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September 19, 2007
Scaling Stewardship in Colorado, Part 3
Thanks for coming back. Today Duane will tell us more about his life and ministry in Colorado.
1. Differences In Culture. While pastors in Missouri have been consistently exposed to stewardship development tactics and resources over many years, Colorado pastors lack a heritage of training. Resources, which were plentiful in a more established convention, were basically non-existent in Colorado. The challenge has been to gradually develop a culture of openness and understanding about the value of consistent and progressive stewardship development strategies and the use of stewardship related resources in the local church.
2. Time Allotment. We all have twenty-four hours in a day and more to do than we care to think about. A challenge for this writer is in time and priority management. Being a full-time pastor of a small, single staff church still keeps me busy. All of the normal responsibilities are present. I find it difficult to shift the thinking process from pastoral/congregational needs and challenges to thinking denominationally. While the church I pastor has been most gracious to allow me to assist the Colorado Baptist Convention, the time away from the church field of necessity is limited. The solution thus far has been doing stewardship projects in short sprints. Brief concentrated efforts have worked the best.
3. Travel Limitations. Travel is tied to time and the cost of gas! Unless you are going north or south or east or west on an interstate, travel in and around Colorado is beautiful but slow. In winter months it can be difficult. With limited time and budget traveling the state is not practical. So a challenge is being able to connect and build relationships with pastors from a distance.
4. Office Help. I hesitate to mention this, but it is a real factor. I am my own secretary both for my church work and denominational work. Any state wide mailings are labor intensive and my responsibility to accomplish. This has required mailings to be infrequent and strategic.
5. Associational Shifts. In an established state convention, like Missouri, the local association was nearly always a way to gain exposure to pastors and lay leaders. While some associations struggled to gather a crowd, most could have enough attendance at a conference to make the time and travel worthwhile. In Colorado, the responsiveness of associations and DOM’s to host stewardship conferences has been slim.
Several of our associations are shifting to a resource model, which has some definite strengths, but, it pretty well cuts out the associational conference model I was familiar with in Missouri. So, the challenge is providing resources and training when the associational structure may choose not to facilitate opportunities within the association as a whole. The distribution network, once taken for granted, may not be available. New avenues and venues of resourcing churches will need to be generated.
6. A Clean Slate. On the plus side, and emerging state offers even a part timer a clean slate to work with. Without cumbersome traditions or expectations, creativity can find room to operate. Whatever one does is appreciated by those in state leadership because they know that it is definitely better than doing nothing!
7. The Woolly Mammoth. Such creatures once roamed Colorado. Eating a Woolly Mammoth is much like eating an elephant, except for the hair! Tackling anything of mammoth size requires taking one bite after another. Creating a culture of stewardship awareness will not happen overnight. But the banquet table is set, and we’ve begun to make some progress!
Be sure to visit the Do More Ministry blog again tomorrow as we finish our exploration of stewardship in Colorado.
Posted by bstroup at September 19, 2007 1:02 AM
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