Tornado Relief Info - part 2

All donations are TAX DEDUCTIBLE through Oklahoma City Bible Methodist Church

Every dollar will go to tornado relief projects.  We will be serving 300-500 meals per day for the next 3-4 weeks.  This will include equipment and supplies for volunteer relief.  Teams will be doing cleanup for months to come.  Supplies are needed for homeless victims.

Stay Updated

Relief Regional Coordinators: If you are wanting to join a group that will come to work, these are the contacts for your area.  They will be coordinating groups to come out, bring supplies, etc.  Please contact them first, instead of me. :-)

Midwest - KS, OK, MO, TX
Darrell Stetler II - 405-974-0507 (mobile) or on Facebook

Heartland - OH, IN, KY
John Parker - 864-380-5718
Jeremy Fish - (317) 714-8865 Cell

Northeast - PA, NY
Dwight Rine - 717-507-3690 –  cell, 570-966-2277  – office

Eastern Seaboard - VA, MD, WV
Troy Keaton - 540-529-0673

Southeast - AL, TN, GA, MS
Doug Eads - 205-799-4169

Florida
Jonathan Heath - 772-678-1337

TLC - Touching Lives for Christ - for more info on this mission group coming out June 10-17, call
Joy Budensiek - 772-214-8966

TO ALL COORDINATORS:  Here is a link to a spreadsheet where you (or the leader of an individual group) can enter the info for your group.  PLEASE DON'T USE THIS IF YOU'RE NOT BRINGING A GROUP.  Be careful not to delete other groups info!

Thanks!

Moore / OKC Tornado Relief Conference Call

Tornado Relief Conference call

Many people are wondering how they can help.  The next few weeks will be challenging and expensive. 

For info:

Conference call tomorrow with details: 9:00 AM Central / 10:00 AM Eastern

712-432-0031, access code 1119#. Follow the prompts.

We will be focusing on a 4 major efforts: 

1. Prayer and emotional support - our prayer stand will be set up, with a couple of people who will pray with folks, provide care.  

2. Feeding relief workers - we will be grilling hamburgers & chicken, handing out water, etc. 

3. Power station - generators for charging devices, etc. 

4. Clean up and restoration efforts.  Chain saw and bobcat crews, cleanup crews, etc.

How you can help: 

1. Pray. Lots. For our protection, energy, coordination of a complicated project.  

2. Give. You can do so here: https://okcbiblemethodist.cloverdonations.com/tornado/ with debit/credit card securely.  All money received goes to tornado relief efforts.

3. Work. If you want to help with a crew, be on the call.  If you can't, contact me on my facebook (facebook.com/darrellstetler2) or my twitter (twitter.com/darrellstetler2) and I'll be happy to talk with you or set up a 2nd conference call with your team/crew.

4. Materials. If you live close, chainsaws, bobcats, trailers, trucks, gas cans, generators, will all be needed.

Thanks.  We may know more tomorrow after the call.  

Blessings!

Darrell

Notes on T. Mark Miller, Chick-Fil-A Vice President at the Leadership Forum

Really enjoyed T. Mark Miller's session at the Leadership Forum.  You can find him on Twitter here.  I'm such an admirer of Chick-Fil-A's corporate culture, it was a privilege to learn from a guy who helped build it. Check out my notes below.

T. Mark Miller – VP of Organizational Effectiveness, Chick-Fil-A

If you’d like more leaders faster, this is for you.

I was the 16^th corporate employee.  Immersion and Osmosis was our process in those days. 

We had leadership opportunities, with no leaders ready.  It’s a bad moment when you’re facing great opportunities, and you look at the bench and it’s empty. 

The lid on your organization is leadership.

Creating a leadership Culture.

Questions you have to ask and answer:

1.      DEFINE IT: Do you have a common definition of leadership?

Unless you’ve forged a consensus , you probably don’t. 

There are over 6,000 published definition of leadership.

IF you don’t, it’s difficult to understand promotion and rewards from department to department. It's difficult to transfer talent across the organization. 

It doesn’t matter if you choose one, or write your own; the important thing is agreement. 

The Secret (co-authored with Ken Blanchard) – great leaders serve.

2.      TRAIN IT: Are your current & future leaders able to deliver on the definition?

We all know that you have to do it before you really get it, but sometimes we forget that there is a knowledge and skill component to leadership, before you ever really learn it by doing it.

You have to train it.  If you want a leadership culture, you have to do leadership training.

3.      PRACTICE IT: Are you providing ample opportunities for emerging leaders to lead?

It’s not best always to give it to the proven leader.  Sometimes you have to give it to the guy who’s currently batting .100 instead of the guy batting .300.  As long as it’s not the World Series. J

What’s the best way to develop leaders?  Stephen Covey: “Give them REAL responsibility.”

Ask often: Is this an opportunity for an emerging leader?

4.      MEASURE IT: How do you measure the success of your leadership culture?

Are we making progress? 

Often, we just commit random acts of training.  We need to develop a scorecard. 

One metric: How many people have we trained?

We do a formal leadership talent review, with associated metrics.  How many people are ready NOW?  How many in 24-36 months? 

Nothing improves without measurement.

5.      MODEL IT: Are your current leaders modeling the desired behaviors?

 People always watch the leader, even when you don’t want them to.

This assessment may be who I am right now, but it’s not a measure of who I am going to become.

You can change the results in the future

QUESTION: Do you find it harder or easier to differentiate yourself in the current “customer service lacking”?

The state of the fast food industry is terrible.  We LOVE that.  It’s not easy to execute, but what an opportunity to differentiate ourselves.  In the past, we wanted to differentiate ourselves on quality.  We still believe in quality, but for this era, we differentiate ourselves with service. 

Leaders are the carriers of the culture.  Leaders get whatever they create or allow.

John Maxwell Notes from the 2013 Leadership Forum (Ohio Christian Unversity)

Recently, I was privileged to attend the Leadership Forum at Ohio Christian University.

Dr. Mark Smith has been someone who has spoken into my life in several ways in the area of leadership.  At his invitation, I attended the Forum and the Executive session with John Maxwell, Cal Thomas, Kevin Myers, & T. Mark Miller.

Let me take a chance to say "Thanks" to Dr. Smith for his investment in my life.  It has been an inspiration to me to invest in others, to pass on what I've been given.

The next few posts will be my notes from those sessions.  I was privileged to sit on the front row, right in the middle, so I was in the firing line and typed as fast as I could. :-)

So, you may find some unfinished sentences, hanging thoughts, dangling participles and other faults and foibles in my notes.  Think you'll find some good stuff, though.  Enjoy.  I'll post from each speaker in a different post.

-------------------------

John Maxwell

Topic: “If I could spend a day with you…”

Questions he asks during a learning lunch:

1.     What is the greatest lesson you’ve ever learned?

·         From this question, you get wisdom.

2.     What are you learning right now?

·         From this question, you get passion.  That’s where the energy and joy comes from.

·         College is sometimes boring because profs teach from old notes.

·         When you learn something, teach it immediately.  The greatest teaching comes from something you’re learning now.

3.     How has failure shaped your life?

·         The great value of failure is that it teaches you things that success never will.

·         The only things that teach you are the things that touch you.

·         Some leaders leave the scene of the accident as quickly as they can. Don't. Stay and learn.

Experience is not the best teacher.  Evaluated experience is the best teacher.

·         The older I get, the more I like to talk about my failures.

·         One of the greatest contributions you can make to another person is to share openly about your failures.

·         If you’re highly successful, you create a gap (the success gap) between you and the younger people.  Financial gap, opportunity gap. 

·         Success separates from others.  You don’t intend to create that gap, but it happens any way. 

·         There are two responses to this:

o   There are some people who really like it, and use it to their advantage.  When you use the gap this in this way, you create FANS. 

o   There are some people who want to bridge the success gap.  You can’t CLOSE it, but you can BRIDGE it.  They work hard at being vulnerable, they share the bad side. 

o   When you do this, you create FRIENDS.  There’s a lot of difference between people that walk behind you and people who walk beside you. 

·         As I’ve grown older I’ve gotten very uncomfortable with success. Wish they could see me when I started.

·         The first time you do anything, you’re not any good.

·         If you want to build the bridge, you have to let them see you as you WERE, not as you ARE.  If you like the gap, you want them to only see you as you ARE, not as you WERE.

If you want to impress people, talk about your successes. If you want to impact people, talk about your failures.

If you only talk about successes, you slowly leave the people.  You can’t say goodbye and help people at the same time.

If you’re alone at the top, you’re not a leader, you’re a hiker.  You have no right to go to the top without people.

Walk slowly through the crowd.  Visually close the gap, so that by the time you’re speaking, there’s no gap. There’s just a guy, who is your friend and wants to help you.

4.     Who do you know that I should know?

This is a great networking question.

5.     What have you read that I should read?

98% of the books I read are recommended books from other people.

·         What’s the title?

·         Why should I read it?

6.     What have you done that I should do?

Life experiences

7.     How can I add value to you?

This is how I can express gratitude to them for helping me.  Always express gratitude to those who bless you.

The mentor never pays.

Some people, I owe them so much if I bought every meal for the rest of my life, they

Gratitude is the least expressed of all the virtues.

*At this point, the emcee flagged that he had only 5 minutes left.  John noted that he hadn't intended to spend so much time teaching on the questions that he asks in a learning lunch.  So he changed his topic to: 

What I would say if I could spend 5 minutes with you:  

1.      Get a personal definition of success.

Don’t accept the same definintion of success that other people do.  Define it as God would have you to define it. 

Knowing my purpose and doing it.

Growing to my maximum potential.

Sowing seeds that bring success to others.

God will only give to you what He knows will flow through you.

2.      Select your inner circle carefully.

These people will determine if you reach your potential.

You cannot reach your potential by yourself.  It’s impossible.

You can limit your potential by other people….

3.      In giftedness, work on your strengths.  In your choices, work on your weaknesses. 

Your strengths will give your greatest rewards.  

But in your choices, work on your weak areas. We all have weaknesses.

4.      Improve your thinking, and you’ll improve your life.

The greatest gap between successful people and unsuccessful people is their thinking.  Successful people think almost entirely differently than non-successful people. 

5.      Live your life by embracing the eternal. 

Never lose the focus that this life is brief compared to the next. 

Little sign in my parent’s home: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Why is it easier to confess to God than to confess to a brother?

“Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do [find it easier], we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.”  - Bonhoeffer, "Life Together"

Oh. 

My. 

Goodness.

*leaves to mull that over for a month*

Luther and Bonhoeffer on Living Among Enemies

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).” 
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community

This quote is rocking my world.  God help me.  Us.

CS Lewis - Surprised by Joy

“But, of course, what mattered most of all was my deep-seated hatred of authority, my monstrous individualism, my lawlessness. No word in my vocabulary expressed deeper hatred than the word INTERFERENCE. But Christianity placed at the centre what then seemed to me a transcendental Interferer. If its picture were true then no sort of 'treaty with reality' could ever be possible. There was no region even in the innermost depth of one's soul (nay, there least of all) which one could surround with a barbed wire fence and guard with a notice No Admittance. And that was what I wanted; some area, however small, of which I could say to all other beings, 'This is my business and mine only.” 
― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

Resources from Outreach Convention

Today I speak at the Outreach and Bus Convention in the 11:00 AM session.  I was asked to speak on "Relevant Outreach Programs."

Some downloads that I referred to in my session today at the Outreach and Bus Convention:

Download the text of my 2011 Outreach Convention Session "Budgeting for Outreach."

Download the text of my 2009 Outreach Convention Session "Finances in the Small Church."

RETAINING GUESTS:
Download the text of my 2012 IMF Session "Retaining Guests."
  Check out the YouTube video demonstration of our followup system.
  If you'd like to order all our follow up materials, instructions, etc. for $10 please contact Darrell through my Facebook, Twitter or email.

What I'm Reading Now

I'm a reader.  I'm always in the middle of about 10-15 books.  The one thing that I'm guaranteed to love for Christmas is Amazon gift cards.  (Along with Starbucks gift cards, of course.)

I agree with John Wesley's advice to pastors, where he encouraged them to "develop a taste for it [reading] or else find another [job]."

When I first started pastoring, I made it a practice to try to finish a book each week.  I usually didn't quite hit that.  But there were a number of years that I cleared 40 books read.  But then I started having children.  Our 5th child was born 8 days ago today, the amount of reading I'm able to do has declined.  That's OK with me for this stage of life.  As Greg Gunn of Familyid says, I'm "getting my Ph.D. in spouse and children."

But I'm still committed to growth.  I still read.  Here are a list of books I'm reading or have recently completed.

{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - "Elementary, my dear Watson." (Incidentally, Sherlock Holmes never said that.)  Enjoyment reading for me. My rating: 5 stars

The Street Lawyer by John Grisham - Successful lawyer survives an encounter with a crazy homeless man, but it leaves him deeply shaken and searching for significance beyond "making partner."  Grisham wrestles with the line between rights and right, and where "might" comes in.   My rating: 4 stars

Small is the New Big by Seth Godin - If you just need something to kick you in the side of the head and make you think differently, I highly recommend this.  It's a little random.  Really, it's a collection of short blog posts on all things business, management and marketing.  But you'll find yourself nodding and saying "never thought of that, but it's true." My Rating: 4 stars

Poke the Box by Seth Godin - This is a manifesto on starting stuff.  Godin's artsy, entrepreneurial mind is clear and forceful as ever.  Great book for gaining the courage to launch a dream that isn't ready yet.  My rating: 4 Stars

Revive, Refresh, Renew edited by H.B. London, Jr - Thanks to Walt Hedstrom, one of our denominational leaders, for suggesting this book.  Encouraging to me during a challenging chapter in my life.  Not my standard fare, but good for the moment in my life.  My rating: 3.5 stars

Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey - Excellent general book on business leadership.  Dave's classic, in-your-face style and practical wisdom really shine here.  My rating: 4 stars

Deep and Wide by Andy Stanley - The story and principles behind North Point Community Church.  I'll review this in more detail in a later post.  My Rating: 4.5 stars

Vertical Church by James MacDonald - MacDonald argues that the greatest thing people need from churches is for them to be places where they have an encounter with a awesome, transcendent God. Still reading this one, I'll review it in more detail later.  My Rating: 4.5 stars

I recommend these all heartily.  

That's it for today.  

Keep reading & learning,

Darrell

What Your Words Reveal

Words tell us a lot about a person.  

The words they choose, the words they avoid, the words they mispronounce. :-) 

Most people can make a fairly accurate judgement about the intelligence of a person just by the words they use in a few minutes of conversation. 

But let's move beyond intelligence.  What do your words say about your character?  Your values?  Your thought patterns?  Your attitudes and outlook?

What about negative speech patterns?
How long can you talk without making a coarse joke?   
How long can you speak without questioning someone else's motive?
How long can you converse without expressing dislike for someone?
Without referencing someone who did you wrong?

Or, let's go positive:
How many conversations can you have with encouraging someone?
How many discussions can you have without challenging someone?
What percentage of your words point to a positive faith-filled outlook? 
How long can you talk without bringing up Jesus or the Bible?

I recently did a "tweetcloud" of my twitter feed over the course of a year.  This is a service that goes through your twitter stream and identifies the words you use most often.  

While that one looks pretty positive, I'm not sharing it to brag -- you see, that's PUBLIC SPEECH.  Much easier to be positive in public speech than in private speech.  

What if we could do a "tweetcloud" of your last 1,000 conversations?  

What words would pop up most often?  

And more importantly, what would they tell me about you?

Speaking carefully, 
Darrell

Now A Few Words On Personal Growth

I've received a tremendous amount of feedback on my Facebook page and a couple thousand page views on the recent posts on Bible college.  The vast majority has been positive, and many constructive words of balance have been added as well. 

I know that almost every issue contains two sides.  While I try to do some justice to both sides, an attempt to stay focused on the issue at hand often leads me to deliberately neglect balancing truths.

One point that has been made often is some variation of this: "Education is important.  Without it, we become ingrown and closed-minded.  Have you seen uneducated leaders whose pride is in their lack of education?  It's not pretty."

This is an excellent point.  I have seen this, and it's horrible.  

Personal Growth

The solution?  Personal growth.  Not just spiritual growth -- personal growth.  Growth of the whole person, mind, will, emotions, body, spirit.

John Maxwell, in one of his lectures (I can't remember which one to give credit), tells the story of a man who came to him frustrated because he was passed over for a promotion to a leadership position.  He complained, "Don't they know I have 20 years experience?"  In his own blunt way, John Maxwell replied, "You don't have 20 years experience.  You have 1 year of experience 20 times!" 

If you're not growing, you're not leading.  You'll stop being a tour guide, and just be a travel agent, sending people where you've never gone.  

Here are a few thoughts on how to prevent this from happening to you: 

1. Read good books.  As many as you can.
John Wesley said in his advice to preachers, "Spend all the morning in [reading], or at least 5 hours in four-and-twenty."  Whoa.  I've had some folks ready to agree that kids should stay home from Bible college... but I don't know if they'd agree if I told them to read 5 hours a day instead.  I'll go one further: Read authors that stretch and challenge your thinking, even (at times) ones that disagree with you.  

2. Stretch yourself with experiences. 
I don't speak Spanish well.  But I go and pray with and TRY to communicate with Hispanic people at our Bread of Life Pantry two days a week.  Many of them are more comfortable in Spanish, so I do my best.  I do goof up.  I once referred to myself as "el pestor de la iglesia" which roughly translates to "the stinker of the church."  We all had a good laugh, and I grew. 

3. Process your experiences. 
For a good part of my ministry, I sat down once per week and wrote a page-long list of things I had learned that week.  It wasn't fancy, it was rather raw.  But it helped me grow.  

4. Don't waste your pain, sorrow and criticism. 
Some of the greatest chances to grow are in times where you hurt.  

5. Teach or mentor someone else.
A good teacher always learns more than the student.  This can be simple as sharing what you're learning across a coffee shop table, or as complicated as sharing it in a class with notes and Powerpoint.  But do it.

Conclusion: 

My biggest fear about changing the current system of Bible college:

That people will stop growing, because they lack the mindset to grow.

To all of you who so thoroughly agreed with the last two posts, examine yourself.  It's one thing to decide that Bible college isn't all it's cracked up to be.  But it's another thing entirely to decide that YOU will grow... and keep growing.

It's one thing to decide that our churches do need to step up and train leaders.  But are YOU growing as a leader?  Are you further up the road mentally, spiritually, emotionally than you were a year ago?  Can you teach that to someone else?  

Yours for growth,
Darrell

Suggested Solutions for the Bible College Problem

In my last post, I wrote about the growing awareness or frustration I've had with the Bible college culture, how it came about, and tried to give reasons for why I'm concerned. 

I hate when people can identify problems, but offer no solutions. 

So... 

Here are my suggestions.  

Please understand that these are things that I'm working through myself.  I don't claim to do them well, but I'm learning.  This isn't the plan which came down from heaven, it's a general set of principles that I think need to guide this conversation to the next level.  

1. Churches, start stepping up. 

Like every parachurch ministry on the face of the earth, I think Bible college is doing the work local churches should be doing. The churches are complicit in the current Bible college issue, having so long trusted an outside organization to do our heavy lifting!  Churches must step up to the idea of having multiple elders who lead the congregation, are able to teach, and have shared pastoral, spiritual responsibility for the congregation.  I am not speaking of a dry and dusty board position, but an "in the hospital and the counseling room, get your hands dirty" position!

What if church boards, which are set up to run like a combination of corporate and government entities, were replaced by ministry-focused teams of elders, who rubbed shoulders with the unchurched and hurting as part of their job description, who were required to lead a small group, be discipling a convert, and expected to invite unchurched friends to attend and sit with their family?  What if it was expected that unsaved people would regularly be guests in an elder team member's home, because "hospitality" was still a requirement for those in church leadership? (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:8)

If churches cannot get used to this idea, then the current system will work just fine until it dies a natural death, and moves on to being a community college... because the local church wouldn't step up to be the organization Christ designed it to be.

2. Pastors, start doing your job.

Ouch. Me too. God convicted me about 2 years ago, that I was not raising up leaders here.  I was expecting Bible college to do it for me, and there are tons of people in my church who should be raised up, and should someday become elders and teachers who will never go to Bible college. In fact, I don't think they should. To step away from all they have built in their businesses, their relationships in their communities, their kids' schools, and go away for 5 years to train? Then return and start over? If they return at all? No.

To raise them up where they are – that is my job. I've been lousy at it (haven't we all?), and now I'm looking for solutions!

So, I should be actively recruiting promising young men, training them in theology, taking them with me on calls, working with them through books of Scripture, pointing them to books and resources. Mentoring them through hard ministry situations, letting them take the helm of church ministries, letting them fail and learn.

3. Students, start thinking differently.

My cousins, including 

my brother Kenny Stetler (student at Union Bible College) 

Kent & Maria Stetler (students at God's Bible School), 

and Benjie Stetler (student at Hobe Sound Bible College)

What if young men came to the conclusion:

"I'm going to live and work RIGHT HERE, and study for ministry. It's going to be hard. I will work part or full-time, budget carefully, go with the pastor on weekends, find myself a girlfriend, and balance all that with preaching when I have opportunity, meeting with the pastor on Saturday to be mentored, reading theology, taking an online class, and teaching a Sunday school class."

It's easier, honestly, to go away into an ivory tower, so no real people can bother your perfect ministry ideas. (I know... I created some great ones in the Schmul Library! :-)) But easier is not always better. It is a cliché, but there really are some things they simply can't teach you in Bible college.

4. Bible colleges, change your offerings.

• More elective, more online.  Am I excited about anything I see developing in the Bible College movement? Yes – I am pumped about the new online offerings that are springing up! From Aldersgate Distance Learning to Hobeonline.com, that is something that truly could serve the local church in the task of raising up elders to lead and teach.

• Shorter & more active.  The current system does four years (I took 5) of classroom and a 6 week internship. Why not 6 weeks of classroom each year, and a four year internship under a local elder team?  If a Bible college suddenly started offering a 10 week long course (those from GBS will recognize that), which focused on preaching, soul-winning, and theology, followed by 42 weeks back at their local church, it is my opinion that more would be done to serve the local church than is currently being done.  Let me send my teens for a summer or winter to a program like that... then let them come back, full of lots of info, pumped up with passion for the lost, and ready to be mentored in real-life situations. My church would sponsor students!

• Raise the bar.  What if to enter your church planting training program, you had to actually leave and plant a church?  What if just to get into it, you had to submit an application giving your vision and strategy ideas for a church plant?  Enrollment would drop precipitously, possibly.  And I would argue that impact would actually rise.  

5. Bible colleges, change your vision & marketing.

This is the section that makes me most nervous.  It could sound like I'm taking on some particular school or person – I'm not, not at all.  What I say here is across the board... all the colleges.

Honestly – decide who you are here to serve.  Is it the local church, or Christians who want education? If you are to serve the local church and assist them in raising up leaders, you're going to have to focus on that, and how it is best done for the local church... and probably stop doing things that don't serve that end. If you take a hard look at the vision of serving the Bride of Christ, it affects everything you do:

> Pushing graduates out the door, instead of assimilating them.  Some of the best graduates stay around because they are hired at the Bible college. The vision of a Bible college can get so big, or the needs can get so desperate, that it requires assimilating the best of its students to keep it progressing.  This is perfectly understandable (the students are already acclimated to the subculture, and are willing to work for less than an established person with a family.)  I've watched great, Tier 1 guys graduate from Bible College and become maintenance guys, PR guys, administration guys, and tech guys.  This does little to serve the local church.  

> Cut facilities and programs that drain cash.  If your vision is to help the local church raise up leaders, then some of the facilities and programs will no longer be needed. You can cut expenses, re-allocate resources, change class schedules.

> Rethink your goals & the compliance issues for accreditation.  Most of the enrollment goals go out the window. So does accreditation, honestly. The guys who are local church guys don't really care about accreditation. Only 2 kinds of people care:

• • Scholars who intend to go on to post-graduate studies and need good credit transfer. They have their place... most will be authors and teachers at Bible colleges.
• • The people who will take a few classes and transfer out – people who didn't come in planning to be church pastors.

 I know, I know. I sound like an anti-educational backwoods hick, "afraid of progress."  I'm not.  I just think that it's possible to get into a heady, rarified academic environment with a bunch of very smart folks in a room, and start living to serve their vision of what a school should look like, instead of serving the local church.

> Ask yourself "whose dream are we living out?"
What if you got 15 CHM pastors (young and old) who were trying to change the world in a room and said, "If we were to serve you guys, what would that look like?" 

I know this is radical. 
I know it doesn't work with the PELL grant system. 
I know enrollment would drop.
I know it would put cash flow straight in the toilet.
So sue me. :-)

> Rethink your marketing strategy.  Go for the jugular for pastors who need to train men. Go for broke on young men who want to push back the gates of hell... but for God's sake, decide that Bible College is not for everyone. 

If this is not your vision, and you want to be a university, to serve the education needs of Christians, that is fine! It really is ... just dump your Bible & theology (& missions? & music?) departments into a separate organization that will exist solely to serve the local church, without the other pressures brought on by credits needed to transfer, etc.

6. Professors, change your presentation. 

For those who are still teaching and administrating in Bible college... I love you!  

My Grandparents, Kenneth & Jewel Stetler

gave over 30 years of ministry to God's Bible School.

Get up every day with the idea that you are going to serve the local church by fanatically pushing these men into ministry. All the learning in the world will do no good if they are arrogant or afraid, and end up not going into ministry...

And, please be cautious about how you speak of the CH Movement... we have issues, yes. But if you convince them too well of your own "rightness," then don't be surprised if they fail to launch into ministry.  Instead, they'll want to stick around and serve your vision – they are convinced there isn't a compelling one at any of our "lame" small churches!

I REALIZE:

I realize that nothing in this post will get me hired as Director of Development at any Bible college.  :-)  But I'm not looking for a job there, just sharing as a local church guy who feels strongly that the hope of the world is wrapped up in what I do every day!  

I realize that what I'm saying here isn't easy or simple.  

I realize that this would result in many good people in Bible colleges losing their jobs.  For that I'm sorry. (They might find employment with local churches, if they went to ones with vision.)

If you question whether I care about Bible College employees, perhaps this picture will speak to that:

My family. This picture includes  my uncle Dan Stetler, president

of Hobe Sound Bible College, Frances Stetler, my aunt, teacher at 

Penn View Bible Institute, and Kenneth and Jewel, 
my grandparents retired from God's Bible School.
 The other two pastors, (My dad Darrell Stetler Sr.
& my uncle, David Stetler) & the missionary to Mexico (my uncle Steve Stetler),
were all trained at GBS.

I realize it would probably have tons of unintended consequences.  We would lose some things.  All change is that way. Gain instant email, lose personal letter-writing...

I realize that these ideas won't work separately.  They have to be part of a groundswell of change, churches, pastors, colleges, students, nearly simultaneously changing their mindsets. Nigh impossible.

And I realize that the same Spirit that has stirred my heart up about developing and discipling leaders in the local church may very well be saying "Keep doing exactly what you're doing" to a bunch of Bible college presidents, staff and faculty.  If He is, so be it.  Maybe this is just me misunderstanding what I should take away from what the Holy Spirit is doing in me.

CONCLUSION:

I am not against higher education.

I just think that there is a higher education in the doing than our current system appreciates. 

I often quote, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

I welcome comments below, or message me on Facebook or Twitter.

Just thinkin',

Darrell

My Concern About Bible College

Someone today (and over the holidays) asked me what I would say to Bible college leaders if I had a few minutes to talk to them about trends and what I thought they should do in the future.

That conversation brought something that I wrote a couple years ago, and I decided to pull it up and post it here. 

About 2.5 years ago, I was on my Twitter account, and in a moment of frustration, tweeted this: 

"I have to say this: I am not as pro-Bible-College as I used to be. *ducks behind desk*" 

This started a Facebook comment firestorm that could be seen from 3 states away, and possibly from outer space. :-)  I will try to explain what I meant... here's my post from back then: 

--------------------------------------------

Perhaps a word of explanation about the journey I've been on for the past 3 years. About 4 years into my pastoring career, God began to really break some things in me, and do some serious remodeling in my heart. I am grateful for the progress I've made in my own relationship with the Lord in recent years, and I've continued to grow in my understanding of theology, the Bible, preaching, and practical ministry.

I consider myself a part of the Conservative Holiness Movement (referred to sometimes as the CHM.)  My greatest concern for the Conservative Holiness Movement theologically is in the area of Ecclesiology -- the study of the nature of the Church. Ecclesiology is where one deals with local church issues, including membership, leadership, pastors, church discipline, and more. I became convicted because my church did not look, run, or conquer like the one I read about in the Scriptures (it still doesn't, but we're working on that!). In the course of study, I discovered the concept of elders (pastors), which I had somehow missed in the first phases of my education. I became aware that not a single church in the NT had only one elder/pastor, yet almost every church I knew about only had one pastor. God crushed me that I was not raising up leaders to serve as elders, to teach the people. I was hogging the work of the ministry, the responsibilities of pastoral leadership, instead of raising up men to take them.

I share this because much of what I am saying will not make sense at all if you have not thought deeply and biblically about the topic of eldership in the local church, (link to a short, excellent booklet on the topic) particularly the concept of multiple elders (pastors) in a local church. If you are responsible for raising up that many men to lead, the question immediately arises, "Where are they going to come from?" The answer is that some of them are necessarily going to be men who are saved in your local church! There are no other viable options. In that case, it is important that they be trained theologically and ministerially. How to do that? Suddenly, the question "Does Bible college make any sense for the men being saved in my local church?" becomes a question of paramount importance!

My frustration with the way I had always thought grew gradually stronger, until while reading an article on seminaries, my frustration boiled over into the tweet referenced above.

So, having briefly stated the journey that leads me to my current frustration... let me address the problem.

I'm a hopeless local-church guy. I sincerely believe that "The local church is the hope of the world, and the future of that hope rests in the hands of its leaders." (Bill Hybels) My comments here will be focused toward the training of Christian pastors (I will often refer to them as elders in writing). I here mean no disrespect to Christian teachers, secretaries, underwater basket weavers, and other noble professions trained at a Christian college.

I am also aware of the many arguments that could be leveraged against what I am about to say: 

What we have is working... 

anything else is unrealistic... 

you had a bad experience (I didn't)... 

community college is worse... etc. 

I haven't time or space to dispute these things. I will simply ignore them.

I wish to stress that I am not anti-Bible college, and absolutely not anti-higher education. Today, as I write, a teen from my church left (the 3rd since I moved here) to go to Bible college. This summer, two Bible college groups did services at my church, and I would have had more if scheduling conflicts hadn't prevented. I also greatly appreciate the role Bible college played in my life & my wife's.My family, for 3 generations, has been deeply involved in Bible college work. Members of my family have attended, worked, or taught at all 5 of our major CHM Bible colleges (AWC, HSBC, GBS, PVBI, & UBC). Both grandfathers invested years of their life into holiness Bible colleges. My brother leaves within 24 hours of this writing to go to UBC for his education. My family has been so involved, in fact, that I have done almost no talking to anyone in my family about this topic, for fear of being misunderstood! 

I am not as pro-bible college as I once was, because:

In the current system of Bible College, I fear that:

1. Great focus on academic knowledge in an inexperienced young man feeds pride.

I have said that I spent 5 years in Bible college and 5 years in recovery. The main reason was pride in my own heart. But Bible college, because of its very nature, did little to challenge my pride, and much to feed it with "I know what is wrong with our movement" thinking. This has little or nothing to do with the content I was taught there (many ideas which I still espouse). The truth of the content has no relation to the pride it produces. "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." (1 Corinthians 8:1)

Learning in practice keeps an incredible tension on what you don't know, resulting in greater humility. Learning in theory has a tremendous danger of pride. There may be opportunities to preach from time to time, or regularly in Bible college. Yet these opportunities are at best a test tube environment, where one does not have to deal with a church board, lead financially, deal with a subpar building, and a thousand other things that serve as a preventive to pride in actual ministry.

I would be willing to chalk this up to my own experience and struggle with arrogant pride... if I hadn't observed the same in other young men.

Pride flows directly into the second problem. I fear that:

2. We are doing little to help a young person learn to submit to their local elders/pastors.

The Bible reiterates in several places (1 Pet. 5:5-6, Heb. 13:17, 1 Cor. 16:15-16) that people are to be submissive to their elders (local church pastors).

Young men are some of the most naturally arrogant and prideful creatures in the world. Peter hammers young men and commands them to be subject to their elders (in context it's pastors, not aged) in 1 Peter 5, telling them that if they humble themselves under God's mighty hand, in due time, God will raise them up. Then he tells them in the meantime to "cast all their care on Him." (1 Pet. 5:7) There is little straight talk like this to young men at Bible college, at least in my experience.

Would it not be better if these young men were to serve and learn primarily under their local team of elders, gaining wisdom while practicing humility? By circumventing this process, we inadvertently short-circuit the whole concept of Christian community!

Instead, we send young men & women away for a season, where they learn that there is another culture where they do things "right." At Bible college, they never sing "I'll Fly Away" for Sunday morning worship, and no one plays a banjo & accordion in the church band. Rather than view themselves as a missionary back to their local community & as a servant to their local church culture, they decide that their mission is to change their local church culture. It is difficult to submit to an elder whom you have concluded is backward or uninformed.

As for those who actually leave Bible college to go full time church leadership as elders themselves, exercising spiritual authority and headship in a local church, I will say... 

I fear that:

3. Too many Bible college students are not leaving.

My "evidence" here is entirely anecdotal, not statistical. Perhaps if I saw statistics over the last 10-20 years of how many graduates are actively serving in ministry in a local church, I would take this point back... but I doubt it. It may be only anecdotal, but it seems as though it is everyone's anecdote. I have never discussed this with a single person who hadn't noticed the high concentration of Bible college graduates who stick around the area where they graduated. It is not mere coincidence that most of the largest churches in our movement have a Bible college nearby. I do not resent this at all, (my dad pastors one) I merely make the observation.

The point of a Bible college should be to send graduates into local churches and minister there, and view that as their life's great work. But often, it is easy to become so enamored with the work of the Bible college, that one forgets the work of the churches further than 25 miles away – and boy, could we use the help!

The reasons that Bible college students are not leaving (at least the area) are many. All these may apply:

• Comfort in an area, near friends, loved ones, etc.
• Security in a job/other financial constraints (debt, etc.)
• Failure to locate & acquire a suitable spouse. :-)
• Insecurity about exposing oneself to the potential of failure.
• Desire to continue to fellowship with "smarter" people, like oneself.

This last factor mentioned leads me to my next point – I fear that:

4. We are creating another layer of Christian subculture.

Perhaps it was my own arrogance, but when I started pastoring, I was astounded at how few people appreciated the kind of excellence that Bible college had afforded me... They were unimpressed when I quoted a Greek verb, quoted Barth, or talked about Handel (let alone sang Handel!). The people that I talked to were more impressed with Mosie Lister (one group) and Soulja Boy (another group entirely.)

Understand: Bible college is a subculture. It has its own rules, influential people, initiation rites, social mores, homogenized localized living areas... and like all cultures, it has its idiosyncrasies and blind spots.

Rather than training Christianity to speak to the culture where one lives, shouldn't we be training our future elders in such a way that they can quickly translate theology through hands-on experience in a specific culture where they are called?

The local church is also a subculture. But by its very nature, the pool of talent from which to choose is (let's be honest) far inferior to that of a Bible college, where the best and brightest have gathered from around the country to study. The local church is far less "sexy" than a Bible college, where "they just get it."

Here's what it feels like: 

Where I go to college:

Where I go to preach when I graduate:

For a lot of guys, that's hard to swallow.  It made for some painful transitions for me.

Nothing against that college or that church. That's my alma mater, God's Bible School and College. Beautiful auditorium! That's really my church, & me in 2004.  I LOVE my church!

I'm just saying it's a hard transition.

Any sociologist will tell you that breaking out of a subculture is difficult. The people are like you – they have the same assumptions, experiences, and values you have. The people outside the subculture do not, and it involves a certain amount of pain to transition from one to the other. A subculture also propagates its own superiority over the other cultures available, strengthening loyalty to one's own group.  It can be very painful & frustrating to be a local church leader...usually, the people I am called to deal with have not read the books I have, heard the lectures I have, done heavy thinking that I have... yet they vote. :-)

In some of my conversations with Bible college students, the fear of all this is palpable. They are genuinely fearful that they are not ready... Not surprisingly.  They haven't observed a board meeting, promoted a ministry, brainstormed outreach on no budget. 

The Bible college subculture thus propagates itself... it is difficult to transfer out, for fear of failure and distaste for pain.

I also fear:

5. We are not training ministers like Christ and the early church trained them. 

OK, trivia: How does one become a pastor in the Conservative Holiness Movement? General answer – be born to a Christian family, saved as a young child, go to Bible college for 4-5 years, start pastoring. Rarely (there are a few exceptions) do you see a guy who got saved in his late 30s, left his business/job, took his wife and family across the country for several years and then went back to start pastoring. 

I don't like that answer. 

We need guys like that as elders, but we can't even staff the churches that we have. We can't even staff them with one pastor, let alone the biblical NT model of multiple elders who are "able to teach" (1 Tim 3, Tit. 1) and who "rule well." (1 Tim 5:17)

Now consider the statement "the system you have is perfectly designed to give you the results you are experiencing." (paraphrase Nelson Searcy)

Instead of training young men on the job, we have decided that the way to do it is to send them away, isolate them in a Christian subculture (claims of ministry focus notwithstanding) and fill their minds with lectures for four years.

By our very system, we have guaranteed that we will never train pastors fast enough. At the rate pastors leave the ministry, (and some pastors leave the Conservative Holiness Movement) the current system cannot replace them! We will not be able to sustain the churches we have, let alone plant new ones (and forget elder-teams in each church!)

Christ invited men along with Him. There was plenty of lecture – they listened to Him preach. But then, he sent them out by twos to do it themselves, complete with healing and power over demons. They returned, he gave them perspective on the experience, and ministry went on. They knew what it was to run from the crowds, to not have the answer for a deaf boy, to be unable to feed the hungry crowd. Talk about humbling! And Jesus had no problem with letting them fail in their ministry. 

Someone has observed that in every story in the second half of the Gospel of Mark, the disciples come out looking bad. But these experiences and failures were woven together by the Master Professor, producing men that were "unlearned," but ready and usable.

Solutions, anyone?

I hate it when people come to me with problems, and have no solutions. So, I feel compelled to offer suggestions – beware, I have few easy ones, most are staggeringly hard. (All institutions are hard to change anyway!) Some suggestions would actually be the death of the current Bible college system as we know it.

I'll add these solutions in a separate post in a couple days.  

In the meantime, have at me in the comments section.  What are YOUR ideas for solutions?

Just thinkin',

Darrell