There are several things I want to accomplish in my first 100 days as your pastor. One of the most important is to clarify our expectations. If you ask 1000 Baptists what they expect their pastor to accomplish you'll get about 1500 different answers (some Baptist are a little schizophrenic). Add to that the human tendency to change our minds ... and the end result is alot of moving targets. I'm pretty good at hitting targets. I think I hit them about 90% of the time. But when the targets start moving my accuracy plummets to 40% or less. Put 1000 moving targets in front of me and I go a little insane. Believe me ... you don't want an insane man preaching to you every Sunday (I've heard a few of them on TV and it's not pretty).Hitting 40% of the targets may be good enough for some endeavors, but it's unacceptable when eternal lives are at stake. I want us to be able to hit the target atleast 90% of the time. In order to do that we need to nail down those targets. By the end of my first 100 days I want us to be clear on what targets (goals, initiatives, and expectations) we are going to hit in my first two years at FBC Richardson. I have a very specific method for discerning what those should be. I'll be sharing more about that over the next few weeks ... so keep in touch.
Until then ... reflect on these two questions:
1. What one thing would you want to preserve about FBC Richardson?
2. What one thing would you want to change about FBC Richardson?
You can answer in the comment section of this blog ... or, if you prefer privacy, you can email me your answers. Just click on the CONTACT button on the menu bar above for my email address.
Ask God to give you a heart that daily turns to Him and is able to discern the moving of His Spirit. Ask God to cover you with his Spirit of love and give you a hunger to be a part of what HE is doing in HIS Church.
Blessings,
Pastor Ellis
Wow, this is definitely going to be an interesting discussion. I would love to give my opinion, and look forward to hearing that of everyone else's: One your first question: What would I love to preserve? God has blessed this church richly. I would love to take the sense of family that we have and work on that. Where our hearts are united towards the work Christ has for us, it will be difficult to fail. I love this place, am embraced by the membership and feel loved in return. Aboce all this needs to continue to be a place where the Gospel is preached. Always. May we always be in his Word, always be about his work, and always caring for His people. I love our heart for missions. I have travelled to Kenya and to Latvia with this church and love our dedication to support these ministries.
ReplyDelete2. What would I want to change? Well, that is indeed a tricky question. I am either blessed or cursed that I do not mind speaking my mind. Maybe the folly of youth. I am a 29 Yr old, single Deacon at our church. My age group is not a large one in our church. I teach a class of about 7 20-somethings and have been for a few years. God has given me a heart for my age group, and have many thoughts on ways we can more effectively reach our community, which is actually pretty stinking young. We are minutes away from UTD and the Village area where hundreds of young people live. Above all I would like to see us focus on the Gospel, not on tradition. To be culturally relevant does not mean we have to abandon who we are. We need to be careful that we have not created a sub-culture or "country club" where only people like us are welcome. I pray that we continually seek God's will and embrace his power to be eternal: relevant just as much in 2009 as He was before creation. I look forward to working with you Pastor Ellis, I hope we can have many constructive conversations in the future. I am excited about what God is doing at FBCR!
Not many responses on the blog - hope you are getting more privately through email - but I'll be brave and put something on display.
ReplyDeleteI want to keep (and expand) our committement to Galatians 3:28 and the encouragement of EVERYONE regardless of gender or background or age or status to follow the call of God on their lives. I want to continue to see our daughters and sons encouraged to see visions and dream dreams about who God is calling them to be.
And I'm going to cheat and add one more thing I want to keep - and that is the committment to excellence in music. We have great talent in our choir, orchestra, music leaders for all ages, ensemble groups and praise teams. I don't want to lose any of that.
The thing I would most like to see happen for FBCR is to develop our individual and collective ability to be still and know before we get busy and move. We know how to DO really well. I think we could work on learning how to BE. And in practicing the presence of Christ in our individual and collective lives, we would learn to see ourselves, and as an outflow to see others, with the eyes of Jesus that overflow with compassion and love for everyone - even and especially those on the margins.
Carlos and Renae are right about things we do well. I haven't had time to put a whole lot of thought into a reply but I'll give it a try.
ReplyDeleteOur Children's ministry does an excellent job of providing safe and fun activities for kids year round. Of the ones I've been involved in I particularly love Camp GAP and Upward Basketball. These provide kids with opportunities to learn Biblical truth, make new friends and experience new things.
One thing we could change would be to have better "family" fellowship, that is, fellowship that crosses the boundaries of our normally segregated Sunday morning cliques. Several weeks ago we had an awesome church-wide "family dinner" and I met several people at my table who I didn't know previously. Getting different groups to agree on a joint event is extremely difficult as I'm sure Fred Carriker will attest having organized that dinner, but the experience was extraordinary. As a church body we have different kinds of people with different strengths and we often organize ourselves by putting people with other similar people; sometimes leadership has to shake the ant farm up and force us to make new connections with those who are older, younger, more or less married, like different music, etc.
First I want to thank you for sharing what God is placing on your heart through this blog. I LOVE reading it. These questions have really made me think and here are my initial thoughts...
ReplyDeleteWhat to preserve- Sense of family. From the very first moment I walked into our church over ten years ago I have felt loved and secure. I have served with so many different people over the years and I truly feel like on Sunday mornings or anytime that I am with members of the church I am with family. These are people that I laugh with, cry with, live life with, and show me what the love of Christ is all about.
This I would change... This one is tricky for me. I would love for there to be more young families and young adults (20 & 30 somethings), but I would really love is for our church to reach our community is a relivent and authentic way. That we would be a place that understands GRACE and show it in everything that we do. That we would be a church that not only reaches out, but challenges and spurs on its members to be completely in love with Christ and to live a life that reflects that.
Let's preserve Acts 1:8 dependence and call, and commit anew to Matt. 28:19,20...'to make disciples', with Luke 15:1-7 as our/His passion and strategy. -GLO
ReplyDelete