Rebecca Ligtenberg
I am a life-long church member, and love being involved in ministry. I have worked as a volunteer or on staff in a variety of different roles in churches throughout my life. My favorite verse about ministry is Ephesians 2:10 - "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Posted in: Deacons: An Elder Training Ground
Thank you for writing this. I've heard or read before about it being a mistake to consider deacons a "stepping stone" to the "more important" role of elder. Clearly, these two offices could be blessed by people with quite different sets of gifts and skills.
At our church, we are trying to be more intentional about identifying our gifts and then making a connection between giftedness and where we serve. I hope as we grow in this, leadership ministries will be just one of the areas in which we affirm God's gifts in each other and grow in serving in ways where our gifts can be greatly used.
Posted in: Using Gifts and Planning Worship
We prepare a second version of the worship order for those who are involved in worship. It is basically the worship order as included int he bulletin for everyone, but with extra instructions for those leading worship. This is emailed out during the week to everyone who is serving on the upcoming Sunday, and copies of it are printed on green paper each week so all those involved can have a copy with the notes on it. It's not a perfect system, but it definitely helps keep us organized.
***** Here's just an example. From our bulletin *****
God Speaks to Us through His Word
Old Testament Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:15
New Testament Scripture Reading: 1 Timothy 6:3 – 19
Sermon Title: The Good Life: (8) You Shall Not Steal
We Respond to God’s Word
*Song of Response: Take My Life That It May Be (Hymn #289; v. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6)
Knowing You (All I Once Held Dear)
Offerings of Financial Blessings
***** The same section, from our "green sheet" (PT=Praise Team) *****
God Speaks to Us through His Word
Old Testament Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:15
New Testament Scripture Reading: 1 Timothy 6:3 – 19
Sermon Title: The Good Life: (8) You Shall Not Steal
[PT enter up stage steps, ready to go at amen]
We Respond to God’s Word
*Song of Response: Take My Life That It May Be (Hymn #289; v. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6)
[piano under reading of 2 Corinthians 9:6, 8 (beginning with God), 11]
Knowing You (All I Once Held Dear)
[PT exit stage back]
Offerings of Financial Blessings
Posted in: Using Gifts and Planning Worship
I forgot to add one of our bigger challenges is that although we often have many people involved in worship each week, our Pastor often helps with the flow by making certain announcements. On weeks when he is not here, we do need to do more organizing: Who will announce the offering? Who will make this transition? Who will say "Please be seated"? Our format doesn't specifically call out those things because many times our pastor just does it.
Another thing is something like the reading of scripture between the two songs after the sermon. It's not assigned ahead, one of the Praise Team members will volunteer during rehearsal. It's a tossup between how much time we spend ahead of time, and how much we can handle more efficiently by making Sunday morning assignments, but sometimes Sunday mornings get a little harried when we realize we have extra details to arrange.
Posted in: Deacons: An Elder Training Ground
John, I wanted to respond to your comment about being upset about being a "junior [officer]". (I also commented above, so this is related to my earlier comment.)
You are right that pride could be an issue here if someone objects to being "junior" or sort of "in training" for filling a role. I think the issue that Melissa was trying to get at, though, is not the idea that someone is sort of "rookie" or "in training" when they are new to a role, but that the roles of Elder and Deacon are distinct from one another, so being a Deacon is perhaps not the right "training" ground for a potential future Elder.
I have observed this exact pattern in various churches; the Deacons tend to be younger while the Elders tend to be older and have often served as Deacons previously. But if someone is gifted as a Deacon, perhaps after a time of rest from church leadership, they should be called again to be a Deacon. Or if someone shows gifts that are those we have identified as desirable in an Elder, they should be called to that office first. (I have seen this happen, but more infrequently than the other pattern.)
As you've said, in your congregation, your Elders fill all roles, so how roles are filled is different for you than for a church with separate bodies of Elders and Deacons. But however it is structured, we do well by our leaders to help them identify which of the offices they might best be gifted for, and then, if they are new to an office, to train them and help them learn their roles as "rookies" or "junior officers" as they begin to serve.
Posted in: Calvin Symposium On Worship - Live Webcast
Excellent! So glad you posted about this, and that I saw your post featured in today's CRC News email. Just in time for me to catch "The Psalm Project" concert in about an hour. Thanks!
Posted in: New Guide for Church & Web
Welcome, Jerod. Looking forward to hearing more from you. I'm working on boosting our church website, and have enjoyed following the Church Juice blog and the other resources there.
Posted in: Children and the Lord's Supper: One Church's Journey
For the sake of the staff I work with, I am going to beg: is there any way that the brochures you mentioned and/or any other materials might be made available online? :)
Our church has also recently made the decision to allow children at the Lord's Supper and just this morning we met to begin talking about how this will affect youth ministry and how we can best guide our youth in faith. We are hungry for resources and help, and would be so grateful if any of this information can be shared.
Thank you!
Posted in: Children and the Lord's Supper: One Church's Journey
That would be terrific! I know our part time staff is not always able to attend these events at the original presentation time, but I know these are archived and we would appreciate being able to access the archived version.
Thanks!
Posted in: Measuring Youth Leader Success
I read this post last week and have been thinking about it off and on since then. Not only do I think you are right about this in terms of youth ministry, but I think there is wisdom here for ALL ministry: be present, invest in relationships (as Albert said), and provide a safe place where people are accepted as they are.
Posted in: Next Steps for Me...and for The Network
Michael and others at the Network - it's no secret I'm a big fan of the Network, and I will add my thanks to the others already offered for the terrific work to build and create this site. I think you've done great work towards meeting your two stated objectives.
Every week, when I get the email with "what's new on the Network" I always find at least 2-3 articles or posts to read that help me with my ministry or that I can share with someone else. Greater even than a helpful tip is the idea that I'm not alone out here, there are plenty of other people thinking about ministry and challenging themselves and others to think about it and do it better all the time. I've posted questions and received helpful advice and I've been able to help others by sharing what we do or have learned at our church. More than once I've printed an article or sent a link to someone at my church to read. Although many at my church have signed up and some read articles regularly, I do know many are still hesitant to post.
I think the suggestions made are good ones when it comes to continuing to encourage participation and greater integration with other social sites (Mavis, I will be considering your suggestion to link to the network more often on our church Facebook page!). To that, I would add a suggestion that the agencies and ministries of (or affiliated with) the denomination get more involved in using the network as a means of distributing information. For example, the World Hunger Sunday materials were just made available and samples were mailed to our church. CRWRC could also post about this in the Deacons forum. Another example, our church recently received word that Youth Unlimited is hosting a Youth Worker Retreat on the West Coast (http://youthunlimited.org/retreats/westcoastusa.html) and this information could be posted in the Youth Ministry Forum. (I did just peek to see if these had been posted and didn't see them, but my apologies if I overlooked them in error!)
I would encourage the BOT to continue to support this effort, and I hope they will. I think as others have pointed out, it is still a very "young" initiative at 18 months, but I believe in it's potential to be a valuable resource for many who love and serve the church.
Posted in: Worship Planning on a Cloud
Our worship team is using google Docs. Our worship director works from home most of the time, and can easily update it from there, then the office team can check online to get the information to update bulletins and get the music ready for rehearsals. It's definitely so much easier than emailing files back and forth!
Posted in: Sharing Sidebar [Feature]
This is a great addition!