Larry Doornbos
Larry Doornbos President, Church Leadership Center
All posts written from October 2019 to June 2023 are part of the Vibrant Congregations Ecosystem that has been assigned to the CRCNA and RCA. They may be used per the Creative Commons license assigned at the time of writing.
Posted in: Compensation for Pulpit Supply?
The congregation I served most recently had Two morning services. Our policy was $300 for the morning if the pastor chose his/her own text. If we requested a text to be part of a series we paid $500.
My experience in preaching in West Michigan is typical compensation is 100.00 to 150.00
Posted in: The Already, but Not Yet of Unity
Thanks for this thoughtful and thought provoking post
Posted in: Is Your Online Service a Temporary Fix or a New Missions Strategy?
Barna along with Stadia Church Planting has produced a study and suggestions on how to help churches become Phygital (Physical + Digital). The idea is that it is not simply about putting worship services on YouTube, but how do we do evangelism (some churches are seeing great success here) and discipleship online. Most congregations in the U.S. are taking first steps in all of this, but it is an amazing opportunity that is before us.
If anyone would like to explore this more you can connect with Vibrant Congregations. We are in the first stages of learning and looking into the future of Phygital.
Posted in: The Need for Creative Experimentation in All Congregations
Syd, thanks for this thoughtful blog post. I believe, along with you, that we are stepping into a new space of being creator churches. One of the critical pieces of this is, as you say, being Spirit led. The road before us is to help leaders in the church to learn this new way. Many of our churches (councils, consistories, committees) work in the world where business models predominate and that shapes how we see and understand decision making. Our councils, consistories, and committees need to take a new path into being communities of spiritual leaders. This type of calling is about elders who are people of the book, deacons who lead us in Micah 6:8 (see diaconal remix from 2015), and committees the come together to listen to the voice of their communities, the voice of Bible and the call of the Spirit.
To truly create the new day that you lay before us, we need to create a new way of leading in our congregations.
Posted in: Crossroads Discernment Toolkit: Not Just for Hard Times
Thanks Resonate and PCR for this new resource, an important one in all times, but especially in this ministry moment
Posted in: Sheep, Not Superheroes: How Sabbath Helps Us Right-Size
Chris, Thanks for these thoughts. One of the struggle we have is loving the Sabbath, for many it was a burden when growing up and now it is often an afterthought. Your words reminded me of some things I looked at in a Sabbatical that led me to think about the Sabbath as being one of the things we need to love. I grabbed these ideas:
We Love the Sabbath
We recognize in the Sabbath God’s gift for rest and being reshaped as a people who live for his glory.
The Sabbath has always been God’s counterpoint to the world’s striving.
The Sabbath has always been God’s counterpoint to those who seek glory for themselves.
The Sabbath has always been a way to de-center ourselves and center on God.
The Sabbath has always been God’s call “to rest from our evil ways and to let the Lord work in us through his Spirit” (Cf. Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 38).
Posted in: Does Social Justice Contribute to Church Decline?
Hi Reggie,
I wonder if it is largely majority culture churches in the U.S. that decline when Social Justice enters the picture. It seems that social justice doesn't go well with the more comfortable and hyper individualistic gospel that the majority culture desires--so churches that pursue justice see members leave to a church that allows them to hold on to what they have-- believing that losing what they have would be a disaster
Posted in: No Place for Shepherds?
Hi Norm,
Thanks for taking the time to dig deeply into the "shepherd" and the work of the "shepherd" under Christ. I sense that you are seeing things pretty clearly in Ajax; and doing some great things to take people out of the baby stage and into a mature faith. Your blog is a great picture of an interactive method to take people into the text. It's a strong encouragement to me to think about how I both prepare people at EverGreen for the coming week and how we step out of the message and into living it in the following week.
In that light, I would love to hear how others have done this. So for all of the readers...how about some of your ideas. You can check out Norm's blog at http://www.jesusfollower.ca/ and see the way he engages his congregation.
At EverGreen we have done a number of things over the years. Right now we are writing a weekly sermon based study for our small groups, as well as, using SOAPS (as Norm does) to have people reflect on the passage of the week. In the past one of our bigger pushes to get people reading and thinking about the Word was something called "Explore the Story, Discover Your Life". This was a year long sermon series and a daily reading of the scripture with a daily commentary. If you are interested, you can see it at http://www.explorethestorydiscoveryourlife.blogspot.com
One of the things that I wonder about is figuring out the balance between teaching/preaching that really does reveal new wonders in the scriptures and what I might call an ESV Study Bible level of understanding. I think that the ESV level of understanding is pretty much what most people pursue and is what is needed for discipling and teaching many. However, what shepherds/pastors bring to the conversation is not only a theological education, but also the time to spend on the task of digging more deeply into the passage that can unearth treasures in the text (although, as you point out, sometimes a child does that in a surprising way). People working their regular jobs, doing that killer commute and the rest don't have this time. This deeper digging can keep the text fresh and make people wonder at the reality that the Scriptures never get old and there are always new things to discover--that can impact their lives.
Thanks for engaging, Norm
Posted in: Sarah's Death Four Years and Two Months Later
Thanks for this great testimony of pain, loss, hope, and just that bit of godly wondering.
Posted in: Mission Montreal
Greg, thanks for the update on this innovative and creative work. I love not only what is happening in Montreal, but also the collaboration that it represents. I am very pleased not only to be working with Christian Direction, but also to see the partnership of Diaconal Ministries Canada,Classis Eastern Canada, Montreal CRC, CRWM and CRHM. I hope to see more of these kind of partnerships in the future as we work to spread God's name and renown in diverse settings among diverse peoples.
Posted in: Alpha Cities: How Willing Are We to Work Together?
Thanks for starting the conversation, Mark. I agree that there is a strange lack of southern plants in the NAMB site. I wonder if it because the SBC has so many churches in those areas.
Posted in: Missional Communities After a Year
Home Missions is partnering with ECO Presbyterian (a new presbyterian denomination) in creating a pathway to bring missional communities into established churches. We had our first gathering/training a couple of weeks ago. ECO is having Faith Alive both edit and publish the materials. One of the very good things about the ECO missional community strategy is that is has both training and coaching for those who are establishing missional communities. Also because it is working with established congregations it seems to have a good feel for how to bring MCs into that context. This work is just beginning but we hope to see it ramp up in the next 6-8 months.