How To Choose a New Church

So, you are church shopping? Cash, check, or charge? By the way, in some churches, its "no shirt, no shoes, no service." Okay, seriously now, I am writing this after visiting 6 churches in the last 2 months. No, I was not looking for a new church. I was on sabbatical from New Vision Church and I wanted to see what other churches were doing. So I went to some of the biggest and most popular. Having been on the other side of the pulpit for a few weeks I thought I would offer a few suggestions for you who are looking for a new church. (Plus, I promised I would do this, so here it is . . .)

First, let me ask you a question. Why do you think you need a new church? You moved to a new area and your former church is too far away? You haven't been going to any church, but you want to start? Okay, those are good reasons. Keep reading. Maybe you don't like the music, Bible translation, or carpet color and you think a change would do you good. Maybe you had a run-in with the pastor or someone else. Or maybe you are just not "getting fed." (By the way, even the tastiest morsels require chewing.) If your reason is similar to this second list, there are some things you need to do before you head out and start shopping.

First, check your heart. Are you motivated by selfishness, pride, or hurt pride? Are you running from conflict? (Chances are, you will run into it again at the new church). Have you talked to the pastor, church leaders, and/or the person who hurt you, doing absolutely everything you can to resolve the situation? If you don't you will bring all that baggage with you on your new church hunt and that baggage will taint what you see and you might make a bad decision. For instance, if you don't like the music at the old church, you might jump right into a new church that has the music you prefer. In your desire for your kind of music you might ignore the fact that the pastor preaches things you don't believe and other important elements. one year from now you will be doing it all over again. Also, get some counsel from a few trusted, mature friends. You better know that you know that you know that leaving your current church is the right thing to do.

Okay, so you are looking for churches for all the right reasons. Now what? First of all, what is really important to you? I am not talking preferences. I am talking values. What are the make-or-break issues for you? This is important because you will never find the perfect church. No church will do everything just like you want it done. You will have to settle in some areas. And again, examine your heart. I love music, but music should never be a deciding factor. Now start looking for some churches that value what you value. Ask your friends, coworkers, and neighbors. Spend some time online.

Then start visiting. When I visited 6 churches, I was awestruck with how similar their worship services were. They all sang songs, preached messages, prayed prayers, and gave offerings. Most had coffee. Some had donuts. This means that if you like a church, you will need to dig a little deeper. Drop in on a few advertised events. Ask people there what they like about the church. Then make an appointment with the pastor. Ask him every question you can think of about the things you truly value.

Your church shopping experience should take some time. Too often I see people jump in headfirst only later to find that this church is just not for them. If you have kids, this can be devastating!!!!! Take your time. Pray hard- God really will lead you.

Then, when you know where you are supposed to be, make a commitment, take the vows, and put on the wedding ring- this is a long-term relationship. Invest. Engage. Give. Encourage. Grow. Chew on every bite of food thrown your way and you will be fed.

Don't give up. Don't quit your searching and talk yourself into television-church. Put down the remote, get dressed and go to church. And remember, there is no such thing as a church of one. Still not convinced, pick up your Bible, read Hebrews 10:25, brush your teeth, and go to church. It will be worth it.

My Sabbatical Report

Below is the report I shared with our church board after returning from Sabbatical. Enjoy!

Sabbatical Report

Jason Matters

November 11, 2010

First of all, I want to say thank you to the Church Board and everyone at New Vision Church for granting me a seven week sabbatical. There have been points in the last few years when I felt worn out and discouraged and was reminded that I have seven weeks of rest and renewal coming up- and at times this hope kept me going. Thank you to the sabbatical committee for working so hard over the last few months to prepare for this. Thank you to everyone who accepted additional responsibilities while I was gone.

Did We Meet Our Goals?

Disengagement from regular ministry responsibilities to allow for rest and renewal – Ministry is difficult because it involves significant emotional and mental energy, and physical energy in terms of the number of hours required to do the job well. I believe I was able to completely disengage by only receiving personal email, by not reading my Facebook “home” page, by not receiving calls from church members, and by not having meetings to prepare for or lead. I truly unplugged and rested my mind and emotions.

Extended time to spend with family – Near the end of my sabbatical Erica mentioned how nice it was to have me around for seven weeks without any distractions or meetings, and to have me around on Sunday mornings to help with the kids. I spent a lot of time with my kids. Our plans for our week in Cincinatti changed repeatedly and Erica and I were only able to spend one night at Inkeeper’s Ministry, but we enjoyed that one night. The final week in San Diego with no kids was absolutely wonderful. I am so glad Erica was able to join me. It was the best week of the entire sabbatical! Parenting continues to be a huge challenge for me. As I reflected about my own strengths and weaknesses, I recognized that I am a strong introvert and I cherish alone time. However, alone time often does not exist when you have a toddler and preschooler at home. I underestimated how difficult it would be to rest at home. Erica and I should have communicated more about how I would spend my days.

The Opportunity to visit other churches – I visited 6 churches. Most of them are growing and effectively reaching their communities. Most of them are large to super-large. I enjoyed worshipping without having to lead anything or be in charge of anything. I enjoyed experiencing new environments and experiencing churches from the perspective of the first time visitor. I felt very affirmed- I believe that we offer a very high quality worship experience for our size. And hey, I got to meet my hero, Rick Warren!

Time to reflect on my first seven years in ministry and to discover how to maximize my strengths and address my weaknesses. - I did a lot of thinking. I kept a journal nearby to record thoughts and insights. I participated in one three hour coaching session with Dr. Sondra Cave, a certified strengths consultant and pastor’s wife, and she helped me to see how my strengths can help overcome some of my weaknesses. I am planning to meet with her again in 6 months for follow-up. I also spent a lot of time meditating on 1^st Timothy. God regularly gave me new insights about ministry and myself.

Time to pray and dream about the future ministry at New Vision – In addition to my role as pastor, I thought and prayed a lot about the future of our ministry at New Vision. I believe we need to make some immediate changes. I also have some ideas that I would like to discuss with our church board concerning a revised outreach and growth strategy.

I believe I met the goals for the sabbatical, and I believe that I will be a better pastor because of my experience. I feel refreshed and energized and ready to lead New Vision into the future.

Books I Read

The Strategically Small Church – This book talks about the value of small churches. The author encourages small churches to not see their size as a liability but as a strength, and to make the most of it. Small churches can be: intimate, authentic, nimble, and effective. I read this book because I believe people in Raymore prefer smaller churches and we need to include this in our future growth strategy.

Simple Church – This book talks about the need for churches to simplify their ministries. Churches are tempted to have to many programs to meet every need and demand. However, the authors interviewed hundreds of churches and found that churches with fewer, but more effective programs, produce stronger disciples of Jesus. If we want, we can take the survey to help determine if New Vision is simple or cluttered.

Organic Church – This book really rocked my mind. I love and I hate it. The author presents what I believe is an extreme position on how church should be done. But I believe his basic critique of modern churches is correct: we spend too much time and energy creating high quality, entertaining worship services, and not enough time disclipling those who really love Jesus. He also advocates taking church out of our buildings to places where non-Christians gather- coffeeshops, parks, etc. I think we can gain from his model of doing small groups.

Leading On Empty – This book is about how leaders, especially pastors, need to guard against burn out, and includes some helpful suggestions for how to prevent burnout, including prioritizing your life and ministry objectives, taking Sabbaths and sabbaticals, etc. The author suggests being aware of what activities drain you and what activities energize you. I spent a lot of time reflecting on this for me.

Living Your Strengths – This book is about ministering through your strengths. I completed the Strengthsfinder inventory and attended 2 workshops earlier this summer, then I read this book before undergoing some individual strengths coaching while on sabbatical. This book helped me to understand the strengths-based approach, and it helped me understand my top 5 strengths. Just in case you care, my top 5 strengths are: Learner, Intellection, Analyzer, Input, & Context. This puts me in the “strategic thinking” category, versus the relating, executing or influencing category.

Getting Things Done – This book presents a time management/personal management program to help a person handle multiple projects, tasks, appointments in both work and personal life. The read the first half of the book, which explained the process and tips for preparing to use the system. The second half will instruct me how to implement the system. I will implement the system now that I am back working full-time.

Action Points

During the last two weeks of the sabbatical, I began to compile a list of items that I would like to address as a result of what I have experienced while on sabbatical.

1. I need to NOT lead a L.I.F.E. Group – It was not wise for me to lead 2 groups. I have come to the conclusion that I should not lead any group. When I lead a group, it implies that leading a LIFE group is a pastor-thing. But it is not that complicated. It also takes away another evening, and I only have a few, that I need to spend meeting with people, visiting new families, etc.

2. I will give more time to preaching and teaching – since this is an area of strength, I need to give it the time it deserves. I will schedule times away for advance planning, and I will work to include the input and ideas of others. I also want to work with Beth and the worship team to craft our entire worship services around the themes of the message series.

3. I will schedule regular one-day personal retreats – This comes from the book, Leading On Empty. When I get busy and stressed, I fall into the rut of just getting through the day and through the week. At that point, my creativity as well as my productivity falls. These one day retreats are opportunities for focused reflection, prayer, renewal, and dreaming.

4. I want to read more books – Books are a good source of ideas, challenges, sermon material. This will help me stay fresh and on the cutting edge of ministry.

5. I will implement the Getting Things Done (GTD) personal management system to help me stay focused, relaxed, but productive.

6. As a church, we need to create a Facebook page – One pastor/workshop presenter said that every church should double what they are doing on Facebook, as it is so effective. We need to encourage our people to interact with each other on Facebook, share prayer requests, sermon ideas, pictures, etc.

7. I will learn more about Twitter and examine its possibilities for ministry, connection, and church marketing.

8. I will learn to slow down my thinking, share my thoughts with others in order to gain their valuable input, and not get too far ahead of others with my ideas. This is from the coaching session. I get ideas, think about them and land on my conclusions. Then I get stubborn in thinking I am right. I struggle with bringing people along with me. I am learning to see others’ input as additional sources of information to analyze, thereby producing a better conclusion!

9. I must lead the way in evangelism. We can wait for people to walk through our doors- we have to proactively build relationships with our unsaved friends and neighbors. I must lead by example.

10. I need to start my day with some alone time. When I start my day by rolling out of a warm bed in order to get 1 or 2 kids up for the morning, I set up my family for a bad day. When I get up early and enjoy some alone time, and then get the kids up, I am in a much better mood and I set a better tone for everyone’s day.

11. I will work with Beth and others to keep our worship services 1 hour and 15 minutes. When I visited other churches, I was ready to be done before an hour and a half. Services usually felt too long because of lengthy sermons (Rick Warren preached for an hour and 15 minutes). I think that if we mange our time well, and if I give more time to preaching better messages, we can dismiss by 11:45 and people will not go home worn out, but maybe will want more and feel motivated to get more through participating in other ministries.

12. I will learn more about Life Transformation Groups (LTV’s) and pray about implementing them at New Vision as supplements to our LIFE Groups. This is from the Organic Church book. I believe this will aid in leadership development, deep discipleship, and involvement of more people in groups.

13. I will pray more, read more, and begin to discuss with the board and other leaders an idea I have for how we can effectively reach our city, but in a different way than we have done before. (If I told you any more right now, I would be getting ahead of myself, breaking action point 8)

14. Our city is filled with hurting, broken and lost people who are headed for hell and we all must continue to sacrifice and serve in order to reach them!

Thank you again for the opportunity to enjoy the past seven weeks. I pray that it has been beneficial for New Vision Church, all of our members, and for me and my family.

Let’s continue to talk about our experiences!

My Tribute to Rick Warren

Fifteen years ago this fall I took my first ministry class as a college sophomore. I walked into "Evangelism & Church Growth" and the professor told us that he had recently attended a seminar at a growing church in California and wanted to share it with us. For eight weeks, every Tuesday and Thursday we listened to cassette tapes of the Purpose-Driven Church seminar taught by Rick Warren, filled in the blanks of the photocopied workbook, and read the hardback as the primary text of the class.

Rick, fifteen years ago you came into my life and radically changed the way I approach evangelism and church ministry.

I was hooked before the end of the first tape. I thought, "This makes sense and it is doable." Rick, when you said, "don't copy me," I listened even closer. When you presented the five purposes, I said, "that is very simple." Then when you talked about the need to keep all five purposes in balance and the dangers of imbalance, I said, "yeah, that's right." Then you convinced me that Sunday mornings are the best times to reach the unsaved. The five circles of commitment and the goal of consistent movement to deeper levels of commitment. It all made so much sense, was simple, and seemed easily transferable. You gave me an effective strategy to fulfill my heart's desire, namely to lead others to Christ and help them grow into lifelong disciples.

I talked about you so much that my friends got tired of hearing your name and told me to shut up. (Sorry about that) Then they wrapped aluminum foil around the dust jacket of my PDC book in order to give it the honor it deserved. (They may even have bowed down to it.) I just couldn't understand why they weren't as convinced!

While I was in seminary, I attended and served in a church with a pastor who lead with the purpose-driven principles. After graduation I was called to serve as pastor there and have developed our ministries through the purpose-driven strategy.

Rick, your passion for lost and broken people inspires me to keep reaching out. Your commitment to a clear and simple strategy pushes me to reduce complexity. Your use of acronyms and alliteration makes me laugh. Your humility and down-to-earthness impresses me. You are the real deal and I have talked to several people who affirm that.

Tomorrow morning I will attend the 11:15 service at Saddleback. I have looked forward to visiting for years, but it is a bit of a drive from Kansas City. This week I attended the National Outreach Convention in San Diego, so the visit is now feasible. I am so excited to have the chance to experience Saddleback. I will have by PDC book with me just in case I bump into you and maybe you can sign it for me? (Just think of what those old roommates will say then).

Rick, thank you for your ministry, not only to Saddleback Sam, but to a college kid in Kansas City, and to the world. Thank you for allowing God to use you to help grow his kingdom!

Another church that just wasn't for me

Have you ever seen Norman Rockwell's painting, The Connoisseur? You can see it here. The scene shows a well-dressed man, possibly a businessman, staring at a large abstract painting. I imagine him saying to himself, "I don't get it." If I am standing in his shoes, that is what I am thinking. It is the same with poetry. I don't get it-unless it rhymes. I prefer clear, precise sentences. I tried writing songs- I can't do it. I am too concrete (which, in the world of art, translates to boring. My conclusion: I am not an artist- I am more of an engineer. I am not a poet- I'm so bad with words I can't even think of one right to to contrast poet.

Last Sunday Erica and I visited another thriving church near Westport. (If you are not familiar with Kansas City, Westport features night clubs, artists, and young people who prefer urban bungalows and lofts over suburban split-levels.) This church is not a Nazarene church, but there are tons of Nazarenes who attend. I have heard so much about it I just had to check it out. It is regarded by many as a model emergent/postmodern church. My conclusion? I didn't like it. I know that worship is not about me, and I wrote about that in my last post, but I just couldn't do it this time. I just couldn't connect with God in worship. I loved the architecture of the old building. The candles were cool. The worship band was good. But I didn't know any of the songs and the melodies were impossible to pick up. Erica mentioned that it had the feel of a coffeehouse alt-rock band. It was also a special Sunday for the church- one of their bi-yearly "all-worship" Sunday featuring lots of music and a devotional lead by the worship pastor, so I didn't have the opportunity to experience their preaching.

But still, I just didn't get it. And I think it is because it is a church by and for artists and poets-those who appreciate artistic expression in all forms. And the church is doing a spectacular job reaching this community which is largely ignored by many churches. I applaud their ministry. It is just not me.

Unfortunately, I haven't heard many leaders in the emergent/postmodern discussion address this. Could it be that the artists and poets are comfortable with and even prefer the abstract, the conceptual, diversity of opinion, and paradox. But there is still a large portion of the supposedly postmodern generation who prefer the concrete and practical? I think so.

And if that is so, ministry to Generations X and Y is a lot like ministry to Baby Boomers: It takes different kinds of churches to reach different kinds of people.