This journey we embarked on just recently has really opened quite a few doors for us and I want to share one of them with you today, then share more in the upcoming week. When I wrote about shifting from being a practicing Christian to a participating Christian, I had no idea how quickly we would get an opportunity to dive into this mission field. My husband and I applied for a an opportunity to participate in a leadership course at a southern California organization. The classes offered in this course are within the scope of what we desire to do with ministry. We will get to collaborate with several other faith leaders in the Southern California area and glean from leaders who have been working with the community to help promote civic engagement and economic stability. We are currently rebuilding our own ministry to be of assistance to churches and their leadership teams to help them in a variety of ways from assisting small new churches with filing their 501c3 to large churches who suffer from leadership indiscretions.
The structure of organized religion has been part of the ongoing battle that Christianity has been suffering for, for many years. We believe there is a way to remedy that. Although many Christians are leaving their church buildings, they desire to still gather in more organic ways and that is their freedom to do so. Others not only left the building, but they also left everything having to do with Jesus and taking up swords to attack Christianity as a whole for the many years they suffered in toxic church environments. We can’t just bury our own heads in the sand, ignore our own dysfunction, then try to help the secular community with issues regarding homelessness, gang violence, and bullying among teens. So while many faith leaders are doing what they can to help their communities, there is a whole lot of dysfunction that needs to be addressed before the secular community will listen to any type of presentation of the Gospel.
I don’t find it very productive to attack organizations and or screaming tantrums just make us look like we need to commit ourselves to the loony bin. So the desire my husband and I have is to assist them with getting their ducks in a row and helping to guide them to finding peaceful solutions so their ministries don’t suffer any further. Our service is going to provide consultations, weekend workshops, evangelistic revivals, counseling for leaders, and a host of other services to help the faith communities. We have already worked with a handful of ministries and helped to educate their boards and staff on a number of issues. The more leaders we talk to, the more we realize how much this service is needed.
photo credit Tracey
Many ministries get started with a small group of people without any type of knowledge on how to structure it, what the state requires for a 501c3, and how to form a legitimate board of directors. There is so much that goes into a ministry and many people don’t get a chance to research all the details, because they are so busy doing the work of their ministry. Some might ask why we would even bother with trying to help salvage ministries if so many people are hurt in them. My answer for this question begins with compassion and ends with hope. We have compassion for the work that is being done, for the people the ministries assist, and for the hope that their work can continue while we aid them with the troublesome issues that are causing them to falter.
So, if you would please keep us in your prayers as we embark into a raging battlefield, we sure would covet all prayer support for us and for those we are assisting. Our leadership classes begin this week and will last for six weeks. We are hoping to launch our website soon.
Sisterlisa
I’m so excited for you!