What Actions Would You Take Or Recommended This Situation?

Galindo analyzes that the fundamental “mission” of a congregation is the same as any other congregation that exists in any part of the world. He argues that though every congregation has a mission and a vision, at the same time, it shares a basic common mission. (43) This reminds me of my home church The First Church of Evanston and my Field Site, The Evanston Vineyard Church. Both churches have a common mission of welcoming people to the church, irrespective of their ethnic, cultural, racial, and economic and, gender backgrounds. The mission is to help people be received in the house of God with due and deserved Christian love so that they feel loved and welcomed. Both these churches encourage church attendees to attend the service and receive the Eucharist.

The compassion shown by the Pastors and leaders helps people's faith walk become "a mile deep" while walking in Christ and engaging in the community. Individuals who remain active in the church, are the ones discovering their gifts and using their talents for the glory of God and to build the kingdom of God up. Also, the church must take ownership of their faith and grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ to the point where they are willing and ready to reinvest their faith into the life of another person. One of the ways to succeed in doing this is by putting together

The majority of the staff at First Baptist Church Pontotoc has served faithfully for a number of years. The pastor, Ken Hester, has served in his role for over fourteen years. In Ken’s tenure as the lead pastor, he has garnered a reputation as a strong leader, counselor, gifted communicator, and a community oriented individual. Lewis Harrell has served as discipleship and evangelism pastor for the last twelve years. Lewis has gained the reputation in the community as a gifted counselor, person with a laid-back attitude, and leader of outreach to the community. Mickey Gentry has served as music minister in the church for the last twenty-five years. Mickey is known throughout the community as a highly driven individual who puts forth great effort to enlarge the kingdom of God.

Dr. Anthony Jordan is the Executive Director-Treasurer of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma (BGCO). The BGCO is a convention of 1813 Southern Baptist churches comprising of about 614,000 members. This organization’s purpose is to help the churches that are members of the convention spiritually, financially, and structurally. They provide a number of camps and conventions for people to attend and use. They also provide assistance in handling the business and professional aspect of a church’s ministry. One of the most popular camps that the BGCO puts on is Falls Creek Youth Camp where around 50,000 students attend over an 8 week period. Dr. Anthony Jordan has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Southwest Baptist University and a Master of Divinity and a Doctor of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (BGCO.com). He has been the Executive Director- Treasurer for the last nineteen years. Before he became the Executive Director-Treasurer, Dr. Jordan served as the lead pastor at Northwest Baptist Church in Oklahoma City from 1982-1996 (ohbc.org). The members of the BGCO have been very positive about the way Dr. Jordan leads and structures the convention. In the rest of this paper, I will inform you of how Dr. Jordan handles ethical dilemmas, how the convention is structured and the culture surrounding it, and the leadership style and qualities that Dr. Jordan uses and exemplifies as he holds the position of Executive Director-Treasurer of the

I joined the staff of the Carolina Missionary Baptist Church in March 2002 as a church administrator. My first major responsibility was to complete the development and construction of the Family Life Center. Although, I had worked on development projects in another County before, I had not actually managed the construction of a building and certainly did not know the process in Prince George’s County Maryland where the church is currently located. There was an enormous amount of knowledge for me to gain. My first assignment was to develop a detailed plan. The initial undertaking in the plan was to learn the Construction process.

The growth of the church is consistent with the original impetus for the church plant. God continues to pour His blessing through a vibrant ministry to

In the book, “Breaking the Missional Code,” Ed Stetzer and David Putman lay a foundation for church leaders and pastors to break the missional code that has caused so many churches today to decline or worse, shut their doors. It is not easy to grow a church because there are many factors that have to be dealt with when dealing with people. This book does a great job to connect the dots in showing how churches can achieve their mission to connect the message of the gospel with the community at large. It is also evident that others are equally frustrated, following the exact same model for outreach but with lesser results. The authors go to great detail to show that just because a missional breakthrough occurs in one place that does not mean

The author discovered four major factors that church growth in the North American Division tremendously. First factor is empowering servant leadership. In this section, the leaders work hard and they are willing to make sacrifice in the purpose to see a growing church. The second one is passionate and authentic spirituality they believe that it is spirituality that is the source of passion of passion and power behind their effectiveness. The third point is about how their members are committed to get involved in different activity. Some churches they not growing because they expect their pastors to do all the duties of the church. The fourth factor about a growing church is God exalting worship. Worship is one of key factor for church growth.

To prepare churches for the challenges of pastoral searches, I recently introduced a fictitious congregation named “St. Barnabas Lutheran Church.” Readers provided a good deal of affirmation for the post, but they also wanted to know how to improve the call process. We go back to St. Barnabas today to start answering that question.

“A Three-month plan for pastoral transition at Oak Grove Baptist Church which will strengthen unity and promote Church Growth”

Community members often express proudly how many churches exist in relation to the size of the Parish. One local leader said that there is an estimated 96 congregations operating in the parish (personal communication, April 27, 2015). The community relies on not only the opportunity to practice one religion in these churches but they also rely on the many community services they provide in the absence of official help. Many of these churches have adopted programs on their own or have aligned themselves with other churches in the community to create large scale programs to meet some very important and crucial services for the most at risk populations in this community. Some of the services and resources that these churches provide are, food pantries, clothing, a homeless shelter, a women’s shelter, job skills training for women, parenting classes, housing assistance, utility bill assistance counseling services for divorce and grief, and there are more services still.

Pastors have been instrumental in starting health programs and are sensitive to the needs of their congregation and the surrounding community of the church (Butler-Ajibade, P., Booth, W., Burwell, D., Burwell, C., 2012). Also, the members of the church have always utilized the church and the pastor for spiritual guidance, social needs, and health support or assistance (Ford, 2013). Pastors are also aware of the needs of their community and the community is willing to listen to them viewing them as spiritual leaders as well as educators (Ford 2013).

The risk for organizations during this phase is to assess for good yet a limited set of qualities in potential church planters. Current tools are helpful, but they are lacking. What they are lacking causes a problem because what is missing in the gap is not emphasized during the earliest stages of church planter formation. What is being emphasized, in other words, assessed is being communicated as a value such as skills, ability, knowledge but what about a planter’s posture towards God, the church, and culture? Church planting organizations will often teach and train about what the purposes of the church are and what the planter needs to do in those areas but without an assessment of their current preferences

God is using the church to restore broken lives. We should greet each other warmly and compliment the good things in each other’s lives. The author makes a distinction between compliments an entertainer might receive as opposite a ministry-oriented church. An entertainer might hear things related to looks and performance whereas a church member would hear things related to how you were helped by the message and song. Churches that move ahead anticipate mistakes because they know that people are not perfect. They allow the members to grow and exercise their spiritual gifts and skills for the edification of the body. The church leadership is to encourage spiritual growth, but some in leadership may be uncomfortable letting people discover and use their gifts because it might not be in the style they are comfortable with. It might look like, “it is our way or the highway.” “And the church becomes paralyzed because it can’t tolerate the possibility of somebody messing things up.” (p. 109) David Mains sites two main church areas that are prone to perfectionism. They are the kitchens and sanctuaries. Heaven forbid, someone comes in and puts the spoons in a different drawer or the pots on a different shelf. The women in the church have strong feeling about how a kitchen should be organized. The church members can either work it out or eliminate the kitchen. The

Furthermore, it is vitally crucial for the church leadership to clearly articulate its missional vision, which is to be embraced by the rest of the church’s community. The process of spiritual transformation starts from the invitation and continues through engagement and discipleship. This transformational process embodies the missional vision and the language for 'right now ' and 'here '. Surely, the church’s vision ought to be aligned with the missional attributes of the gospel itself, which are 'the good news is for everyone ' and 'belonging before believing '. Our witness should take place amidst relationship and listening. One principle that I consider to be exceptionally useful in my community is St. Patrick’s idea of Celtic Evangelism: establish community, engage in conversation, and invite commitment (2009, 101).