Alexander Green

12 Questions For Evaluating a Ministry

Take a look at your ministry with tips from Brian Howard:

Have you carefully thought through a new ministry that you want to start? Have you evaluated your current ministries? Here are 12 planning questions that will help you think through starting a new ministry or evaluating a current one. Consider planning a day away to write a plan based around these 12 questions:

1. What is the purpose of this ministry?

What are you hoping to accomplish with this ministry? What is the purpose and mission of the ministry? How does it fit into your overall vision? Is there a primary purpose? Is there a secondary purpose?

2. Who will this ministry serve?

Who is the target of this ministry? Who will it benefit? Is there a primary target? Is there a secondary target?

3. What are the needs of those who this ministry will serve?

What services will we offer in this ministry? What are the needs of the target group we are wanting to serve? What are their Spiritual needs, Physical needs, Emotional needs, Intellectual needs, Relational needs. Which of these needs should our ministry focus on?

4. How will we provide these services and meet these needs?

What will be our ministry strategy for providing services for the needs of our targeted group? What is our Step-by-Step process for making this ministry happen?

5. How will the ministry be led?

What type of leadership qualities and skills are required to lead this ministry?

6. What kind of team Is needed for this ministry?

Is a team needed for this ministry? How many people are needed? What are the various roles and ministry responsibilities that are needed to support this ministry? What are the skills and abilities needed for those who will make up the team?

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Piper’s Tweet Stirs Up Controversy

Oklahoma’s devastating tornado stirred up a theological debate that was set off from a series of deleted tweets referencing the Book of Job.

Popular evangelical author and speaker John Piper regularly tweets Bible verses, but two verses tweeted after the tornado struck some as at best insensitive and at worst bad theology:

“Your sons and daughters were eating and a great wind struck the house, and it fell upon them, and they are dead” (Job 1:19).

“Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped” (Job 1:20).

In the Book of Job, God allows Satan to afflict “blameless” Job, killing his 10 children, livestock and servants. While Piper’s tweets didn’t mention the tornado by name, critics said it was too close, and inappropriate.

Piper, who recently retired from the pulpit of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, is a leading theologian of the neo-Calvinist movement that’s sweeping many evangelical churches. In essence, Desiring God staffer Tony Reinke wrote, Piper was highlighting God’s sovereignty and that he is still worthy of worship in the midst of suffering and tragedy.

In response, popular evangelical writer Rachel Held Evans blasted Piper’s “abusive theology of ‘deserved’ tragedy,” and said Christians have to stop the idea of responding to tragedy by suggesting God is inflicting his judgment.

“The only thing we need to tell them is, ‘I don’t know why this happened but God is good and God loves us,’” she said in an interview.

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Does Your Church Steal Musicians?

Years ago when I was the worship leader at a church plant that set up weekly in a public school cafeteria, we paid a guitarist. What a relief to have this talented musician around who could play any chart I threw at him and switch between bass, electric and acoustic when needed. Often it was just me on keyboard, him on bass and a drummer. If the drummer decided to head for the beach Saturday afternoon (leaving me, of course, in the lurch) we could get by fine with a stripped-down keys and acoustic set.

Then the talented guitarist told me one Sunday after church that he was leaving. The local Willow Creek Church Clone was offering him more money.

I was livid. Not at him – he was a super-nice guy but really just a hired gun with no ties to the church. Did the big Willow Creek Clone really need yet another guitarist?

Ironically, the Clone hit a financial bump a few years later, stopped paying musicians, and every last one of them quit (including the guitarist.)

Fast forward ten years to a new era of stealing. A Ginormous Church has sprouted in town and has hired away a young 20ish guitar prodigy from a new church plant meeting in a movie theater.

The Ginormous Church isn’t being malicious. They are what they are: a big church who values quality music and believes a musician is worthy of his/her hire. More power to them – the world would be a better place if The Church supported the arts instead of letting Hollywood gobble up the talent, wouldn’t it?

And I don’t blame the young 20ish prodigy. The Ginormous Church pays each musician in their band $300 a week (can you imagine that budget!) His role will be much like an intern where he’ll play music he loves with top musicians while learning about recording (they have a recording studio,) loops and other technology. It’s almost like being paid to get a music education. He’ll probably make more part time at the church than he would at a full-time McDonald’s job.

But what happens if you’re on the losing end of this deal – a church plant who can’t compete with the big bucks? Pray.

When I lost our guitarist to the Willow Creek Clone I had dinner with one of our lay worship leaders. We decided to pray and ask God to send us another guitarist. After we prayed he suddenly said “Oh, I just thought of the perfect person!”

This perfect person turned out to be another talented guitarist – in fact, still to this day one of the best guitarists I’ve ever heard. He and his wife had been away from church for years, and his playing for us brought them both back to the Lord. He was more than merely a “hired gun” (we paid him what we paid the other guy) – he and his wife had an amazing spiritual transformation and eventually became members of the church. After I left that ministry he actually took over as the music director!

Bottom Line: Let the big churches steal your musicians – God will provide.

The Heart Attitude of a Background Vocalist

Daniel J. Mathew offers BGV tips:

A lot has been said about worship leading, about the responsibilities both musically and spiritually a person has when leading a congregation in corporate musical worship, and whilst most points are relevant to all members of the band and creative arts, often they’re specifically referring to the vocal worship leader who is chiefly leading the band and congregation.

Today, however, I want to specifically talk about a section that can often feel a little less important or even slightly overlooked in a worship team – and that is the backing vocals.

The Backing Vocalists or BVs as they’re commonly called (although now we call them “Frontline Vocals” at church; it’s all in the semantics…) are an integral part of the team and go a long way into helping the general sound of the worship as well as supporting the worship leader and leading the congregation. They’re so important in fact; my first point is actually this:

Know your worth

When BVing, it’s often easy to think that no one can hear you and that no one will notice if you give a bit less effort and take it easy. But when worship leading I know how aware of the BV’s I am and how much I rely on them to back me up and help me drive the service. From every other perspective it is so integral to the team, so if you are BVing please take everything you do seriously. Your body language makes a huge difference to the presence on the stage, and when the stage is setting the vibe for the congregation, every little thing is crucial.

Prepare diligently with warming up your voice, memorising lyrics and harmonies, and even being ready to sing different parts if the service needs it. Don’t set your level of expectation to what the bare minimum is that others expect of you, know your full ability and within yourself set that level of expectation of the very best you can possible give as the bare minimum for what you’re bringing to the service as a BV.

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For Every Worship Leader Who’s Ever Struggled Through a Monday

Carey Nieuwhof offers an encouraging word to church leaders:

  • Probably more than any other day of the week, leaders get discouraged on Mondays.
  • Your message didn’t quite elicit the response you hoped it would.
  • That one nasty email stole some much needed sleep last night.
  • You think you’re not making nearly the progress you hoped you would.
  • You wonder whether anyone actually appreciates what you’re doing.
  • That person who left also discouraged three other people on their way out the door.

I don’t know whether this is apocryphal or not, but it’s said more ministry leaders resign on a Monday than any other day. If you’ve been in ministry for any length of time, you’ll understand why.

A few weeks ago I caught a breathtakingly fresh glimpse of how I think God must feel when he sees the discouragement present in his people on days like Monday.

My wife Toni and I were on a hike in the woods.

I like to take pictures, and I was heading to a stream to take some shots of a small waterfall when I almost stepped on the flowers above.

They were incredibly small. They were barely visible from 6 feet up, but I caught them out of the corner of my eye.

I had to get down on my stomach to take this shot. I got as close as I could to snap the photo. (The picture makes them look so much bigger than they were, even without a macro lens.)

As I looked at them, it occurred to me that I might actually be the only human to ever see these flowers.

It made me think…

That doesn’t really matter to God.

He created them, and he absolutely delights in them.

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Gallup: More Than 9 in 10 Americans Continue to Believe in God

Despite the many changes that have rippled through American society over the last 6 ½ decades, belief in God as measured in this direct way has remained high and relatively stable. Gallup initially used this question wording in November 1944, when 96% said “yes.” That percentage dropped to 94% in 1947, but increased to 98% in several Gallup surveys conducted in the 1950s and 1960s. Gallup stopped using this question format in the 1960s, before including it again in Gallup’s May 5-8 survey this year.

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What Happens When Someone on Your Team Drops the Ball

Catalyst director Brad Lomenick on team building:

So what about when someone completely drops the ball? We all have experienced this as leaders. I know I have. So how do you respond?

You give a big assignment or project to someone on your team, and they lay an egg- totally drop the ball and don’t get it done. We’ve all been there. I know I have…..both as the goat who goofed up, as well as the one in charge trying to figure out how to handle the situation.

So how do you handle it? Let’s look at this situation from both sides, both the one who dropped the ball and the one in charge.

1. As the one who dropped the ball, just own up to it. Don’t make excuses. Be self-policing and self aware. Be accountable. And be mature. And realize that your leader or your boss or the person in charge is trying to figure out how to deal with your mistake or lack of action- lean into that and bring it up first and tell them it won’t happen again. Don’t wait on them to have to confront you. Be proactive. Leaders would always rather find out from you that you laid an egg, vs. finding out from someone else, many times when it’s too late to do anything about it.

Own up. Grow Up. Shut up. And don’t be the goat again.

2. As the leader, four things to think about: 1. confrontation; 2. conversation; 3. restoration; 4. affirmation. Got these from Kevin Myers in a talk he did a couple of years ago at 12 Stone Church. The key on this- confront, and then move on. Get through the confrontation and onto to the conversation and restoration as quick as possible. If you have the right kind of person on your team, they feel terrible anyway, so spend very little time confronting, and way more time on restoration and affirmation.

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Distressing Map of Religious Freedom Around the World

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has issued a report highlighting those it calls the worst violators of religious freedom in the world. Among them are many Asian and Middle Eastern governments, although some Western European countries are also included.

The report from the bipartisan advisory body divides violators into three categories. Fifteen “tier 1″ nations, marked red on the above map, have committed “particularly severe” violations that are “systemic, ongoing and egregious.” That includes all the countries you’d expect, as well as a few worsening problem areas, such as Egypt and Nigeria. The “tier 2″ countries are said to be “on the threshold” of meeting tier 1 status and include states that might have serious problems but, often, are at least making an effort to address them. A small third category of nations under “monitoring” for violations includes, among other states, some in Western Europe.

The report isn’t just about documenting abuses: The tier 1 countries can be officially designated as “countries of particular concern” by the U.S. State Department, at which point the president is legally required to follow up with some sort of action, recommended by the report. It might suggest, for example, engaging with Burmese civil society groups to promote tolerance or working with Pakistani lawmakers to improve legislation.

As the report itself notes, though, “in practice, the flexibility provided in IRFA has been underutilized. Generally, no new Presidential actions pursuant to CPC designations have been levied, with the State Department instead relying on pre-existing sanctions.” In other words, the red countries are usually already under some kind of trade restriction or sanction, which the president can use to say that he’s already meeting the commission’s requirements. In some cases, the president uses a waiver to avoid punishing countries that are important to U.S. foreign policy, such as Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

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