This is another kind of "Beyond the Story" reflection growing out of issues raised in the UU World cover story on us at http://www.uuworld.org/.
Let me begin with a quote from Right Here, Right Now by Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford about the disconnect between the ideal of missional life and communities, even after someone takes the red pill, and their current life. They say for most "the idea of missional discipleship seems like a far-off dream because they work most of the time, come home exhausted, spend what little spare time they have with family and kids, and don't seem to have any time for anything else.
"Now I don't mean to diminish the sacredness of work and family," they continue. "but if work is too demanding for us to involve ourselves in being authentic disciples in realms other than work, is is the dominance of our work that should be questioned and not the viability of our discipleship. Work like this is more of an enslaving thing than it is a means of living. We can all live with a lot less. Work four days a week instead of five, if only to find more space for God in your life, let alone serve others. Much real life, relationships, and spiritual meaning can be added by simplifying our lives in order to engage more fully in Life."
As I was quoted in the UU World cover article on our missional community here, I am privileged to be aided in both this work and in life by being married, by being in a two income family (when many of my neighbors are in families with little to no income), with one of our incomes coming from a VA doc salary. Being aware and acknowledging these blessings, these privileges, I hope helps all others, and I mean all of our neighbors, to recognize their own blessings and privilege--it will be different from mine, but theirs is comparative real as well. The joy is to work not out of any sense of shame or deprivation or constantly judging who has what and who hasn't, but to look at how to use our blessings and privileges in service. For in doing so, we also all can live sacrificially as well.
We live where we do so that in large measure we can spend more of our joint incomes in ways that reflect our values of community with others especially the poor, rather than putting those same resources into our own real estate property values or other things, and so that we can have some resources to more easily spend on things that we do enjoy personally, such as travel, gifts, eating out, which would otherwise also be sacrificed to be able to live in other places. It is hard to use the word sacrifice when talking for example about how we moved with our teenage daughter from a new suburban home of $150,000 into an abandoned home and property for $28,000 when we love where we live, how we have been able to work on fixing it up, even though tens of thousands of dollars of repair and fixing it up turns into zero gain in property value because of the "comparables" around us :), and as we feel so blessed by our surroundings. We could live anywhere, and choose to live here. But then I remember that sacrifice means making sacred and it seems more apt.
On my part putting together a "cobbled ministry" of part-time paid work has been both a difficult choice when I think of income "lost" over the years but it has also been a blessing by being able to focus more time on the unpaid part time ministry. The choices have been easier for me, I believe, than for others in other circumstances, but as Bonnie was quoted in the article, if we made do personally with even much less in order to engage in this missional community life we would, and it all makes me marvel and worry about how so many of our leaders in more traditional churches work 40 to 80 hours a week and then still put in/are asked to do so many hours through the church and other groups. If they can do that (though with Hirsch and Ford, I have to challenge its sustainability and wisdom) then we as missional leaders can look for ways to reorient and make space in our lives for the missional callings we are feeling. Besides, going bi or tri vocational, especially in non-churchy work, becomes a benefit in missional church, not a liability. It puts us, whether we would seek it or not, in spheres with others perhaps not so like us, and allows us to make some of the first steps in bridging the "cultural distance" so important in missional church. I will post later about the ways Hirsch and Ford discuss cultural distance.
MISSIONAL PROGRESSIVES...Exploring the intersection where the missional perspective and the theologically generous progressive spirit meet. Always looking for posts, links, articles from others.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Missional Practices and Habits
In Right Here, Right Now, Hirsch and Ford reuse the practices Michael Frost outlined in one of his previous books that his missional community has adopted: taking the acrostic BELLS....
Bless: do three acts of blessings daily, one may be simple email of encouragement, or a gift, be creative; Eat, share meals at least three times a week with others and themselves; Listen, one hour a week through prayer walk or solitude time; Learn, bible study and other works such as fiction and nonfiction too; Sent, record how in their daily interactions they have worked with and against Jesus. In community, share with one another your BELLS.
Practice Integration....Work on bringing cohesion into your life. Shop and eat at the same places. Purchase services from the same providers. Call workers by their names and make sure they know your name...Start a game night, book club, monthly recipe swap party, invite from all spheres...
Organize sharing...create a neighborhood asset and skills inventory for neighbors to post items and services they are willing to share, such as construction and mechanic tools, gardening tools, vans or trucks (offer yourself and your vehicle once or twice a month for neighbors who do not own one but are in need)...Tutoring, tax preparation, minor household fixes, office equipment such as fax or copier [Ron note: that is important here because there are no office places to go do that even if people had money to do it]...Music lessons.
Foster neighborhood interdependence....start a neighborhood blog or facebook page where neighbors can list job needs and opportunities, babysitting, the skills inventory, DVD and book sharing, the affinity groups, events...start a regular weekend bike ride; organize a summer movie under the stars with projector, lawn chairs and refreshments...
Bless: do three acts of blessings daily, one may be simple email of encouragement, or a gift, be creative; Eat, share meals at least three times a week with others and themselves; Listen, one hour a week through prayer walk or solitude time; Learn, bible study and other works such as fiction and nonfiction too; Sent, record how in their daily interactions they have worked with and against Jesus. In community, share with one another your BELLS.
Practice Integration....Work on bringing cohesion into your life. Shop and eat at the same places. Purchase services from the same providers. Call workers by their names and make sure they know your name...Start a game night, book club, monthly recipe swap party, invite from all spheres...
Organize sharing...create a neighborhood asset and skills inventory for neighbors to post items and services they are willing to share, such as construction and mechanic tools, gardening tools, vans or trucks (offer yourself and your vehicle once or twice a month for neighbors who do not own one but are in need)...Tutoring, tax preparation, minor household fixes, office equipment such as fax or copier [Ron note: that is important here because there are no office places to go do that even if people had money to do it]...Music lessons.
Foster neighborhood interdependence....start a neighborhood blog or facebook page where neighbors can list job needs and opportunities, babysitting, the skills inventory, DVD and book sharing, the affinity groups, events...start a regular weekend bike ride; organize a summer movie under the stars with projector, lawn chairs and refreshments...
Move Out, Move In, Move Alongside, Move From
Four basic moves of the moving missional church, from Right Here, Right Now, the latest book by Alan Hirsch this time with Lance Ford as co-author. It offers a template for looking at how fully you are living missionally with others.
Move out (into missional engagement): learning the art of the small---one person can make an impact, concentrate your efforts on smaller and smaller areas; try to find an area that will cause a tipping point; focus on small changes that will spread
Move in (burrowing down into the culture): find a subculture or tribe, ie affinity groups, and join and relate and serve with and learn from, connect with things you love to do, find or create and reside in one of the third places; learn the lingo; all mission is cross-cultural.
Move alongside (engaging in genuine friendships and relational networks): if you need to, seriously consider relocating to where neighborhoods are in need. You should live where you want to serve. You should bump into people in local ways. Three practices of incarnational engagement: proximity, frequency, spontaneity.
Move from (challenging the dehumanizing and sinful aspects of our culture): sometimes we must move from aspects of culture, such as consumerism, presenting different way than dominant culture in terms of sex, money, and power. Living in community is one of the main ways to subvert the dominant culture that wants to break down authentic community.
More to come.
Move out (into missional engagement): learning the art of the small---one person can make an impact, concentrate your efforts on smaller and smaller areas; try to find an area that will cause a tipping point; focus on small changes that will spread
Move in (burrowing down into the culture): find a subculture or tribe, ie affinity groups, and join and relate and serve with and learn from, connect with things you love to do, find or create and reside in one of the third places; learn the lingo; all mission is cross-cultural.
Move alongside (engaging in genuine friendships and relational networks): if you need to, seriously consider relocating to where neighborhoods are in need. You should live where you want to serve. You should bump into people in local ways. Three practices of incarnational engagement: proximity, frequency, spontaneity.
Move from (challenging the dehumanizing and sinful aspects of our culture): sometimes we must move from aspects of culture, such as consumerism, presenting different way than dominant culture in terms of sex, money, and power. Living in community is one of the main ways to subvert the dominant culture that wants to break down authentic community.
More to come.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Communion, Caring, and Celebration: The Core of Missional Communities
A small excerpt from Reggie McNeal's already classic Missional Renaissance: This section is a good little gem that describes the touchstones here in our small expression of The Welcome Table Community, http://www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com/. Before this he has laid out many different manifestations of how a variety of groups are going missional, particularly existing established churches, and what the new spectrum of churches will look like in the future. But here he picks up on some of the more under the radar gatherings:
"An explosion of missional communities (MCs) will occur. These will be groups of believers and nonbelievers who will operate in noninstitutional settings. They will range in size from a handful of participants to a few dozen. Gatherings will take place in homes and restaurants, bookstores and bars, office conference rooms and university dorm rooms, hotel meeting space and downtown Ys, and yes, even churches.
"Their community life will center on an intense desire to grow spiritually and to aid the community. Some MCs will be connected to churches; many will not be. Affinities will be common passions and similar life rhythms. Leadership will emerge from within. Biblical teaching will be imported through podcasts, DVDs, and books.
"MCs will order their lives around communion, caring, and celebration. Communion will include eating together as well as sharing the sacraments. Caring will be lavished on each other but also extend to people beyond the MC as part of the group's expression of following Jesus. As a result more people will become Jesus followers. Celebration will highlight the work of God in the lives of those in the MC as well as rehearse God's revelation in history and in text. MCs will routinely serve together and with others while participants will be cheered to be missional in their own lives as Jesus followers. Networks of these missional communities may be sponsored by large existing churches; others will form in regions along relational lines." [And RR here: I might add across denominational lines].
I will try to post later his other findings surveying the missional map of our times.
"An explosion of missional communities (MCs) will occur. These will be groups of believers and nonbelievers who will operate in noninstitutional settings. They will range in size from a handful of participants to a few dozen. Gatherings will take place in homes and restaurants, bookstores and bars, office conference rooms and university dorm rooms, hotel meeting space and downtown Ys, and yes, even churches.
"Their community life will center on an intense desire to grow spiritually and to aid the community. Some MCs will be connected to churches; many will not be. Affinities will be common passions and similar life rhythms. Leadership will emerge from within. Biblical teaching will be imported through podcasts, DVDs, and books.
"MCs will order their lives around communion, caring, and celebration. Communion will include eating together as well as sharing the sacraments. Caring will be lavished on each other but also extend to people beyond the MC as part of the group's expression of following Jesus. As a result more people will become Jesus followers. Celebration will highlight the work of God in the lives of those in the MC as well as rehearse God's revelation in history and in text. MCs will routinely serve together and with others while participants will be cheered to be missional in their own lives as Jesus followers. Networks of these missional communities may be sponsored by large existing churches; others will form in regions along relational lines." [And RR here: I might add across denominational lines].
I will try to post later his other findings surveying the missional map of our times.
10 Most Common Mistakes Made By New Church Starts
By Bill Easum and Jim Griffiths. Summation of very sound advice and experience. While it is focused on more normative understandings of church than in missional communities, I think there is a lot that can be applied to those looking to form MCs, whether coming out of an existing church or from exiles. Here are their top 10 with my reflections on them:
1. Neglecting the Great Commandment in pursuit of the Great Commission....putting numbers before love, putting ourselves before others, (and especially as I include the parable of the Samaritan as part of the Great Commandment passage, this means putting others who are different from us, and the places that are different from our places, first in who we plant with, and where we plant).
2. Failing to take Opposition Seriously. This is the spiritual warfare section; you don't have to buy the theology to confirm that when you seek to make a transformation, you will get resistance; people, including you as leader, love homeostasis; know the toil it will take on you, how you yourself will be your own worst obstacle and enemy, and so many beginnings I know of have been derailed or almost so because of family issues, health issues, money issues, stress will be high and trigger all your addictions or compulsions. Go in to it expecting a perfect storm. As I have written elsewhere though, if you wait for perfect, you will never begin; perfect is the enemy of good.
3. A love affair with one's fantasy statement blinds the planter to the mission field. Yes, all kinds of vision and mission statements and plans are good for one thing: they are the scaffolding that helps erect the building, but the plan isnt to erect scaffolding but a building; they are drafts only helpful primarily so the planter can better understand and incorporate the direction needed. Be flexible. Be ready for surprises. Be willing to change everything.
4. Premature Launch. An oldie but a goodie still. Part of the problem is connected with number three; we force things and timing in order to let the plan be fulfilled, and it kicks us into attractional mode rather than incarnational, circumventing relationship building. usually also signifies surrending to anxiety among your own group.
5. evangelism ceases after the launch. connecting with others doesn't stop once you have instituted something, and you can't expect that the people who you being to partner with will naturally go out and spread the news and help you partner with others; whether you are trying to get people to worship or to serve others with you, it is the same.
6. No plan for the other six days of the week. For the missional community, maybe this is reversed; no plan for sabbath. How can you embody a seven day faith with your own disciplines and service and together with others? There are a lot of ways to weave mission and/or church into a daily consciousness and contemplation and even action. I will follow up on this one later, but use your imagination; technology can help facilitate this.
7. Fear of talking about money until it is too late. constantly give people opportunities, nudges, reminders, callings to give. We are in a new realm of the spirit where people want to give, to deepen generosity, to join with others to give in ways to do more than they can alone; we can't hide it. also for missional communities, money is a key into understanding the culture we are operating in and against and trying to subvert with an www.economyoflove.org and sharing resources and being engaged in redistribution as one of the three Rs, see www.ccda.org. specifically for traditional church planting, the authors focus on the need for the planter to raise half of their salary themselves.
8. Failure of the church to act its age and its size. Don't get on the treadmill of anxiously pushing to be more and have more and do more, so that you are unable as leaders to feel refreshed in spirit for your service. Don't let your success become your downfall. Act bigger to get bigger is an old maxim; it has to be balanced with going deeper yourself and as a small missional group so you can grow others.
9. Formalizing leadership too soon. Another way of trying to relieve uncertainty, stress and anxiety, and you will begin to forget to pay attention to the edges and the fringes of the ones you are connecting with which is where the best ideas and leaders will come from. It also puts the emphasis on institution over organic expressions, makes you reliant on bylaws for example rather than cultivating the DNA of the group or mission. A corollary: the project leaders at the beginning may not be the ones best to take it to a next level.
10. Using the Superstar Model as a Paradigm. Or any model. Don't get stuck in what has worked for others and think it will work for you. You can't borrow the vision. Be indigenous. Which means know well the culture you are incarnating a missional spirit into.
I have made and continue to make all of these mistakes. They continue to be the sources of questions to ask yourselves. They seem to circle around the one question: what is it you think God really wants as an outcome from your church or mission plant?
1. Neglecting the Great Commandment in pursuit of the Great Commission....putting numbers before love, putting ourselves before others, (and especially as I include the parable of the Samaritan as part of the Great Commandment passage, this means putting others who are different from us, and the places that are different from our places, first in who we plant with, and where we plant).
2. Failing to take Opposition Seriously. This is the spiritual warfare section; you don't have to buy the theology to confirm that when you seek to make a transformation, you will get resistance; people, including you as leader, love homeostasis; know the toil it will take on you, how you yourself will be your own worst obstacle and enemy, and so many beginnings I know of have been derailed or almost so because of family issues, health issues, money issues, stress will be high and trigger all your addictions or compulsions. Go in to it expecting a perfect storm. As I have written elsewhere though, if you wait for perfect, you will never begin; perfect is the enemy of good.
3. A love affair with one's fantasy statement blinds the planter to the mission field. Yes, all kinds of vision and mission statements and plans are good for one thing: they are the scaffolding that helps erect the building, but the plan isnt to erect scaffolding but a building; they are drafts only helpful primarily so the planter can better understand and incorporate the direction needed. Be flexible. Be ready for surprises. Be willing to change everything.
4. Premature Launch. An oldie but a goodie still. Part of the problem is connected with number three; we force things and timing in order to let the plan be fulfilled, and it kicks us into attractional mode rather than incarnational, circumventing relationship building. usually also signifies surrending to anxiety among your own group.
5. evangelism ceases after the launch. connecting with others doesn't stop once you have instituted something, and you can't expect that the people who you being to partner with will naturally go out and spread the news and help you partner with others; whether you are trying to get people to worship or to serve others with you, it is the same.
6. No plan for the other six days of the week. For the missional community, maybe this is reversed; no plan for sabbath. How can you embody a seven day faith with your own disciplines and service and together with others? There are a lot of ways to weave mission and/or church into a daily consciousness and contemplation and even action. I will follow up on this one later, but use your imagination; technology can help facilitate this.
7. Fear of talking about money until it is too late. constantly give people opportunities, nudges, reminders, callings to give. We are in a new realm of the spirit where people want to give, to deepen generosity, to join with others to give in ways to do more than they can alone; we can't hide it. also for missional communities, money is a key into understanding the culture we are operating in and against and trying to subvert with an www.economyoflove.org and sharing resources and being engaged in redistribution as one of the three Rs, see www.ccda.org. specifically for traditional church planting, the authors focus on the need for the planter to raise half of their salary themselves.
8. Failure of the church to act its age and its size. Don't get on the treadmill of anxiously pushing to be more and have more and do more, so that you are unable as leaders to feel refreshed in spirit for your service. Don't let your success become your downfall. Act bigger to get bigger is an old maxim; it has to be balanced with going deeper yourself and as a small missional group so you can grow others.
9. Formalizing leadership too soon. Another way of trying to relieve uncertainty, stress and anxiety, and you will begin to forget to pay attention to the edges and the fringes of the ones you are connecting with which is where the best ideas and leaders will come from. It also puts the emphasis on institution over organic expressions, makes you reliant on bylaws for example rather than cultivating the DNA of the group or mission. A corollary: the project leaders at the beginning may not be the ones best to take it to a next level.
10. Using the Superstar Model as a Paradigm. Or any model. Don't get stuck in what has worked for others and think it will work for you. You can't borrow the vision. Be indigenous. Which means know well the culture you are incarnating a missional spirit into.
I have made and continue to make all of these mistakes. They continue to be the sources of questions to ask yourselves. They seem to circle around the one question: what is it you think God really wants as an outcome from your church or mission plant?
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Becoming Missional and Progressive and Church For The New Year
Being missional in its essence means finding and growing and expressing your identity as church in service with and to others, primarily the underserved. It means both loving the world and others in it, and simultaneously being at odds with those powers and principalities, those forces and groups in the world, including the church itself, that work against the poor (including being against all those things that keep the well off from knowing they are well off and being able to share their blessings with those who aren't; so being missional may mean also living counter-culturally among the well-off, and being against those habits and attitudes of scarcity engrained in many of the poor themselves).
We are to become ourselves in the world, but not be made of the world, not letting its standards be ours. Instead we need to keep these two standards before us as we discern how we are living up to our missional calling: 1. how much and how often are we in the world as a people, working together two or more, to be blessings in the world? And 2. how are we resisting the dominant culture values all around us?
What about us and the ways we are a people keep us apart from the world and keep us slaves to its ways at the same time? These questions should be our resolutions for the new year.
The church is only the church as it is a reflection and creation out of God's mission. That mission was Jesus'...to heal the sick, set free the captive, bring sight to the blind, and proclaim the Jubilee year of renewal and economic justice.
If the heart of the church is missional, so I believe the heart of the church is progressive, meaning radically open to others with no creedal tests, learning from others. Being progressive and missional are redundancies; it is only as the church is not living up to its true calling to be radically missional that it is not progressive, and only that it isn't living up to its true calling to be radically progressive that it is not missional. Fear keeps the leaders of missional church from embracing the church's progressive identity (fear of heresy, fear of truly losing one's former self, fear of slippery slope thinking and believing the force of spiritual progressiveness leads to being of the world). Fear keeps the leaders of progressive churches from embracing the church's missional identity (fear of not being perfect and making mistakes when being in relationship with others, fear of others who don't share one's politics and class especially if you are in an area where you are already the minority culture, and especially if you yourself have grown and emerged from such cultures in your own journey and fear unresolved family of origin issues).
The beauty of the way toward integration of missional and progressive is that it is best done in small ways, in small groups, in small acts. May 2011 be the year you grow smaller in order to reach out to so many more. You don't have to change your whole church, or your whole family. But find a few others to adventure with intentionally this year, serving together, studying together, socializing together, and celebrating God together.
We are to become ourselves in the world, but not be made of the world, not letting its standards be ours. Instead we need to keep these two standards before us as we discern how we are living up to our missional calling: 1. how much and how often are we in the world as a people, working together two or more, to be blessings in the world? And 2. how are we resisting the dominant culture values all around us?
What about us and the ways we are a people keep us apart from the world and keep us slaves to its ways at the same time? These questions should be our resolutions for the new year.
The church is only the church as it is a reflection and creation out of God's mission. That mission was Jesus'...to heal the sick, set free the captive, bring sight to the blind, and proclaim the Jubilee year of renewal and economic justice.
If the heart of the church is missional, so I believe the heart of the church is progressive, meaning radically open to others with no creedal tests, learning from others. Being progressive and missional are redundancies; it is only as the church is not living up to its true calling to be radically missional that it is not progressive, and only that it isn't living up to its true calling to be radically progressive that it is not missional. Fear keeps the leaders of missional church from embracing the church's progressive identity (fear of heresy, fear of truly losing one's former self, fear of slippery slope thinking and believing the force of spiritual progressiveness leads to being of the world). Fear keeps the leaders of progressive churches from embracing the church's missional identity (fear of not being perfect and making mistakes when being in relationship with others, fear of others who don't share one's politics and class especially if you are in an area where you are already the minority culture, and especially if you yourself have grown and emerged from such cultures in your own journey and fear unresolved family of origin issues).
The beauty of the way toward integration of missional and progressive is that it is best done in small ways, in small groups, in small acts. May 2011 be the year you grow smaller in order to reach out to so many more. You don't have to change your whole church, or your whole family. But find a few others to adventure with intentionally this year, serving together, studying together, socializing together, and celebrating God together.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Ministry With Others For Others
Partnering Churches and Nonprofits for Social Justice
Notes by Ron Robinson for a collegial presentation
...Why partner with other nonprofits in your community, particularly other faithbased and secular nonprofits?
Our covenants of the free church (for those of us in this congregationalist tradition):
one of the main four is church and church, but that grows out of the colonial period when wider parish and church were strongly connected, so there is a covenant implicit in our being between the gathered church and its surrounding/supporting community. (which begs the question: what are the boundaries of your parish, your service area, your wider community of focus? and what happens when you don't make distinctions? what are prime needs or gaps in wholeness in that particular community?)....when one of the covenants is weakened, it affects the others, and vice versa, when we strengthen one of our core covenants it will strengthen others.
The Holy is present in many ways and places and persons beyond the gathered church; our mission is to nurture the Holy.
We can help grow our own gifts through partnerships with others.
Ecumenical difficulties…Used to be that churches could band together into partnerships and then through these partner with nonprofits or create their own nonprofits, but as ecumenism has suffered and culture changed from churched to unchurched culture and competiveness increased and church resources dwindled, especially for volunteers and volunteer time, this approach becomes more difficult though it still is present...so more churches partnering directly with nonprofits, or creating their own.
...Ministry Partnership Lessons, from Churches That Make A Difference, by Sider, Olson, and Unruh of Evangelicals for Social Action
1. few churches have resources to carry out their vision by themselves.
2. expand church opportunities to form relationships (that may lead to evangelism, but can hinder it as people may feel stigmatized and not equal with church members unless friendship formed first, sometimes form alternative worship services just for them, invite recipients to social events, invite them to serve alongside church members)
3. prevents duplication of services and focuses the church resources where they are most needed.
4. church ministries are more effective when they cooperate, rather than compete, with local efforts. help local residents grow to help themselves.
5.expose church members to needs and issues outside their usual context
6. working with established agencies can help churches learn structures, and get their feet wet for creating more novel partnerships.
7. there is a supportive climate for faithbased partnerships now
types of partnerships:
1. partner comes alongside a church with the resources the church needs to flesh out its vision for holistic ministry. eg food banks, music ministries for festivals...annual or one time connections...
2. church supplies the partner with volunteers or funding,and in return the partner provides the church with a ministry outlet that does not require much administrative effort. eg habitat for humanity
3. church allows partner to use its space
4. church is the parent of a ministry program that spins off to become its own entity.
5. partnership grows out of a history of cooperation and joint project sponsorship, based on personal relationships and shared ministry goals....individual church member creates entity
How are we doing partnering…
with denominational programs
with businesses to help with jobs for those in need, round out their growth
with public schools, universities
with community coalitions
with ministry coalitions
with church coalitions
with clergy coalitions
with community organizing coalitions
participation on public boards and committees
with national organizations...host for mission trips, or going on them
with government
with urban-suburban partner
qualities of good partnerships
1. have a compatible core mission
2. don't hinder the witness of the church: state rules may treat people differently than church values
3. mutual trust and respect
4. sense of ownership on both sides: small church partnering with large agency may feel dependent
5. partnerships don't substitute for gifts and resources of congregation: don't subcontract evangelism or social action, fill in the congregation gaps and multiply congregation gifts not become a crutch for its inadequacies.
6. clear communication and accountability
http://www.faithlinksok.org/ for those in oklahoma
Starting a Nonprofit At Your Church: Drawing More Resources to Meet Increasing Community Needs
by Joy Skjegstad
All around the country, church congregations are establishing separate 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations in order to draw new funding, new people, and new partnerships into the ministry of their church. In these difficult economic times when community needs have increased and the amount of money given through the Sunday offering has decreased for many churches, setting up a church-based nonprofit can be a creative way to bring more resources to your community ministry efforts when your congregation may be less able to underwrite the cost of those ministries.
Through my consulting work around the country, I have witnessed the power of the church-nonprofit structure in bringing new ministry into being and helping it grow. Congregations develop a wide variety of ministries under their nonprofits: schools and day care centers, housing and youth development programs, job training and placement, food shelves and feeding programs, health clinics, and a host of other initiatives.
Many of these congregations have found that the church-nonprofit model brings together the very best aspects of the church with the outside resources that a nonprofit can draw. Congregations bring a great deal to the relationship. Churches frequently have the trust of the broader community in ways that few other institutions do. Particularly if your ministry dream is to offer social service programs, the nonprofit's connection to the church may help you draw participants who wouldn't feel as safe approaching a secular nonprofit, a government agency, or a school. Churches also have "captive audiences." A congregation is a ready-made group of workers, donors, and supporters. If you prepare them, communicate with them and inspire them, your congregation can exponentially increase the power of your nonprofit ministry.
When I served as executive director of the Park Avenue Foundation, a nonprofit connected to Park Avenue United Methodist Church, church members served as a core group of volunteers for foundation programs. Volunteer tutors, mentors, lawyers, doctors, and nurses were all mobilized from within the congregation to do good works every day of the week in the church building. I believe their connection to the church made many of the volunteers more dedicated—they were proud of their church and wanted to ensure that the programs offered were of high quality.
The nonprofit part of the structure brings a lot to the organization's effectiveness, too. You'll be able to attract resources from funders that would not support a church directly. New collaborative partners will become interested in what you are doing, and there will be opportunities to recruit volunteers from new sources. One of the most important advantages is the ability to attract the skills you need through new staff and board members from outside your church.
Securing new financial resources for ministry is the most common reason that congregations choose to set up a nonprofit. Particularly now, when your congregation members may not be able to fully underwrite your vision for community ministry, outside funding sources—including foundation grants and gifts from individuals outside of your congregation—may allow you to move forward. However, many foundations and corporations will not make grants to congregations directly (with some it is a stated policy). Other funders have no formal policy against this, but they are uncomfortable giving to religious groups because of fears that contributions for one purpose may be used for something else entirely. Funders might worry that their gift for a church-based job training program might be spent on the Sunday school curriculum or choir robes, for example. A separate legal entity with its own set of books, governance structure, and board members from outside the church will make many funders much more comfortable about giving to a program connected with a church.
Having a separate nonprofit may also allow you to recruit new volunteers from organizations that might be reluctant to send people out to a church. At a time when many congregations are needing to trim their budgets and rely more on volunteers, the ability to attract more people who are willing to give of their time is a real advantage to the church-nonprofit model. Many churches I have worked with found they could recruit volunteers for community programs and services much more readily from other churches, local businesses, corporations or service clubs once they had set up their nonprofit. This is because outside groups are more willing to devote “people power” to programs that are set up to benefit the community, not just the members of one congregation.
Being able to recruit board members from outside the church is another strength of the church-nonprofit model. A church-based nonprofit can choose to have its own board of directors that has at least some members from outside the congregation. These "outsiders" can bring new expertise, connections, and resources to your ministry work. For example, if you are looking for an accountant to serve on your nonprofit's board, you may not find one in your church congregation, but you might find one outside the church, in a nearby business or congregation. A wider variety of board members can also help connect you to more funding sources and potential partnerships with other congregations and nonprofits.
Having a separate nonprofit may also help you collaborate with some organizations that would be reluctant to partner directly with a church. When a group of like-minded people get together to address a community issue, coming under the banner of the nonprofit might make others at the table less suspicious of your motives for involvement. Some people automatically assume that the hidden agenda behind any congregational involvement is recruiting new church members. If your separate nonprofit has the mission of "responding to the foreclosure crisis in the community," for example, it makes your purpose clear and shows others that you are willing to devote time and resources to a community issue that others care about as well.
Partnering with other groups is essential right now—collaborations can provide services, resources, and expertise to make up for what has been trimmed out of your own budget. For example, your congregation may provide job training and placement to community members but may no longer be able to offer a feeding program. A partnership with another congregation or nonprofit could allow you to connect your participants with other resources that they need.
If your congregation aspires to develop more community ministry but needs outside funding, people, and partnerships to do it, starting a nonprofit connected to your congregation could help provide some of the resources that you need.
Cautionary point from Lyle Schaller, small congregation, big potential:
partnering with other churches or organizations in order to keep maintaining the status quo may prevent a church from facing the transformative challenges to its very existence that is needed.
If goal is not maintaining status quo internally, but affecting external community than partnerships can be vital.
might stunt member giving and growth by thinking others outside will provide
also partnerships, in cultural context of contract rather than covenant, litigious society, can tend toward unhealthy conflict
Notes by Ron Robinson for a collegial presentation
...Why partner with other nonprofits in your community, particularly other faithbased and secular nonprofits?
Our covenants of the free church (for those of us in this congregationalist tradition):
one of the main four is church and church, but that grows out of the colonial period when wider parish and church were strongly connected, so there is a covenant implicit in our being between the gathered church and its surrounding/supporting community. (which begs the question: what are the boundaries of your parish, your service area, your wider community of focus? and what happens when you don't make distinctions? what are prime needs or gaps in wholeness in that particular community?)....when one of the covenants is weakened, it affects the others, and vice versa, when we strengthen one of our core covenants it will strengthen others.
The Holy is present in many ways and places and persons beyond the gathered church; our mission is to nurture the Holy.
We can help grow our own gifts through partnerships with others.
Ecumenical difficulties…Used to be that churches could band together into partnerships and then through these partner with nonprofits or create their own nonprofits, but as ecumenism has suffered and culture changed from churched to unchurched culture and competiveness increased and church resources dwindled, especially for volunteers and volunteer time, this approach becomes more difficult though it still is present...so more churches partnering directly with nonprofits, or creating their own.
...Ministry Partnership Lessons, from Churches That Make A Difference, by Sider, Olson, and Unruh of Evangelicals for Social Action
1. few churches have resources to carry out their vision by themselves.
2. expand church opportunities to form relationships (that may lead to evangelism, but can hinder it as people may feel stigmatized and not equal with church members unless friendship formed first, sometimes form alternative worship services just for them, invite recipients to social events, invite them to serve alongside church members)
3. prevents duplication of services and focuses the church resources where they are most needed.
4. church ministries are more effective when they cooperate, rather than compete, with local efforts. help local residents grow to help themselves.
5.expose church members to needs and issues outside their usual context
6. working with established agencies can help churches learn structures, and get their feet wet for creating more novel partnerships.
7. there is a supportive climate for faithbased partnerships now
types of partnerships:
1. partner comes alongside a church with the resources the church needs to flesh out its vision for holistic ministry. eg food banks, music ministries for festivals...annual or one time connections...
2. church supplies the partner with volunteers or funding,and in return the partner provides the church with a ministry outlet that does not require much administrative effort. eg habitat for humanity
3. church allows partner to use its space
4. church is the parent of a ministry program that spins off to become its own entity.
5. partnership grows out of a history of cooperation and joint project sponsorship, based on personal relationships and shared ministry goals....individual church member creates entity
How are we doing partnering…
with denominational programs
with businesses to help with jobs for those in need, round out their growth
with public schools, universities
with community coalitions
with ministry coalitions
with church coalitions
with clergy coalitions
with community organizing coalitions
participation on public boards and committees
with national organizations...host for mission trips, or going on them
with government
with urban-suburban partner
qualities of good partnerships
1. have a compatible core mission
2. don't hinder the witness of the church: state rules may treat people differently than church values
3. mutual trust and respect
4. sense of ownership on both sides: small church partnering with large agency may feel dependent
5. partnerships don't substitute for gifts and resources of congregation: don't subcontract evangelism or social action, fill in the congregation gaps and multiply congregation gifts not become a crutch for its inadequacies.
6. clear communication and accountability
http://www.faithlinksok.org/ for those in oklahoma
Starting a Nonprofit At Your Church: Drawing More Resources to Meet Increasing Community Needs
by Joy Skjegstad
All around the country, church congregations are establishing separate 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations in order to draw new funding, new people, and new partnerships into the ministry of their church. In these difficult economic times when community needs have increased and the amount of money given through the Sunday offering has decreased for many churches, setting up a church-based nonprofit can be a creative way to bring more resources to your community ministry efforts when your congregation may be less able to underwrite the cost of those ministries.
Through my consulting work around the country, I have witnessed the power of the church-nonprofit structure in bringing new ministry into being and helping it grow. Congregations develop a wide variety of ministries under their nonprofits: schools and day care centers, housing and youth development programs, job training and placement, food shelves and feeding programs, health clinics, and a host of other initiatives.
Many of these congregations have found that the church-nonprofit model brings together the very best aspects of the church with the outside resources that a nonprofit can draw. Congregations bring a great deal to the relationship. Churches frequently have the trust of the broader community in ways that few other institutions do. Particularly if your ministry dream is to offer social service programs, the nonprofit's connection to the church may help you draw participants who wouldn't feel as safe approaching a secular nonprofit, a government agency, or a school. Churches also have "captive audiences." A congregation is a ready-made group of workers, donors, and supporters. If you prepare them, communicate with them and inspire them, your congregation can exponentially increase the power of your nonprofit ministry.
When I served as executive director of the Park Avenue Foundation, a nonprofit connected to Park Avenue United Methodist Church, church members served as a core group of volunteers for foundation programs. Volunteer tutors, mentors, lawyers, doctors, and nurses were all mobilized from within the congregation to do good works every day of the week in the church building. I believe their connection to the church made many of the volunteers more dedicated—they were proud of their church and wanted to ensure that the programs offered were of high quality.
The nonprofit part of the structure brings a lot to the organization's effectiveness, too. You'll be able to attract resources from funders that would not support a church directly. New collaborative partners will become interested in what you are doing, and there will be opportunities to recruit volunteers from new sources. One of the most important advantages is the ability to attract the skills you need through new staff and board members from outside your church.
Securing new financial resources for ministry is the most common reason that congregations choose to set up a nonprofit. Particularly now, when your congregation members may not be able to fully underwrite your vision for community ministry, outside funding sources—including foundation grants and gifts from individuals outside of your congregation—may allow you to move forward. However, many foundations and corporations will not make grants to congregations directly (with some it is a stated policy). Other funders have no formal policy against this, but they are uncomfortable giving to religious groups because of fears that contributions for one purpose may be used for something else entirely. Funders might worry that their gift for a church-based job training program might be spent on the Sunday school curriculum or choir robes, for example. A separate legal entity with its own set of books, governance structure, and board members from outside the church will make many funders much more comfortable about giving to a program connected with a church.
Having a separate nonprofit may also allow you to recruit new volunteers from organizations that might be reluctant to send people out to a church. At a time when many congregations are needing to trim their budgets and rely more on volunteers, the ability to attract more people who are willing to give of their time is a real advantage to the church-nonprofit model. Many churches I have worked with found they could recruit volunteers for community programs and services much more readily from other churches, local businesses, corporations or service clubs once they had set up their nonprofit. This is because outside groups are more willing to devote “people power” to programs that are set up to benefit the community, not just the members of one congregation.
Being able to recruit board members from outside the church is another strength of the church-nonprofit model. A church-based nonprofit can choose to have its own board of directors that has at least some members from outside the congregation. These "outsiders" can bring new expertise, connections, and resources to your ministry work. For example, if you are looking for an accountant to serve on your nonprofit's board, you may not find one in your church congregation, but you might find one outside the church, in a nearby business or congregation. A wider variety of board members can also help connect you to more funding sources and potential partnerships with other congregations and nonprofits.
Having a separate nonprofit may also help you collaborate with some organizations that would be reluctant to partner directly with a church. When a group of like-minded people get together to address a community issue, coming under the banner of the nonprofit might make others at the table less suspicious of your motives for involvement. Some people automatically assume that the hidden agenda behind any congregational involvement is recruiting new church members. If your separate nonprofit has the mission of "responding to the foreclosure crisis in the community," for example, it makes your purpose clear and shows others that you are willing to devote time and resources to a community issue that others care about as well.
Partnering with other groups is essential right now—collaborations can provide services, resources, and expertise to make up for what has been trimmed out of your own budget. For example, your congregation may provide job training and placement to community members but may no longer be able to offer a feeding program. A partnership with another congregation or nonprofit could allow you to connect your participants with other resources that they need.
If your congregation aspires to develop more community ministry but needs outside funding, people, and partnerships to do it, starting a nonprofit connected to your congregation could help provide some of the resources that you need.
Cautionary point from Lyle Schaller, small congregation, big potential:
partnering with other churches or organizations in order to keep maintaining the status quo may prevent a church from facing the transformative challenges to its very existence that is needed.
If goal is not maintaining status quo internally, but affecting external community than partnerships can be vital.
might stunt member giving and growth by thinking others outside will provide
also partnerships, in cultural context of contract rather than covenant, litigious society, can tend toward unhealthy conflict
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