Lost and Found: Spiritual Discernment for a Struggling Church
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Lost and Found: Spiritual Discernment for a Struggling Church by Sharon L. Kiesel May 4, 2015 Approved by: Academic Advisor (Dr. Lisa Dahill, Trinity Lutheran Seminary) Date January 29, 2015 Second Reader and Academic Dean (Dr. Lisa Withrow) Date April 21, 2015 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction and Rationale for Study……………………………………...4 Chapter 2 Theological and Biblical Underpinnings…………………………………36 Chapter 3 Contextual Analysis and Statement of Theological Construct…………..60 Chapter 4 Research Design and Procedures………………………………………...82 Chapter 5 Results and Evaluation of Research…………………………………….105 Chapter 6 Summary/Significance…………………………………………………..160 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………176 Bibliography of Works Cited and Consulted………………………………………217 Illustrations Figure 1. Business Purpose Drives Business Decisions………………………………………...22 Figure 2. God’s Purpose Driving Church Decisions…………………………………………....23 Table 1. Appreciative Inquiry Steps and the Interim Focus Points……………………………..26 Table 2. Area Comparison of Median Household Income and Poverty Levels, 2007-2011…...61 Table 3. Top Ten Mosaic Segments in Boardman…………………………………………........63 Figure 3. Average Worship Attendance…………………………………………………….......66 Table 4. Discernment Plan during the Dream Phase……………………………………………70 Table 5. Levels of Stewardship…………………………………………………………………76 Table 6: Discernment Teaching Activities……………………………………………………..96 Figure 4. Pin Map Results…………………………………………………………………….108 Figure 5. The Opportunity Map………………………………………………………………..118 Table 7. Voting Results by Age Ranges……………………………………………………….119 Figure 6. Opportunity Map with Creative Artwork……………………………………………121 Figure 7. Children’s Quilt Hanging…………………………………………………………….122 Table 8. Demographics of the Holding Group Interviewed……………………………………123 Table 9. Biggest Challenge Facing this Church………………………………………………..124 Table 10. Factors Valued Concerning the Biggest Challenge………………………………….125 Table 11. Current Discernment Practices………………………………………………………126 Table 12. Group Discernment Experience……………………………………………………...127 Table 13. How Respondents Celebrated the Church-Wide Sabbath…………………………..128 Table 14. Did the Sabbath Help Them Personally?....................................................................129 Table 15. How Sabbath Impacted the Church…………………………………………………,131 Table 16. Feelings after the Discernment Exercises……………………………………………133 Table 17. New Insights Encountered…………………………………………………………..135 Table 18. Individual Spiritual Benefits…………………………………………………………137 Table 19. Used Discernment Since The Exercise………………………………………………139 2 Appendices Appendix 1. The Transition Team……………………………………………………………...176 Appendix 2. DCC Boardman Intentional Interim Plan…………………………………………177 Appendix 3. Exercises / Training Schedule…………………………………………………….179 Appendix 4. Spiritual Giftabilities Inventory (Large Print)…………………………………….182 Appendix 4A. Spiritual Giftabilities Answer Sheet…………………………………………….187 Appendix 5. Description of Spiritual Gifts……………………………………………………..188 Appendix 6. Talents, Work Style, and Passions Worksheet……………………………………192 Appendix 6A. Agenda for Transition Team Retreat……………………………………………194 Appendix 7. Discernment Sermons…………………………………………………………….196 Appendix 8. Individual Discernment Card……………………………………………………..197 Appendix 9. Guidelines for Group Discernment……………………………………………….199 Appendix 10. PhoneTree Messages…………………………………………………………….201 Appendix 11. On Which Path is God Calling Us Handout ……………………………………202 Appendix 12. Voting Instructions……………………………………………………………....204 Appendix 13. Spiritual Giftability Totals 2013………………………………………………...206 Appendix 14. Spiritual Gifts by Age Group 2013……………………………………………...207 Appendix 15. Ideas Brainstormed by Transition Team………………………………………...208 Appendix 16. Ideas Brainstormed by the Congregation………………………………………..209 Appendix 17. Voices of the Valley……………………………………………………………..212 Appendix 18. Igniting Hope: Family by Family Volunteer Guidelines………………………..215 Appendix 19. Igniting Hope: Family by Family Hub Diagram………………………………...216 3 Chapter 1 Introduction and Rationale for Study . 1.1 A Vision Crisis On June 24, 2014, I attended an Interim Ministry Network workshop titled “New Rules of Vision” by consultant Will Mancini. He affirmed much of what I have been seeing in the decline of churches in the past fifteen years I have been in ministry. In his book, Mancini wrote about “an epidemic we are witnessing in the North American church”1 that he described as “a vision vacuum.”2 Leaders clamor for the right tools, programs and resources and clone them, resulting in “photocopied vision in the body of Christ.”3 They lack a lifestyle of visionary leadership, focusing instead on the vision statement. A better way of leadership involves “careful observation, vibrant imagination, and demanding collaboration that forge a unique vision based on what God is uniquely doing in each church’s unique context.”4 One size fits all is no longer viable. “Until leaders not only embrace uniqueness but celebrate and leverage it, they will miss out on God’s best for their ministry.”5 Furthermore, when leaders think clearly, engage locally, focus redemptively and risk boldly, “their church becomes an unstoppable force and an irresistible influence. It becomes a church that prevails not because it is ‘purpose-driven’ but because it is purposeful.”6 This last sentence bears further explanation. Will Mancini relates that Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Church7 failed to mention the uniqueness of a church’s call 1 Will Mancini, Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008), xxv. 2 Will Mancini, Church Unique, xxv. 3 Will Mancini, Church Unique, xxv. 4 Will Mancini, Church Unique, xxv. 5 Will Mancini, Church Unique, xxv. 6 Will Mancini, Church Unique, xxv-xxvi. 7 Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message and Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 1995. 4 to love God and others. It left many churches “ill equipped to define something purposefully specific.”8 Is this vision crisis an issue of ineffective methods or ineffective leadership or both? According to Edwin Friedman in his final book on leadership, we are experiencing “a failure of nerve”9 affecting American civilization today: “…when anxiety reaches certain thresholds, ‘reasonableness and honesty’ no longer defend against illusion.”10 In this highly reactive “leadership-toxic climate”11 leaders who try to stand up amidst the raging anxiety are sabotaged, at a time when there is a need for “clarity and decisiveness.”12 Dependent members of organizations set agendas that are oriented toward weakness instead of strength, toward anxious members instead of “the energetic, the visionary, the imaginative, and the motivated.”13 This anxiety is easily projected into our church families, causing leaders to react, be worn down, “go through the motions,”14 and “seek peace rather than progress.”15 Leaders are forced to operate out of a “quick fix mentality”16 and seek scapegoats to blame and to bind up their anxieties. The least mature are chosen for responsibilities, while those with the greatest integrity and abilities are sabotaged and usually leave.17 In short, the organization becomes cyclically organized and operational around the dysfunctional. I agree with Will Mancini and Edwin Friedman, that a main reason why so many of our churches are lost and struggling is leadership’s failure to deal with this vision crisis. I have repeatedly noticed that churched people become stuck where they are because they cannot 8 Mancini, Church Unique, 105-106. 9This term originated because Socrates had affected Greek civilization at the onset of the Renaissance, but that society panicked into developing more new myths. From Chapter IV “The Failure of Nerve” of Gilbert Murray, Five Stages of Greek Religion,(New York: Dover Publications), 2002, 119-165 cited in Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (New York: Seabury Books, 2007), 1. 10 Friedman, Failure of Nerve,1. 11 Friedman, Failure of Nerve,2. 12 Friedman, Failure of Nerve,2. 13 Friedman, Failure of Nerve,12. 14 Friedman, Failure of Nerve, 91. 15 Friedman, Failure of Nerve, 91. 16 Friedman, Failure of Nerve, 92. 17 Friedman, Failure of Nerve, 92. 5 imagine an exciting future different from the present. Symptoms of this disease include worshipping the building when it is falling down around them, idolizing their style of worship, fearing new people because the newcomers will change them, focusing on themselves instead of the community to which God calls them, and focusing on keeping and looking busy, instead of on how God wants them, as stewards, to use their limited gifts of time, treasure, talents and energy. Most of the churches that I have interviewed do not know that this lack of a unique vision from God is their main issue; finding leadership brave enough to lead it and congregations that will support that leadership, is a secondary issue. The purpose of this doctoral project is to address this situation. This project attempts to give clarity amidst chaos, by helping courageous leaders direct the people back to God who is the One who is really in charge. While serving as a Transitional Minister and operating under the accepted practices of that ministerial specialization, I plan to intervene in a congregation’s life, by inviting, teaching and guiding its members to use an ancient practice of discernment that was developed for decision-making in accordance