Since early January, I have been receiving by email daily insights on what it
means to become a transformative congregation. These are sent by George
Bullard, President of the Columbia Partnership, a group of church consultants who
are based in Columbia, South Carolina. These insights come from George’s book,
Faithsoaring Churches. I have shared a few with some of our leaders.
About a week ago, I sent George Bullard an email and I asked him if he would
give me permission to use some of these insights as launching points for this article
as long as I made sure that I gave him the credit for the insight. He responded to
me very quickly with a strong “Yes”. Therefore, starting this week and from time to
time in future weeks, you will be seeing some or part of these insights with some of
my added comments. I pray that you will enjoy them and that they will enrich our
life together in our time of transition as much as they have enriched mine.
Since I do not have each of these insights dated, I can only refer to possible
time of receiving one. The following from George Bullard struck me as significant:
“Very few congregations transform by focusing on developing successful ministry
projects. Some will see short-term significance by focusing on mission action.
Generally it will take full surrender to ongoing missional engagement for
congregations to transform.”
Consider First Christian. We do ministry at Hope House. We offer time,
people, and ministry resources for the homeless through Shalom. We collect
various special offerings such as Week of Compassion or Blanket Sunday. We
collect mittens and hats for children. Each of these ministries is a short-term
missional project.
Think about ways in which we can reach out into the community of
Middletown over the long term so that we may more aggressively embrace the
mission and ministry to which God calls us.
Pastor Nik
