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    New Wine into Old Wineskins
    New Wine into Old Wineskins
    New Wine into Old Wineskins
    Ebook116 pages2 hours

    New Wine into Old Wineskins

    By Jonathan Feathers

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    About this ebook

    You're hired to be our new senior minister! Consider what you might be asking yourself: Where would you even begin? What changes will need to be addressed? How would you approach the beginning of your ministry? New Wine into Old Wineskins seeks to answer these very questions.

    New Wine into Old Wineskins takes you on a journey of visiting, or revisiting, the biblical mission of the church and keeping this fundamental principal in a changing environment. If a leader's task is to help define the mission, then the leader must also implement and execute said mission. This book will help the new senior minister, New Wine, to implement a change process for the established church, Old Wineskins.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherResource Publications
    Release dateSep 17, 2015
    ISBN9781498221719
    New Wine into Old Wineskins
    Author

    Jonathan Feathers

    Jonathan Feathers has over fifteen years of vocational ministry experience in Tennessee, Indiana, New York, and Virginia. This includes experience in congregations from less than 100 to over 2,100 members as volunteer to senior minister. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sports Management from Tusculum College, Master of Divinity from Emmanuel Christian Seminary, and Doctor of Ministry with an emphasis in Workplace Leadership and Business Ethics from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

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      Book preview

      New Wine into Old Wineskins - Jonathan Feathers

      9781498221702.kindle.jpg

      New Wine into Old Wineskins

      JONATHAN FEATHERS

      resource.jpg

      NEW WINE INTO OLD WINESKINS

      Copyright © 2015 by Jonathan Feathers. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      isbn 13: 978-1-4982-2170-2

      eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-2171-9

      Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Introduction

      I: Wine and Wineskins

      One: Command

      Two: Change

      II: New Wine into Old Wineskins

      Three: Case Study

      Four: Considerations

      Bibliography

      Appendix A

      Appendix B

      Appendix C

      Appendix D

      Appendix E

      Appendix F

      To Melanie, Dorothy, and all who have encouraged

      me in ministry.

      Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.

      Proverbs 16:3 NIV

      Introduction

      Challenge

      The Issue

      In the book, The Ascent of a Leader, the authors write, the ability to initiate and sustain positive cultural changes may prove to be the single greatest need of twenty-first century organizations.¹ Change is needed in order to survive in the world. Whether we like it or not, change is here to stay. We must learn from change, become familiar with change, and utilize change.

      Change exists on personal, organizational, and global levels. For instance, personal changes occur when we face a job-loss or move from one location to another. Organizational change takes place when a new leader emerges. Global change happens constantly and often unexpectedly in the form of environmental and natural disasters. Change exists all around us all the time.

      It is natural then that churches deal with change as well. Independent Bible-believing churches, such as those within the Restoration Movement (referred to as independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ), commonly struggle with change. This is true for Restoration Movement churches ranging from two members to 20,000 members. The struggle lies partially in the fact that the independent churches do not function underneath a denominational hierarchy. Mark Taylor writes, Christian churches and churches of Christ form a thriving independent fellowship. We have no hierarchy, no regional offices, no bishop or district minister telling us what to do or who our next minister will be.² There are many lay leaders who have little formal theological education or ministry experience, and when it comes to change they are not always prepared for the process.

      I served a church that faced change. I began serving as the senior minister at this particular church in 2009. The previous senior minister retired after serving this church for over forty years. This church began in 1955 when a group of Christians met in a home. The group of believers discussed the possibility of planting a new congregation on the west side of town. The group met at a school until property was purchased and a building constructed. In 1957 the building was dedicated for use. From 1955 to 2009, only three senior ministers served this church. After a more than forty year tenure of the previous senior minister, just the presence of a new senior minister was a major change for the church. Many people had built strong relationships with the previous senior minister, and the change was grieved much like a death. Over the past forty years, the average Sunday attendance increased to over 300 and then declined to about 150. As the new senior minister, I thought it would be vital for the impact of my ministry to address the change process.

      Change Process Defined

      For the purpose of this book, the change process will be defined as: A change process involves focusing on the mission, clarifying the values, aligning the strategy, and casting a vision for this church.

      The Proposal

      This book addresses the question, how can a church implement a change process? However, there are several additional questions which must also be addressed before a solution is reached.

      • Why change?

      • How have some organizations encountered the change process?

      • What methods are currently available to implement the change process?

      • What would a change process include?

      • How can a church implement a change process?

      By answering each of these additional questions, a better understanding will be gained of what a change process is, what a change process does, why a change process is important, and how a change process can be implemented for a church. The more the church understands the change process the better it can implement changes.

      The Project

      This book, this case study, integrates many of the concepts and methods of Jim Collins’ Built to Last and John Kotter’s Leading Change with an established church. By utilizing these resources, a series of workshops were developed that aimed to:

      • focus on the mission of a church

      • clarify the values of a church

      • align the strategy of a church

      • cast a vision of a church

      By developing and facilitating a series of workshops, I initiated a change process.

      Chapter one deals with the theological framework by examining characters and biblical passages that address the biblical mission of the church. Chapter two reviews the concepts and methods of Jim Collins’ book Built to Last and John Kotter’s book Leading Change in order to implement the change process at the church where I served. Chapter three describes several workshops that I developed using the concepts and methods of Built to Last and Leading Change. The goal of these workshops was to facilitate the change process for this church by focusing on the mission, clarifying the values, aligning the strategy, and casting a vision. Chapter four assesses the workshops and introduces the change process for

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