Religion is Easy

Lessons of an Immersion-tern: Balance

This is the sixth and final post in a new series on the things I've learned about ministry while interning for Immersion and Justin Wise this summer.

You can view Part 1 (Details) here.
You can view Part 2 (Communication) here.
You can view Part 3 (Haters) here.
You can view Part 4 (Ministry as Job) here.
You can view Part 5 (Boundaries) here.

Ministry is one big balancing act.

All of the previous posts in the series involve some level of balance.
detail (obsession vs. neglect)
communication (overwhelming vs. uninformative)
criticism (overanxious vs ignorance)
vocation (job vs calling) 
boundaries (stingy vs lax)

All of them can tip the scales in the wrong direction. There always needs to be balance. That much is pretty obvious to me. The big question then is how to actually find and create that balance.

There's also the element of balancing ministry with your personal life. Your heart has to be in the right spot. For me, this meant taking work time for a devotional. Or taking work time to meet with a struggling friend. Jesus always comes before "ministry". Now, in my mind, those things were contributing to the ministry. BALANCE.

Questions:

1. How much of a priority do we give our ministry? At what point do we put it above our personal life? Is there a point?
2. How do we know if the scales are tipped in the wrong direction?
3. What happens then when the scales really are tipped?

Lessons of an Immersion-tern: Boundaries

This is the fifth post in a new series on the things I've learned about ministry while interning for Immersion and Justin Wise this summer.

You can view Part 1 (Details) here.
You can view Part 2 (Communication) here.
You can view Part 3 (Haters) here.
You can view Part 4 (Ministry as Job) here.

Stepping outside of personal boundaries always leads to good things.

This has been huge for me. I'm more of an introvert by nature. I'm much more comfortable sitting and reading in a coffee shop than being in a crowd of people hanging out. I'm more of a thinker than a doer. Being in ministry however has forced me to step out and introduce myself and start conversations that I would not have started in the past. And I kid you not, every single one of them was beneficial and life-giving.

I am amazed at how God lives in our risk-taking, even the little ones. Hopefully the little ones will then lead to big ones. 

This is also true of taking on new responsibilities. I would have never thought of myself as being comfortable setting up a camera/webcast when I started the summer. I stepped out of my boundaries, and into the shoes of a techie, and lo and behold, it turned out beautifully. Yes, mistakes were made, but my confidence soared. By the end of the summer, our group of three interns were able to run an entire service when our two staffers were out of town. It was awesome!

Questions:

1. How do you know which responsibilities people can handle and which ones they can't? Is it possible to know? 
2. How do we encourage the average service-goer, and even the leaders for that matter, to step outside their boundaries to create community?
3. What boundaries do you need to step outside?

Lessons of an Immersion-tern: Ministry as Job

This is the third post in a new series on the things I've learned about ministry while interning for Immersion and Justin Wise this summer.

You can view Part 1 (Details) here.
You can view Part 2 (Communication) here.
You can view Part 3 (Haters) here.

It is easy for ministry to become a job.

You can forget that you are working for God's purpose, and instead believe you're working for people, or for a church. Now, this could very well just be my experience. I was generally back working the computers during the service, and at the beginning it was so easy for me to just slip into a check-list mentality. Once the list was done, so was my service. Thankfully I recognized that very quickly, but still had to actually think about the fact that there is a higher purpose in the work that I'm doing.

It was also hard for me to actually be able to absorb and worship God while I was "working" during the service. I had to very intentionally focus on singing, or on listening during the message. It was so easy for me to get caught up on tweeting or moderating the chat room. I noticed that during my internship, I had to attend a different service in order to truly worship and rest in God's presence.

I can imagine this would become an issue for church staffs. It would be hard for me personally to sit in the church building in an office all day. God's work is so much messier than that. Yes, there are always admin things to be done and planning and other stuff. God though is in the real world working. He's not just in the church.

This one is a little shorter, but I'm curious about the response of folks whose vocation is in ministry.

Questions:

1. How does this balance out? Church obviously shouldn't be just about me and my worship experience, but isn't that a necessary part of our spiritual lives?
2. How do you as staffers counteract this? Is this something you've experience? 
3. How do you keep volunteers from experiencing this and getting burnt out?
4. Where is the balance between being in the church building and being out in the world?

Lessons of an Immersion-tern: Haters

This is the third post in a new series on the things I've learned about ministry while interning for Immersion and Justin Wise this summer.

You can view Part 1 (Details) here.
You can view Part 2 (Communication) here.

There will always be haters.

Someone will always complain about something in your ministry, or for that matter any company/organization you work for. And most of the time, they complain without offering solutions. Honestly, this has been probably the most frustrating part of my internship. When you're part of making your ministry/service happen, there's an ownership there, and when others nitpick and only point out the wrong it is very easy to take things personally. Thankfully, I got over that hump rather quickly.

In light of this, I've learned that when offering criticism, I also must offer ideas for solutions, or at least ideas to get on the path towards solution. Criticism without solution is merely empty complaint. Constructive criticism is absolutely essential, I will not try to deny that at all. It's frustrating however when it comes from people who don't understand the inner workings of your ministry. The hard part then is that that ends up being almost anyone you're going to encounter just because of the simple fact that only staff and a few key volunteers will actually know those inner workings.

I think you just have to take things as they come and let people vent a little bit. At the same time, you can't be a 'yes' man and offer empty promises.

Questions:

1. How does your church/ministry deal with the haters?
2. How do you filter constructive vs. unconstructive?
3. What then do you do with the clearly unconstructive? 

What do you think?

Lessons of an Immersion-tern: Communication

This is the second post in a new series on the things I've learned about ministry while interning for Immersion and Justin Wise this summer.

You can view Part 1 (Details) here.

Good communication AND coordination is a MUST.

This cannot be stressed enough. There are obviously a whole host of things that make good communications, but there a few that stood out:

• Simplicity counts. See Kem Meyer. Sometimes (okay, a lot of times), you just need to streamline and reduce all the clutter.
• Find out what works for your audience. Ours is generally young, so must of our communication happens through social networking. In fact, we stopped sending our weekly e-mail update because nobody was actually reading them. 
• Don't overwhelm people. Sending out 50 tweets/status updates/e-mails a day will simply push people farther away. 
• You need good communications both internally within your staff, and externally. I think the internal part often gets forgotten. The entire staff doesn't have to be involved in what's happening, but they should at least know. That's my opinion at least.

Along with these, you must enable and trust volunteers/other staffers to take over communication/coordination roles. Without that element, you'll end up with weekly burdens that are too much to bear. That part also ties into the first post in the series about details.

I also think it is wise to have some kind of weekly/monthly/yearly plan for your communication efforts. For instance, Immersion has Team Leader updates that go out every Monday at about the same time. If that kind of plan can be utilized for almost all communication efforts, it would hugely efficient.

Having said that, I also think that communications can go overboard. There has to be a balance between social media, web stuff, live announcements, etc. It must be kept simple while still being effective. In an ideal world I think it would be great to have one communications person who kind of does everything as their full-time job. Seeing as how that's not always possible (especially with smaller ministries like Immersion), there must then be communication between staffers as to how communication with congregants is done. 

Questions:

1. How do we effectively keep track of all our communication efforts (web, paper, live)?
2. What's the most effective way to communicate between staff members about the overall communication efforts of the ministry?
3. How do we create an overall communications plan that covers everything we do? How then do we stick to that plan and get 1 or 2 people simply focused on that? Is that even possible?

What do you think?

Lessons of an Immersion-tern: Details

This is the first post in a new series on the things I've learned about ministry while interning for Immersion and Justin Wise this summer.

Ministry is full of details.

I had no idea how many details and hours went into making ministry happen on a weekly basis. It's incredible. A small sampling:

• Chairs being set up every week (I didn't do this personally, but it had to be done)
• Having snacks and coffee set out for people (keep in mind the coffee has to be made fresh)
• Bulletins need to be made and printed
• Coordination of volunteers to help with set-up, ushering, serving communion, running sound/computers.
• Setting up camera for the webcast that happens each week. Then running the webcast and making sure it's smooth.
• Pickin up bread and wine for communion. Then cleaning the dishes once you're done.
• Finding the right people to deliver the weeks message and then making sure they do it (Immersion varies speakers quite a bit)
• Tearing all the aformentioned down at the end of the service
• On certain weeks we have hangouts before or after that also need prepartion and tear down. 
• There are plenty more...trust me.

There are a million things that need to get done each week in order for a service to happen. Those details alone can unfortunately end up dictating all of one's time. Some people enjoy doing those things (hopefully your administrative assistant), a lot however do not and are still stuck with them.

It is very clear to me that dedicated volunteers are crucial, as well as finding someone who is detail oriented to be part of your team. I think it also means that details have to potentially be streamlined. It would be easy to spend hours and hours on things like the bulletin or website (especially in smaller ministries where those things are done by the same person). While good, I think we have to keep in mind the ultimate goal of our ministry. I don't think our aim is to have a pretty website or bulletin, but to win people to Jesus and His community. We must strive for excellence in details, but they cannot be allowed to take over.

A few questions:

1. How do we figure out ways to delegate details and leave staff to utilize their strengths?
2. Would this aspect of ministry be easier to manage if our service was more organic in nature?
3. Is this a fruit of the church being institutionalized or is it an inevitable fact? 
4. What is the balance between having an excellently put together service, and focusing on the big picture? Does there have to be a balance? Are they one in the same?

What do you guys think?