The Thriving Church

An Educational Nugget on Pastoral Leadership

based on the writings of Thomas G. Bandy

The Rev. Dr. Pablo A. Jiménez www.drpablojimenez.net

Introduction

• In our previous educational nugget we explored a model called the “Declining Church”.

• In this one, the second of three, we contrast such model with another one, called the “Thriving Church”.

Topics

• As in the previous one, we shall refer to the contributions made by Thomas G. Bandy, an expert on Church growth and revitalization.

• In particular, we will refer to the ideas that Bandy presents in Kicking Habits: Welcome Relief for Addicted Churches (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997).

The Thriving Church

The Thriving Church

•As expected, Bandy proposes another model, called "the Thriving Church.”

•Such congregations value the mission of the Church above all things.

Size

• Thriving Congregations described in this book do not have to be big. They may be petite or small. They may be any number of sizes, and this characteristic is often influenced by the demographic realities of the population.

Best Model

• The Thriving Church system is best served by an organization that encourages individual initiative, self-discovery, and deep spirituality.

Traits

• A “Thriving Church,” no matter what size, is doing four things.

1.They are increasing the participation of the public in Church life.

2. They are deepening the spirituality of adults, both within the Church, and beyond in the community.

Suite

3. They are multiplying the opportunities for discipleship. Institutional mission agendas are abandoned.

4. They are maximizing the impact of the gospel on the world.

Also Five Stages

• These congregations also understand that the faith development process goes through five stages, detailed in the following slides.

1. Mission

• Each congregation should find what their purpose or specific mission in the community they wish to serve is.

• This mission should be stated briefly, so that it can be written on a poster or a banner.

Membership

•The thriving congregation does not pressure visitors to become members of the Church.

•By contrast, it stresses that not everyone can be a member. So it offers discipleship classes for new believers and for people who want to move from other congregations.

Maturity

• The Thriving Church emphasizes that every believer should seek to reach maturity in faith through the exercise of spiritual disciplines.

Suite

• For this reason, it offers several opportunities for faith growth and development, helping people to discern the gifts and abilities that God has given them.

Suite

• Therefore, the Thriving Church will offer other options for nurturing faith: large groups for women and men, weekend retreats, traditional Bible study groups, and Sunday school classes.

Why so Many Options?

• Their commitment to engaging the full diversity of public yearning meant that they needed to devise a wide range of potential “entry” point and “pathways,” through which the public could navigate their experience of Church life with ease.

Training

•This type of congregation offers a wide range of opportunities for worship, study, and service. •Thus offers worship services

aimed at various ”audiences" you want to reach, from non-believers to mature believers.

Suite

• For example, the Thriving Church cultivates different styles of worship, offering traditional, contemporary, and even experimental worship services.

Ministry

•The Thriving Church believes in the Royal Priesthood of every believer.

•It understands that every believer is responsible for discerning the "ministry" to which God has called him or her.

Sent

• The congregational leadership is responsible for facilitating the implementation of these ministries, empowering every the believer to do an excellent job.

• In this sense, the sign of spiritual maturity is that the believer is "sent”.

The Pastoral Figure

• In this system the minister has an educational role.

• The pastor is seen mainly a teacher or a coach.

• Of course, the pastor must see him or herself as a teacher or spiritual advisor.

Visionary Leadership

• The authentic call of Christ from the experience of the earliest Church would be for congregational leaders to be visionaries, trainers, and motivators.

The Visionary Pastor

• The pastoral leader, once called “the minister,” is a visionary and not an administrator.

• The pastoral leader, once called ‘’the Teaching Elder,’’ is a trainer and not an educator. They are “coaches”, “midwives,” & “mentors.”

Pastor as Motivator

• They always relate to people by asking this question: What are the God-given spiritual gifts that Jesus Christ is calling you to exercise in a concrete way, and how can I equip you to discern and do that ministry with excellence?

• The pastoral leader, once called the “Supervisor,” “Overseer,” or “Bishop,” is a motivator, not a coordinator. They are motivators.

The Ministry Team

• The ministry team provides pastoral care to the faithful, while teaching how to grow in faith and how to be an active agent in carrying out the mission of the Christian Church.

Mission & Leadership

• Remember that in the Thriving Church all the congregation shares in fulfilling the Christian mission and in cultivating community relations.

• Every member of the congregation must see him or herself as an integral part of the Church’s ministry team.

A New Administrative Model

• An interesting note is that Bandy minimizes the role of governing bodies in the growing congregation.

• Bandy advocates small, delegating authority and economic resources for working groups to carry out their work.

• The virtue of this model is that streamlines administrative work of the Church.

Features

• Two features of this organizational model are fundamental and fulfilling the goals of the system.

• Streamlined administration by the trusted, gifted few. Their purpose is not to get permission for work, but to enable the work to be done with excellence.

Suite

• Decentralized control and multiplying, self-guided mission units. Responsibly for the design and implementation of ministry is given to groups (large and small), and even given to individuals as they discern their gifts and hear their callings.

• The management model is proscriptive rather than prescriptive.

Management or Ministry

• The point is that spiritual maturity does not lead the management, but to ministry.

• It does not lead to bureaucracy, but to some form of activism.

In Summary

• In other words, the human resources team “grows ministers,” the pastoral leadership team “trains ministers,” and the administrative team “deploys ministers.”

Comparison

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