A Ministry of the School of Theology and Christian Ministry—Olivet Nazarene University

Congregational Leadership

The new year affords us the opportunity to reflect and reorient ourselves toward the important things that got lost in the clutter of 2011. This month we identify a challenge that many ministry leaders face, as well as offer simple wisdom for overcoming this challenge in the new year. 

Featured Article

Leading From Within or Without?

Jason Robertson & Danny Goddard   1/05/12

Ten years ago my wife and I made it a priority to travel to different parts of the country to experience the different subcultures of the US. This, of course, was when we had two incomes and no kids. Times have changed. But I still reminisce through our many pictures of the rich experiences we had together.

One of my favorite trips was to the Northeast. We traveled around Maine and then made our way down the coast landing in Boston. I had a very specific mission while in Boston: find a particular park bench in the Boston Public Garden. It was this same bench that made an appearance in a movie I saw in college, Good Will Hunting. In one of the more moving scenes in the film, Sean (Robin Williams), a psychologist and college professor, is sitting on the park bench talking to Will (Matt Damon), a troubled orphan from South Boston. Will is an interesting character. He lived a troubled childhood in the slums and fighting was his favorite recreational activity. But Will is also a genius. Whether it’s history, art, or mathematics, his knowledge seems to know no bounds.

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Tags: Leadership
 

Recent Articles

The Challenges of Social Media

Jason Robertson   11/01/11

I’m not sure why, but I vividly remember the first time I ever heard the word “Twitter.”  At first I thought about the oddity of the word, a word that elicits all kinds of sarcastic comments, comments I was quick to offer. I was also skeptical that this “new” social media tool could ever be of any benefit.  Whatever the reason, I remember the day.

It was in October 2008 while sitting in a class entitled “Missional Ecclesiology.” On the first day of class the professor not only introduced us to Twitter, but also forced us to create an account so that we could utilize Twitter for class interactions.  He actually waited for the first ten minutes of class while we begrudgingly created our accounts and posted our first tweets.  It was obvious that we were all thinking the same thing: “This is stupid!” 

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Tags: Culture, Leadership, Technology
 

Ministry at a Time of Death: What Do You Say When You Don’t Know What to Say?

Danny Goddard   2/01/11

Just yesterday I visited a dear lady in the Henry County Hospital in New Castle, Indiana.  Her frail, emaciated body housed the positive spirit of a beautiful person, one who is strong in her unbending faith.   Unlike the wishes of her family, this woman is ready for her four-year battle with lung cancer to be over.  "I'm ready to go," she told me in front of her husband and adult grandson.  "I want to go," she added.  I held her hand and prayed a prayer of encouragement, not for her healing but for the Will of God to be accomplished.  Being a child of the King, that is the first and foremost desire of this dear lady.  Though we did not express it, we both knew that within a few weeks I will be standing by her casket.

Death is never a welcomed guest but most of us have known someone who has lost a loved one.  Perhaps you were called to one's side at the time of death, especially if you are a good friend or even the pastor, or maybe you were visiting the funeral home during the designated calling hours.  Regardless of who you are, what your position is, or what the situation may be, if you are in ministry, you are confronted with the awkward task of "saying the right thing" when you greet your grieving friend.

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Tags: Death
 

Interview with Jason Robertson

Jason Robertson   11/01/10

 

Interview with Jason Robertson

Epworth Pulpit: Jason, Tell us about the strategy of the EPIC service at Beavercreek.

Jason: The EPIC approach initially came from a book by Leonard Sweet called Postmodern Pilgrims.  The goal was to be Experiential, Participatory, Image-Rich, and Connective.  For the next five years we would continue trying to be EPIC, but it really fell to the background of who we were soon after EPIC launched.

One year into doing EPIC, we started to feel less like a worship gathering and more like a church.  It was important for us to start thinking about a more holistic approach to ministry besides just what we were doing on Sundays.  I had a strong team of leaders around me and we began having conversations about how we were going to provide environments that were conducive to formational experiences with the Holy Spirit.  At the time we were primarily fixated on our weekly gathering as the place where transformation would take place, but this approach shifted drastically the summer after EPIC began. 

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Emerging Church 101

Carl Leth   9/07/10

 

Introduce the topic of the emerging church among pastors and church leaders and you will probably evoke a strong response. That response will tend to be either strongly positive or strongly negative. We're either "for" it or "against" it. The tendency is to categorically reject the perspectives of the emerging church or to uncritically affirm them. This article is an attempt to make our way into the conversation without being polarized. However we finally regard the critique and proposals of the emerging church conversation, it is an important conversation to be aware of and, in some constructive way, involved in.

The dynamic nature of the emerging church conversation makes it hard to simply define or categorize. Part of the ethos of the postmodern approach is to reject such categorical thinking. Nevertheless, we need to be able to have some orientation amidst the disorder if we are to make our way meaningfully. The characterizations suggested in this article are offered as tentative, or working, descriptions. I realize that they only serve to identify general tendencies or prominent themes and can't adequately or accurately portray the entire conversation or individuals in it.  But I think we can see some patterns that allow us to orient our thinking. I am not an authority on the emerging church but I am an interested observer. What follows is an overview of my observations.

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Tags: Emergent
 

“Red and Yellow, Black and White”

Randy Dodd   4/09/10

 

 

Randy, you pastor an unusual congregation. It is genuinely multi-cultural and is a vibrant, growing church in a diverse community. Would you describe your church and community for us?

It is a church you cannot easily label or easily compare to another. This church is celebrating its 97th birthday and God has essentially recreated it before our very eyes.

The church had typically humble beginnings. Chicago Heights was a progressive middle-class Italian community, perhaps best known for being the weekend "getaway" home of the infamous Al Capone. During the 70's and 80's, Chicago Heights began to decline economically. Businesses began to close down. What growth there was in Chicago's southern suburbs was moving east and west of Chicago Heights. There was obviously a temptation for the church to do what most traditional churches have historically done under similar circumstances. Abandon, sell and relocate.

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Tags: Culture