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Text Box:              As many of you know, about thirty of us took part in an extensive survey of our ministry the, the first step in a process known as Natural Church Development. The purpose of this survey was to help us get a fix on our ministry and to identify areas of strengths and areas for growth. The survey helped to identify and evaluate eight specific quality characteristics of ministry—empowering leadership, gift oriented ministry, passionate spirituality, functional structures, inspiring worship, holistic small groups, need oriented evangelism and loving relationships.
             None of these characteristics can be missing from any Christian community. They’re universally valid qualities. They are applicable to any situation, including ours here at Ascension and each has a positive connection both with growth in quality and in size of a worshipping community. While no one factor by itself leads to growth in churches through the interplay of these factors we can clearly recognize signs of the Spirit at work.
             Our focus becomes the so called “minimum factor”, in other words which of our particular characteristics was the lowest. As we’ve noted before, it’s like a wooden barrel with eight planks or staves of different lengths. The barrel can only be filled to the point of the lowest stave, so if you raise the stave, the capacity of the barrel becomes greater.
             The point then is to focus on that “minimum factor” which doesn’t mean ignoring the other seven areas. They’re all important after all. Focusing on the lowest stave though helps us to set goals and priorities for ministry. At some point in the future, we might even discover that another of the 8 factors has become our “minimum factor”. That’s okay. We’ll know what to do then!
             So how did things turn out for us? Well, it looks like Inspiring worship is our minimal factor. But just what exactly does that mean? Consider

Text Box: the following description.
             “Inspiring worship is a personal and corporate encounter with the living God. Both personal and corporate worship must be infused with the presence of God resulting in times of joyous exultation and times of quiet reverence. Inspiring worship is not driven by a particular style or ministry focus group—but rather the shared experience of God’s awesome presence. Is the worship service an inspiring experience for those who attend? It is not whether our services target Christians or non-Christians, whether they celebrate “in the language of Canaan” or a more secular language or in a more secular language, or whether we worship using a liturgical or a more free flowing approach. Inspiring worship services are often described as fun.” From Natural Church Development Quality Characteristics: A Summary Based on Natural Church Development by Christian Schwarz , copyright 2001 CoachNet, Inc.
                 Okay, where do we go from here? Our next step is to meet again with Bishop’s Assistant Pastor Elliot Pancoast on Sunday afternoon, April 24th. We’ll begin with a light supper at 5:30 PM, soup/sandwiches something like that. Let me know if you are willing to provide something for the meal. Then at 6 PM we’ll have a brainstorming session in which we’ll reflect on our assets, consider ideas, think about potential roadblocks or resistance and develop a plan for inspiring worship in the coming months. In the meantime, I’d like for each of us to take some time to seriously consider what “inspiring worship” means to us and to be prepared to talk about what we think. On the 24th we’ll also begin putting together a steering committee who will help guide us through the implementation of our plan.
             The Spirit is up to some interesting things here at Ascension. I hope you’ll come and be a part of the new things God is up to here at Ascension.      Peace,
                                       Pastor Brian Peterson

Text Box: ASCENSION ACCENTS

Text Box: Vol. 45 No. 4 April 6, 2005

Text Box: Called to Proclaim God’s love as we worship and learn, support one another and our neighbor, share our gifts and welcome all in Christ’s name.

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