Well, A lot 3:33 PM

(from CLB Youth Workers website)

Well, A lot

I’m hoping my title was a bit confusing. I want to name two different ways of doing ministry right off the bat….

• Doing it well
• Doing a lot of it

I remember how I did things when I was 22 and just getting started at my first church. I did a lot of stuff. I hung out with kids all the time, I planned events for every weekend, I did at least 6 retreats a year, and I had probably 3 regular meeting times a week. I was so excited that a church would hire me that I didn’t even consider that all that I was doing was way over the amount of time a full time staff person would do and I was only 20 hours a week. Now as I report all of that, I’m not bragging on myself, in fact looking back, I can see how young and naïve I was.

I did have some really good ministry experiences with those students but often in the course of trying to do so much the thing that suffered for me was that I didn’t do things well.

• Because I wanted to do so much, I sometimes didn’t have enough volunteers with me because they were maxed out
• If I sent an email out to families you could find at least 10 errors in it. (Now I leave the editing to my wife for anything public that I write)
• I didn’t clean up the church real well
• In a hurry to do more, I may have lost perspective on ministry.
• I did lots of stuff with the regulars but I could have reused some of that energy towards fringe students and tried harder to pull them in
• I may have taught people from my lifestyle that busy is good and that’s not always the case
• I raised the busyness bar for anyone that followed me that this was good ministry
• I look over my old teaching notes and I wonder, what was I getting at (That might not have been because I was busy but because I was young)

In retrospect now, I wish I had slowed down and done less but done it better….

I don’t want to be known as the guy who did a lot but did C quality work. I want to be known for as the guy who did his best with what he had.  As I consider which of these two approaches honors God the best, I’m thinking it’s the one that does things better.

Here are some of the ways that I’m trying to model in doing things well…

• I’m trying not to produce anything that is publicly viewed that my wife hasn’t edited for grammar
• I’m trying to keep a schedule of events that’s fair to families and doesn’t pull them in every direction
• I’m trying to promote one event at a time to lessen confusion
• I’m trying to keep things clean
• I’m spending good quality time writing lessons, talks and planning out where I’m going in the future
• I’m trying to offer good forms of mass communication

Now I don’t always/usually pull these things off perfectly but I’m feeling a lot better about how I do things.

On a practical level, I don’t think we do our students and their families a good service when we keep them busy or teach them that busy is good. This world is crazy busy. Families sometimes have time for one meal together each week. Mom’s and dads are running their kids to soccer practice, concerts, their kids friends homes, and everywhere else and by simply keeping them busy we are adding to their schedules and giving them less time as a family when that has to be one of the things that we value.

I’m not saying don’t do any events or retreats but I would encourage you not to flood your students lives with more then they need and I wouldn’t want to suggest that showing them lots of stuff done poorly is good….I hope you’ll consider how you are doing things…

Are you too busy? And if you are, what’s paying the price for that business?

Consider these scriptures as they point us towards doing things well…

Colossians 3:23-24 – “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”

1 Kings 5:15-18 “Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills, as well as thirty-three hundred foremen who supervised the project and directed the workmen. At the king’s command they removed from the quarry large blocks of quality stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and the men of Gebal cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple.”


- Pastor Mark Johannesen

Watford City | Snap Shot 4:39 PM

The new issue of Faith & Fellowship Magazine is mailed and updated online, and the topic is how the Church is reaching out to a rapidly changing culture, and postmodernism is affecting people from every walk of life. After hearing from our newest congregation, Living Faith Church in Watford City, ND, during the CLB Convention in June, it was especially exciting to travel out to Watford City and interview the members of the congregation about the city and their ministry. Please keep them in your prayers while they look for a pastor and seek God's wisdom as they continue to reach out to those around them.

Book: The Strategically Small Church 2:28 PM

Brandon J. O'Brien is editor at large for Leadership Journal and has written a book, released this month, titled "The Strategically Small Church." It seems to be a wonderful analysis of the benefits and opportunities facing a small congregation. The issue is that many small congregations look to mega churches for inspiration and ideas in ministry. O'Brien responds, "The trouble is, operating like a big church can undermine the inherent strengths of being small."

He goes on to say:

For example, as I explain in the book, research suggests that one of the factors that contributes to whether or not young people stay active in church after high school is intergenerational relationships. The students who have more and deeper relationships with adults other than their parents are much more likely to remain in the church in college and beyond. Now, smaller congregations offer tons of opportunity for developing these intergenerational relationships. But the hallmark of large churches is age-segmented ministry, programs designed to separate children from youth, youth from adults, young adults from seniors. When small churches imitate this model, they undercut their advantage for fostering intergenerational relationships.

We have not read the book, yet, but there are a few pastors who will be reading it, so we will follow up with some reviews and opinions about the content of the book when they finish reading it. This topic seems to fit many of our congregations and where they are in terms of size and ministry focus. But, again, we are not promoting the book since no one that we know has read it, yet. We are only inviting a discussion and thoughts on this topic and this book seems to have touched on a relevant issue within our congregations. Please share your thoughts and opinions with us if you have read this book.

Here are some links related to Brandon O'Brien and this book

• Free download of the First Chapter of the book (PDF)
• Interview with Ed Stetzer
• Interview with Wrecked.org
• Audio interview with Chris Fabry of Moody Radio

In the meantime, if you are interested in diving into this you can order it through Amazon by clicking the following link:
Strategically Small Church, The: Intimate, Nimble, Authentic, and Effective by Brandon J. O'Brien.
(By using this link, Faith & Fellowship will receive a portion of the profits through our Amazon Associates account. Thank you.)

"The Perils of 'Wanna Be Cool' Christianity" 2:47 PM

Preparing for the upcoming issue of Faith & Fellowship Magazine, we are posting a wonderful article about how churches reach out to the younger generations. It's so easy to get stuck in in the idea that we need new programs are need to change the style of worship, but is that really what teens and young adults want in their spiritual life? What kind of culture are we as the Church trying to reach? Can we even answer that question confidently?

An article on the Wall Street Journal website confronts the popular idea that church needs to be "cool" and "relevant" in the eyes of our culture in order to "win back" the younger generation.* What the younger generation (and everyone for that matter) really needs is Jesus, the gospel, the truth.

"And the further irony," he adds, "is that the younger generations who are less impressed by whiz-bang technology, who often see through what is slick and glitzy, and who have been on the receiving end of enough marketing to nauseate them, are as likely to walk away from these oh-so-relevant churches as to walk into them."

If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that "cool Christianity" is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don't want cool as much as we want real.

Click here to > read the entire article

* There is a statistic in the beginning of the article that may be misleading. Please read the following article to get the an explanation of the numbers. Click here for > the article.

NY Times Article about Pastors 8:47 AM

A pastor forwarded this article from NY Times to our Lutheran Brethren Seminary President, Dr. David Veum. We hope that this article will continue to open our eyes to the stress and expectations that our pastors are under at times, and help us find new ways to support them in their ministry. The latest issue of Faith & Fellowship Magazine focused on taking care of our pastors. In fact, Dr. David Veum wrote an article for it. The NY Times article focuses on the reality of burnout and health issues in today's pastors. One quote from the article reads, "They think that taking care of themselves is selfish, and that serving God means never saying no." Please pray for our pastors and their congregations. They may never reveal their stress level or depression, so as another article in our latest issue of Faith & Fellowship reads, "Pastors need to be reassured that we understand at least some of the stress they are under and that it's safe for them to ask for help" (Pastors Need Self-Care Too by Nate Larsen).

NY Times article "Taking a Break From the Lord’s Work":

The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.

Public health experts who have led the studies caution that there is no simple explanation of why so many members of a profession once associated with rosy-cheeked longevity have become so unhealthy and unhappy.
Read the full article from NY TIMES >

Living Faith (CLBA) 10:47 AM

I just received this video of the church planting work being conducted in Watford City, ND. Living Faith LB Church is the result of God stirring hearts in Watford City, ND and giving the church the desire to simply share the gospel with their community.

Several Western Region Churches have been joining in the mission with Watford through financial giving, filling of the pulpit and prayer.

Video Link to Living Faith (CLBA):
Living Faith (CLBA)

CLB Youth Workers Resource 2:45 PM

Youth are the future of our churches and youth are the present of our churches. I’m guessing your hope for your church is that you are as effective as possible in reaching out to teens. The Church of the Lutheran Brethren wants to come along side each of our churches youth ministries and youth ministers as best as you see the need.

As we transition into our regional model of ministry the regional pastors have asked me, Mark Johannesen, if I would contract with them for a few hours for this type of ministry each week and for the last few months I have been trying to do that. Previously this work was contracted by staff at Inspiration Point Bible Camp and I thank them for the running start they gave me as I assumed this roll.

I was in youth ministry full time for over ten years and am currently pastoring at Good News Lutheran Brethren Church in McAlisterville, PA. I’m no expert, but I love teens and everything that comes across my desk that I think is beneficial to our youth workers I hope to pass on. I hope also to pass on national youth ministry resources like the 2011 Youth Convention in Estes Park.


Every week I hope to call and talk to as many of our youth workers as possible, blogging on the CLB Youth workers web page, feel free to take a look at it. If you’re on Facebook, I invite you to look me up and to look up the CLB Youth Workers group. We’re trying to interact online as best as possible.

I also send out 2-3 emails a month. If you haven’t received one from me, please email me at mjohannesen@clba.org and ask to be added to the e-list. Please also know I’m hoping to ask each one of you how ministry is going and how we can pray for each other. On the Facebook page there is a place for you to share your requests with one another as well.

Blessings as you are used by Jesus to love teens for Him,

Mark Johannesen