The Sabbatical, Part 2

Hello Emmanuel,

How awesome was Sunday?  3 baptisms, 4 new members and free helium balloons!  Does it get any better?  Oh… yes… and God’s Holy Spirit was present… so, yes it does!  Congrats to Chris, Ginifer and Emma Swofford on their baptisms.  And, in addition to Chris and Ginifer, Will and Beverly Hatfield joined the church.  It was a great day.

As the news gets around about my impending sabbatical (July 1^st – August 11^th), more questions are being asked.  This is the attempt to answer those questions.  Hopefully it is a successful attempt.  If not, fear not.  Email me at pastorjoe@emmanuel-umc.com.  I will answer all questions regarding the sabbatical.  I might even answer other kinds of questions, but you won’t know unless you ask.  Or, if you prefer to get the church’s perspective, you can email Vicki Hensley (sewblessed@fuse.net) or Bill Maskiell (wmaskiell@cinci.rr.com).

As a result of my approach to pastoring a church, only a small percent of what I do is out in the forefront (I’d rather have a strong Vision drive a church rather than a pastor or personality drive the church).  While my preaching and teaching and Sunday morning presence is for all to see, much of my work is in the background equipping leaders, leading meetings, resolving any conflict, counseling couples/families and managing the overall structure of Emmanuel’s leadership.  While there seem to be an infinite number of different ways to lead a church, this is how I have felt called to do so and it seems to be effective.  It is one of the reasons why I believe Emmanuel and I are a good fit for one another.   I feel blessed.

The 6 week sabbatical will, in part, be a time to figure out how to re-approach much of the work I do in the background.  The congregation will not likely see any drastic change in what I do during Sunday mornings.  What is likely to happen, however, is how I approach leadership structures in the church.  While this may help the worship attender relax a bit, it may put leaders in the church in near-panic mode.  Few things are as enjoyable as panicking leaders (but it isn’t really all that bad).

Without boring most of you, let me try to put this as simply as possible.  The current Vision Team structure is getting too small.  Our monthly Vision Team meetings are getting too busy with all dreaming, planning and evaluating of ministry.  In addition, the ministry teams are showing signs of needing more help beyond the scope of the team.

So what do we do?  We can’t keep doing the same thing or ministry will stagnate.  The sabbatical will give me time to figure it out by visiting churches which have gone through the same sort of issues.  My plan is to visit 3 to 6 churches that are busier than Emmanuel to see how they are structured and if it is something we can duplicate. 

In a future MMP, I will discuss 2 other aspects of my sabbatical:  rest and spiritual renewal as well as what Emmanuel is planning for while I’m gone.  Fear not!  I’ll try to make them funnier and less political-science-like.  In the meantime, you can look forward to Shawn’s OMLETTE next Monday.

Maybe he can describe the tediousness of designing the new website, making my MMP’s look ridiculously exciting.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe