Allen Kleine Deters

My situation is this, we are working at growing a deeper partnering relationship with a Zambian pastor and his church (s) we have been supporting for some time. Two of us recently went there and firmly believe that working side by side even in stms is valuable. They want it and we want it. I can't help think that the discussion should not be all about best use of $$ because we all know it is not cheap to send people to Africa, but rather the significance of building such a relationship for the long-haul. It is valuable for them in connecting people and for us. Sometimes we need to experience a different culture just to see what God is doing and can do. Some people might say, "just send them money", but is that necessarily the best option for every situation?

Ruth, you have been an inspiration on this page.  I think I speak for many who have appreciated your openness to challenge us and encourage us to step out in faith being faithful in God's mission of reaching others and discipling others within the context of small groups.

May God richly continue to bless you in your roles in Small Group Ministry within the CRC.  I look forward to continuing the conversations through your comments and insights.

Blessings to you.

Allen

Neil, I appreciate what you are saying here in a big way. Healthy pastoral care takes on a variety of modes and avenues in the church. And it certainly effects the way we develop leadership.

I wonder how churches will look at the role of small groups as they tend more toward being one of the primary avenues of building disciples. The small group then takes on much more than a caring roll, but also a missional role where groups study, share, care, pray and take on more intentional mission together.

David,

This really rocks.  While we do have a very good website, we've created a FB presence and want to use it more.  This will really help.  I've seen some pages like World Vision on FB and it is an excellent example of how you can design a very attractive FB page.

Just a note, I decided to try short spurt advertising on FB.  I created two ads and ran them for only two days each.  One was for our theology pub meeting  and the other for Sunday morning worship, especially because I was starting a new sermon series.  I targeted specifically for our area and "voila" we attracted new people from both our ads.  And the cost was very minimal -- about $8 each for the two days.

Welcome Elizabeth. Glad to have you on board. I'm thankful for this new section.

You're right about the Classis check up. I was part of the original CRMT from our Classis here. It was good for us to ask the questions. But I think we're due for a review. Blessings to you here.

I can very much appreciate this video having been there and done that as worship pastor and musician.

I wonder still as the CRC ventures further into contemporary if we shouldn't offer a little more in the way of training to help with the transition. I've watched CRCs try to make this move and do it poorly trying to turn worship into something like the video portrays and no one trained well enough to even remotely pull it off. How do we make worship genuine and not manipulative so that the vertical and horizontal movement glorifies God and draws people into deeper relationship with him and each other?

I noticed that it seems in my area we are about 10 years behind in most things including clothing styles. There is the mentality especially among our youth to have the "hip" worship like the video as if that is the only option. And there are many here who believe if we change to more modern worship like that we will attract more people. And while I have worked hard with our church to develop a more "well done" blended, but slightly weighted toward modern, style of worship, I stress that God uses devoted followers of Christ to grow the church.

I'm not going to lie, I'd love to have David Crowder or Chris Tomlin or Blue Tree as my worship leaders.

Synergy is totally necessary. I'm with Mark and others in that getting people to think missional in their own backyards is invariably going to get more people thinking about and even participating in global mission. I remember being frustrated as a youth pastor when people supported youth who wanted to go on a YWAM DTS or a CRC short-term mission, but we could hardly get support to do ministry in the streets of our local communities. It made no sense to me at all, but certainly bore witness to the fact that people think about missions as about being, "over there" and not in my backyard.

I've witnessed first hand however in two churches, one I served and the current, where people who started serving local became more open to serving globally. We do a huge Serve project here and ongoing Communities in Service ministry. This past December three of our men went to Nicaragua with another group to drill a well. Now we're talking about going to Zambia in June 2011.

Missional starts at grass roots.

Hey John,
I think this has great potential if enough people get on board. I hope you guys promoted it at the symposium. Couldn't make it this year.

Anyway, I think that the worship end of this site would best be served if it included discussions on resources, best practices, developing a balanced worship ministry. I think people are also looking for how to do contemporary well. My only concern with CICW is that it seems to promote a more high church model for worship which doesn't fit every context well. I think it would be helpful to people who haven't a clue about getting started with contemporary to have discussion on how to pick songs with good theology and biblical content, how to develop worship teams with all the instruments, training for techies whether sound or projection. I think we lack this in the CRC so it is being done quite poorly, especially in rural places.

Just some thoughts.
akd.

I just look at it this way, in worship God is the audience we are the participants. As covenant people we show our love to God and reflect how much we do to those "outside" who may also be there. In the process, God "inhabits the praises of his people" and his Spirit moves through the worship experience.