The Church I Pastor: Changes

I'm starting a series of posts about the church I pastor.  We are entering a transition period and I thought it might be helpful to talk about what we are doing and why in the hope that it will encourage us all to be better church leaders or members.

During January and February I preached a series of sermons to prod our people to think about our church direction, what we do well and what we don't.  Then at the end of February I preached two sermons on "A 2 Year Plan."  I chose 2 years because it's longer than one, and one passes by very quick.  My 2 year plan included five points.  I've tweaked one of those, but the general direction the point stayed the same.  Here are the five changes in a more final form.  All have been adopted by the church in a vote a couple of weeks ago except #3, which we are researching first before something more official. 

1. Documents: We are rewriting our constitution by adding a plurality of elders and a biblical view of deacons.  Rather than adding those things to our current constitution we are rewriting the whole thing because other aspects must be changed.  We will also probably change our doctrinal statement and our church covenant.  All documents are on the table at this point.

2. Name: Our name is Calvary Baptist Church, but that is going to change.  We are choosing a new name.  "Baptist" stereotypes are common in Northern Illinois, and several of our church members have found resistance from friends when invited to Calvary.  I explained to the church that we need to put as little in the way of people knowing Christ as possible.  I also explained that we are in no way ashamed to be Baptist, but that we want to be known for the gospel first and foremost.

3. Property: We own property, a church building, and a parsonage.  It's an understatement to say they aren't serving us well for a variety of reasons.  So we have started researching the possibility of selling the property and using the resources to kick-start us in our new direction.

4. Networking: As a Southern Baptist church we have connections with state and local associations.  But as a church looking for broader association (beyond denominational links) we are eager to connect with churches and networks who are founded upon the gospel and the mission.  So we are pursuing connections with other networks, or will form some of our own.

5. Evangelism: While there are several new public "square" ministries we are working on, a key one is a new series of talks I'm hoping to begin in our county.  Woodstock is in the center of McHenry County here in the distant Chicago suburbs.  We are 9-12 miles from six main cities in our county, and they are arranged in a somewhat hexagonal shape around us.  Since we are already reaching folks in the surrounding cities in our county we have changed from thinking of ourselves as merely a Woodstock church to a McHenry County church.  I haven't found helpful terminology out there to describe our approach.  In the cities you can be a church for the city though located in one area, but here it's not that simple.  Lord-willing, we will start new churches/campuses in these other county cities in the years to come.

I said all that to say that I'm bolstering this county/region approach with an evangelistic effort.  It will be an evangelistic circuit of talks by me, for lack of a better description.  It's similar to a monthly Theology Pub, but it will probably be quarterly, more directly evangelistic, and in a variety of locations in our county.  I have more to say about this in a future post.

Those are the five points that describe a new vision and approach for our church.  Essentially I'm leading my church to reform and reposition itself as a church restart.  May God show His power and love through us to the world.

Future posts will include more stuff on evangelism, discipleship, church leadership, and my tweaks to Joe Thorn's "The Table, the Pulpit and the Square."  After he initially founded the paradigm I sat down with him and added my thoughts and asked some questions.  He was gracious enough to let me barge in on his very good idea, but I think together we made it better.  I'll share my version that includes a few tweaks, which I call "The Missional Triad," very soon.  I started preaching through it last Sunday.

Comments

[Tim Etherington]

This is really exciting! I have great confidence in Jesus and in Calvary. He'll lead you well.

[Bill Streger]

Steve, this post was a great encouragement. I am praying for God to do great things in and through your church family in the coming days.

[Matt P.]

Steve, this sounds great... I promise to pray for you and your church as you guys are going through this... I mean that seriously - not in that lip service sort of way.

All of this sounds really positive. It sounds like there may be some major obstacles but it sounds like moves in a great direction.

[Burly]

When you say "campus" are you referring to the potential for a video venue?

[Steve McCoy]

No, Burly. I have friends and people I know and really like who use them, but they just don't make sense to me. I do appreciate Keller's approach, though, where he travels from one place to another and preaches.

[Reid]

Excited for you guys Steve - prayed tonight for your focus in leading this transition. Sounds great - worth your life. Blessings man.

[scott hodge]

Steve - love hearing all the steps you guys are taking! Can't wait to watch and cheer the journey ahead.

[Randy]

You mention elders and deacons. What are the main differences you see between the two?

[Bobby Gilles]

I'm very interested in reading about the Missional Triad. I thought "the table, the pulpit and the square" was a strong approach, so I'm sure the two of you came up with some cool tweaks.

[Burly]

I was just curious as to whether you'd changed opionions on the video venues. I'm with you on the video venues and "The Keller" style. I also like it that Redeemer has put two new regular preaching pastors out there. I think they realize that nobody is "The Keller" and (please don't weep on your keyboard - the next thing I'm going to write may throw you into a tailspin - it might for me, too) "The Keller" is probably going to die someday unless he's Enoch or Elijah. I understand the pragmatic logic behind them. I was a little confused by the fact that Matt Chandler is doing them now. He gave a talk on how "bigness" is destroying the church at The Resurgence, and then moved to video venues - which *seems* to *me* to be part of the "bigness" problem. I suppose it's easy for me to criticize from my cubicle. Man I love these tan walls around me. Better go fill out my TPA reports. I got a memo about them yesterday ...

[Chris Hubbs]

Steve, blessings on you and your leadership as you work through these changes. We did a similar thing at our Baptist church a few years ago, moving to an elder/deacon structure and taking the word "Baptist" out of the name. It was not without its difficulties, but the end result has been quite positive. I look forward to hearing how it goes!

[Charles]

Let's see what do you call a county wide approach to ministry? Hmmm... how about a "parish"!

Here's a document I love to refer to ... it recalibrates my vision to be wider than it would otherwise be.

Of course we have to prioritize according to the resources God has given, but I still like to refer to this mission statement frequently. Maybe you will too..

http://www.christianmissionarysociety.org/philosophy.php

Other than reading it, I'm not connected with the group.

[Steve McCoy]

Charles, I had that thought. It's a similar idea, and I used the circuit rider as an example of our approach. But I see "parish" (and I think others do as well) as a word that means something like "Don't come into my area to start your church. It's my territory." It has some negative baggage. I'm looking for fresh language that seems less territorial and more missional.

[Steve McCoy]

Thanks to all for the encouragement and prayers. They are a blessing more than you know.

[Ted]

Wow! Sounds great, Steve. Every success.

[Joe Thorn]

Awesome to see this on your b log finally. You know we're praying for you and are excited about what God is doing up there.

So, when is the poll going up? You know, you talked about having a contest that would allow your readers to determine the church's new name. I know you were thinking of "First Baptist Bible Tabernacle of Christ the Solid Rock Community Church." But "studies have shown" that people are drawn to churches named after a tree and a body of water. I vote for that.

[Ron]

I am excited to hear about these changes and vision expansion. I read your blog daily and am praying for you over here in Rockford.

[stew]

way to go, Steve...

any idea that starts with the phrase "5 Points of" must be good...

[Rae Whitlock]

Looking forward to reading more about it, Steve!

[Ray Short]

Steve - I'm a long time reader (lurker) but this is my first time to comment.

I'm currently serving in western europe with the IMB and just wanted to say thank you. Your blog is an encouragement to me and this particular post is one of the reasons. I'm impressed that you're willing to push for change, and not just for change sake. As a young leader I see you as one of the guys that gets it...whatever "it" may be.

I'm particularly interested in point #4 - Networking. This is something I would be interested in hearing more about.

Anyway, before I begin to ramble, let me just say that I'll be praying for your 2 year plan and I look forward to reading more about it as it plays out.

-shorty

[Steve McCoy]

Thanks Ray. Great to have you as a reader, and God's blessing on your work in Western Europe.

The networking has to do with a few different levels. One is the local church level. We need to build relationships with good local churches to partner together for the mission. A second level is to connect with other networks of churches (like Acts 29 or something similar). They offer theological and missional networks that you just can't get denominationally.