“Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established.” ~ Proverbs 16:3
January 2020
Dear BridgeWay friends and family,
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’m not a big resolution-maker (because they’re usually birthed out of guilt and sustained by my will-power, both losing propositions). But I do love to plan.
God’s a big planner. “I know the plans I have for you,” the Lord said to Israel (Jer.29:11), and it’s no stretch to believe that the One who knows the very number of the hairs on our heads has plans for you and me as well. Jesus was sent “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). Why, the Lord even plans out in advance good works for us to do, which is mind-blowing (Eph.2:10).
With that in mind, after enjoying a season of rest and celebration, I think it’s time to roll up our sleeves and have some fun. With the new year’s arrival, I wanted to share with you some thoughts on where I believe we could focus our work in the first few months of 2020.
Here are nine objectives that I’ve put on my radar to share with you.
1. Make Sure We’re “Sunday Strong”
Because we’re a mobile church without our own building, we don’t have the luxury of creating multiple connecting points with our community throughout the week. Sunday is our day to shine, so we need to make absolutely sure that we’re putting our best foot forward, especially if our hope is to grow. On a practical level this means a few things:
a. Ensuring that we have a growing pool of trained ushers and greeters staffing our service coordination ministries. This will include…
b. …establishing an attractive Connect Center with a dedicated volunteer, stocked with church materials, information brochures, welcome gifts, sign-up sheets, etc.
c. Preparing the worship service to run more smoothly and seamlessly. Too many starts and stops feels clunky, and can make it challenging to focus on God’s presence.
d. Leave margin at the end of the service for people to enjoy fellowship, make friends and minister to each other through prayer or counsel.
2. Stabilize Our Church Governance
In the past year, BridgeWay has laid the foundation for a new understanding of church governance known as “Policy Governance” (in the California circles I traveled in, it was referred to as an “Accountability Leadership Model”.) The PG model doesn’t tell churches how to structure themselves (it works equally well in a variety of structures – elder-led, congregational, presbyterian, etc.) Instead, it provides a roadmap for how churches should run themselves.
When a church is operating as it should, the pastor should lead, the church board/elders should govern (not by micro-managing church operations but largely by creating accountability policies for the pastor), and the church members should be empowered to serve in ministry.
Too many churches however get these out of balance. There are churches where the pastor runs rough-shod over everyone with no accountability. There are churches where the board has their nose in everything, and the pastor is hamstrung at every turn. There are churches where the members aren’t trained or released to use any of their gifts. The PG model helps put these things back in balance.
But this way of governing is new to us. We’ve drafted solid policy documents to guide us (and we encourage you to become acquainted with them). But we’re literally just taking Policy Governance out of drydock as we speak. So in 2020, here are some things that we’ll be working on:
a. I’ll be leading a workshop on the PG model on January 25th from 9:00 to 12:30. Originally, this was planned as a training event for out LT (Leadership Team), but we’ve recently realized that this material needs to be shared with anyone who’s interested. The workshop is built off a book called Winning On Purpose: How To Organize Congregations To Succeed In Their Mission by John Kaiser. We encourage you to get a copy of this book. If you’ve been involved/are involved/aspire to be involved in leadership, we welcome you to attend.
b. We will be rewriting our ByLaws, to align them with recommendations offered last year by the Metanoia report. We want to make sure that there is nothing about our governance that is hindering our mission.
c. The church lacks a thorough and functional Operations Manual. Without an OM, it is difficult to recruit and train volunteers. In 2020 we will draft current job descriptions for every ministry and volunteer position in the church.
3. Train and Expand Small Groups
Our Life Group ministry is extraordinary. If the attendance figures I’m seeing on paper are accurate, we have well over 50% involvement in our weekly small groups. I have no doubt that one of the reasons the church emerged stronger from its recent challenges is because of this. It’s been said that healthy churches always grow larger – and smaller – at the same time. How do we continue to shore up this vibrant ministry?
a. We’ll provide quarterly training and vision-casting, beginning in January, for all our Life group facilitators and hosts. I heard it said multiple times these past couple of months how much this would be appreciated.
b. We’ll develop a plan to birth additional groups by training more leaders. Already, we have enough new regular attenders to form a new group or two.
4. Create Membership Pathways For Assimilation
“Assimilation” is probably a bit too Star-Trekky, but the idea is to make it as simple as possible for a person to move from being a visitor to a regular attender to what I call a “FULL Member”, a growing, contributing disciple. Right now, our process is fuzzy at best. So in the first quarter of 2020 we’ll address this by…
a. Hosting periodic fun events to bring our newer visitors together with our staff. Call it a “Pizza With The Pastor” or “Racquetball With The Rev” (maybe not the last one.)
b. Using our Life Groups and Ministry Teams to create simple friendship-making opportunities. We called them “Soup & Salad” lunches in my other churches. Each Sunday after church, one of our small groups or ministries hosted a simple one-hour lunch in somebody’s home, which visitors were invited to share in.
c. Create a new membership seminar or class as a training portal for those who want to become an active part of the church.
5. Provide Training And Streamlining For Our Ministry Teams
BridgeWay offers multiple ministry and fellowship programs. It’s impressive for a group that has around 100 adults. Maybe too impressive, if I can put it delicately. I watched “Fellowship of the Ring” recently, and Bilbo’s line of “Being stretched thin, like butter over too much bread” might describe us. I believe we need to simplify some of what we do, even set some things aside for a season. Sometimes doing what’s good can get in the way of focusing on what’s best.
a. Our Missions ministry might be a good example of this. BridgeWay faithfully reserves 10% of its budget for “missions” activities, but these activities need better definition, direction and communication. I’ll bet few of you can rattle off your tongues the various missions that we support right now. I’m grateful for those who have served in the missions arena in years past. And I’m grateful that there’s a small core emerging even now to help provide leadership in this area.
b. Our caregiving ministry appears to lack substance. BridgeHelps has been a well-intentioned vehicle for distributing care, but its scope is limited. Meals are provided, or sometimes a family that’s moving gets some strong backs to help out. But what is our plan to support the grieving, or reach out to our MIAs (attenders who suddenly stop attending)? I wonder if the church would benefit from the institution of what has traditionally and biblically been called a “diaconate” – men and women who serve in what I call “spiritual watchcare”, ministering to the array of practical needs that are part of life in this broken world.
6. Define Our Current Vision, Mission & Values
Like they say, If we aim at nothing, we’ll hit it. We won’t be able to get anywhere this year if we don’t come to an agreement on what our essential vision is as a church. Between now and Easter (April 12th), our first large-group project as a church is to nail this down.
a. Our first formal teaching series together will be a 10-week series called “Reach, Teach and Unleash – Discovering A Fresh Vision For Our Church.”
b. Our Life Groups will each share in this journey by using the weekly Bible studies we will prepare.
c. My habit will be to provide a “book-of-the-quarter” for the church to read together. From now through April, I’m going to ask that everyone picks up a copy of “The Unstuck Church: Equipping Churches To Experience Sustained Health” by Tony Morgan. I will guide us through this book, and in March we will enjoy at least one training and prayer event built around this book. By the time we are in the heart of spring, my hope is that we will have defined our new guiding statements.
d. Oh, and how could I forget. After a decade, it’s time for BridgeWay to have a new logo for a new decade.
7. Website and Social Media Enhancements
We’ve already seen much improvement in these areas, but we’ve got miles to go before we sleep here. I asked one of our newer families recently what drew them to BridgeWay. They said, “First Google, then we checked out your website.” ‘Nuff said.
8. Communication & Networking
Communication has been almost universally tagged as one of our greatest weaknesses. So we’re going to tackle this head-on.
Through the use of technology – our website, as well as Planning Center (which we urge every regular attender to get acquainted with), social media, and weekly email-newsletters from both the office and myself – we’ll do everything we can to “get the word out”.
As well, we’ll produce a weekly bulletin or handout for Sunday mornings. And in our first full year together, some form of quarterly town meetings will be scheduled.
And you will find me highly accessible. Thursdays and Fridays are times when I usually keep open office-hours. In time, Alyssa will manage my calendar, but as we set up our systems, you can reach out to her or me directly if you need to make an appointment.
I also will begin networking with local pastors, and regional ministries. We learned from our experience with Metanoia that having healthy affiliations with other parts of the Body of Christ helps us be more fruitful.
9. Provide Spiritual Growth Tracks For Every Believer
Scripture calls each follower of Christ to grow in three areas: Christlikeness, Knowledge and Fruitfulness. I consider it part of my training ministry to provide specific tracks for a believer to grow on, no matter how young or old in the faith they are. If your desire is to grow spiritually, then we will help you do it.
a. We’ll provide roadmaps, curriculum and resources to help you grow in each of the three areas.
b. We’ll teach an innovative concept called the “FULL Member” concept which will help any believer who wishes, to learn how to discover, develop and deploy their unique spiritual giftings and “SHAPE”, within the context of church life.
That should be enough to keep us busy for a week or two!
I invite each of you to read this through a few times, then begin to pray over it regularly. And we’d love to hear from you. Does any of this resonate with you? Are there areas we’ve overlooked here that you believe need attention? (We didn’t specifically mention our Building “FAST” Team, which is an ongoing work. Pray for those on this team, and that God would open doors for us, at the right time and place.)
May the Lord reveal his plans to us, and fulfill his purposes through us.
In Christ,
Pastor Bear