Dear pastors and ministry leaders:
[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignright" width="150"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
LifeWay Resources President Thom Rainer is pretty good at predicting trends in the North American church. He's been analyzing those trends for years, and recently shared his take on what lies ahead in an article titled "The Top Ten Major Trends for 2017." I've reproduced his list below (with minor edits) and then provided comments concerning how these trends might impact us in GCI. I encourage you to discuss these with your leaders as you consider together how they might impact the various ministries in your congregation.
[caption id="attachment_3316" align="aligncenter" width="496"] Used with "Leadership... Read the article
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Dear fellow pastors and leaders,
Our theme this issue is congregational leadership. Though a large topic, it's vital to our ongoing journey of renewal. The old adage is generally true: "As go the leaders, so goes the church." By definition, leaders are influencers, thus who they are as people and how they exert their influence, have a significant impact on their congregations, for good or for ill. In GCI, we highly value our pastors and other leaders, and this issue is devoted to equipping them for their high calling. In this letter, I focus on a particularly important aspect of congregational leadership, summarized by the phrase team-based and pastor-led.
[caption id="attachment_21" align="aligncenter" width="200"] Greg and Susan... Read the article
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Dear Pastors and Ministry Leaders,
Happy New Year! I pray that the year ahead will be for you one of joy and fruitfulness in Christ.
[caption id="attachment_21" align="aligncenter" width="200"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
As I noted in last month's Equipper, "Renewal" will continue to be our guiding theme in 2017. For us to travel that Spirit-led journey together, it's vital that we make some mutual commitments. There are several I could mention (and we'll explore more of them as the year unfolds), but in this issue of Equipper, we focus on our commitments to prayer, to providing one another with high support and high challenge, and to discipling our children. In this issue, we also introduce a new feature, which provides... Read the article
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Dear minister of Christ,
I hope you enjoyed the theme of Renewal at our 2016 US Regional Conferences. We heard inspiring accounts of how the Holy Spirit is renewing us---opening minds and hearts to become more missional in thought and action. It's thrilling to see him transforming us into congregations willing to go "outside the walls" to gather others to the community of the church.
[caption id="attachment_21" align="aligncenter" width="202"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
In his Theology of Renewal presentation at the conferences, Dr. Gary Deddo reminded us that our Triune God is a God of renewal---he has been from the beginning when, "out of nothing" (ex nihilo), he created all things. His work of renewal, which is "making... Read the article
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Dear fellow ministers of Christ,
[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignright" width="150"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
In my many travels with Delta Air Lines I often read Delta's Sky magazine (typically doing the crossword puzzle first in an attempt to exercise my mind!). On a recent flight, a particular article caught my attention. It highlighted the movie Born to Be Blue, in which actor Ethan Hawke portrays fabled blues trumpeter Chet Baker. Hawke is quoted as saying that Baker's biggest struggle after a drug dealer knocked out his teeth was “to play and to play great again.” Noting the movie's primary goal in telling Baker's story, Hawke made this comment (emphasis added):
Some biographies paint [Baker] as the... Read the article
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Dear pastors and ministry leaders:
[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignright" width="150"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
October is Clergy Appreciation Month, and though I appreciate our pastors every month of the year, this month I want to send out a special Thank you! to them all. I love these men and women, and I deeply appreciate their labor of love in the Lord.
Let's prepare for 2017
Now that we've entered the 4th quarter of 2016 (can you believe it?), it's time to prepare for 2017. I’m sure you'll soon be holding budget meetings with your finance committee, and planning/vision meetings with your leadership team. As you do, please consider how, in 2017, you'll invest in the development of your congregation's... Read the article
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Dear fellow ministers of Christ,
[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignright" width="150"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
For the first 14 years of my life, with my family I attended the Advent Christian Church. It was such a small denomination that I only knew of one sister church, some 40 miles away. I came to realize that many of their teachings originated with the 1900s Baptist preacher William Miller (the Worldwide Church of God has a similar lineage).
Our Advent Christian pastor died in 1968. Because we were a very small church, and because my father had been serving the congregation, the mantle of leadership was passed to him. Though my dad was a student of the Bible, he had no formal training to be a pastor. As a... Read the article
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Dear pastors and ministry leaders,
[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignright" width="150"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
I'm an old athlete! In high school I participated in football, basketball, baseball, wrestling and track. I wish I'd played on the golf team because golf is my chosen sport in the current phase of my life.
Throughout the years I've been trained and supervised by multiple coaches with quite different levels of expertise and coaching styles. Many of them emphasized conditioning and discipline, believing if you get in shape and know your plays to the point you run them efficiently and consistently, you will win ball games. Quoting the great Vince Lombardi, my football coach often told us that Fatigue makes... Read the article
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Dear pastors and ministry leaders:
[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignright" width="150"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
I have significant experience as a church pastor and the director of a non-profit ministry. In those roles, I've talked with many people about money and I've raised a lot of funds. Yet, perhaps like you, I've not thought of myself as a fundraiser.
As a principal leader in your church or ministry, you know your organization well, and that knowledge positions you to be a chief spokesperson in raising funds to help supply the financial needs of your organization. The goal of most of the articles in this issue of Equipper is to acquaint you with fundraising and to offer tips and tools to assist your... Read the article
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Dear pastors and ministry leaders:
[caption id="attachment_21" align="alignright" width="150"] Greg and Susan Williams[/caption]
My father was an apple grower. One of his personal pleasures was loading up the pickup truck at the end of the harvest season to take apples to the widows and elderly around the area. He gained great joy from distributing free apples and was reluctant to stop. It's a sad irony that he sustained a debilitating injury by falling from a ladder while picking apples to take to the shut-ins. He spent the last six years of his life in a nursing home as a paraplegic. One of his regrets was his inability to keep providing apples and service to others.
[caption id="attachment_1157" align="alignright" width="150"]... Read the article
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