Ministry in Hard Times

Writing a blog on stewardship has been a passion of mine for the last number of years; yet time and other distractions seemed to prevent this from coming to fruition. Of course it is God's timing and not mine. With the launch of a stewardship blog by the United Methodist Foundation of Western North Carolina,  the opportunity to continue my stewardship ministry through blogging has presented itself. With the latest release of new stewardship publications during these tough economic times, I thought I would select a few of these new books and blog. 

I chose to blog about Bill Easum's and Bill Tenny-Brittian's new book Ministry in Hard Times. 
What caught my eye and influenced my reading of this book was the the statement on the first page of Chapter One, "Wildcards are major events that come out of nowhere, totally unforeseen by the common person, and change everything." Generally I don't use the term "wildcard" to describe major events. I'm all about wildcards in football and playing card games where the value of the wildcard is determined by the wildcard holder, typically a good thing.

I had to work at keeping Easum's and Tenny-Brittian's usage of wildcard in mind as I made my way through the opening chapter of the book. However, from Chapter Two forward, I became engrossed in their message of returning to the basics of what has made our churches great in the first place, sharing the message of Jesus Christ, scriptural holiness, making disciples of Jesus Christ and transforming people and the world.  I embrace their message in hard times (I believe all the time) that the church should spend their time, energy, and money on an outward focus into the world and not an inward focus. 

Easum and Tenny-Brittian provide a Hard Times Budget Formula, aiming to spend strategically and achieve more with less. The Hard Times Budget Formula:  Always Increase: Worship, Children's Ministry, Evangelism, Marketing, Continuing Education, Volunteer Ministries, Small Groups, and Spiritual Formation.  Always Cut: Office Personnel, Missions, Youth Program, Nonessential Ministries, and Money in the Bank.

The Formula is fleshed out in detail in subsequent chapters. The detail at first glance appears to be directed to church Finance leaders. However, Easum's and Tenny-Brittian's reasoning and their lessons shared should drive Finance leaders to connect broadly with leaders of all ministry areas to pray, reflect, and "strategically dream." They believe that strategic dreaming vs. strategic planning is what is needed in a "wildcard world." If you've had to ditchd all strategic plans during these hard times, we might need to be reminded what a strategic plan is: "drawing up plans before you begin the journey, based on information at hand." So what then is strategic dreaming: "starting out on the journey with a general idea of where you want to go, yet being flexible enought to take detours, reroute, or even start over again if that's what it takes to reach the destination." 

I thought immediately of Acts 16:9-15 in which the Apostle Paul is on the move proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. Throughout his journey, Paul confronts detour after detour without a precise destination. Luke reports that the “Spirit of Jesus” both prevented Paul from going in one direction and allowed him to advance in another. Paul would not have been guided to his meeting of Lydia were he not first of all at God’s disposal, open to being guided, sensitively attuned to being steered in one direction and away from others. Routinely in Acts, the Spirit intervenes to guide, assist, and inspire.

The Hard Times Budget Formula is not a one size fits all solution for the church in order to journey through the hard times and come out on the other side as a stronger church.  The Formula is a practical tool, which gives churches an opportunity to read, pray, reflect, and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit as to where their focus should be while journeying through these hard times.