2007 D.Min. Projects Contribute to the Church

Last weekend the D.Min. Team had the pleasure of hosting the 2007 Doctor of Ministry Project Symposium.

This event provides each of our graduates with the opportunity to present of brief summary of his or her research. All thirteen of our project writers did an outstanding job.

Their work is commendable, not because it contributed to earning them a doctoral degree, but because field research makes a vital contribution to the life of the larger Church. Each writer will have the opportunity to post their work on the ProQuest database, making it available to the world. (Try out the search feature by entering my last name and clicking on Search. My D.Min. project usually comes up second in the results list.) 

Here are three examples of this years projects:

Dr. David Bittinger, A Model of Interim Pastoral Coaches for Ohio Assemblies of God Churches in Pastoral Transition 

Pastor David Bittinger developed a model for training retired Ohio AG ministers to serve as intentional interim pastoral coaches in Ohio AG churches experiencing pastoral transition. David’s completed research resulted in the enthusiastic implementation of a strategic plan in the Ohio District to train retired ministers to serve as intentional interim pastors.

Dr. Barbara Strickland, Equipping the Assemblies of God in Honduras to Raise Awareness of Child Sexual Abuse 

Veteran missionary, Barbara Strickland, developed a reproducible seminar to proactively address the problem of child sexual abuse in Honduras. She also presented testimonials of adults who experienced healing through Christ from their victimization as children, and challenged church leaders to respond in mercy to the needs of victims and their families.

Dr. Peggy Wobbema, The Development of an Integrated Pastoral Care Response System to Illness, Crisis, and Grief at North Point Church, Springfield, Missouri  

Hospital chaplain, Peggy Wobbema, acutely recognized the needs of fellow church attendees at North Point Church, a large, fast-growing church plant in Springfield, Missouri. In the development of her doctoral project, Peggy created new ministries to enhance the ministry of the pastoral staff in caring for the ill, dying or grieving, as well as trained laypeople to minister to the hurting.

Read these and other AGTS Doctor of Ministry project abstracts in their entirety online.  

Be a leader worth following

The Leadership Network Interview

Leadership Network recently spoke with Earl Creps, author of the newly released Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders.

(Reprinted with permission from Leadership Network Advance, 10 October 2006)

Why did you write this book?
I wrote out of concern over the divorce of leadership from spirituality. On too many days, I just didn't see what Christian leaders were offering that talented atheists couldn't do better. There had to be something more, some way in which leadership is the fruit of spirituality, rather than spiritual issues being used as the "raw material" or subject of our leading.

What was the genesis of the ideas?
The ideas came out of my own sins and shortcomings, so the supply of raw material was ample. Life experiences, positive and negative, began to coalesce around a different way of looking at my relationship with God. What if God wants to meet me everywhere, rather than exclusively in a 30-minute window way too early in the morning? What if God is vastly more available than I believe and is waiting for me to sync my life to his presence in every context, especially leading? This way of thinking led me to the notion that a set of "spiritual disciplines" were available to leaders "off-road."

What did you learn about these off-road disciplines?
My sense of spiritually-forming experiences awaiting leaders outside the usual list of practices produced a list of twelve spiritual disciplines for leaders: six personal and six organizational. Some of these feel quite spiritual--death to self--and others feel quite practical--reverse mentoring--but all of them bring the leader to the same place. . . the cross.

If readers could begin applying one discipline from your book immediately, what do you hope it would be?
One practical thing would be to find one or more reverse mentors--someone, say, 18-24 years old--to teach you about the "real world" because the world as you think it is has been gone for a long time. It's like looking at the sun. What we see is represented by light that left the sun about 8 minutes ago, so we never see it in "real time." Our view of the world is the same, filtered by cultural distance rather than celestial distance. So I need someone to say, "Hey, Earl! Your thinking is so, well, '8 minutes ago!'" I have a lot of these mentors. They are a gift from God.

What is new about what you say in this book?
My goal in the book is to tap into some very "old school" ideas that have names like consecration, sacrifice, humility, and preferring others above ourselves. In the mania to technologize leadership, which has the effect of aggrandizing our own status and power, I fear a drift into a me-centered way of doing ministry. This book is about repentance, it is about de-centering me so that Jesus can take his rightful place in my life and ministry, and then acting on that new relationship in ways that serve our ministries well.

Who is the book for?
It's designed for ministry leaders but really for anyone who has a heart for the future of the Church.

What will readers find most challenging?
The thing that will probably get their attention is the brute force of having to face the truth: the truth about the state of the church, the truth about the narcissism that passes for "vision," the truth about deification of self that has Christian leaders worshipping at the shrine of corporate culture.

What are the big surprises?
The surprise factor may revolve around the maddening fashion in which the book always searches for a "third way" between cold pragmatism and devotional spirituality. Also, some people will be surprised about the specificity and concreteness of many of the "disciplines"--and by how enjoyable many of them are.

What do you hope the reader takes away?
A rising tide of discomfort about leadership, spirituality, and personal identity; a refusal to live an unreflective life; a passion for becoming less, so Jesus can become more; and a longing to de-center themselves so Christ can become the center.

Off-Road Disciplines is available on Amazon.com

Be a leader worth following,

Earl

Sacred Accidents

Leaders put great emphasis on the importance of being intentional. In fact, this sensitivity to the role of intention in organizational life may be a defining trait of a leadership personality. 

However, the literature of other fields is filled with examples of great accomplishments in which accident played at least as big a role as design. Thinking of leadership effectiveness, then, as a simple dichotomy, either getting it right or getting it wrong, may be too simplistic.  

The role of accidental phenomenon in science and technology may offer some lessons that Christian leaders can use:

1. Accident is a critical factor in innovation. In 2004, for example, the Discovery Channel featured on program on the “Top Ten Accidental Discoveries,” that included Velcro, X-Rays, Penicillin, and even the humble popsicle. In fairness, of course, we must point out that chance does not always create positive innovations, as Berkley University Law School discovered when administrator Edward Tom accidentally sent out 7000 emails to prospective students erroneously informing them of admission to the school. The prestigious school actually admits around 800 law students annually. Tom was demonstrating email software to a new employee when he hit the “Send” button accidentally. The software expert who normally conducts the training was not available that day. 

2. A profitable accident is called, “creativity.” Robert Austin, Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School, points out that, “A surprising number of important discoveries and inventions are associated with stories about spillage, breakage, and other manner of unintended action that led to valuable, though unexpected, outcomes.” The person who happens to be there when the right accident happens becomes the “inventor” or “creator” of the product. In 1928, Alexander Fleming “discovered” penicillin (a fungus) when one of his petri dishes became contaminated with mold while he was doing research on influenza. 

3. The person present when the accident happens is called an “inventor.” In Mark 4 (26-29) Jesus compared the kingdom to a farmer who scattered seed only to find that, “Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain-- first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.” This parable affords a healthy balance to our tendency to borrow uncritically the world’s emphasis on “intentionality” as the cure for all our ills. Certainly, Christian leaders can use a big dose of intention, but not at the expense of recognizing who owns the work itself. We need to be able to say that we planted and watered, but “God made it grow.” (1 Cor. 3:6 NIV) 

4. The person who correctly interprets “accidents” as opportunity rather than failure is called the “leader.” A primary issue for Christian leaders, then, may be how to put themselves in a position to experience what I call “sacred accidents.” The first microchip developed by Intel (the 4404), for example, was meant to be just one component of a calculator owned by a Japanese firm. Intel parlayed this one small development into a worldwide conglomerate, not by getting everything right, but by getting enough things right that their “accidents” had a chance to thrive. Intel Chair, Andy Grove, explains it this way: "It has become Intel's defining business area. But for...maybe the first 10 years, we looked at it as a sideshow. It kind of makes you wonder how many sideshows there are that never become anything more.” Grove’s thought makes me wonder how many ministries have success staring them right in the face, but the opportunity looks too much like failure, or appeared in a way we did not predict, and so is being ignored or even destroyed.

Sacred accidents may be the best and most satisfying part of being a Christian leader. I understand them as the things that happen when we create enough “white space” for the Holy Spirit to have opportunity to move in our organizations. 

As with accidental innovation in science, sacred accidents don’t happen just because we want them to. We have to work hard, to plan wisely, and all the rest. But what if we thought of these things as ways of creating the “white space” rather than as the instrumentalities that actually produce the results? The difference is subtle but vital if we’re going to produce anything more than equally-talented atheists could. The Spirit has to be operating in our organizations in the same power with which we believe He operates in our worship services. We have faith for the latter, why not for the former?

My major recommendation: ask the Lord for kind of discernment that will put you in the room when the next “accident” happens, and give you the eyes to see it for what it is.

The Spiritual Discipline of Marketing

Reality arrived yesterday in the form of an executive editor for my publisher telling me that I should hold off on developing my next book until I’ve spent 6 months marketing Off-Road Disciplines.

I was not prepared for this sort of delay. However, when I checked with others in the business, I discovered that the likelihood of a second book depends on the sales of book #1 during those first, critical 6 months. Let’s hope everyone buys them for Christmas presents!

Promoting me has never been comfortable. This might sound surprising after several years of newsletters, blogs, and websites, but it’s true. So my editor’s wisdom (she is absolutely right) pushed some issues to the surface:

1. My attitude resembled an ineffective church: I was prepared to create the content for books in perpetuity but had given precious little thought to getting these volumes in anyone’s hands. This condition resembles the church ready to receive new messages from their pastor each week, without a plan for getting this good news into their community.

2. My strategy must resemble an effective church: I will depend a lot on conference speaking and web-based promotion, but the foundation of everything will be relationship, getting the book to people I know who can recommend it to others. Purpose-Driven Life sold so many copies, in part, because readers purchased it for their friends. Great ministries reach their communities, not through programs, but through relationships. 

3. My results will resemble the message: There is no cure for a bad book. Also, no amount of marketing, standard, buzz, guerilla, viral, etc. can compensate for readers not benefiting from what they read enough to talk about it. In the same way, the gospel’s ultimate credibility is that Jesus does things in and for people that make them want to share with others. While planning and relationship are essential, the power of the message is its content—Jesus and Him crucified.

So I am over my qualms about marketing. Perhaps we can promote ourselves without being self-promoting. The daylight between the two might be called humility.

My major recommendation: don’t confuse humility with low self-esteem.  

Off-Road Disciplines is available on Amazon. com at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787985201/sr=8-1/qid=1154700691/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-1023385-7819814?ie=UTF8

A free download of the cover, TOC and Introduction from O-RD is available from Leadership Network at: http://www.leadnet.org/Resources_Books.asp

A free 1000-word excerpt download is available from my AGTS webpage  at: http://www.agts.edu/faculty/creps.html

Be a leader worth following,

The Spiritual Discipline of Writing

A 1000-word excerpt from Off-Road Diciplines is available as a free PDF download on my AGTS webpage: http://www.agts.edu/faculty/creps.html

My Xanga RSS: http://www.xanga.com/rss.aspx?user=LeadingEdge

The Doctor of Ministry Team at AGTS spends many hours helping our participants become better writers. These labors are not only essential to succeeding in the program, but we feel they are the key to expanding their influence by turning preachers into authors.

After five years of trying to sort out the issue of academic writing we have developed resources, tools, teams of editors, training experiences and a host of other aids.

This month I tried something new suggesting to our participants that they ask someone to lay hands on them believing that the Holy Spirit would pour the grace of written expression into their lives and ministries.  

Some of the strain of writing comes from the idea that it involves only technique applied by arduous effort. Where is the grace in that? Where is the power of the Spirit?

The most important thing to happen this week for me was a change in my perspective on writing that developed out of a conversation with one of our participants. We need to think of writing as a spiritual discipline, not just a professional practice.  

In other words, writing forms me spiritually by…

1. Maximizing my influence: after our sermons have all disappeared into thin air the only thing that remains of our ministry is what we have written. Even our mp3’s do not have the impact of our books and articles. Realizing the potential of writing packs the exercise with missional implications and consequent responsibility.

2. Attracting the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: no one would want to preach without the feeling of both speaking for God and speaking in God’s power. But we seldom think of writing this way. As a gift of expression, the written word is just as eligible for the Spirit’s anointing as the spoken word. In fact, if the Bible is any indication, perhaps it is more eligible.

3. Bonding me to a community: all professional writers know that creating their product is a team sport. Our Team frequently reads each other’s articles or chapters to provide helpful feedback. All of our work passes through the hands of editors, managing editors, etc. In fact, Steven Lim says there is really no such thing as writing, only re-writing. Done correctly, then, the discipline of writing will make me vulnerable and accountable to other believers.

4. Bringing me to the end of myself: staring at a blank computer screen while a cup of coffee cools off on your desk is one of life’s really painful experiences. The shortage of time, energy, and words that haunts most writers has a way of making the composition process feel desperate and impossible. One of our graduates described putting her head down on the desk in a moment like this and just begging God for help and strength. She produced a brilliant paper for a D.Min. class which I am sure will be published as a journal article. When we decrease, God increases.

My point here is not about academic writing per se, but the ways in which any form of this art can shape a professional writing ministry that forges enduring influence for the kingdom of God.

If you disagree, put this phrase into Google: “Purpose-Driven Life.”

My major recommendation: re-write something

Be a leader worth following,

Earl