The importance of training others

“…and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Tim 2:2)

Paul’s wise counsel to Timothy is applicable on many levels, and has a multitude of benefits. A few that I will mention today:

It about the message, not the messenger. Paul was a good example of this, not being jealous of others who gained renown preaching the gospel, but rather simply rejoicing that the gospel was proclaimed. Pride will tempt us to want to be “the guy” - the teacher and leader that people remember and look to. But what is of primary importance isn’t us, but is the gospel that gets preached. When we practice entrusting to faithful men, we are shedding a few of the (multitudinous) opportunities for pride.

The message must carry on after us. Paul himself knew that his days on the earth were short. To have his most effective ministry, he needed not only to preach to unbelievers, but also to teach the teachers who would reach the following generation. I have heard it said that your effectiveness as a parent isn’t shown as much in how your children turn out as in how your grandchildren turn out. For Paul’s spiritual grandchildren to be vibrant and mature Christians, he needed to make sure his spiritual children were well-trained.

You can’t do it all on your own. This is the big temptation for me, and was the initial thought that prompted this post. Just because you (or I) have the skills to do the task yourself doesn’t mean you should be the one to always do it. There is far more work to do than any one of us can handle. Finding and training others who can both assist and replace you is essential in maintaining health, sanity, and the healthy operation of any ministry.

Creating the routine

The biggest adjustment this week in preparing for the Saturday night service is starting to think of it as a weekly routine. We’ve done other one-time events down there in the past, and it would be quite easy to think of last Saturday’s service as just another one-time event. Except that it’s not - I need to get music planned, get the worship team lined up and ready to go, get the lyrics prepared for the bulletin, all the usual tasks… again this week.

One thing I think would help in this regard is setting a regular schedule throughout the week for my planning and preparation. Something like this:

Saturday night: worship service.

Sunday: prepare sermon recording for website, listen to it again and evaluate.

Monday: make sure the website is updated for the week.

Tuesday: choose music for the following week and email to worship team.

Thursday: prepare bulletin.

Saturday: practice with the WT and do the service.

Repeat.

I think it might work. However it happens, I sure need a routine.

D-Day Timeline

Saturday was the big day - first service at Imago Christi! A timeline of the day:

7:30 am: Wake up after sleeping in. Feels good. Making mental lists of what I need to remember for the service.

9:45 am: Everyone is fed and dressed. Making a couple final tweaks to the bulletin.

9:55 am: Headed to Noelridge to print the bulletin and pick up the drums.

10:30 am: Setting out 2008 giving envelopes for Noelridge while the bulletins print.

10:50 am: Loading congas, microphones, mic stands, and a small podium into the van.

12:10 pm: Girls are taking a nap, Becky and I are watching Heroes. Almost done with Season One.

12:30 pm: Nate calls and wants to know when we can meet so he can drop off the sound equipment. Any time before 3:30 will work for him.

1:15 pm: Meet Nate at Imago. Set up speakers, amp, adjust the EQ.

1:45 pm: Heading back home.

3:15 pm: Leaving to pick up Andre and head to Imago for worship team practice.

3:30 pm: Made it to Imago, setting up microphones and the keyboard. How will we arrange all this stuff on the stage?

4:00 pm: Finally ready to practice the music. Getting a nasty hum from the passive pickup in Morgan’s guitar.

5:00 pm: We’re as practiced as we’re going to be. Plugging in the iPod. Andrew Peterson will provide background music until the service starts.

5:15 pm: Changing into my ilikeandy.com t-shirt and a jacket.

5:30 pm: Service starting. Must be about 50 people here.

5:35 pm: We’re up. Music starts. People are clapping on the first song. Woohoo!

5:39 pm: This second song is a mess. Timing is off, and I messed up the lyrics to the second verse. Not my A game. Grrrr.

5:50 pm: Music set is done. Still pondering what song to use as the musical meditation at the end of the service.

6:40 pm: Richard has finally wrapped up the sermon. Taking mental notes to give him a review later. I’ve decided on a song.

6:50 pm: First service is over, and we survived. Thank God. Heading down for a fellowship time.

7:15 pm: Tearing down sound equipment. Fortunately we have a closet where we can store it there at the church.

7:45 pm: Everything is torn down and put away. Now to lug those congas back out to the car so we can use ’em at Noelridge in the morning.

8:10 pm: Home. Exhausted. Putting the girls to bed.

8:30 pm: Watching the last three episodes of Season One of Heroes. Pretty good ending.

It's a big day

We’ve been working towards this for over a year now, and tonight it comes to pass: the first service at our downtown Cedar Rapids church plant, Imago Christi at Central Park. I think we’re to the point where we’ve planned about as much as we can; now we just have to go for it and trust God to see us through. This is the point where the butterflies set in.

Pray for us today that we would be effective, and above all else, that God would be glorified.

(5:30 pm if you’re in CR and want to come!)

Becoming a Caring Church

Alex Strauch provides some practical guidance for becoming a church that truly cares for people (from the Summer 2007 edition of Emmaus Bible College’s Journey magazine):

  1. Organize a Benevolence Fund. Caring for the poor and needy cannot be done in a willy-nilly fashion… it’s amazing when we put our money together what we can do!
  2. Establish a Father Program. Many children in our churches today come without a father… over the years my four daughters would bring children, mainly girls, from school to the table to eat with us. For many of these girls it was the first time they were at a table with the father present.
  3. Provide language training for new immigrants. A number of our women had professional training and detrees in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language), and they said we should do this. We were wondering, “Where are these people going to come from? We haven’t seen any immigrants in the neighborhood.” Nevertheless, we put up a sign reading “English as a Second Language.” Within one day we filled the whole program.
  4. Provide hospitality to poor and needy members. People love it when they come to your table for a meal. And the Lord Jesus instructs His people to invite certain kinds of people for a meal: “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (Luke 14:13).
  5. Provide the poor with cars, furniture, and household goods. How often we’re getting rid of a car, selling a car. Don’t sell it - give it to someone!
  6. Raise awareness of poverty both local and global. Even if your assembly is middle class or upper middle class, there are bound to be people who are suffering financially. But you must have your eyes open to see it.
  7. Acknowledge the reality of the AIDS epidemic. One of the greatest tragedies in world history is right here before us…
  8. Leaders must set a vision before the congregation. We need to set a vision before our people that pulls us out of our self-centeredness. Our people need to be stirred to a compassionate care for our congregation, and a compassionate awareness of a world situation that is almost unspeakable.

Songs for the Inaugural Service

Imago Christi’s inaugural service is just over a week away - January 5, 2008. As I noted previously, it’s a bit of a challenge to pick the music - something appropriate for the first service of a new church, setting the tone for services to come, and having something accessible for those who are coming who may not be familiar with the songs.

I’ve settled on these four:

Blessed Be The Name of the Lord (Clinton Utterbach)
Praise to the Lord, The Almighty
My All In All (Dennis Jernigan)
Jesus, I Come (with new tune from RUF Hymnal)

I think this keeps things relatively simple, yet incorporates some new and old lyrics of praise of the Father, praise of the Son as the Lamb of God, and a beautiful expression of the Gospel in the final hymn. I pray it will be a blessing to those who attend.

Details to remember for your first worship service

Yes, the title is overly-long Google linkbait. But one thing I have been astonished with is just how many details there are that need remembered to plan for the first (or for that matter, any) worship service at a church plant. So, without any further ado, here’s my running list. I’ll update it as I remember more things.

Music-related

  • Worship leader & musicians
  • Sound equipment
  • Sound technician
  • Recording gear to record sermon
  • CD for playing before/after service
  • Words for the songs (either song sheets, hymnals, or overhead projection)
  • Lapel/wireless microphone for pastor

Giving-related

  • Collection plates/buckets/box/whatever
  • Ushers
  • Counters
  • Treasurer
  • Budget
  • Receipts (donors will want receipts!)

Service-related

  • Bulletin
  • Communion service

Children’s ministries

  • Nursery workers
  • Children’s church workers (if you have it)
  • Sunday school teachers (ditto)

Etc

  • Security
  • Clean-up crew
  • Set-up crew (if you’re packing in/out)

What items do you have to add?

Selecting music for an inaugural service

We’re going to have our first worship team practice for Imago tonight, which means I need to have music selected for our first service. Selecting church music is normally a bit of a challenge, but selecting music to kick off a whole new church? Intimidating. I’ll need to pick a mix of old hymns and some more modern stuff; I’m thinking of some Chris Tomlin and maybe Praise to the Lord, the Almighty. Any ideas? Feel free to leave them in the comments. I’ll post the list when I get it finalized.

Building a worship team

One of my big initial tasks for Imago Christi is to figure out the worship team situation. Music is going to be an important part of our church “feel”. I had to select a word carefully there. Music won’t be the most important part of the church, not by a long shot. Nor will it be the most important part of the worship service. But music sets the tone, the “feel”, for the service and the congregation. Our music at Imago needs to draw from both ancient and modern, to be current musically while capturing the richness of two millenia of church tradition, wisdom, and teaching.

With that mental framework in place I start to look for musicians and vocalists. In the end I picture a small band; drums, a guitar or two, keyboard, bass, and a few vocals. But we’ll start smaller than that. It looks like our inaugural service will be keys, (conga) drums, and maybe an acoustic guitar. Three of us on vocals. We’ll see where it goes from there. I’m a lousy recruiter. I hate asking people to do things. I want people who are self-motivated and want to participate on the team. When God brings them, we’ll add them in. Am I being naive about this?

First practice is Thursday night. I can’t wait.

Bullet Points for a Friday Morning

  • I’ve stuck you, my blog readers, with far too many links this week and not enough other stuff. Now, that being said, they are all good links. You’ll find good stuff if you visit them.
  • Finally thinking about Christmas shopping. I think it’s gonna be a Amazon year. I have some good book ideas for almost everybody.
  • Chatted with Ryan for a while yesterday and it’s interesting to see us progressing remarkably parallel paths of theological thought and reading. Makes me wonder what it was in our common upbringing that’s moving us that way.
  • In the same chat conversation there were enough ideas come up to give me an outline for one of those books that I’d love to write but keep lamenting I never have the time for. I really should make an effort.
  • Tonight we’re doing Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Becky’s been looking forward to steak all week. Hooray for Christmas bonuses!
  • Church plant update: the lease agreement for the building was signed yesterday. Assuming the other party signs it (which they should), we’re officially in the building and will be starting January 5. Awesome and scary at the same time.
  • You know, if you go back to the real definition of awesome, something that inspires “an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like”, then the scary part I juxtaposed in the previous bullet is pretty much redundant.