Entries Tagged 'Five Practices' ↓

Bishop Schnase is clear in his definition that faith development happens outside of weekly worship and that it happens in community. Faith development involves practices by which “we mature in faith; we grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of God” (Cultivating Fruitfulness 43). Our spiritual growth never stops, it is never to become stagnant or regress.

The apostle Paul says that he himself continues to strive toward the goal, pressing on, straining forward (Philippians 3.12-14). We do not attain what Wesley called Entire Sanctification in this life, and yet that is the goal toward which we strive.

God intends for the community of faith to support and encourage one another in spiritual growth. This happens best in groups of 8-12 people where intimate relationships are formed. Jesus called twelve disciples around him to mentor, grow and develop. It was this approach that developed the disciples into the leaders we find in the book of Acts.

Questions for Reflection and Comment

Have you ever been part of a small group ministry or home group Bible study? Share that expereience.

How do you intentionally strive toward spiritual growth? Do you have a growth plan? Share it here, wether it is one you have followed for some time or whether you are newly developing one.

At West Side, we have just concluded a three-week study of Radical Hospitality, led by Ken Bodle. The class was approached in such a way as to not make Radical Hospitality a program, but to look at who we are at our core. We recognized that it is Christ who first welcomed us when we were strangers. Now we want to offer that same warm, embracing welcome to others: to strangers, acquaintances, and friends.

When asked to share our inhibitions in offering hospitality, some responded that they felt embarrassed, feared how others would respond to hospitality, even fearing rejection. Some were unsure what to say and feared that questions might be asked that they would not know how to answer. Some are shy and it pushes them outside their comfort zones. There was also fear of further involvement.

These fears and inhibitions can be overcome by practicing hospitality, knowing that it will get easier. Also, by practicing hospitality together with another person, perhaps someone who already has experience and can mentor the other. Also, the knowledge that God chooses to use us. It is God working through us to touch the life of another. Also helpful is recalling how the church is a gift to us, a gift that we want others to experience.

In our closing session, the Scriptures revealed that it was in seeing and hearing Jesus that people responded to him. Others may have invited, but it wasn’t up to them to convince; it was Jesus who impacted them.

We have some further discussion at the end of the 15-week study, but we closed with the admonition to “Be the Change.” Let radical hospitality start with me and with the 20 who gathered together in discussion. That’s how a culture of a group begins to change … with one person being willing to “Be the Change.”

So here we go … Be intentional to being invitational, be committed to developing relationships with others, and let’s hold each other accountable to living out Radical Hospitality!

I have always thought that worship is something difficult to describe. We can come to worship at a weekend service but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have worshiped. Worship cannot be done for us. We don’t attend a worship service and passively watch others worship. We all are participants in worship. We all are invited to sing praises, to pray prayers, to offer our attention to God and open our hearts to God.

At it’s heart, worship is an encounter with God. We offer our worship to God and he inhabits the praises of his people. He graces us with his presence. When we get a glimpse of who God is, we do not remain unchanged. In worship, we are transformed.

Questions for Reflection and Comment

Share a time you have sensed God’s presence in worship. What was it like? Where were you? What were you doing? How did you respond? How were you changed?

How do you prepare for the worship service? Do you worship at other times during the week (“Private worship reinforces public worship.” Five Practices, 49). Do you come expecting to encounter God? Do you pray for those who lead in worship?

Schnase defines Christian hospitality as “the active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ.”

It is active: that means we have to do something! It is offered to strangers, those we don’t know, those who may look different from you. Hospitality breaks down cultural barriers and nurtures a sense of equality. Hospitality in inviting, welcoming, receiving and caring: sees a need and meets it, is generous, going the extra mile, goes beyond a simple “Hello” to making someone feel at home. Lastly, we have found a “home” at West Side. We have found love and acceptance and freedom in Jesus Christ. We now offer that same gift to others.

Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God (Romans 15.7).

Questions for reflection and comment.

1. What do you love about West Side? Why have you chosen to make it your spiritual home? If you were not “born into” the congregation, what was it like the very first time you attended?
2. Have you ever invited someone who is not a part of a congregation to a service, ministry, or activity of West Side? If so, how did it feel? If not, what has restrained you?
3. What are two or three behaviors that each of us at West Side could practice that would shape the culture of our congregation toward a hospitality that exceeds expectations?

The theme this Lent at West Side UMC is based on Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations: Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-Taking Mission and Service, Extravagant Generosity.

The purpose of this study is to move toward greater fruitfulness for the glory of God. Schnase points out these five practices “are rooted in the formation of the church in the second chapter of Acts and in the reforming of the church in the days of John and Charles Wesley.” May this be a time of “focused reflection and learning” … leading “to greater clarity and commitment to the ministry of Christ.”

We are using Schnase’s daily devotional, Cultivating Fruitfulness, for personal devotion and Thursday morning devotion. And we are doing a 3-week study of each of the five practices on Sunday evenings, February 21 through June 6. It was suggested that we provide an online forum for discussion of each of the five practices during Lent, so this will provide a place to do that.

Each of the next five weeks, I will give a summary of the practice, offer some discussion questions, and you may post responses to the questions. You may also post helpful, supportive comments in response to others, generating a healthy online discussion. I will monitor and join in the conversation as well. The first summary on Radical Hospitality will appear shortly.

By the way, if you missed the Sunday sermon, you may also read it here.

A year ago, Centre Grove’s church council began reading Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. I’m blogging the journey and have written several posts tagged Five Practices.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about our experience with the Five Practices, partly because we’ve been slowly making our way through Intentional Faith Development (the second practice we’re tackling). Last June, I wrote Intentional Faith Development 1.0 and Intentional Faith Development 2.0.

Sunday school is an ongoing part of our discipleship process, but we added a few small groups last fall and they’ll continue into the new year. We’re taking another big step this year in the development of some sort of short-term class structure, perhaps something like Saddleback’s C.L.A.S.S. system involving four levels of classes, 101, 201, 301, and 401, designed to help people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus. Of course, we’ll need to adapt the material for our context.

It will take some time to get all the (short-term) classes, which will be offered periodically, going, but we’ll start with Class 101 and add the others as we feel we’re ready to do so. We don’t know what kind of response we’ll get to the new discipleship opportunities, but we expect them to be an important part of our discipleship process moving forward. In fact, Class 101 will be a required class for new members. That way, we expect to get new members started off on the right foot.

While we’ve reached the point of developing this new structure for intentional faith development, we are moving on to the next practice. So far, our reading and discussion of the Five Practices has brought about some new, important developments. I continue to look forward to what new developments await as we move on to Passionate Worship, Risk-Taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity. Passionate Worship is up next.

Last week, Bishop Robert Schnase (Bishop in Residence of the Missouri Area of The United Methodist Church) came to teach on the Five Practices in our conference.

Since we’re working our way through the Five Practices at Centre Grove, the event was partly review for me, but it was also good to hear Bishop Schnase teach on the practices live and in person.

Bishop Schnase divided the day into three sections: (1) discussion of the five practices, (2) congregational systems, and (3) personal systems.

Bishop Schnase began with a summary/overview of the practices, then discussed how systems within the church are conducive (or not) to fruitfulness. The day concluded with a discussion on individual responsibility, from leaders modeling the practices to the members living as authentic followers of Jesus in the world.

I won’t say much about the summary/overview since I’m blogging the five practices elsewhere, but here are a few statements (which may or may not be exact quotes) that especially challenged me:

Mission happens at the margin. Where does my life intersect with people at the margins?

Imagine if one-fourth of your congregation had a spiritual conversation once a month. We can’t make those conversations happen; we just have to be receptive. When we become attentive to God’s calling (what God wants us to do), doors open.

Doing these things doesn’t guarantee that growth will happen, but it won’t happen without them!

Good stuff. Bishop Schnase noted that the Five Practices are not a church growth strategy. Rather, it’s about living out our theology. It’s who we’re called to become.

Centre Grove began discussing the Five Practices in January 2009, and it’ll probably take us most of 2010 to get through all the practices. In 2010, I plan to devote an entire sermon series to the Five Practices. By then, a lot of the practices will actually already be in place or well under way, and the series will (hopefully) help to shape the spiritual/missional DNA of the congregation.

In my last post, I blogged reflections from Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations by Bishop Robert Schnase. In this post, I’ll share some practical ideas that are coming out of Centre Grove church council’s discussion of the reading.

Earlier this week, we talked about what we’re currently doing in the area of faith development (including Sunday school, occasional short-term studies, etc.), but we spent most of our time dreaming about what intentional faith development might look like for us. Specifically, we responded to the group activity that Bishop Schnase suggests in the book to …

outline a year’s worth of learning opportunities that you would like to attend if they were offered (78).

At first, several specific studies were named (e.g., the case for creation, etc.) but we also spent a good bit of time talking about various kinds of small groups and how we might get people involved in them.

The next day, three of us met together and we came up with a plan to help us be more intentional about faith development. In September, we are going to invite people to participate in The Essential 100 Challenge, which is a Bible reading program built around 100 selected passages of Scripture divided equally between the Old and New Testaments.

Along with the Bible reading program, we’re going to encourage people to participate in small groups (at church or in individual homes) beginning with ten weeks in the fall, which will take us through the Old Testament readings. In January, people will have the opportunity to continue in groups for the New Testament readings.

We have a few goals with this program: (1) to help people read the Bible consistently, (2) to give people a good overview of the Bible, and (3) to get people involved in small groups.

It’s a start. In our next discussion, we’ll talk about ways we can effectively cast the vision for this new ministry, as well as other ways we might practice intentional faith development beyond the next few months.

Centre Grove’s council has been reading, discussing, and acting on Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. So far, we have completed discussion of one of the practices (Radical Hospitality) and we recently started on a second (Intentional Faith Development).

In this chapter, Bishop Schnase stresses the importance of learning together in community. He writes …

Churches that practice Intentional Faith Development offer high quality learning experiences that help people understand Scripture, faith, and life in the supportive nurture of caring relationships (62).

Among the benefits of learning in community, Bishop Schnase suggests that …

Learning in community helps people explore possibilities that God may have for them that they never would have considered on their own (63).

Bishop Schnase notes that “Growing in Christ-likeness is the goal and end of the life of faith … This growth in Christ spans a lifetime” (64). Further, “The Christian faith is not static but dynamic. It requires cultivation” (64). I love the word cultivation. It’s a great way to understand the discipleship process Christ-followers engage in throughout their lives.

I like how Bishop Schnase describes Bible study. It reminds me of what I blogged recently in Eat This Book. Schnase writes …

Bible study is not just about self-improvement but about setting ourselves where God can shape us, intentionally opening ourselves to God’s Word and God’s call (65).

Bishop Schnase also challenges and reminds church leaders to personally engage in Bible study. It’s easy for church leaders to neglect their own personal spiritual growth by spending all their time in the Scriptures preparing sermons or Bible studies for others. Bishop Schnase writes …

Bible study changes churches. When church leaders take their own spiritual growth seiously and immerse themselves in the study of Scripture, in prayer, and fellowship, they understand the purpose of the church and the point of ministry differently (73).

Church leaders must be growing themselves in order to be effective in leading others. Bishop Schnase asks …

How can church leaders make good faith decisions for the congregation without proper grounding in the faith? (73).

Bishop Schnase closes the chapter on Intentional Faith Development reminding the reader that spiritual transformation is ultimately God’s work. Schnase writes …

No matter how dedicated our efforts, the transformation of human hearts and minds is God’s work through the Holy Spirit, and intentionally learning in community is our way of placing ourselves in the hands of God so that God can sculpt our souls and recreate us in the image of Christ (78).

The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, and if we’re going to be faithful to God’s call, we must be intentional about developing faith in people.

In the next post in this series, I’ll blog some of the practical ideas Centre Grove is considering as we engage the concept of Intentional Faith Development.

While our conversation on Radical Hospitality is mostly behind us (Centre Grove church council), we’re still working on some of the practical steps (primarily adding directional signs, which have been completed, and revamping our welcoming ministry of ushers and greeters).

We’ve named our ministry of ushers and greeters “First Impressions Ministry” (not original with us). The goal of this ministry is, “Creating an environment where people experience God’s love!”

We are in the process of training our ushers and greeters (we asked ushers and greeters to attend one of three different sessions, with the last coming up this week).

First, we’re sharing with them why we’re revamping this ministry, specifically our discussion of Radical Hospitality. We walked through the following quote from Bishop Schnase’s book, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations …

Christian hospitality refers to the active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ. It describes a genuine love for others who are not yet part of the faith community, an outward focus, a reaching out to those not yet known, a love that motivates church members to openness and adaptability, a willingness to change behaviors in order to accommodate the needs and receive the talents of newcomers.

We also try to give a sense of the need to be welcoming of all people. I think the following (slightly adapted) from Serving as a Church Greeter, by Leslie Parrott, is helpful in communicating who we need to be kind toward …

• Kindness to new people who feel strange and don’t know their way around
• Kindness to the elderly who increasingly feel alone
• Kindness to the children who are outside their comfort zone
• Kindness to mothers and fathers with babies in their arms and toddlers at their sides
• Kindness to people who show up regularly at the same time at the same door every week
• Kindness to people who have physical challenges
• Kindness toward the pastor and staff, who sometimes need an advocate at the door
• Kindness to people who don’t think they need it

After casting the vision for the First Impressions Ministry, we get into the practical details, which are really pretty simple, I think.

The Greeters serve outside the worship space (in our case, at the two entrances to the sanctuary and entrance from the parking lot). The Ushers serve inside the worship space seating newcomers and receiving the offering. We are asking them to …

• Arrive early
• Smile and be friendly
• Introduce themselves and introduce newcomer to someone else
• Be helpful (know location of restrooms, nursery, entrances/exits, specials needs, etc.)
• Distribute welcome cards
• Show people to their seats (Ushers)
• Receive offering (Ushers)

We believe the development of our First Impressions Ministry will help us practice a more radical hospitality toward all people!