where we want to go. It doesn't just solve a problem, it identifies a destination that grows people closer to God, not just passively, but actively.

So, this is what we did overall:

1 - we determined to gather folks in the church who had music talent or passion and talk to them to figure out what our gifts are and what our dreams are and come up with a plan that develops those gifts and works towards those dreams... then we can figure out how much it may cost, and THEN we figure out how to support that financially.

2 - Financially, we determined that we should have 3 bank accounts for the church.

A general fund where we do our regular expenses. This is where ALL offerings, registrations, fundraisers, and other income goes in, and all expenses, bills, salaries, ministry expenses, reimbursements, donations to other organizations, and gifts on behalf of the church come out.

A short term savings fund where we save for somewhat bigger expenses. Maybe in the budget we determine to transfer an amount every month or every year into this account to save for future expenditures that we know will be happening. At the end of the year, we can determine how to take part of surpluses and set them aside here to plan for those expenses that might take more than one year to save for.

An endowment fund. This is for the big future. It is to take care of large needs and big dreams. We talked about how to encourage good stewardship and ways to make sure that an endowment doesn't end up discouraging offering. We talked about how to use this fund to encourage innovation and experimentation, because a congregation that doesn't try new things is going to get stuck in the mud. We also talked about how in some churches endowments have ended up being morphine drips that keep doors open at churches long after they have stopped being creative, missional, or effective in sharing the Gospel with their community.

3 - We talked about elder training being first and foremost a plan for helping new elders to learn how to identify what they believe and how it changes how we lead and how we serve... but most of all, elder training is going to be learning how to visit and spend time with congregation members, because discernment doesn't happen if we don't have relationships that speak to us about what the fears, needs, dreams, and gifts of our church really are. If we don't know our congregation, we only make decisions. So, our new elder plan is largely a plan on getting our elders out to visit the church, to listen, and to pray for others. I thought THAT was awesome.

4 - We talked about how to intentionally reach out to those who are isolated in different ways: taking them on errands with us, calling, visiting, building new relationships, bringing meals to those who might want them. We talked about the different folk we may have forgotten about, but who need love and care more than anything right now.

5 - We closed in prayer. We prayed for folks that we knew were hurting. We prayed for their caretakers. We prayed for ourselves. We prayed for marriages. We prayed for children. We prayed for our fears and anxieties. We prayed for our hopes and new worshiping community. We prayed for our parish associate and our dreams for him. We prayed for the families who are grieving this holiday season... because a meeting that is decision making only seeks to close a meeting as fast as possible when the business is over, and a meeting that is discernment closes with prayer that upholds one another and ourselves in the Lord's hands, opening ourselves to more opportunities to serve.

So, as much as my ruling elders may be frustrated that our agenda seemed more like a paper drawing of a path instead of a roadmap, as much as they may have been disappointed in their pastor's ability to guide them, as much as they may have been sincerely disappointed in the fact that we took an hour longer than we had planned to take... I think we had a faithful meeting, which is a lot better than a good one.

Living in tension with the Body of Christ

I am a Christian, which means that I am intimately connected to other believers. We are children of God. We struggle to be faithful together. We disagree, but just because I disagree with the foot doesn't make that foot any less part of the body.

I am also a Presbyterian. My parents are Presbyterians. My grandparents are Presbyterians... largely by choice. Particularly because we believe that as the priesthood of believers we can seek out the will of God together, vote, and struggle on together. We have no bishops or any individuals (including pastors) that can make unilateral decisions on almost anything. This, however, means that at times each of us must struggle in the minority... worry about our conscience... wonder how God will overcome our failures.

In the second part of our Consitution, the Book of Order, it states

G-2.0105 Freedom of Conscience
It is necessary to the integrity and health of the church that the persons who serve it
in ordered ministries shall adhere to the essentials of the Reformed faith and polity as
expressed in this Constitution. So far as may be possible without serious departure from
these standards, without infringing on the rights and views of others, and without obstructing
the constitutional governance of the church, freedom of conscience with respect
to the interpretation of Scripture is to be maintained. It is to be recognized, however, that
in entering the ordered ministries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one chooses to
exercise freedom of conscience within certain bounds. His or her conscience is captive to
the Word of God as interpreted in the standards of the church so long as he or she continues
to seek, or serve in, ordered ministry. The decision as to whether a person has departed
from essentials of Reformed faith and polity is made initially by the individual
concerned but ultimately becomes the responsibility of the council in which he or she is a
member.

We have to respect that our brothers and sisters, although differing from us, are still struggling to serve the same Lord.

And although many struggle nationally in our church regarding ordination standards, marriage definitions, and sexuality. Yesterday I struggled with something much more intimate, personal, and painful: discrimination.

We, as a presbytery, yesterday elected a very well qualified man, who seems to be an excellent candidate and a fervent servant of Jesus Christ, to the office of stated clerk.

The problem? The search process had not been an open one. Only 3 candidates were considered, no position was advertised. Also, the effective salary of the past stated clerk, a woman, was $36,000 in 2012. The proposed for her was $38,000 in 2013. The effective salary given to this new stated clerk is $55,000. This was either a 52.8% increase or a 45% increase respectively compared to the original salaries noted above.

Both had additional benefits. The explanation was because her benefits had cost more, the cash equivalent of her entire benefits were thus given to the new stated clerk, plus he received "post-retirement benefits" which are much less expensive. Even with that, the overall package increase was still 12%, in a year when our presbytery moments before eliminated a different staff position and cut $130,000 from our overall budget to balance it.

I voted in the minority, but as a member of presbytery, I must state that we made this decision together.  Below is the protest I have submitted to our stated clerk to be contained in our minutes as a small effort to clear my conscience. I believe we are the church and we do not walk out ever on those who love the Lord Jesus Christ... period. But just as our choices at times pain our parents, the choices of our brothers and sisters sometimes pain us. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers.

I, Lindsay Woods, voted in the minority. I am protesting this vote for the following reasons. 

As one of the foundations of presbyterian polity, F-1.0403, we declare 

"The unity of believers in Christ is reflected in the rich diversity of the Church’s

membership. In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, God unites persons through baptism

regardless of race, ethnicity, age, sex, disability, geography, or theological conviction.

There is therefore no place in the life of the Church for discrimination against any person.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shall guarantee full participation and representation in

its worship, governance, and emerging life to all persons or groups within its membership.

No member shall be denied participation or representation for any reason other than

those stated in this Constitution."

I believe that this election stands against this foundation of Presbyterian polity. The search process was closed for this position. The job description was not made public and no one was invited to apply for this position, unless privately. We did thus not even make a concerted effort to guarantee full participation or representation in the process of this election. This is even more troubling in light of the fact that in the last 3 years, 6 staff have been eliminated or have left the staff of the presbytery. All 6 are women, 2 of which are women of color. Since that time, two, now three, staff have been brought on to either replace those women or to newly created positions. All 3 are white men over the age of 50. There were options to delay this election, bring on said candidate as an interim while a full search was made, or request that the current stated clerk remain on for a few months so that a fair search process could be completed. The candidate himself proposed options such as these, and the Presbytery council was comfortable proposing a candidate that they had interviewed, having only reviewed 3 potential candidates, and only interviewing one. 

I also believe that the compensation package reflects a break from the above foundation of Presbyterian polity. The Presbytery Council, which updated the job description, stated that the changes were minor, adding only some new responsibilities for digitization and preaching. The Presbytery Council confirmed that the job description was still for a 3/4 time position. There was not a 50+% increase in responsibility or the position would have been full time. In no way does this justify a 52.7% increase from the 2012 effective salary of the stated clerk. The only explanation is that because we do not have to pay full pension dues (instead post-retirement dues) we increased the effective salary. This, to me, reflects discrimination based on retirement or non-retirement status, and has no place in the Church of Jesus Christ. 

I am saddened that the body of which I am a part felt this was a just and faithful decision, and I regretfully submit this protest. 

Thank you. 

Re-Learning How to Make Friends...

I have two small children, and I find it fascinating how easily kids can make friends. When I head to busy church meetings, to neighborhood socials, or even to the park, my elder son (3 years old) will often be tossed into a situation with other children he has never met.  At first, he is often cautious and shy, sizing up the situation (unless of course there is a bounce house). But inevitably it seems that his parallel play turns into giggles and races with children that are sometimes much older or younger and certainly who are different from him.

It seems as though often adults lose this capacity. It is as if we remain in the cautious, shy stage for longer... we worry more that we will offend someone by our mere friendliness. We have to have excuses to strike up conversations or reasons to justify the establishment of new friendships. There is this bizarre awkwardness that surrounds a lot of our interactions. For kids, it is accepted that they are desperate to know and play together... for adults, we no longer accept that there is that same truth about us: that we are also desperate to know one another, to revel in relationship, to build new friendships. But, I think that we are...

We have now been handing out free coffee and muffins to TCC students on the corner of Peach and Mills Street every Tuesday and Wednesday for three weeks. We had close to 20 folks stop and enjoy a snack with us this week, and still the most common question among those who stop is, "So, why is this coffee free?" Our agreed upon answer is: we want to be good neighbors, and you, TCC students are our neighbors.  Basically, we want to make friends.

It is shocking how many people are even more uncomfortable when we explain we just want to be friends or get to know you better. One woman, asking for directions to parking, was told she could park in our lot and we could also give her free coffee and muffins. She immediately put up her window and screeched away.

I think as adults we generally assume that someone who wants to get to know me must be up to something, and something not good. They our out to manipulate me or take advantage of me. And perhaps, unfortunately, that is what we have been trained to do as adults. After decades of living with our primary form of communication with the world being advertisements, we are wary of contact with new groups. We need to know what they are up to first.

And perhaps that is the joy of this coffee ministry. We have absolutely no agenda. None at all. This has been a horribly planned out ministry. It came out of a side conversation with a couple of members with little to no goal at all... we just wanted to be friendly and get to know the students that are in our neighborhood. I have been asked by church folk what our plan is. What are we going to do with the students we meet? How long are we doing this for? How will we know if we have succeeded? Are we trying to draw in new members/plan a college fellowship/set up tutoring?

We have no idea. We're just doing it... and we are having fun... and we are loving it. Like children who meet awkwardly on a playground or in the daycare center of a presbytery meeting, we have no plan... we just know that we are there and they are there and then we have fun together.

And God has blessed that. Sure we do certain "ministry program" type things. We try to keep track of names, and we write down one or two prayer requests. We have started praying for everyone we have met by name each Tuesday and Wednesday hoping we will see them again. And at the end of the cleanup I send out an email to a bunch of church folk asking them to be praying for the folk we've met.

But mostly, we are re-gaining the ability to make friends, to bless people whom we don't know for no reason at all, other than the greatest reason: we are made to love others, so we are making friends.

Sometimes ministry is that simple

So, we've been learning over the past 3-4 years at Gethsemane that evangelism is not about forcing your faith on people, preaching from a pulpit... it is mostly about building relationships with people, and genuinely sharing who Jesus is in your life with people you love. The first step though is just loving people.

In Engage, a PCUSA evangelism resource our session and evening and now Sunday school classes have been using, one chapter talks about how God began the work of sharing the good news through Abraham... and Abraham was sent as a blessing. Through him all nations would be blessed. So, part of our job as evangelists is to bless people, not so that they will join our church... just to bless them. It's a journey of trusting that God will reach people, and we need to be willing to go out first and love, without strings attached.

So, last week, over a couple of casual conversations, we decided to do just that.

Tarrant County College is across the street from the church, and often we have 20 or so cars park in our lot during the week as the students seek extra parking that isn't so far away as the overflow lot. Many churches might view this as either a nuisance, a threat, or a way to make money. We wanted to view it as a blessing, so we have let students park, no strings attached.

But, we weren't building relationships, and if we are called to love our neighbor, we certainly need to get to know our neighbor. And what does a student need or want in the morning on their way to class? Coffee.

So, George, Vickie, Susie, Vincent, Travis and I set up shop with coffee thermoses and muffins made from our very own Robin O. Most people were suspicious and walked on by. How could you be giving away coffee for free?

But we had a few takers. We learned a few names. We shot the breeze with a couple folk. We fellowshipped with one another... and we felt we had great success. At the end of the day, we blessed some folk who were already trying to better their lives. We broke bread/muffins together. We learned names, and we have been faithful in praying for them since we saw them.

Often we think that evangelism needs to be this overwhelmingly well planned program, but the best evangelism is building a relationship and loving someone.

Matthew 10:42
And if you give even a cup of cold water [or hot coffee] to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.”

Newsletter articles - October 2012

Pastora
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 7:21

Dear All,
One of the books I read on continuing education was about how to establish churches that make disciples, not just church members. It was a book that made me appropriately uncomfortable about what I have done or need to still do as a pastor in my church because too often we are interested only in getting attendance up, offerings up, and the building in its best shape... and that we think THAT is the measurement of our ministry.

Discipleship is different.

Jesus called us to make disciples, not church members. Disciples are students, followers, and friends of Jesus. It is placing all of our trust and obedience to him and not in our own will. It is letting go of what we desire, and our security, and placing our hearts in what Jesus desires for us.

For how many of us is Jesus Lord? For how many of us is Jesus our best friend? How many of us would be willing to give up anything for Jesus? For how many of us are we unwilling to do anything without checking with Him first?

To call Jesus Lord in his time, was akin to rejecting the Roman Emperor. To call Jesus Lord in Jesus’ time meant that you were willing to give up your citizenship. In this tense time of elections, how many of us would be willing to do that? In this tense time of immigration challenges, how many of us would be willing to give up a legal right to live in the US if we have it?

In one of the books I read, Glen McDonald claimed that American culture is one where we place our priorities clearly on possessions, pleasures, and power. Those are our gods. Those are our lords. We live in a society that longs for security... and we find it in certain places, and Jesus is most often secondary.

So in this time of patriotism with the elections at hand, and in this time of stewardship when we decide what our offering pledges will be to the church, and in this time of planning for ministries for 2013, and making choices about school year commitments, I ask, who is your Lord? What are you willing to give up for Jesus?

And if you are daringly honest enough to admit that many days Jesus isn’t your Lord, that many days you do seek out certain “stuff” (<cough iphone 5>), certain “pleasures” (<I just want to be happy>), or certain “power” (<my side is right and the other side is... >)... are you willing to start to reorganize your life into one of a disciple?

Jesus is Lord. It’s a bold statement... let’s make sure we mean it.

Blessings,
Rev. Lindsay

The session
The session will be meeting at their October meeting with Josephine Lopez Paul, community organizer with ACT to be trained in one on one relational meetings and small group meetings. This training is incredibly practical in 1 - evangelism, 2 - strengthening our congregation so that we can do ministry better together and make sure all ideas and voices are heard (especially God’s), 3 - building relationships and identifying issues important to us and our ESL students and our communities so that we can seek God’s justice together. We hope that you will attend with us. October 15, 7:15 pm.

Nominating Committee
The nominating committee: George Rodrigues, Arturo Peña, Rebecca Williams, Paula Rodriguez, and Doug Williamson will be meetin October 21st following the 11 am service to begin discernment about nominating ruling elders to serve on session starting in January 2013. Please begin praying now for their discernment of God’s will for our congregation.

Buildings and Grounds
We are busy bees working on all kinds of research to help keep our building up and running to support our ministries. As we receive the budget, keep in mind that the building expenses are necessary to support our ministries... without a good building, we cannot worship, have Sunday School, have VBS, teach others in the Academia. But, without doing all of those ministries well, our building is just that... a building. Help us be good stewards of what we have, by using our facilities to further God’s kingdom, and by maintaining those facilities so that we can do the ministries we do well.

Christian Education
We give thanks to Oakhurst Presbyterian Church for their donations to our children’s room: a set of shelves, two sets of bible book blocks, and a Noah’s Ark.

We also want to remind the congregation of our Child Protective Policy. We have the rule of 3 in this congregation... that at any time there should be either two children (of speaking age) and one adult, or two non-married adults and one child in any classroom. Kids cannot be allowed to play in the “blue” room unattended because it is unsafe. We encourage as many of our adults as possible to have a current background check on file. Please speak with Rev. Lindsay to have this done. It is free and allows new parents to feel more comfortable having their children participate in our programs. Thanks.

Evangelism and Mission
We continue to work on the garden. We will be having another weeding day this month, to be announced in worship.
We continue to seek out 2 volunteers for childcare for the Academia. Currently, we have had to stop the children’s program because of lack of volunteers.

Fellowship and Care
Our Fall Festival is scheduled for October 26th, from 6:30-9 pm. Please bring cupcakes, candy, decorations for trunk or treat, and other dinner food to share. We will be using some of our VBS materials for this festival and hope to have another wonderful time. More details to come.

We also give thanks that the ladies (and some gentlemen) of the church had such a wonderful time in MoRanch.

Stewardship, Administration, and Personnel
We give thanks to God for another successful year in financial stewardship! We finished our fiscal year with another surplus, the 7th year in a row. This new fiscal year marks our first year with Rev. Lindsay where we will not be receiving any outside support from the denomination in the form of a grant. That means 2012-2013 will hopefully be our first year in a very long time with a balanced budget and a full-time pastor, without any outside support. This speaks volumes to how we as a congregation have grown in our understanding of tithing and ministry together.

We are working on upgrading a lot of our computer systems and projector systems. Please be patient as there will be weeks where we are working out the kinks. This does mean that eventually we will be better able to make sure everyone can see what is being projected, that we can do better video and sound clips on our computers, and we can continue to share creative ideas on how to improve our worship and Sunday school and fellowship experiences.

Finally, we will start working on an annual report this year to celebrate the stewardship of our time and talents. Please send in pictures and memories from all of the ministry we have done in 2012... this may be Women’s Group, Men’s group, Academia, VBS, Sunday School, Garden, etc. Tell your story so we can celebrate and discern together how to do even greater ministry in 2013.

Worship
We give thanks for Polly Williams preaching last month, and for the special help in our creative sermon/worship for World Communion Sunday this month. We are already looking forward to Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas festivities. If you have creative ideas for this special season, please speak with Margot Williamson or Rev. Lindsay ASAP.

Con Ed Staycation: Planting Missional Churches

I would like to give thanks to God for books that are no-nonsense, practical, but not legalistic. For too long, I have wearied with books in the ministry that are super-heady, have good theology, but their application and data analysis is lacking. Likewise, I am weary of the books that give technical advice without any spiritual grounding... we are building the church, not a business, and they are different.

That rant being over, I am 200 pages into the 400 page book on Planting Missional Churches. (This book highlights how slowly I read).

Here are my major take home points with my analysis added in...

1 - The protestant church has largely failed to focus in North America on planting churches. We have failed. We like to dream of growing only big churches or revitalizing old churches. The challenge is, large churches serve populations effectively, but are low on percentages of growth, so are established churches. Declining churches generally only turn around 10% of the time... think about folks sent to the doctor and told they have to change the way they live or they will die... 90% will still not diet, exercise, stop smoking or stop drinking. They choose to die rather than change. Churches are no different. A lot of time, we would rather die. Hard truth.

2 - When churches focus on evangelism, we often fail. Ouch. The challenge of evangelism is that we must be strongly biblically founded and contextually relevant. Some folks fail on one extreme by being so biblically founded that they are incapable of reaching unchurched folks where they are. Another way to put it is, this group is more interested in answering the questions they think he unchurched should have, rather than the questions they do have. (I know lots of these folk among us). In my opinion, this group is low on trusting that the Spirit is already at work in the non-believer, and that we have to do the converting, not Christ.

The other extreme are those that are so focused on connecting to the context, that they water down the message to become a mirror to the context. Jesus ate among sinners and prostitutes, but Jesus still had a strong message for those folks. A relevant message. These are the folks that hear the questions that unchurched folks are asking, but only endorse the answers the unchurched already have instead of challenging them to move towards who Jesus is. In my opinion, this group is low on trusting themselves that God can use them to speak a special word to the non-believer.

The third group is those that are neither biblically-based or contextually-relevant, i.e., they are largely who the church ends up being today. These folks are more interested in holding onto their traditions and who they are rather than risking it all to preach the gospel. Double ouch.

The fourth group is those who are biblically-founded and contextually-relevant. They incarnate the gospel to the people they want to reach. They are willing to sacrifice their traditions (even though those traditions worked well to reach them) in order to take the basics of the gospel to meet people in a new place. This is where we have to face the tough questions of "do we need Sunday school?" or "do we need to teach faith?" "what constitutes a worship service?" "Is a sermon the best way to convey Biblical truth in worship?" "Am I willing to give up what makes me comfortable to reach those who do not yet know Christ?" Or "Am I willing to become a Jew to those who are Jews so that I might reach the Jews?" as Paul said...

3 - There are LOTS of ways to plant churches, and the rest of the book is how to do so. The book is full of models, types of new church leaders, how to organize administration and structure, etc., etc. Incredibly important stuff that is really heady and a bit too much for me to process.

4 - And most importantly, you aren't going to get anywhere doing anything if your faith is not in the right place. If you are not on your knees crying out to God, being honest about what ministry you are doing and aren't doing hour by hour and week by week, seeking to be held accountable, and sure above all else that you are called to do this... then you aren't going to succeed. Plating a church is not a business endeavor, it is the work of God. My take-home: when we are faithful, there is nothing that can stop us.

That is what challenges my faith here. Again, I see the gifts of Gethsemane before me. Folks at our church have faith that can move mountains, at times. Just before I became pastor, the prayers of our church (and many other churches) helped us to see a child born waaaaaay too prematurely survive and who is now in elementary school. We also have a heart for evangelism.

Our challenge is that we have some that fall into the too biblically-founded group and others that are too contextually-minded. We also have not answered whether or not it is our calling to seek out and save the lost. If we did know that for sure, if we discerned that for sure, if we knew that down to the fiber of our beings, I know our prayer life would be strong enough and we would sacrifice whatever we needed to in order to obey.

Perhaps, that all just shows that we all need to be praying more. Myself, included.

Continuing Ed Staycation - "Sticky Faith"

This week I've been home reading "Sticky Faith" a book about how to create long-lasting faith in kids and youth. It was an awesome study on how churches in the past have failed in helping kids and youth gain faith that lasts past high school. 50% of youth who graduate from youth programs in churches leave the church once they graduate from high school.

To be honest, I was incredibly frustrated reading this book. Mostly because I was taught most of what this book had to say, and I knew it. I found it frustrating, because in my seven years of ministry at Gethsemane, I have never found an effective way to communicate what I read, what I know is true about youth.

But I am insanely stubborn, and I will not declare failure...yet. So, here we go...

1 - The church has spent too long teaching the first step of faith as obedience. It isn't. It is trust. If you want proof that this is true, look at a 3 year-old. Mine, for instance. As I recited the list of erred ways my son had committed last Sunday to a friend, that friend laughed and said, "they really should entitle 3 year old's 'Wait is that a boundary? Let me check.'" My son is not interested in perfectly obeying the rules that I set out for him... yet. Instead, he purposefully is testing all of them, to figure out if I mean what I say, if I am who I say I am, and ultimately if I am trustworthy. I am exhausting myself teaching him obedience, but what he is trying to figure out is if I am trustworthy. If I am trustworthy, if I hold my boundaries, do what I say I will do, eventually (hopefully) he will learn to trust my judgment and will start to obey.

In church, we exhaust ourselves teaching kids what God expects of them. We teach them to love, to do their homework, to read their Bibles, to pray, to forgive, to come to church... and with older kids to not have sex before marriage, etc. But what we don't necessarily teach them is how to trust God.

Maybe we don't introduce faith that way because it is scary. God could fail us. ;-)

The example given in the book was teasing/bullying. When a child faces this, we often tell them to forgive, love their enemy, etc. We tell them how to obey what God would want them to do. We don't start with the dangerous questions of "how  can we trust God with this?" "What would it look like if God didn't let us down here?" Instead of "What would Jesus do?" maybe we should ask, "Can we trust Jesus to do something here... and if so, what?"

2 - Here's the really tough news. I think that why we have failed at gpcfortworth to get really sticky faith in our youth is because we don't teach our youth that we are trustworthy.

As parents, too often we say, "because I'm the parent that's why". We don't teach our kids that we are trustworthy and gracious and following the example of God for us. We demand obedience, but we don't necessarily teach them to trust us.

If we can demonstrate, share, be an example for our youth about how we struggle to trust God day to day, then maybe they would trust us. If we can show them how we struggle to do the right thing and how that journey is going for us, maybe they can start to trust our experience... instead of "because I'm mom", we can start to share "because I've made those mistakes, because I know where this could end up, because God has not let me down yet" more often, and maybe then, our kids will want to repeat our behaviors.

3 - Adults need to get caught doing faith. Let's fess up parents. How often do we talk to our kids about where we saw God today? How often do we reflect on how God helped us today? How often do our kids catch us praying and reading our Bibles? How often do our kids catch us journaling our faith? How often do our kids catch us forgiving as we have been forgiven, modeling peace, modeling submission to one another, modeling respect, modeling...?

How are they going to trust our advice if we don't even follow it?

The greatest teacher kids have regarding their faith is their parents. Our kids need to see us trusting God, really trusting God, with the hard parts of our lives. We get to be their laboratory. If mom trusts God with her marriage, with her lost job, with how to handle people talking about her, and God doesn't let her down... then maybe I can trust mom more, and maybe I can trust God more.

4 - We need to be better and more strategic about being church. Gethsemane does an awesome job at being church, but we are super disorganized and hap-hazard about it. This book recommended 5 adults to each kid, to mentor them in the faith.

We have that many people loving our kids, but do we have 5 adults checking in on our kids? Sharing with our kids how they have lived out their faith today?

The best folks to do this are often those who are grand-parent age or older... the kids already have a parent/parents. And mentoring is one of the best ways to get our own faith in a healthier place. Ask a teacher. You really have to know your subject (God in this case) if you are going to teach it.

5 - I've said this again, and again, and again, and again. But maybe since a book said it people will not think that I am making this up. Segregating kids based on age is a horrible idea. Older kids who teach younger kids are more likely to keep their faith. Youth who are part of general worship (not sent off to kids' worship) are more likely to keep their faith. Youth and kids that have many generations interacting and sharing their faith are more likely to keep their faith.

Now this means that worship needs to be multi-generational, it needs to be led by different generations, and different parts of the service need to serve different generations. As Karl Travis at First Pres says, "our goal is to make everyone happy, some of the time." If you are happy and feel connected during a part of worship, awesome. If there is one part of worship that doesn't serve you... then pray that that particular part of worship is reaching someone different in age/culture/language than you, because it probably wasn't meant for you.

Sending kids out of worship is not the key. Segregation wasn't the key in the US for education, and it shouldn't be in the church. Jesus said let the little children come, while the full grown disciples were there. If kids are having trouble during worship, then we need to do worship better to serve them, and we also need to engage their gifts better. They are just as legitimate a part of the body of Christ as you or me. Those who have professed their faith are just as much full members in the body of Christ as you or me. We need to act like it.

I would be upset if you told me that the 30 somethings now needed to leave the room for this part of the service. Wouldn't you?


So there you have it. The rest of the book talked about the breadth of faith. Do we teach kids to do justice? Do we teach them to read things in the newspaper and help them do something about it? (Ahem, community organizing and ACT are great starting points). Do we model volunteering? Do we model service? Faith is more than faith disciplines, it is putting faith into action.

Unlike many churches I know, Gethsemane actually has the tools to respond easily to this call to sticky faith. We have all generations together. We think we are old, but we really aren't. Our median age on a Sunday is probably around 45 or so. We have adults that deeply care and pray for our youth a lot. We have adults who have struggled and continue to struggle in the journey to actually trust God. We have all the resources, but for whatever reason, we are stuck teaching old models that don't work, stuck wishing we were big enough to segregate kids out, stuck hoping that if we can get kids to "act" right they will believe right... but our faith isn't about doing it right. It's about faith and trust and deep, deep love. Let's focus on that.

Newsletter: Church group info

Session
The session met in August and had a deep heart to heart conversation about our ministry together since Rev. Lindsay joined us almost seven years ago. We celebrated achieving many goals, and recognized that we need to start discerning the next calling for our congregation together. We will be finding ways to meet with as many of the members as possible to hear about your dreams, passions, and vision for Gethsemane. We want to hear how God is calling each of you, so that we can answer that calling together.

Buildings and Grounds
From George Rodrigues:
We are happy to report that the new flooring for the entry way and the front offices has been completed and looks very nice. The hand towel dispensers in the restrooms all have been installed. The rest of the new tables for the fellowship hall have been purchased and new chairs have also been donated. And we are acquiring bids on electrical work for the lighting in the womens shower and video projector and screen in the Fellowship Hall .

Christian Ed
Rev. Lindsay’s Sunday School class will be led by a variety of folks as we start using the “Engage” online training available at pcusa.org/engage . After we finish the online training we will begin the Engage curriculum itself which the session and evening service have been starting this year. The focus is how to engage the world around us so that we can become effective evangelists.

Thanks to Astrid and Estela the kids’ Sunday school class continues along well. Recently the kids have marked their heights on the door to celebrate how different they are, and then measured their “wingspan” to see how our relative sizes are similar. God makes us similar and yet different... but we are all God’s children.

Evangelism and Mission
We are starting to meet this month to discern how and whether we are called to reach out to the Spanish-speaking community with some sort of mission. All are welcome to attend. We will be using the resource “Starting New Churches 3.0” from the General Assembly.

Thanks to all who have helped with the garden. We will be mulching soon and planning for fall planting probably next month.

Academia has started up and we have two desperate needs:
1 - At least two volunteers to work with the children in the children’s room.
2 - A teacher for the citizenship questions in Spanish.

A group is meeting at Andy Wong’s home and is also using the “Starting New Churches 3.0” book discerning about a mission/outreach initiative to reach predominantly English-speakers.

Anything we can do to spread the Gospel and bring others to Christ is faithful work for God... please join us.

Fellowship and Care
We give thanks for a wonderful party in August to celebrate our last Sunday with our foster kids and celebrate that they were being reunited with family. We also celebrated an amazing 35 years of ministry for Rev. Lew Holmes.

This month, we are looking forward as a congregation to focusing on “Caring” about our neighbor. We will be attending the Allied Communities of Tarrant Delegates Assembly where we will meet with other churches, hear stories, and commit to strengthening our congregations and our connections with other churches and the community so that we can learn to truly be neighbors again. We will be having a potluck Sunday, September 23rd, to celebrate the Delegates assembly as well as some special birthdays in our congregation. Please plan on attending.

We also look forward to the Fall Festival which will be taking place at the end of October.

SAP
SAP has prepared and sent a budget proposal to session. Starting in September we will be focusing on stewardship in worship, sharing videos that the youth helped prepare to focus us on what we all believe about giving, offerings, etc.

Too often we live with an attitude that “God needs to give me a little more, THEN I will give.” Instead we are called to recognize that God has blessed us abundantly, and God always cares for us, thus our giving is a demonstration that we celebrate that God has blessed us and we trust that God will care for us especially as we grow more faithful in our offerings.

We challenge each member to move towards or even beyond tithing, which is giving 10% of your income. We give because we trust God. We give because we are deeply thankful. And we give because we are excited to see what God can and will do through our generosity.

Worship
We give thanks for Daniel Martinez and his piano playing these past Sundays. His music ministry is a blessing to us all. We also continue to keep Phyllis and Jim in prayers as they struggle with health concerns.

Women’s Group
Don’t forget to lift up in prayer our women’s group as many travel to MoRanch for the Hispanic Women’s Bible Conference the last weekend of this month. This is a renewing time in the faith of our women, and we hope that they return to us impassioned and excited about their faith.

Newsletter: Pastora post

On Labor Day, I was sitting in the garden with several of you, weeding, dodging fire ants, and having a good time. So, I asked 5 of you a simple question, “If you could dream a dream for Gethsemane, what would it be?” (And money were not an issue).

Most of you probably don’t remember my asking you that 7 years ago when I first came... but I did. I completed probably 15 or so intentional visits and asked many of you (some of whom are now part of the Church Triumphant) what your dream would be... It is a blessing to see how God has worked in us over the past 7 years just hearing the new answers.

7 years ago, many of the answers were honest, genuine, and reflected a desire to strengthen Gethsemane itself... heal past mistakes... build worship and christian education that would strengthen our faith. You dreamt of bringing back folk who had left because their feelings had been hurt. You dreamt of a worship service that had passionate music, that all ages enjoyed, Sunday school for kids, and more involvement of different age groups in the church.

Many of those dreams have been answered in some way or another. God is good.

Labor Day, I sat and asked 5 of you the same question... Wow! The dreams have gotten bigger! There were dreams of schools, community centers, family development programs, connections with artists in the community, caring for at-risk youth by involving their entire families in a safe space. There were dreams of developing partnerships with TCC and TCU and different societies in Fort Worth.

I am so blessed to serve with a congregation that in the last 6 years since we chose our vision statement, we have all really begun to have faith that can walk on water.

Now, I am hopeful that with the training we can obtain through Allied Communities of Tarrant, with the partnerships in ACT, and with most of all that passion and vision that you have, we can discern the next step in faith as Gethsemane that we can all take together. Let’s get out of the boat and walk towards Jesus!

Blessings,
Rev. Lindsay

Buildings and Grounds September report

From George Rodrigues:
We are happy to report that the new flooring for the entry way and the front offices has been completed an looks very nice. The hand towel dispensers in the restrooms all have been installed. The rest of the new tables for the fellowship hall have been purchased and new chairs have also been donated. And we are aquiring bids on electrical work for the lighting in the womens shower and video projector and screen in the Fellowship Hall .

Learning to make friends

I've been sick this week, which means all of my great plans to visit people have been forced to be put on hold. Instead, excluding the hours of being in bed, blowing my nose, or moaning over my head cold, I have spent a lot of time reading. 

I've been reading a lot about community organizing. This is based on the fact that Gethsemane is getting more involved with Allied Communities of Tarrant a broad-based community organizing group, linking congregations to one another to work towards change in Tarrant County. I've gone to two trainings over the past year. I have attended the monthly clergy caucus faithfully for the past 18 months. I am helping to organize the delegates assembly for September 23rd, 3 pm, at St. Andrew's UMC. 

Why are you spending so much time on meetings since you hate meetings? Because this is the first group that seems to have a concrete understanding of how to help congregations identify the fact that their stuck, give congregations tools to get unstuck, respond to needs in the community, connect to the community, and strengthen themselves. Most groups that invite me to participate either want me to just attend meetings, or they want me to generate a bunch of volunteers... and frankly my congregation is tired and overworked. 

Community organizing seems to have a different focus, at least through ACT it does. I hear over and over that congregations need to be strong in order to be there to protect families, and so our first task is to strengthen our congregations. Wow. A group that wants to help me strengthen my church? They want to help me? Not demand that I help them and add to my to-do list? A group that will facilitate leadership development instead of exhaust my exhausted leaders? Sign me up!

So, this week, I finally got around to reading some of the materials I have had sitting on my shelf since the NEXT Church Conference that took place earlier this year. 

I could ramble on more about what I learned in the books, and how they connected with scripture... but the biggest thing was seeing how God has lined up: what I learned in the books, what I learned in those training seminars, what I committed to start doing 3 years ago, and what one of our dear ruling elders, Lydia Frias has told me for years. The way to transform the church, the way to energize membership, the way to reach the community, the way to plant new churches, the way to bring God's good news to those in desperate need is the same: one-on-one relational meetings. This link provides a pdf from one congregation. I can't speak to the overarching thoughts, but the description of how to do a meeting is on par for what I am talking about (pages 3 and 4).

Basically, too often in church we meet with people to just chit-chat, complain, or "get things done", pastors included. We rarely spend time trying to understand what motivates a person to serve. We rarely spend time helping a person understand their deeper desires, and how their personal stories affect who they are, what they want at this stage of their lives, and what their struggles are. Pastors know that self-knowledge is a huge part of a person's maturity and ability to serve, but we often don't know how to foster that in our members. As a result, we don't end up developing new leaders, we often just exhaust those who are already leaders. These visits help ourselves and others delve deeper into how our personal stories affect our sense of call and our sense of who God is, and what God is doing in our lives. Asking folks "why" they dream of a congregation that does x, or "what in their childhood/past" has led them to be passionate about reaching kids, feeding the homeless, or reaching the lonely totally changes our understanding of what God is calling us to do and how God is calling us to do something. It helps us identify leaders... and more importantly it affirms the belief that we are a priesthood of all believers, that our particular stories are not just important, they are what makes each Christian a critical, pivotal part of any body of believers. 

So... for the past three years I have been trying to improve my visitation of members. I have done better, that is for sure. And I have even started to tell my session members that this needs to be their focus as well. How can anyone lead if we don't know our own people? How can we discern what God's vision is for us if we do not know the personal motivations and stories of our members? How can we discern where God is calling us if we don't know the stories of those who surround us outside the church? 

I have done more visits and more intentional visits, but they haven't been these relational one-to-one visits. 

My challenge now? Learning to focus visits into relational meetings. My visits are often long and chatty. Lydia often has pointed that out to me... you can get to the heart of a person effectively in 30-45 minutes, respecting their time and energy, by asking the right questions, listening faithfully, and trusting that there will be another visit soon. 

I would add, we can do better relational meetings if we focus on the "why?" and the "where does that come from in you?" rather than the "what?". 

We focus too often in our ministry and our lives on naming a business plan, and getting a to-do list. But as Christ-followers there is something sacred and powerful in trusting that by knowing a person and by being known, God will transform us and lead us more naturally... Perhaps, even I should say, we should focus on the "who is in front of me?" and know that deeply and the love placed in our hearts will propel us into the callings God has set out for us. 

So, as soon as I am less germy, I plan to get started on focused, shorter visits... not chit-chat, but really getting to know a person. To know and to be known. I hope my congregation will do so as well.

Finally getting around to Final thoughts on ECG2012

So, almost a month later, I realize my need to finally reflect on the second two days of the Evangelism and Church Growth conference.

So, there were two key areas I want to reflect on...

1 - Knowing your Community

This was a series of two workshops I took from Eugene Blackwell, pastor of House of Manna in Pittsburgh. He shared several stories about how he gained a heart for his neighborhood, and how he felt called to plant a new church in response to his established congregation who did not at that time have a heart to do the same kind of outreach and community transformation that Blackwell had in mind.

Blackwell emphasized that you start by "preaching the Gospel". This took a couple of days for me to unpack and understand. In my lingo, what he identified is...

First, build relationships. Jesus did not just stand on a street corner or start a worship service. He talked with people and figured out what they felt their needs were. He got to know folks well enough to hear them ask for mercy in particular areas of their lives. You can't know how to incarnate the Gospel to someone if you don't know that person.

For Blackwell this meant visiting, walking the streets, slowly getting up the nerve to talk to some of the drug users and lower level dealers. It meant learning how the real economics of that neighborhood worked, why people chose crime (i.e. was it to support their kids?). He figured out what peoples' fears were and dreams. He figured out the patterns of pain that had occurred in that community.

Second, make the Gospel real. A la Book of James, you can't say "peace be with you" and leave a person hungry or naked. If a man needs a job, you are called to help find him a job so that when you talk about a Jesus that cares, he believes you. This requires building relationships more broadly, not just in your community, but elsewhere, so you can connect resources with needs. LOTS of work

Third, know your entry points. This is largely cultural. Since Blackwell had grown up in a similar style community in Chicago, he knew that most folks had some grandma somewhere that had gone to church, so he could start out with questions like, "Who is God to you?" If you are reaching out to a largely atheistic culture, those starting point questions might be different... but notice this is the third, not first step.

Fourth, be willing to invest in people long term. Blackwell didn't understand building community as just getting butts in seats to build a church, he understood it as creating real life-long disciples. So, not just getting folks to enter into faith, but to become folks that are daily journeying in faith.

I could see a huge amount of what Blackwell was preaching as connecting directly to what I have heard in community organizing with Allied Communities of Tarrant and IAF. Spend time in one on one relational meetings, understand that folks already know what they need, and we just need to connect to one another to build enough power to really transform communities.

Above all, it highlighted to me that as a church, even with a great program like Academia, we spend a lot of time solving peoples' problems (a lousy version of step 2) and never doing 1, 3, or 4.

2 - Churches building churches

We talked about really important stuff: money, training, process of a church launch, and coaching.

Money
Some of the key reasons that church plants fail according to Tim Morey is overfunding or underfunding. In my synopsis, in the past the PCUSA has been a specialist in overfunding, but we are quickly moving to the opposite extreme. Historically, we largely fund churches for 3 years, and then partly fund them for 3 more years (slight exaggeration, but close). Morey's denominational model funds a plant for 3 years, 1st year with full salary, second two with half salary. He argued that there is something to be gained by a planter having to do fundraising, because they have to be able to share their passion with folk and teach tithing early on.

The challenge with underfunding is you are probably asking a planter to overextend themselves by having to hold down a full-time job and do a huge amount of evangelism.

The biggest thing he said, though, that I heard was the need for the mother church to really be invested in  its daughter church... that, in fact, is why Morey recommends those terms... because mothers are invested in wanting their children to become self-sufficient adults (or at least they should). But if that investment is real, then the mother church must have their daughter as a top priority... being willing to share members or donate members without strings attached, increasing tithing and sacrificing financially, and spiritually supporting the endeavor through dedicated prayer and provision of good training and coaching. Just like a parent gains so much through raising kids, a parent/mother church has only gain through this process... but those who are living in fear of there not being enough will be too focused on themselves and not willing to be good parents to a daughter church.

Training
This is taught in several steps...
1 - Being able to articulate and identify what the Gospel is for you and for your community

2 - Prayer: learning how to intercede and develop your own rule for life.  If the pastor/planter is not spiritually healthy the church plant is going no where. This is where each planter really takes time to reflect on what they need to be doing daily/weekly/monthly to support their own spiritual growth and discernment as well as spiritually support the new church. HUGE.

I could see that second step being absolutely transformative for a session or new church plant team... I need it.

3 - Context: understand your community and its needs (see earlier reflection on my other workshops).

4 - Evangelism - both missional and attractional models
Missional: focus on meeting people where they are, going out, building the relationships, doing the gospel.
Attractional: being a known enough community that folks seek you out (this is secondary after you already gather a certain group... you have to have something you can invite folks to).

5 - Vision and Values - I saw this as much of the early discernment in the PCUSA Starting New Churches 3.0 book

Process of a Church Launch
I won't go into the details here, but this gave me a huge sense of peace. On some level it was way too detailed, as in "do this for so many months, then do this", but on another level it was very helpful and realistic.

Some basic principles:
Focus on gathering and building a community, not on starting a worship service
Worship service take a lot of planning time and energy, start them slowly or you will sap the energy from your leadership
Make sure to get your foundation right first: identity, values, vision, goals
Evaluate and reevaluate your steps as you go
Do a soft launch before an official Grand Opening
There is something magical about 75, below that, you won't have critical mass for a solid public gathering.

Overall, I left the event feeling like I have the tools I need to enter into faithful discernment with Gethsemane. Now, to just get over my own laziness and make the discernment a priority.

Thank you ECG2012. I hope that this time next year we will have several other leaders from our ministries attending, and that maybe we will have stories to tell as well as stories to hear. 

Rev. Lindsay