Attending seminary is an experience that can be life-changing.  It is an opportunity to explore one’s faith, to engage in intensive study, and to consider how that study challenges one’s faith.  The seminary experience is filled with books and lectures, with the writing of papers and the sharing between students.  One encounters professors who share from their knowledge and experience, and who sometimes share from their own faith journey as well.

            When one graduates from seminary, it is with a feeling of being prepared for ministry.  As one engages in that ministry, in whatever setting, it soon becomes clear that there were many things that were not included in that seminary education.  The longer one is in ministry, the longer the list becomes of things not learned in seminary.

            In this upside-down alphabet of things not learned, there are encounters with such diverse topics as baptism, weddings, laying bricks, making coffee and a man named Ken.  Filled with serious offerings, as well as numerous moments that evoke a smile, these learnings are offered to help fill out life in ministry.

            This book is available on Amazon.com.

I have been a part of small churches for most of my life.  There is a richness of experience, and always ongoing challenges, in being a small church family.  Unfortunately, many small churches eventually close, most of them certainly due to circumstances unique to each situation, but also often due to the common dilemma of wanting to grow yet being challenged in making changes to help that to happen.

As we have experimented with different approaches to worship at Gateway Christian Church, we have used the Fifth Sundays in a year to experience worship in different ways.  While our worship attendance still fluctuates with the expected ebbs and flows as with most congregations, these unique worship experiences have helped to foster vitality in both our worship gatherings throughout the year and in other areas of church life.  We have found that most people do not want to miss these unique Sundays.

I have published a small book entitled, Transforming the Small Church: Fifth Sundays and Beyond.  It suggests a process for transforming worship, since that is the largest common experience in small churches.  It also offers ten Fifth Sunday Worship Gathering suggestions as a way of prompting the reader’s own creativity.  My hope is that some of the resources will be useful just as they are, and that others will be a starting point for other churches to create their own unique experiences.  It is available through Amazon.com.