What would happen if we don’t merge?
A lot of people have asked this, which is a fair question. I think understanding the answers to this question does help one gain a greater understanding of why your leadership believes it is in the best interest of both congregations to come together …
From the perspective of Grace, not merging would mean the following:
1. Call a pastor and move to Olivette
2. Go through all the growth struggles that Crossroads has gone through the past 4 years or so … including the need for additional staff (children’s ministry, music ministry, etc …) with budget constraints of a smaller congregation, increasingly complex back office situation (payroll, interns, more reporting, end of year reports more onerous, etc…), emerging structures and the corresponding growth pains as more and more needs arise, etc…
3. Would probably remain largely Asian-American (cf. Brian Burkey’s comments at CPF Town Hall on Caucasians coming to Grace and not staying because it is a mostly Asian congregation. Dan Song has the same testimony with the college ministry.)
From the perspective of Crossroads, not merging would mean the following …
1. Continued emergence of changing pastoral ministry model to match growth in congregation … i.e. more focused role of senior pastor to work with leadership, increasing role in pastoral care among asst/assoc pastor and elders, need for specialized ministry (i.e. children’s, music, etc…)
2. Would need to think about some other way to accommodate people since worship services remain largely full, SS space is 100% filled up (our last cycle had three adult groups meeting off campus, each cycle literally uses all of our space. Did you know we even have one of our kid’s SS class that meets on the stage of the Fellowship Hall!), we could not possibly accommodate more people for dinner than we did at our last meal ... Additionally higher volume of people puts greater stress on the physical plant as well … bottom line is that really our facility cannot accommodate any more people at one time … (incidentally this would have to be dealt with if we were ever to consider two services in Maplewood)
3. Would remain largely Caucasian dominated …
Bottom line is that both congregations are in for change … coming together means the following …
1. Combining resources helps put the best pastoral care model in place, particularly in getting the right people to address specific needs (focused resources on college ministry, kg ministry, ministry to marriages, etc…).
2. Grace will not need to reinvent the wheel on structures since Crossroads already has many of them in place …
3. Crossroads gets a little breathing space in Maplewood without “losing” valuable resources that might be lost in a traditional church plant model.
4. Olivette becomes an instantly integrated and multiethnic worship site through the hopefully 30-40 Maplewoodians moving over to worship there plus another 20 or so Caucasians who we anticipate to be interested in ministry in Olivette, the entire Crossroads ministry becomes much more multi-ethnic particularly on the leadership level (session, ministry teams, etc…)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
FAQs from Town Hall - February 22, 2009
Here is some of the information and questions/answers shared during our 2/22/9 Townhall meeting at Crossroads.
We were happy to have two ruling elders from Grace Church begin our Townhall discussion by sharing a bit about their vision for Crossroads and Grace “moving forward together”. Brian Burkey shared that Grace is trying to move away from being inward focused. While Grace is a great ministry to the Korean community, visitors sometimes feel like they aren’t Korean so they don’t really fit in. Leo Hsu explained that folks at Grace are excited to get to know the members of CPF. Leo attends classes at Covenant Seminary; he’s learned that God leads us onto missions. He wondered where this is seen in ministry today. He quoted Martin Luther King Jr. who said that 11:00 on Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.
Questions
Can you discuss Kingdom Groups?
Kingdom Group ministry will continue. Grace structures theirs a little differently, Grace Groups. Both Kingdom Groups (KG) and Grace Groups will be available to both sites. People will not have to go to a site-specific KG.
If or when the two sites grow larger, what would be the next step, more sites? a split?
Thoughts are that Dan Song may possibly grow into a site pastor in the 2-3 years. Andrew will start preaching 3 of 4 Sundays. As we go on, Dan would take 2 of the Sundays as we go forward. There is an option to do another site in another place three years down the road.
Isn’t this more like a church plant than a church merger?
If Grace had hired a pastor and created a church plant in Olivette they would have had to go through all of the growing pains we experienced at Crossroads Presbyterian Fellowship (CPF). The church plant pastor would be doing all of this alone, but this way; he will have a cohort of pastors to work alongside with.
Are we going to hire support staff to help with the structure?
Olivette has called Dan Song, and they are looking to hire another pastor to take on the college ministry. We are looking to hire a bookkeeper to take on some of the back office tasks. Doing this together with Grace, will save time for both of our groups.
Are there plans to purchase an Olivette site?
No, not at this time. We have to decide if this is what we really want to do. The launch of the Olivette site wouldn’t happen until the fall of 2009.
We were happy to have two ruling elders from Grace Church begin our Townhall discussion by sharing a bit about their vision for Crossroads and Grace “moving forward together”. Brian Burkey shared that Grace is trying to move away from being inward focused. While Grace is a great ministry to the Korean community, visitors sometimes feel like they aren’t Korean so they don’t really fit in. Leo Hsu explained that folks at Grace are excited to get to know the members of CPF. Leo attends classes at Covenant Seminary; he’s learned that God leads us onto missions. He wondered where this is seen in ministry today. He quoted Martin Luther King Jr. who said that 11:00 on Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.
Questions
Can you discuss Kingdom Groups?
Kingdom Group ministry will continue. Grace structures theirs a little differently, Grace Groups. Both Kingdom Groups (KG) and Grace Groups will be available to both sites. People will not have to go to a site-specific KG.
If or when the two sites grow larger, what would be the next step, more sites? a split?
Thoughts are that Dan Song may possibly grow into a site pastor in the 2-3 years. Andrew will start preaching 3 of 4 Sundays. As we go on, Dan would take 2 of the Sundays as we go forward. There is an option to do another site in another place three years down the road.
Isn’t this more like a church plant than a church merger?
If Grace had hired a pastor and created a church plant in Olivette they would have had to go through all of the growing pains we experienced at Crossroads Presbyterian Fellowship (CPF). The church plant pastor would be doing all of this alone, but this way; he will have a cohort of pastors to work alongside with.
Are we going to hire support staff to help with the structure?
Olivette has called Dan Song, and they are looking to hire another pastor to take on the college ministry. We are looking to hire a bookkeeper to take on some of the back office tasks. Doing this together with Grace, will save time for both of our groups.
Are there plans to purchase an Olivette site?
No, not at this time. We have to decide if this is what we really want to do. The launch of the Olivette site wouldn’t happen until the fall of 2009.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Audio: Multi-Ethnicity, by Jerram Barrs
GPC has a link on their website to a great sermon preached by Jerram Barrs this past December on multi-ethnicity. It's kind of quiet, and it doesn't start for about ten seconds, so be patient and crank up the speakers.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Great Minds Think Alike
No really they do:
The Settlers of Catan
Feb. 21st at 12 noon
@Joe's Place
Email Dan Reeve (d.e.reeve@gmail.com) with questions, comments, concerns, or requests.
Click below to RSVP:
Schedule of events:
- 12pm eat
- 1pm destroy the competition (with compassion and grace of course)
Monday, February 16, 2009
Video: Why Are We Thinking About This?
Check out Andrew's Video Comments describing our motivation for the merger in more detail:
Friday, February 13, 2009
FAQs - Andrew Vander Maas
Some thoughts on Moving Forward Together - Crossroads and Grace
I realized that due to the holidays we have not had a lot of communication on the merger together, as a church. I am sure that many of you have been thinking about this at various times with various levels of information.
I thought I would give some answers to questions I have been thinking/praying through over the break and some questions that I have heard expressed …
Is Merger the best term for what is happening?
Probably not, because though we are merging into one ministry unit with shared leadership and ministries, we are not merging into one site, there will be two sites in which this ministry will take place. I think the idea of merger, at least initially, presented a vision of two churches coming together to worship together. We had thought that worshipping together might make sense for some period of time, and may have falsely fueled that vision. Perhaps a better way to think of our coming together is in terms of joining forces to better accomplish kingdom ministry goals and to creat a vision for what a multi-ethnic body working together might look like.
One question I keep exploring with myself, as well as others is why are we pursuing this?
I recognize that right now many churches are starting sites of one sort or another. I see that as much as anybody, maybe more given my ministerial circles. I have wrestled personally with whether this opportunity is an opportunity to keep up with the Jones’, to add another feather to the cap of Crossroads? To be honest this is a temptation for me. I like to be well thought of, successful, I like to lead the pack if possible. This is temptation, but it is also sin.
In this instance I have really wrestled with God to take any of this selfish falsity away and to help me see clearly His will in the situation.
Two things have emerged in my thinking. The first is that there is a reason why so many churches are going down the site route, it makes sense. It is easy to look at a trend and dismiss it because it is a trend. But if we do this we miss some of the really good benefits that come from this strategy for ministry. More on that later.
Second, there are really good theological reasons for pursuing this merger.
The first is that it keeps our church Moving Missionally. In the great commission Jesus commands us to “go” make disciples of all nations. This is a perpetual going. A “going” contrary to the “if you build it they will come” philosophy. Now this certainly does not mean that if this opportunity had not come along we would have been sinning by staying at our Maplewood site and carrying on with our mission as we have. But it does remind us that God’s mission is not static, it is dynamic. It involves change and risk. And we must faithfully explore opportunities that present themselves to us, particularly when they involve an opportunity to capture new territory for the kingdom. Which is certainly what we have as we look to Olivette. This is an underserved area of our city with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a group of people who have a heart for planting the Gospel flag in the area, our working together can help this be done more effectively. But beyond Olivette, we should feel the encouragement to missional movement in Maplewood. As we partner in prayer, hear of their conquests, and see too how much work is left for us in Maplewood. As some of our number leave Maplewood to focus on Olivette, the impetus will be on those still in Maplewood to fill their seats with friends and neighbors who need the Gospel.
The second theological motivation for pursuing this merger is the joy that multi-ethnic ministry brings to glory the Lord. Many of us at Crossroads have, from the beginning, longed for a church that looked more like what heaven is going to look like in all of its diversity. Here is an opportunity to enter into multi-ethnic ministry with all of its joys and challenges. Some have questioned how this will be experienced for those in Maplewood. While it is true that the most obvious multi-ethnicity will be at worship in Olivette on Sunday morning, the ministry as a whole will become multi-ethnic throughout. All of our current ministry teams will be infused with Asians, as will our session and diaconate. Ministry functions such as retreats, Bible studies, and fellowship groups will all be mixed ethnically. As we grow and are changed by our interaction with the folks from Grace it is expected that some of that more obvious diversity will find its way to Maplewood.
And this, I believe, brings glory to God. He has taken on our sin in order to break down the dividing wall of hostility (Eph 2), his glory is shown forth when his people are unified as he is unified (Jn 17), and this is simply a foretaste of heaven when people from every tribe tongue people and nation will gather to sing praise to his name (Rv 7). We need to pursue this while we have the opportunity.
Does this mean that we are done in Maplewood and we are on to the next thing?
Not at all. In fact as I alluded to above this should show us how much we still have to do, and give us the impetus to get out there and do it. As we have grown we have inevitably, become more and more comfortable. This merger should bring back again to front and center the things that need to be front and center, namely the need to be going and living missional lives.
What about pastoral care for those already in our mix?
This is a great question and one that needs to be wrestled with. Two thoughts immediately come to mind. First, with our combined resources we should have the ability to add more staff that should create a more loving environment for all. Already Dan Song is committed to coming on as a pastor to young couples, singles, and college students. This is a level of pastoral care that our folks have not had before and a need that we can now more readily meet. We should be able to add some back office support which will create a more loving environment for those who spend so many volunteer hours here, this is pastoral care. Other opportunities should emerge along these lines as things become clearer.
Secondly, this will force us to recognize that the pastoral staff cannot do all the pastoral care. That much needs to be pushed down through elders and kingdom group leaders. This is a lesson that we need to learn at Crossroads anyway, and I am not sure how well I have led or equipped you all to do that. This merger will force us down this road.
I realized that due to the holidays we have not had a lot of communication on the merger together, as a church. I am sure that many of you have been thinking about this at various times with various levels of information.
I thought I would give some answers to questions I have been thinking/praying through over the break and some questions that I have heard expressed …
Is Merger the best term for what is happening?
Probably not, because though we are merging into one ministry unit with shared leadership and ministries, we are not merging into one site, there will be two sites in which this ministry will take place. I think the idea of merger, at least initially, presented a vision of two churches coming together to worship together. We had thought that worshipping together might make sense for some period of time, and may have falsely fueled that vision. Perhaps a better way to think of our coming together is in terms of joining forces to better accomplish kingdom ministry goals and to creat a vision for what a multi-ethnic body working together might look like.
One question I keep exploring with myself, as well as others is why are we pursuing this?
I recognize that right now many churches are starting sites of one sort or another. I see that as much as anybody, maybe more given my ministerial circles. I have wrestled personally with whether this opportunity is an opportunity to keep up with the Jones’, to add another feather to the cap of Crossroads? To be honest this is a temptation for me. I like to be well thought of, successful, I like to lead the pack if possible. This is temptation, but it is also sin.
In this instance I have really wrestled with God to take any of this selfish falsity away and to help me see clearly His will in the situation.
Two things have emerged in my thinking. The first is that there is a reason why so many churches are going down the site route, it makes sense. It is easy to look at a trend and dismiss it because it is a trend. But if we do this we miss some of the really good benefits that come from this strategy for ministry. More on that later.
Second, there are really good theological reasons for pursuing this merger.
The first is that it keeps our church Moving Missionally. In the great commission Jesus commands us to “go” make disciples of all nations. This is a perpetual going. A “going” contrary to the “if you build it they will come” philosophy. Now this certainly does not mean that if this opportunity had not come along we would have been sinning by staying at our Maplewood site and carrying on with our mission as we have. But it does remind us that God’s mission is not static, it is dynamic. It involves change and risk. And we must faithfully explore opportunities that present themselves to us, particularly when they involve an opportunity to capture new territory for the kingdom. Which is certainly what we have as we look to Olivette. This is an underserved area of our city with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a group of people who have a heart for planting the Gospel flag in the area, our working together can help this be done more effectively. But beyond Olivette, we should feel the encouragement to missional movement in Maplewood. As we partner in prayer, hear of their conquests, and see too how much work is left for us in Maplewood. As some of our number leave Maplewood to focus on Olivette, the impetus will be on those still in Maplewood to fill their seats with friends and neighbors who need the Gospel.
The second theological motivation for pursuing this merger is the joy that multi-ethnic ministry brings to glory the Lord. Many of us at Crossroads have, from the beginning, longed for a church that looked more like what heaven is going to look like in all of its diversity. Here is an opportunity to enter into multi-ethnic ministry with all of its joys and challenges. Some have questioned how this will be experienced for those in Maplewood. While it is true that the most obvious multi-ethnicity will be at worship in Olivette on Sunday morning, the ministry as a whole will become multi-ethnic throughout. All of our current ministry teams will be infused with Asians, as will our session and diaconate. Ministry functions such as retreats, Bible studies, and fellowship groups will all be mixed ethnically. As we grow and are changed by our interaction with the folks from Grace it is expected that some of that more obvious diversity will find its way to Maplewood.
And this, I believe, brings glory to God. He has taken on our sin in order to break down the dividing wall of hostility (Eph 2), his glory is shown forth when his people are unified as he is unified (Jn 17), and this is simply a foretaste of heaven when people from every tribe tongue people and nation will gather to sing praise to his name (Rv 7). We need to pursue this while we have the opportunity.
Does this mean that we are done in Maplewood and we are on to the next thing?
Not at all. In fact as I alluded to above this should show us how much we still have to do, and give us the impetus to get out there and do it. As we have grown we have inevitably, become more and more comfortable. This merger should bring back again to front and center the things that need to be front and center, namely the need to be going and living missional lives.
What about pastoral care for those already in our mix?
This is a great question and one that needs to be wrestled with. Two thoughts immediately come to mind. First, with our combined resources we should have the ability to add more staff that should create a more loving environment for all. Already Dan Song is committed to coming on as a pastor to young couples, singles, and college students. This is a level of pastoral care that our folks have not had before and a need that we can now more readily meet. We should be able to add some back office support which will create a more loving environment for those who spend so many volunteer hours here, this is pastoral care. Other opportunities should emerge along these lines as things become clearer.
Secondly, this will force us to recognize that the pastoral staff cannot do all the pastoral care. That much needs to be pushed down through elders and kingdom group leaders. This is a lesson that we need to learn at Crossroads anyway, and I am not sure how well I have led or equipped you all to do that. This merger will force us down this road.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
PCA Multi-Site Link
If you're interested in learning more about multi-site church ministry, and how it has been successfully implemented in the PCA, here's a link to the Mission to North America (MNA) website with a section on multi-site:
http://www.pca-mna.org/churchplanting/resources.php#multisite
You'll find downloadable notes from a conference sponsored by MNA in 2007.
http://www.pca-mna.org/
You'll find downloadable notes from a conference sponsored by MNA in 2007.
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