Click a Title to Hear a Bit Of Wisdom

Posted in Buildings and Property, Church Decline, Church Growth & Vitality, External Relations, Healing / Grief Work, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Mission and Vision Tagged with

15 min 33 s

Rev. Dr. Todd Grant Yonkman

  • An inspiring story of a church that sold its building and joined the community;
  • Shift from, “The church is falling apart,” to, “The church is falling open;”
  • Wisdom about the twists and turns of a building sale;
  • The shift from a downsizing to a restart;
  • Selling a building is highly context dependent;
  • Renovating the building without reconnecting with the community is futile;
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Posted in Assessments and Evaluations, Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, External Relations, Legal, Mission and Vision, Social Justice Tagged with

12 min 33 s

Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

  • Book of Acts reminds us that the first congregations shared space;
  • Many New England churches originally called themselves “meeting houses” – places for all kinds of meetings, not just Sunday worship;
  • Assessing the many ways your congregation adds value to your community;
  • “Partners for Sacred Places” can help your church think creatively about uses for your building;
  • Over the centuries, churches have functioned as patrons of the arts;
  • Integrating social justice in multi-purposing your space;
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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Church Growth & Vitality, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, External Relations, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Managing Expectations, Self-Care Tagged with

10 min 59 s

Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

  • Is the church over?
  • Is this great experiment that was started by Jesus – this experiment that the Holy Spirit exploded on Pentecost – is it really over?
  • Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question….
  • If our role isn’t to preserve the Church, what is it?
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Posted in Change Management, Church Growth & Vitality, Conflict Management, Healing / Grief Work, Leadership Development, Pastoral Care, Self-Care Tagged with

10 min 50 s

Rev. Pegi Ridout

  • The difficulty with conflict isn’t that we have it, it’s that we don’t know how to do it well.
  • How do we treat conflict as gift? How do we get there?
  • Respectful communication guidelines developed by Eric Law at the Kaleidoscope Institute
  • trust, respect, listen, then speak.
  • Conflict skills/muscles are built through practice;
  • Pegi’s 3 types of practice for building our conflict muscles;
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Posted in Boundaries, Church Growth & Vitality, Conflict Management, Healing / Grief Work, Leadership Development, Pastoral Care, Self-Care Tagged with

11 min 59 s

Rev. Pegi Ridout

  • Why understanding and managing bullying behavior effectively is so critical to the health of a congregation;
  • Pegi’s 3 types of church bullies (Canaries, Porcupines, Skunks)
  • Strategies for dealing with each type of bully;
  • Some bullies have an important message for the congregation;
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Posted in Church Growth & Vitality, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Faith Formation, Is Interim Ministry for Me?, Mission and Vision, Preaching, Spiritual Formation, Worship Tagged with

11 min 26 s

Rev. Holly MillerShank

  • Prayerful and playful!
  • What to do if a playful style doesn’t come naturally to you?
  • How a posture of giving permission can unlock new possibilities for a congregation;
  • Tips for getting out of our heads and into our hearts in our role as interim minister;
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Posted in Boundaries, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Governance, Leadership Development, Managing Expectations, Staff, Team Building Tagged with

10 min 19 s

Rev. Holly MillerShank

  • Some routine things the interim minister can do to create containers for the challenging staff conversations that will likely come;
  • The plusses and minuses of having a staff person report to a committee versus reporting to an individual person;
  • Recommended staff practices to put in place as the Interim;
  • Some difficult conversations that interims need to have with staff;
  • Tips for teambuilding among the staff;
  • Creating accountability relationships with staff;
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Posted in Boundaries, Conflict Management, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Governance, Managing Expectations, Pastoral Care, Staff Tagged with

12 min 51 s

Rev. Holly MillerShank

  • How to have good conversations around boundaries with staff who are also members of the congregation;
  • Navigating the tension between the need for job performance by staff and the need for compassionate pastoral care to them;
  • What obligation – or responsibility – do interim ministers have to initiate those difficult conversations with staff?
  • What options do we have as the interim, when a staff member, who is also a congregation member, is no longer able to perform their staff duties?
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Posted in Church Growth & Vitality, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Leadership Development, Preaching, Worship Tagged with

13 min 23s

Rev. Quentin Chin

  • Bringing 1 Corinthians 12 to life;
  • How clergy and congregation can make space for each other to shine!;
  • Collaborative ministry requires clergy and congregation to share with each other their respective strengths and weaker areas – especially important for part-time pastorates;
  • Some of the things I’m doing to prepare the congregation for a potentially indefinite period of part-time pastorates;
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Posted in Managing Expectations, Pastoral Care, Self-Care Tagged with

12 min 27 s

Rev. Arlen Vernava

The 3 components of Body Budget: adequate sleep, nutritious food, exercise;

What to do when your Body Budget is in deficit, but don’t have time to attend to it;

How to advance the work of the church when Body Budget is in deficit;

Body Budget applies at the congregational level too;

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