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22 Jul

July 22, 2009 |

Today, Pam and I are celebrating our 20th anniversary. Neither of us are anywhere near the United Brethren office. In fact, I wrote this a couple days ago. You don’t think I’m working on my 20th anniversary, do you?

We met at New Hope UB church in Huntington, Ind., when Pam was a student at Huntington University (I graduated in 1979, she in 1984). We were married at Emmanuel Community Church in Fort Wayne, just six months after we began attending there. It was the first wedding Denny Miller performed after he became Emmanuel’s pastor. In 1998, we were part of the core group which went out from Emmanuel to “restart” what is now Anchor Community Church. The core group met for the first time in our home.

Dr. DeWitt Baker, former president of Huntington U, used to delight in all the couples who met while in college. I don’t know if Pam and I count, since our college years didn’t overlap, but I suspect Dr. Baker would have claimed us.

Pam and I dated for five years before I realized that my Mom was right when she told me, “You’re in love and you don’t know it.” Anyway, it’s been a wonderful 20 years, and it went faster than I thought it would. I imagine 30 will be here before I know it. But I’m anticipating a lot more than 30.

20 Jul

July 20, 2009 |

My earlier experiences in ministry were not positive. It was okay, and we saw some good things happen, but I struggled a bit. I don’t know why.

My first church, in 1964, was a part-time church near Willshire, Ohio, when I was a student pastor. I was elected to this job in 2005. During those 40 years, I cannot recall a time when I ever called a superintendent or bishop because I had a problem in the church. There were probably times when I should have, and I was too dumb to know I should.When we pastored the UB church in Sacramento, Calif., it took me a number of years before things started to happen, and that’s about the time I left to spend four years at the national office.

When I spent 13 years with Scripture Press. That’s where I got the other side of my ministerial training. I had the Bible and theology and all that stuff, but I didn’t have a clue how to lead. I kept causing problems. There was friction.

Scripture Press invested in men and trained me in leading. They put me in a position where I had to lead to be successful. Without that 13 years, I don’t think I would have been successful at Mainstreet. And without those 12 years at Mainstreet, I wouldn’t have known which end of the tool to pick up as bishop.

In addition, at Scripture Press I had the chance to see churches of other denominations. I was in a wide span of theological perspectives, and saw there was a whole other world beyond the United Brethren church. I saw what was working for churches in other groups.

If I had gone straight from the national office to Mainstreet or any other church, I don’t think I would have been all that successful. So I thank God for those years at Scripture Press and what they taught me about leadership.

17 Jul

July 17, 2009 |

Ron: The majority of our churches have very fine people–good hearts, good intentions. But somewhere we lost the zeal and vision to do anything ourselves, to reach lost people and plant new churches, and have that be a regular part of who we are in our churches. Part of me says that if reproduction isn’t taking place, the body is unhealthy. So we have lots of good people, but basically they are unhealthy. So I believed my task was to be a Johnny One-Note to get our churches focused on outreach again.

I think that, for the most part, it has been fairly well received, at least emotionally. But then comes the volitional step–doing something about it. And I think that’s where we are. Churches will tell you they want to grow and change, but when you tell them what that involves, “No, we don’t want to do that.”

Pat: We have emphasized that we’re here to serve you, not to keep the denomination going. Wherever we went, our influence and reception was based more on relationship than on position. In the past, when the bishop visited a church, that was a big deal. But not anymore. There is a deep respect for this office, but not an obvious respect. For us, it wasn’t about our office but about honestly trying to help churches.

Attitudinally, we know we both have come across kind of loud and straightforward.  We don’t mean to be loud, but that is how we come across.  At the same time, we have sought to show honest caring for people while challenging them in a straightforward manner with the truth of the Scriptures.

15 Jul

July 15, 2009 |

Over the past few years I have been very interested in what research, organizations, consultants, and pastors report as the characteristics of healthy churches. As you might well imagine, they report a wide range. I would like to share with you the top 6-10 that I have discovered, but before I do that, I thought that maybe you have a list. It could be:

  • something you read (if so please give me the source).
  • just something you believe through experience or intuition.

Either way I’d be very interested in seeing your list. So tell me–what are the characteristics of healthy churches?I will leave office in one month, so don’t wait too long!

14 Jul

July 14, 2009 |

I have a hard time asking prayer for personal things, but our house situation is something that we need prayer about. We have been searching for awhile. We thought we had it settled: two months ago, we found a lot in Roanoke, Ind., on which to build a home, which was to be completed in October. But that fell through last week, and now we’re back to looking for a home.

As you think about it, I would appreciate you shooting off a prayer on our behalf  as we continue our search. We don’t want to buy something just because we feel pressured, but we are feeling some pressure. I have also asked the Lord whether or not we are missing something, but really haven’t felt led to anything other than pursuing something around here.

Anyway, EJ and I would appreciate your prayers on our behalf.

13 Jul

July 13, 2009 |

The  Bible says in Ecclesiastes that of the writing of books there is no end. I’ve worked in publishing and love books. It was very natural for me to want to resource people with books, and we were pretty selective about the books we gave out. “Hit the Bullseye,” by Paul Borden, got my juices flowing after I became bishop. I’m guessing that we gave away a couple hundred copies of that book.

We took the pastors of our largest churches to the Drive Conference in Atlanta, Ga., where Andy Stanley is the pastor. We thought they could benefit from that. But we didn’t forget the pastors of medium and smaller churches. We resourced people to get to Brad Powell’s conference in Michigan, and to Hit the Bullseye conferences. We resourced our cluster leaders with some of that training. That was something Pat and I did very intentionally–resourcing ministers and laypersons with particular things that reinforced what we said, and getting people to seminars and conferences.

Of course, it’s one thing to read the books and attend the seminars. It’s another thing to put it into practice. For a lot of people, there’s a disconnect. They get inspired by the book or conference, but it’s hard to put it into practice. I think a lot of our pastors struggle with some very sinful attitudes and mindsets in a lot of churches. And so they get excited, but come back to their churches and face open sin, and that discourages them.

We’ve been pretty liberal in providing resources–CDs, tapes, DVDs, conferences, books. I think it’s important to invest in our guys, our leaders, our sharpest and most talented guys.

08 Jul

July 8, 2009 |

Ron Ramsey: One common problem I’ve seen in our churches involves conflict resolution. They’re not good at dealing with conflict.

Pat Jones: We have hammered the Matthew 18 principles of conflict resolution. Sinful conflict is a major hindrance in our churches. We’ve seen and experienced that for years. Ron and I committed, at the beginning, to address sinful situations. In churches, how you disagree and address your grievances is vital.

Ron: I think you manage conflict, not resolve it. If it resolves, that’s good. But sometimes you can’t resolve it, yet can manage it so it doesn’t hinder what God wants to do in that place. Some conflict is just difference of opinion. Some conflicts are more substantive, issues between sin and righteousness. You would like to think that people not approaching it from a righteousness standpoint would be conflicted by the Spirit, but sometimes they hang in there, and it becomes a power struggle.

Too often, it’s a matter of power, of who gets to call the shots. People want to sit in the big seat and make decisions. Sometimes this stems from seeing pastors come and go, come and go. They figure the current pastor will only be there for a while, so they’ll run the church how they want. The pastor will just be a chaplain. We’ve tried to break up some of that thought. People forget that there is only one power source, one power seat, and that’s the seat that Christ sits in, and we’re all servants of him.

Pat: We have helped address the alligators, and I’m not afraid of addressing them. But we do that by opening up the scriptures and saying, “This is how God says it should be handled.” I don’t say you must agree with me, but here is what the Bible says about how you disagree with me. Here’s what Titus says about divisive people. You’re not battling me; you’re battling a scriptural truth.

07 Jul

July 7, 2009 |

Donna Hollopeter has been excited about participating in the China team this summer. On Thursday, July 9, the first group of 16 people are scheduled to leave for China. But on Monday, Donna was diagnosed with bronchitis. She saw a doctor, but had a reaction to prescribed medication. She’s seeing a doctor again today.

So say a prayer for Donna. She’d really like to be able to go to China this week.

06 Jul

July 6, 2009 |

Last week I sorted through 15 years of correspondence, 1978-1993.  We were cleaning junk out of the warehouse, and I had two file cabinets of stuff from way back. I knew I’d want to keep some of the letters in those files, and that meant going through each one. Took me most of two days.

Those were the years of the monthly United Brethren magazine, which I edited from 1982 until it ceased in 1994 (and worked on as assistant editor before that). There were, as you can imagine, some negative letters. People called me on the carpet for various literary offenses. In some cases, folks subjected themselves to severe contortions in order to scrunch between the lines of things I published, finding meaning which neither I nor the angels and demons knew was there. One person accused me of writing “editorial drivel,” which was actually true more than I’d like to admit.

My favorite was the fellow who, in a light-hearted piece of satire, imagined a slight against gun owners (which I could never locate). That led to conclusions about my patriotism and Christian commitment, which he expressed thusly: “I am very let down that you people are not only un-American, but also against Freedom and apparently pro Communist. Where are the true Americans who used to be pro-Christian freedom-lovers and God-fearing? Please don’t answer this letter, as I am not in the mood for some stupid liberal trying to convince me that living in slavery is good.”

Letters like that stand out. Most of the negative letters, though, made good points. Some, as I look back, were totally valid (though in my defensiveness, I may not have felt that way at the time).

But as I plowed through hundreds of letters, here’s what really struck me: the overwhelming graciousness of UB people.

Put aside the occasional negative letter. Most of the letters I read during those two days contained affirmations, compliments, positive statements, and assorted words of appreciation. The sheer volume of warm fuzzies totally eclipsed the occasional bad-mouthing.

It really humbled me, and renewed my appreciation for all of you. Thanks, UBs, for being good people.