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

20th Annual A. A. Pedersen Lectureship 8:43 AM

20th Annual A. A. Pedersen Lectureship

Where
Bethel Lutheran Church
702 West Alcott
Fergus Falls, Minnesota

When
October 3 at 7:00 p.m. and October 4 -  TBA

Lectureship Speaker
Dr. Bryan Chapell

About the Speaker
Dr. Bryan Chapell is president and professor of practical theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. His insightful Bible teaching can be heard daily via the Internet on Living Christ 360 (www.livingchrist360.com).

Raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Chapell was a pastor for approximately ten years before joining the faculty of Covenant Seminary, the seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), in 1985. He served the Seminary for six years as vice president for academics and dean of faculty before becoming president in 1994. He has been active in a variety of leadership roles in the PCA and in cooperative ministries with numerous other national and international Christian ministries.

Dr. Chapell is a renowned preacher, teacher, and speaker who is much sought after by churches, colleges, seminaries, and conferences throughout this country and abroad. He is the author of many articles and numerous books, including Christ-Centered Worship, Ephesians, Praying Backwards: Transform Your Prayer Life by Beginning in Jesus’ Name, Why Do We Baptize Infants?, Holiness by Grace, I’ll Love You Anyway & Always, Each for the Other, The Wonder of It All, and Christ-Centered Preaching, a preaching textbook now in multiple editions and many languages that has established him as one of the nation’s foremost teachers of homiletics.

Lutheran Brethren Seminary website