We've just had four days in the Bay of Islands, taking with us a couple of special friends.

Happily, after two years, it's not "back home" any more. But it was wonderful to renew contact with old friends and re-visit some of the sights and places that were so much of our lives for a couple of decades. In exchange for our accommodation in the Parish's Totara House, David and I took the Sunday morning service. Although many regulars were absent there was a very respectable number of people of all ages present and we had a stimulating time together.

It was also stimulating to realise that next year the local ministry team concept will have been in place for 25 years. I would guess that probably two dozen or more members have been called to this special ministry team of four to six people at various times over the years.

The parish these days doesn't require any ministry from an ordained person, yet its care for its members and its mission of hospitality continue. A number of people have joined the congregation in recent years.

Of course, nothing remains the same - especially in small, ageing congregations. There is occasionally a little sense of vulnerability as another member family or two find they must move away as we did two years ago. But the passion to maintain ministry and mission within local resources continues. And the ministry strategy is essentially the same as it was when we tentatively embarked on it in June 1992.

At the end of the first year, we produced a video REPORT FROM THE BAY for the Methodist Conference. It explained our motivation and how we moved from dependency on a stipendiary minister to taking responsibility for our own ministry. That video has been all round the world. I have long since lost count of the number of copies we made in response to wide interest. Twenty-five years later, I can't think of anything much in it that I would like to change. The long-term experience of this parish certainly seems to affirm its general principles.

Busy days

It's been a busy time since my last post.

The Family Budgeting book is moving along reasonably well with something approaching a first draft getting towards 120 pages. It's absolutely fascinating what is turning up in the sparse records. I dare not count the number of volunteers who broke down under the sheer weight of demand through the years I am reviewing. I know of at least three personally, but in almost every town in the country there's a story of huge effort in the face of ever-increasing demand.

The huge input of government assistance has created a model that is so different from what we used to do in the 1960s and 1970s that the story really needs to be told. As the last "steam budgeter" with any knowledge of the national scene, I feel some responsibility to get it done - in spite of my commitment to myself a couple of years ago not to start any large project that I could not finish well before my "best before" date. So it's good to see it coming together.

However, the book has had to compete with quite a few other things.

We made a grand trip down to Hutt Valley, driving through some of the least-known main routes through the north island. I'd never done the Waitaanga route and we really enjoyed another run down the Forgotten Highway to Stratford where our motel provided the best view ever of Mt Taranaki.

I attended the weekend National Training Seminar for Community Patrol and then we had three or four days with the wonder Great Grand Kid, Cohen David and his parents. Saw his first dip in the local warm swimming baths. And guess who got to give him his first solid food - at four months... We had such a time with them... Another night in Upper Hutt with Bev's nephew Vaughan and Cushla and we were back up country in time for a last-minute chorus rehearsal. The ten days left us pretty whacked - but it was a terrific time of touring, family and singing.

Our Barbershop Chorus did pretty well at our own village's concert last weekend, together with a visit from the choir of Pinesong Village where we sang at their concert a couple of weeks earlier. And our men's quartet put on two pretty good numbers, our encore was musically pretty awful but it scored high on entertainment! We are having such a great time doing it.  It's back to rehearsal this afternoon for both groups.

Since then I've been heavily involved in helping the local parish address a running deficit of $2000 a month. It seems they spent $100,000 of reserves in the previous couple of years but were actually living on the same reserves for routine expenses. All reserves will be gone in December, so they are trying to do some kind of review of giving. They've had no stewardship education programme in place for at least 15 years so far as anyone can remember. Our congregation consists almost entirely of people who have been here less than four or so years and there's no "memory" of serious commitment through regular giving. Nor do most people have the slightest clue about the costs of keeping a church there in case they want to roll up now and then. The parish is in a growing area and is not declining. Indeed, a membership review last month produced an increase of nearly 30%. But we will not survive with the equivalent of a fulltime minister if the parish can't lift its giving. I've been asked to assist. But helping to raise commitment to pay for stipendiary ministry and property goes against most of my mission strategy principles. Of course, this isn't really a small parish so Local Shared Ministry is not an option. It's an unaccustomed situation in which to find myself.

Meanwhile, my fitness is pretty good. I've not had any major falls but, like a few of my age, have a bit of vertigo now and then. And my walk isn't as firm as it was. I guess the spine is probably feeling the pinch down around L4! We'll be watching that from now on, I should think. Especially if the PSA doubling time stays up around two months.

Now I am trying to put together a service for Sunday. Only my second in eighteen months here so I can't complain about having too many, I guess...

Policy and Acting in the LSM congregation

     As a general rule there should be separation between the Parish Council that determines policy and the LSM team which carries it out. Normally, Council members are elected by the parish membership but the Team is put in place by the wider church.

     But it’s a fine line and in the smallest congregations it may prove impossible to set up two different groups to live out these two roles.

+ Some very small LSM Teams are called to be the Council as well.

+ In some others the two groups of people usually meet together.

+ In any Council there should normally be some representation from the Team but not so many members that the Councillors are outnumbered or outvoted.

+ Some churches safeguard voting by not permitting Team Members to cast a vote.

Decision-making in the small church

     We have another Calling coming up for our lay ministry team and the first thing we will do is re-consider the strategy. As always, we will pause to consider if there is any alternative way of providing ministry for our small fellowship.

     This year is our nineteenth in Local Shared Ministry so perhaps there will be more discussion than usual. Maybe we will even need a formal vote about the principle before we can go on to implement it.

     I recall a maxim we trotted out when we were considering new ventures in the feisty 1960s: “Ten percent in favour is a mandate for action”… It was never quite true of a Parish Council. But it is true that many significant policies have been initiated because a small minority became enthusiastic and vigorous. And many a programme has died because a small minority vigorously opposed it openly.

     In decision-making in the small congregation, I think I take off my hat to those who sit near the middle of these kinds of debates. Sometimes they struggle to understand the issues and to cast a wise vote. Afterwards, they will probably not be the leaders of the action (or inaction) that will follow.

     But they are loyal to the congregation. They will give their support where they can. And even if they are not actively involved, they do not bad-mouth the policy or those who implement it.

Error Messages in LSM #3 Battery Flat!

· A common criticism of Local Shared Ministry is that it is difficult for members of the congregation to identify the focus of leadership that is normal in a paid minister.

· It’s a valid concern. If there is no “minister” in the situation, who models the ministry for everyone? Who sets the positive example and inspires action? Who brings the authoritative voice to discussion? And, if conflict develops, who referees the occasional fight?

· Obviously, the team members in themselves are individually the focus for each particular aspect of mission and ministry. They provide this role for their own teams of people in ministry.

· But when the team is functioning jointly, and when wider parish concerns are in the air there are invariably times when people look to an individual for “leadership”. I don’t think this is unreasonable. My kauri’s restoration of its lost “leader” suggests to me that there is a kind of naturalness about the concept of leadership residing in just one person.

· We used to joke about the team being a “multi-headed minister”. But that’s not how the above kind of leadership works: when overall leadership is required from one person, it's the task of the Enabler, working with the Team.

LSM Error Message #1

    
A Local Shared Ministry Team does not meet without its Enabler being present. This is especially important when a new team is getting established or when there may be disagreements as to how to engage in the work of the team it facilitates the parish’s mission.

     The Enabler is not merely the facilitator of the Team, s/he is also the ministerial appointment to the Parish, responsible for the parish’s relationship to the parent body. The Enabler also carries a special understanding of the congregation’s place in the ecclesiastical scheme of things and is the bearer of the tradition and guardian of the heritage.
     Part of the gift of LSM is the obligation to work with an Enabler from the wider church. Both local congregation and national ecclesiastical authority need to remember that this is not negotiable.

More on leaders

Some time ago I reported the loss, in a storm, of the central stem in our young kauri tree. I made the point that the tree’s chances of growing normally were greatly reduced.

I also wondered if the tree would compensate by allowing one or more of the adjacent stems to take the central place. So it might have been a metaphor for Local Shared Ministry, where a small team of lay volunteers give a lead instead of an ordained and stipended minister.

Today I checked the tree again and found that a bright green single stem is reclaiming the central position. The surrounding stems from the season before last are still in position but the new stem is already sprouting new sub stems.

All of which may be great news for our little Kauri which seems likely to resume its normal shape. But is not a good metaphor for Local Shared Ministry. It is a reminder that there are always some members of a Local Shared Ministry congregation who would like the single central paid expert to return and prevail over the efforts of a team of volunteers.

It’s not easy being a young Kauri in a challenging storm. Nor a Lay Ministry Team.

Winter in the North

3pm 28th May - Paihia Beach enjoying 18 degrees of sunshine while South Otago drenched and the South Island is blanketed in snow.

It ain't always so but we really need to tell church people about our parish's two-bedroom flats at winter rates of only $70. Every "paid" guest-night subsidises a free night of "time out" for a family under stress.

This innovative mission project was made possible in 1998 with the sale of the church house when we decided for Local Shared Ministry instead of a paid minister.

Not much wrong with the prognosis, but…

In an interesting commentary on UM PORTAL Donald Haynes of Hood Theological Seminary has highlighted the rapidly approaching crisis for the small church in USA Methodism.He speaks of the rising cost of stipends, insurance and pensions and of the dwindling number of older, serious, givers among the membership. He recirculates a series of "creative proposals" that were considered in the 1950s and pleads for "a resurgence of innovative and creative commitment to the people who brought us to the dance."' Our heritage, he says,is in the smaller-membership church.

In my view his analysis fails to identify the central issue. It's not the rising cost of clergy nor the inability or unwillingness of people to pay for them. The problem is the clergy. We pastors have conspired with our people in what I call the heretical principle that trained, ordained experts must be personally engaged in frontline ministry in every small congregation. So the answers of the 1950s, as he presents them, were all to do with spreading ordained people more thinly to "cover" every situation. No denomination can do that indefinitely.

Local Shared Ministry starts from a totally different perspective. It is “innovative and creative” and it certainly represents total commitment of the judicatory to the people of the small church. But essentially it invites commitment from the people. It declares that the ministry of the local community belongs to the whole people of God in that setting. If they don't have a fat budget and can't afford to employ a minister - or even a portion of one – the denomination must offer a strategy that enables them to get on with their mission with the resources that they have among their own membership.

LSM tells us that trained clergy can best help these congregations best by withdrawing from personal engagement in that ministry and concentrating all their skills, education and energies on enabling the local leadership to do it well themselves. It’s not a matter of walking away and leaving them to it. Last Sunday (see my previous post) Bev and I saw the results of that. But when the denomination is able to free, challenge and enable the local people, everyone’s paradigm of ministry is changed.

Hayes' article: http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=6081

Two important ministry events...

Tomorrow I go out to Lesley's place up a quiet valley where we will perhaps get to feed a wild pheasant and smell the countryside.

It's my first official team meeting as interim Enabler, a role that I haven't exercised since I retired from stipendiary ministry in 1996. And I am SO looking forward to it. We'll be working in "Beginnings in Local Shared Ministry" - perhaps more for my benefit than theirs, since they've been working together for some time. It'll be a time of visions and plans and strategising as the team of three continues to cover the work that might occupy five members if the team were up to strength. It's going to be fun.

Then Bev and I will immediately drive four hours to Auckland so we can attend the induction of the Trinity Theological College Principal in the evening. I'm keen to be there as a former staff member. But also because I was in the Synod from which David Bell came up as a candidate for ministry. He made quite an impression then and I think he will do that again in this position.

That service will be different from sitting in the sun at Lesley's.

But both events are to do with ministry and mission. And along the way we will get a couple of quiet days in the caravan right on the beachfront at Orewa.