Reccomended Reading

As I think about moving on to become a "senior" pastor / incumbent / proper "Vicar" in a rural setting a friend reccomended the following reading:

George Herbert, The Country Parson, naturally, though some people want to kill him!

And the Letters of Samuel Ruthford for the sake of pastoral conselling / conversations / preaching that is full of Christ and moves affections and will etc.

Vision Statement

Vital or a big waste of time or possibly helpful in some ways? Discuss.

Goals

Under God, what are your specific measurable attainable relevant goals for your church and ministry for the next year and the next 5 years in the following areas?

Evangelism

Discipleship & fellowship

Training

Sturucture / admin /support of ministry / finance

Church Key Performance Indicators

What are the key performance indicators for a church?

These must be clearly objective and measurable. They should be as easy as possible to measure and record. And they should be related as closely as possible to the church's core mission of evangelism and discipleship. A couple of measures are needed. Too many would be too tricky and time consuming and complicated.

How do we tell if we are being effective and what is working?

(1) Attendance

(a) average or usual attendance?

(b) Sunday or all events or specific events?

(c) unique visitors or total?

(d) new comers or non-members

(2) Contacts

(a) compiled by church or opt in

(3) Membership

(a) electoral roll

(4) Friends of St So and Sos list

(5) Baptisms

(a) infant or adult?

(6) Confirmations

(7) Ordinations

(8) Financial

(a) income

(b) profit

(c) planned giving

(d) fund raising

(e) outward giving

(9) Ammount of publicity or evangelistic material given away

New Christians Welcome

How do you make your church attractive to new Christians (and others) who move into the area? How does a small church encourage people to give it a try rather than driving to a larger church elsewhere?

Good noticeboards and clear, straightforward, useful information

An attractive website

Services at a regular convenient time

Obvious provision for children

Encourage people to contact the Vicar or members of the church for a chat if they are thinking of moving in to the area

Deliver a welcome pack to anyone who moves into the parish and invite them along. Offer them practical assistance in the early days.

Have coffee before or after church so that it is something of a social event too and there is more of a chance to get to know people

Make sure the church is at the hub of the community so that it is the best place to find out about life in the area and what's going on

Be friendly and welcoming to people when they come, but not too needy! Be ready to involve people, but perhaps don't leap on them to be on the flower and coffee rota on their first visit. Take an interest in people without being too nosey or pushy. Perhaps introduce people to others with whom they might get on / those in a similar life situation (e.g. have you met Tom - who is another elderly man who has just moved into the village from the North having retired from the fishing industry, just like you?).

Have good publicity / information leaflets available in church taylored to different types of people (e.g. What's on for young people at St Ethelburger's?)

Perhaps offer to follow up new comers with a visit etc.

Make sure the Sunday services are an excellent shop front / advert for the church. Make sure it is warm enough in church in the winter. Aim for people to want to come back for more.

Some possible service times

Sundays:

8am

9:30am

11am

4pm

6:30pm

8pm

Midweek - any day or time you like

Select in order of preference (1=prefered, 2=less prefered etc.)

First Sermons

If you were soon to become the Vicar of some churches, what would some of the early topical sermons you'd want to preach be?

Perhaps:

A Vision For Ministry

What is the Christian Gospel?

What is a real Christian?

How can I do to heaven?

What on earth is the Church for?

Communion confusion

Why does the Vicar keep going on about the Bible?

A Vision for The Good Life

Then maybe your sermon series on The 10 Commandments, The Apostles' Creed, The Lord's Prayer and the systematic exposition of Bible books - then retirement.

How long does it take you to prepare a sermon?

That all depends on lots of things, not least how much time and engery I have. Preparation can be lots of fun and it can sometimes expand to fill the time available. On the other hand, it can also be hard work and one can tend to hide from it.

One has to decide how much time and engery one can spare and what one's other duties are. There's no set time that one must spend on any one sermon. In a way, all of life is sermon preparation anyway! In some situations it would be possible to work too long and hard on a sermon, when one should be resting, or spending time with the wife and kids, or evangelising the many unconverted people of the parish who ought to be there to hear the sermon but wont be unless you persuade them to come.

It also depends on how well I know the passage or subject in question. There are some sermons I could probably preach to you now without a single note that I hope you would find at least moderately helpful. That's cos I've preached them once or twice before, so I don't feel I desperately need to do much extra preparation.

It also depends on to whom I'm speaking and in what context and for how long. For example, if I know the hearers are likely to be well taught keen Christians with a similar background to me who will come desperate to hear the Word of God, there is less need to worry about being very engaging and accessible. If I'm going to speak in a pub to people who don't even know that Jesus died on the cross, I'm going to think a bit more about a way in and a way of getting it accross.

It also depends what helps I have available. If there's a Vaughan Roberts sermon online on that passage then maybe I might as well just preach that: one hour, sermon ready. I'm kidding. Kind of!

So there are no hard and fast rules. We mustn't be too hung up about it. Adequate preparation is adequate. You will never preach the perfect sermon and its probably sinful to attempt to!

I would say that generally I would want two "sessions" (i.e. mornings, afternoons or evenings - or nights!) to work on a sermon: so something like 8 hours all together. If I couldn't say something true and useful and reasonably engaging after that, I'd think something had gone badly wrong.

What do you reckon? Is 8 hours about right? That amount of preparation would make the typical traditional free church pattern of ministry of 2 sermons on a Sunday and a mid-week meeting do-able alongside a rule like "never be out of your study in the morning, never be in it in the afternoon", allowing for some other stuff too.

How To Be A Vicar - or not

I fear this may be challenging stuff so thank goodness for this.

Ministers and Priests

One potential disadvantage in calling your minister or priest a minister or priest is that all God's people are ministers and priests. Its good to remember that. The minister or priest mustn't forget that the people are ministers and priests, and they should remember it too. They mustn't expect him to do all the ministering and priesting.

Perhaps Pastor helps to avoid this problem, thought of course we should pastor one another too. Maybe Elder or Presbyter would be the best title in this respect?

Resolved

When ever possible, when ministering I will take someone with me who might be more involved in that ministry in the future and chat with them about it before and afterwards. Next time, I might go with them and have them do it. Then they can go on their own. Then they can take someone else.

See one, do one, teach one is a good idea for multiplying ministry.

Seeking A New Vicar (worksheet)

What should we look for in a new Vicar?

Or (rather!),

Biblical qualifications for Pastor-teachers

Look up the passages below and see what you can discover about:

(A) The person specification for a Pastor-teacher – who are we seeking?

Consider (i) character (ii) skills etc.

(B) The job description / work of a Pastor-teacher – what should he do?

Be ready to feedback

(1) Mk 9:35; 10:42-45

(2) Acts 20:17-38

(3) Eph 4:11-16

(4) 1 Tim 3; 4:6-16; 5:17-22

(5) 2 Tim 2; 3:10-4:5

(6) Titus 1:5ff; 2:1, 15; 3:1, 8-11

(7) 1 Peter 5:1-4

(8) (Heb 13:7, 17)

Can you think of any other teaching of Jesus / the example of Jesus or other people in the Bible (e.g. Paul) or any other relevant Bible passages?

Narrow, nasty and negative

The same kind of charges could no doubt have been made (quite wrongly!) against the Apostle Paul. Galatians 1:6-9.

Guard the Gospel

We guard the gospel (2 Tim 1:14) not by maximum security, locking it up in a box and restricting access to it etc., but by passing it on faithfully (2 Tim 2:2), reliably to reliable people who will pass it on reliably to reliable people who will pass it on ...

HT: DS @ SGP (again!)

Qualifications for Ministry

Once again from DS at SGP on 2 Tim.

Ministers must be reliable (doctrinally and morally) and able (to teach).

Pictures of Reliability

RC said this week that I "never knowingly under-alliterated", which I might adopt as a kind of motto. It's prompted me to record this from DS' exposition of 2 Timothy 2:1-7 at the Sussex Gospel Partnership today:

The devoted soldier [or, one might say dedicated]
The disciplined athlete
The diligent farmer

The Pastor-Teacher's Job

At the Sussex Gospel Partnership, DS quoted John Stott as saying:

The role of the Pastor-Teacher is not to monopolize ministry but to multiply ministry.

(Ephesians 4:11-13)

Camp Culture

One of the drums we want to beat on camp is the importance of training to what we're about and our desire to explore our gifts and become more effective in ministry.

As a result, everyone admits that they are a work in progress, not the finished article. We all minister as weak sinners. We always want to celebrate and encourage the good, wherever we find it. Constructive criticism is welcomed. We want to do it better next time. We know that we love and care for each other and are on the same side, rooting for one another, and that Jesus loves and cares for us, is on our side and intends even the tough things for our good. Therefore, we are not crushed by hearing, say, that we need to speak up a bit, try to get more eye contact, stop shuffling about or show how our points come from the text more clearly, or whatever.

It is fine for us to conclude that we've tried such and such a ministry a couple of times and given it our best shot, and perhaps its not us. We don't all have every gift. We are a body. We work together in mutual dependance. It's not a competition. No one is trying to beat anyone else so as to make themselves look or feel better. We all say "he must become greater, I must become less". When one is honoured, all are honured. We carry one anothers' burdens and mourn together.

That's something of the theory, anyway. Of course, being sinners, we mess up even this all the time. But we know something of what we're aiming for.

Revd Dr Tim Keller is brilliant

... on Gospel Ministry on the Gospel Coalition website (1 hr video talk). (Thanks for the tip Rev'd Stuart Dean's Video Bar!).

The Gospel is verbal proclamation, Good News not advice, Doxological, Christocentrical, Deeply Transformational etc.

Funny, clear, engaging, passionate, affecting, challenging.

Most evangelical preaching is too much like a Bible commentary - information for the mind, Keller argues. We need to make an impression, preach to the heart, the whole person, neither just the head or the emotions or conscience etc.

Keller says: I don't mind if people want to take notes on my sermon but I think I've failed if they're still taking notes at the end! He wants them not to give up, bored and lost, but to be too gripped to write!

Best job in the world

Thomas Carlyle apparently said:

Who, having been called to be a preacher, would stoop to be a king?

Quoted in Bruce Milne, The Message of John, BST (IVP, 1993), p100