I've been having discussions tonight with my co-choir director regarding developing a mission statement for our choir. I wish that we both had read the book "Simple Church" by Thom Rainer & Eric Geiger. I found myself trying to explain the ideas in this book in a few sentences. I thought wow maybe we could just read the book in a small group/Bible study and let everyone discuss it. The central theme of the book is found in this statement on p.67-68
a simple church is designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people thru the stages of spiritual growth. The leadership and the church are clear about the process (clarity) and are committed to executing it. The process flows logically (movement) and is implemented in each area of the church (alignment). The church abandons everything that is not in the process (focus).
So this is what I would like to see happen in our church. We need to develop a plan that is simple and effective. The biggest problem I see in our church is a lack of clarity and direction. We don't know where our focus is so we are all over the place. Instead of focusing on one area and doing it well, we kind of act like a church with ADHD. We go after every little thing that piques our interest but have no follow through with any of them and no narrowing of our focus so we can excel and be effective in one area or the other. I'll use the choir as an example. The choir in my opinion is there to lead the congregation in worship. To open the gates into the courts of God so that God's people can come through to the holy of holies and worship. I have repeated this to them for several years now, always using Psalm 84 as our guiding scripture. The choir has been very effective in that area up until now. We have branched out a little and we either need to redefine what our mission is or separate our groups. Right now part of the choir is consumed with putting together things for the annual pride picnic. This is a good thing to be a part of our larger community but it doesn't really fit with our plan does it? But even if it did here's my problem. We waited too late to get involved. So it will not be a positive experience for those from the church rather it will be stressful. The problem here is not the fault of the church members who wanted our church to be a part of this event but rather a lack of a clear cut plan for our church. A lack of organization from leadership. Leadership of the church has to create boundaries in which the members can work and move. We can't simply leave the church members out there on their own to decide whether or not this is a good event for the church. We must have something from which they can draw upon for guidance. Some boundaries, some clarity as to where our church is going and how we are going to get there. If we had this plan or theses boundaries then we wouldn't have church members all over the place trying to make the church be a part of this or that and not being effective when we do half-way participate. So what do we do? How do we handle such situations as the one that currently taking place in the church or rather in the smaller group of the church, the choir? The only answer I see for this situation is to follow through with what we said we would do. Then I think we can use this situation to build upon and change the way we do these things. I would like to see a clear cut pathway to those who can make these decisions and support the people involved. They didn't know where to go or who to ask for support so they came to the choir as a whole on one of our Wednesday night free for all chats. So I have ideas for restructuring the church so that leadership is available and involved with the congregation but at the moment the only platform I have is the choir so I thought I should start there. We can change how we do things. We can develop our own plan based upon a wider plan that fits our church. Maybe we should read the book together and discuss these things and see what we can come up with.
sherri
