Action Plans for the Next Six Months

Glenn Barth asked the churchs to individually develop goals and action plans that they could then take back to their leadership board. The strategic planning process includes "the dream," current external situation, current ministry situation, critical path steps, and resource release. The action learning plan includes the goal or desired results, how it is measured, steps, and a point person.

Second Baptist Church's goal is to increase their feeding of the homeless from 600 a year to 1200 a year. Their steps include identifying where the homeless are, go to five to ten churches a month to obtain partnerships with them, demonstrate the model to those churches, and offer training to those churches. SBC is in need of time, talent, and treasure to obtain their goal.

Summit Church identified the goal of getting the small groups externally involved. They currently have forty small groups with 5-600 active adults. They want to mobilize these groups, identify partners for service, identify passions, get people on ministry site to develop plans, motivate small groups, and follow through with monthy check ups.

Pleasant Valley Church has ten to twenty ministry spheres already going. Pleasant Valley has a similar plan as Summit. They would like to allow individuals to choose the ministry area in which they are called to serve. Next, they will either partner with ministries already going on in the city or facilitate the creation of the ministry.

PromiseLand Church would like to lead an aggressive ministry campaign to complete the House of Hope and minister in the areas of senior citizen housing, the McClellan school program, ministry of compassion, Sharefest, and the development house program. Their current external situation is unemployment, high crime, childcare issues, low income, substance abuse, lack of marketplace opportunity, and no senior citizen program. Their current ministry situation is a need for funding, to develop new partnerships, and to increase volunteer base. Steps to accomplish their goals include job training, parnership with DWS, adult based education, partnering with the BCD, and build senior housing.

Fellowship Bible Church is focusing on worship and service, Biblical community, and changing the world. Their current ministry situation includes some partnerships, an increase in the awareness of needs, ministry resource increase, and a need for interracial relationship progress. The current external situation is characterized by deep needs in the community, churches that are not collaborating, and a realization that the mobilization of volunteers has been ineffective. The steps to obtain their goals include an increase in evangelism, an integration plan for marriage ministry, serving the community, and increasing communication.

Collaborative Efforts in Process

Ray Williams led the group in determining what projects the churches are already doing together and what projects they need to do together. The projects that the group discovered they were doing together were united prayer, transitional programs that included life skills and job training, network of churches, housing programs, community focus luncheons in which helping agencies could have a forum to share how the churches could serve, community development, prison mentoring and other ministry, addiction help, Celebrate Recovery, student mentoring, school adoption, homeless assistance, foster care, and adoption. Some of the things that the churches determined that they need to do together was championing justice, after school enrichment programs, common cause community groups in which people interested in a particular ministry are directed from all the churches to one group focused on that ministry.

When given the opportunity to "invest" time and resources into particular ministries from the list developed, three projects came to the top for efforts involving all the churches in the community. They were hunger, Sharefest, and foster care. In a hunger initiative the churches would support existing organizations such as the Rice Depot and Food Bank. It was noted that their is a relationship between Sharefest and hunger. Some things already in play concerning foster care are The C.A.L.L., existing group homes around the state, and PromiseLand's House of Hope. The objective is to provide a caring environment for every child in the county.

For smaller groups of churches the following top four initiatives came to light: recovery ministry, transitional ministry, prison ministry, and Life Guard which is a non-profit organization involved in mentoring middle school youth involved in risky behavior.

Reasons for Your Church or Ministry to Join

Some may ask why should their church join. Glenn Barth gave seven reasons why your church should join a community collaboration. One reason is Jesus' prayer in John 17. Also, God values the city. God has already revealed the perfect city in heaven. Caring for the least is a central theme of the Bible. It is stressed repeatedly in the Bible. Another reason is that by joining forces, we can see an increased impact. We should also join together for fellowship and support. Community initiatives can create a healthier place to raise children. Finally, when issues in the community arise it is good to know your allies.

The reasons your ministry should join is to gain endorsement by the wider church, because the volunteers are in the church, and to utilize the expertise and funding in the church.

Mindsets of City Reaching

There are two mindsets of city reaching. One mindset is represented by a line and asks the question do you believe like I believe. As in the picture, the arrows go outward. A centered mindset is depicted by a center dot with arrows going in and out. The centered mindset asks do you care about what I care about. Everyone is focused on a center or common initiative.

The centered mindset can work with the bounded mindset in a healthy way. The bounded mindset is the covenant community that regularly meets together to practice spiritual disciplines. They care about the reign of God in the city. Those people then become centered as they serve God in their various vocations and people from the culture come in to join them on city reaching efforts.

City Reaching Phases

Stages of City Transformation

Glenn Barth talked about the stages of city transformation as being in six stages that build upon one another. The first stage is exploration. This stage is visionary and needs someone who is catalytic who can see the value of people from every vocation, ministry, and family working together and who can build relationships throughout the community. Next comes formation and is based on convening and communication. People who are excited about the movement come together and develop a mission statement and objectives. Then, the transformation goes into operation. Either volunteers with the vision lead or someone is hired to lead the movement. Management involves creative thinking, decision-making, and motivation building. Next, the breakthroughs happen in which prayer and other effort leads to seeing God happening in the community. Breakthrough leads to transformation which involves discipling. Finally, replication then happens where other cities are coming to your city to be taught the process and not just the program. Of these stages exploration, operation, transformation, and replication continues to happen.

Major Approaches to City Reaching

God is raising people up all over the world to affect change. It is not just in your neighborhood. City reaching is about mobilizing the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole city. It is about a common vision for bringing together the body of Christ. The whole church is diverse as the Antioch church was. The whole gospel involves the mighty works of and words of Christ. The whole city, in Little Rock, not only involves the main city but also the daughter suburbs that contribute to the system.

There are four major approaches to city reaching. One approach is presence based. This group focuses on prayer waiting on answers to that prayer. The evangelism focused approach spends their efforts on sharing the gospel to effect change to society on a person to person basis. Community development changes neighborhoods economically or otherwise to see change in the whole of society. When the whole church is mobilized as the approach to reach the city, the whole church has value in prayer, evangelism, and other in community development projects.

Models for a Collaborative Church

The churches were asked to create a model that would model an externally focused collaborative church. The idea is to develop an idea that they could then take back to the leadership in their church.

Geyer Springs First Baptist Church saw their school program as a microcosm of the community. They plan to have an event to assess what it would take to meet the needs of the schools in which they are involved. Once they have assessed the needs, they will go to the other churches to ask them to share a part in meeting those needs. Glenn Barth suggested that they bring in the other churches during the assessment stage of this project.

Summit Church was focused on using their small groups to collaborate with ministries in other churches. The small groups would be mobilized to join their heart for a particular ministry to a ministry already operating in another church.

Pleasant Valley Church wants to be a church of influence involved in church community, government, etc. The focus would be on how well they can gather everyone in the community around an initiative. Part of this collaboration involves opening their facility to the community which they have already done to a large extent.

Fellowship Bible Church depicted a circle that represented the whole church with individual churches. Each church plays a part in the larger community as related in Nehemiah 2:18. As in Nehemiah 4:20 the church needs to be ready to rally to that point in a crisis.

Hoover United Methodist Church has identified twelve churches in the area with which they would like to join around a meal to build relationships. Hoover has already started work with the government and joined the Chamber of Commerce in their efforts toward collaboration. They want to work with other churches in their ministries and not just work on their own.

Second Baptist Church would like to build a racial bridge building relationships and developing one into an army. They would like to buy into other church's ministries.

PromiseLand Church has a challenge of needs that go unmet. PromiseLand wants to build a bridge between urban and suburban churches. At their nucleus is the Community Development Corporation and the church itself. They will use these tools to connect with other non-profits. They plan to create marketing and work on a non-competitive use of the Dream Center both receiving and giving.

The Guatemalan church El Shaddai does not have any collaborative community effort. The model was to build relationships with individuals which in turn would build the body of Christ which would affect society. They would share strategy with other churches and for the first time participate in Sharefest.

Learning from Collaborative Efforts in Other Fields

The conference participants were asked to read chapters from a book by Thomas L. Friedman called The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Then, the participants were to design an innovative approach or model of collaborative citywide ministry based on the practices and principles identified in the article, engaging as many as possible to have the greatest spiritual and societal impact on the community.

One chapter from the book was called Insourcing: What the Guys in Funny Brown Shorts are Really Doing. The chapter discussed UPS who focused on value horizontally in the organization. They created an environment of intimacy between organizations breaking down barriers and developing an enabling platform. This led to an increase in service. To have an effective collaborative effort, likewise the church must network working in all sectors of family, government, schools, non-profits, and the marketplace. Ask the question of what is the need? In this way a small church could act big.

Another chapter of the book was called Open Sourcing: Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities. Open sourcing is about people coming together to build on an idea which they in turn distribute to others without cost and about others being able to freely build on and improve that idea. The goal is limitless improvement driven by need. This fosters an environment of innovative behavior not motivated by funding. This might be exampled in the church by the issue of hunger. The focus would not be on reducing hunger but rather eradicating hunger.

Supply-Chaining: Eating Sushi in Arkansas focused on supply-chaining in Wal-Mart. They developed a horizontal collaboration to create value. Every part in the supply-chain was evaluated for its value. They turned their focus to how they could optimize value and engineer recovery. This led to constant innovation and adjustment. They were the first to recognize that information was critical, and they opened their information to suppliers. The church also has a need for innovation, trust, information flow, and common standards. Improve on what works and apply to other areas.

In the final chapter to be reviewed attention was drawn to the abolitionist movement. The movement started in the heart of one person, and it expanded from there. From the movement, the reading focused on the principle of a circle. The circle represents equal members who are all empowered. There was also a catalyst - something that happens to move something to happen. Additionally, an shared ideology is needed to pull people together. A collaborative effort among churches in the community could look like that circle, may need a catalyst, and need a champion to pull together people around a common ideology. In this case the catalyst may be this conference and the champion may be in this room.

Second Chance Video

The participants watched a video in which a large, wealthy, white people led church was collaborating with a small, poor, black person led church to help feed the hungry in poor church's community. The wealthy church was offering funding, but the poor church was asking for more personal involvement. The participants were asked several questions concerning the video and how it relates to there local church.

One group saw that though there were differences such as white and black and rich and poor, there was some sort of relationship. They questioned whether money was actually the solution to the problem. What did the poor inner city church actually need? What could have been done if the pastors had a better relationship? The group noted the similarity between the community in the video and Little Rock in that their is racial separation in both situations.

Another group saw the disconnect and connects in the video. There was a lack of knowledge, politicism in a disconnect from the pastors and the congregation, bitter fear, and a difference in belief and value systems. Additionally, the different people in the video saw things through the lenses of their own experience.

The third group saw division along racial, economic, and geographic lines. Everyone saw things from a different perspective and feared the unknown. In Little Rock, we are still overcoming a relational disconnect.

The final group saw two very different communities with different definitions of ministries. The people on the video suffered from "default" thinking - human rather than Christ led thinking. They didn't have deep, close relationships. There heart was not for community, but it was rather about entertainment. Here in Little Rock money is also substituted for real help with the problem being theirs and not ours.

How do we measure outcomes?

Steve Capper reworded the question to what are the criteria for determining if the body of Christ is changing lives. The church usually spends time measuring outputs rather than outcomes. For example they measure success by regular attendance, being part of a small group, and prayer time, but measuring outcomes looks at if the life is similar to Christ's and if mentors are helping students to accelerate academically as well as emotionally and spiritually and if there is improvement in behavior.

Do the Little Rock churches need to hire someone or can someone from one of the churches represent the church at large?

Jim Tomberlin noted that it takes more than two or three churches releasing funds for a "servant at large" for all the churches. It often takes one church to set it up and be a channel for the other churches. One way that they have done it is to hold a "Bonfire" event three times a year in which they bring in high draw names with specific contributions. They have also invited Alpha in to help.

Steve Capper said that no two cities may be alike. We may not need to have a large church to instigate the representation. The largest part of Christians in America is not in a local congregation. It may involve people who are experienced in the church but are not in a congregation.

Gary Kinnaman said that apostolic leadership is everything.

How do we engage the small churches that don't have the capacity to meet the needs?

Jim Tomberlin said it is about breaking down the community into smaller areas in which several churches in that area focus on the area together.

Steve Capper indicated that it was important but not essential to involve the pastor. They can target someone who has the heart and ear of the pastor who can represent the church. Small congregations have people in them who want their lives to count and make a difference.

How do we manage all the projects being communicated by the world, our own church, and other churches?

Steve Capper said that we can't do everything. We have to make a decision to disappoint in order to be a good steward. There needs to be a core leadership with integrity to be an example and speak the truth in love of which ones are essential, which ones are the one to two things that we can do.

Glenn Barth states that it is a matter of heart involvement. What mobilizes each one into the ministry? You become concerned about what your friend is concerned. The concern becomes a calling.

How do the churches learn from one another?

Glenn Barth advocated vulnerability in relationships, and Jim Tomberlin encouraged communicating with one another.

If Deep Relationships do not result in collaborative relationships, what does?

Steve Capper shared that you have to move beyond relationships. Someone has to cast vision and be a catalyst to move beyond. The more influential person is not necessarily the pastor. It needs to be about more than prayer and meetings. It is about vision and relationship.

Gary Kinnaman said that pastors have a responsibility to engage other leaders as they have influence. Their is tension between white evangelicals and government. The question is what can we do to partner, because there are people in government who want to help.

Jim Tomberlin spoke about innovators and adopters. Identify the key people of influence - the experts, networkers, and sales people, and then break it down to a local level.

Jim Tomberlin on Parnerships in Other Communities

Jim Tomberlin is the senior advisor to Catalyst of Lake County, Chicago, which is seeking to unite the church of the greater Chicago area. Jim began as senior pastor of a non-denominational church in Colorado Springs that grew to be one of the largest in the area. Eventually, the three largest churches sat together to see how they could work together while keeping the main focus of the gospel. They invited other churches to meet together and ask what they could to together. They agreed to pray for everyone every year, eradicate hunger in the community, and bring the gospel to everyone in the community. It was called The Net. There were multi-faceted motivations with every church looking to see how the involvement would help their church. They hired someone to think about the joint issues for all the churches.

After working with Willow Creek on a multi-church collaboration, Jim became a pastor at large, leading Catalyst full time to bring churches together. He now works all over the country using Acts 2 as an example for reforming a city and working with local organic grassroots of emergent pastors. Every pastor is a kingdom leader, but not every kingdom leader is a pastor. We need people who are ready to make it happen.

Gary Kinnaman on Partnerships in Other Communities

Gary Kinnaman is the pastor at large for the City of Grace Church in Phoenix and author of Leaders that Last: How Covenant Friendships Can Help Pastors Thrive. He just started a new step in his journey, leading a faith-based community initiative for the state of Arizona.

Gary has been on a journey that started with multi-denominational experiences through childhood, college, and work, causing him to appreciate the many denominations. He went to a charismatic church near Phoenix involved in doing a church plant in Phoenix. They developed a local outreach, focused on missions, and worked on an outreach fair getting people into the community. Eventually, Gary served on the steering community for a Martin Luther King event and was involved in a Spanish church, connecting with people multiculturally. Finally, he was asked to serve on the counsel for a faith-based community initiative. He also worked as senior pastor of a church with 3000+ membership along with twelve others of that size. Now as a pastor at large he continues to build relationships between pastors and release people to make a difference.

Steve Capper on Partnerships in Other Communities

Steve Capper is the executive director for Mission Houston, working with leadership of pastors developing relationships with other church leadership in Houston. Steve wanted to clarify that there is a lot happening in Houston that is not being done through Mission Houston. Mission Houston is a part of what is going on with the community in Houston.

Mission Houston started in 1996 with visions of what the churches could do together. Two hundred out of five thousand came together in 1997 for a prayer summit. From the beginning Mission Houston thought that pastors had the key role. They focused on prayer based relationship building. Groups shared ministry of meeting social and spiritual needs of the community. They saw that they were loosing ground among the influence and saved, and Mission Houston thought the pastors would want to give up.

Phase 2 looked at what would need to happen if the senior pastors wouldn't lead the change. How can people get a taste of blessing in the community. It led to one day projects that developed into a city wide effort that involved good works combined with a party. They started school projects all over the city, asking the schools where they could help. This involved a ten year commitment to public schools in forty-five communities with three schools per area. They asked for a commitment of one hundred mentors per school and a $10,000 a year. The program included annual campus improvement and prayer every day for every mentor. It was an opportunity to see social and spiritual transformation.

What is the Existing Model for the Little Rock Churches

Glenn asked the question of what do the Little Rock churches look like - who is involved, what are the results actually desired, what are the strengths and weaknesses, and what are the unintended consequences. The participants divided into four mixed groups to discuss the model.

One group described the church as partnerships where congregations are coming together. People are maxed out in their time and resources. They are looking for the stability that a church can offer, but we are asking them to extend themselves. What if the church is showing a negative message or economic stress?

Another group sees the churches communicating, but there are outposts that are not connected. They sometimes connect on events. We need a true partnership all working together for the growth of the kingdom.

Group 1 described a model in which the church is divided not on heart issues but because we are busy. The whole definition of success is based on numbers, growth, and programs. We need to develop a partnership.

The final group has seen the churches that work within itself and churches that work outside itself. They would like to see the churches work together.

Where Are We in Our Models?

Models are not perfect, but they can be useful representations of the way something can look. A key principle to remember is that the hardest model to change is one that works.In the spirit of looking for useful models, Glenn asked the individual churches to share where they are in their churches. He wanted to know their successes, what is working, where they are "stuck," and their biggest surprises since the last conference in January.

Second Baptist shared their success in that there has been a more active participation in the homeless nursing home ministry. It has been an example of their vision for the year "Increase through Release." Their prison, homeless, and children's ministries are what is working. Second Baptist has seen an increase of participation from 1/2% to 2%. They are having a difficult time working with other churches to consistently spread out the ministry to the homeless during different time slots. The biggest surprise is in the Live, Laugh, and Love among the sick and homebound children. The children are coming to the church as a result of church children reaching out to them.

Pleasant Valley is seeing success in meeting needs and in the leadership supporting the effort. There has also been an increased focus on the River City Ministry. They are seeing people come to the Lord. Their distribution list is being used by many churches to spread communications in order to meet needs in the community. Pleasant Valley is also part of the team that decides where contributions to the Rice Depot go. What is working is the growth of trust with the local government. It has been a surprise that the founder and leader of a key ministry, Howard Gardner has died in the middle of a criticial period of the ministry.

Fellowship Bible has been able to impact South Mid-Town in developing an after school program. Fellowship commissioned a study to design the program, and they are working on the steps to initiate the program in October. The adopt a class program and prison ministry have also been a success. The after school program, Step Encourager mentoring program, and Community Health Clinic are working. They are stuck in successful communication within the church and building deeper relational bridges through projects in South Mid-Town. The surprise has been that they have underestimated the negative impact that the move to the new campus would have on the focus and energy of the volunteers.

Geyer Springs Church has had success in building a strong relationship with the Otter Creek Elementary School. They are working on taking ownership of the school by meeting needs, building relationship with staff, and reaching out to the students. It has been difficult to get people to volunteer on a regular basis. They were surprised by the entry of a new principal. They are uncertain of what the status of the new relationship will be.

Summit has had success in building relationships.They are working on building the small group ministry to the community. They are doing this through the use of a large grill and moonwalk that they can operate in various places for large groups of people. They are really moving ahead within certain areas, but they need to expand the small groups into other areas. Suprisingly, people in the church are starting to stand up to share their story which is leading to the starting of various ministries.

Our host, Promiseland has been successful in finishing the Dream Center and their Reach Out Now program. They have started a church plant that is flourishing in Jacksonville. They are working on the housing and after school programs. They are having a difficult time with fundraising for the House of Hope which involves mentoring and housing for teen girls. Also, they have been unsuccessful in getting the word out about who Promiseland is and what they do. They only have one or two partnerships. The economic crisis has been a surprise. People are having to choose whether to spend the gas on going to work or going to church. Promiseland is now picking up people from their homes, but this does not answer the greater economic needs.

Introduction to the Good Cities Learning Communities Conference

Glenn Barth welcomed the participants to the conference and introduced the special out of town guests for the conference - Jim Tomberlin, Senior Advisor, Catalyst of Lake County, Chicago; Gary Kinnaman, Pastor at Large, City of Grace Church, Phoenix and author of Leaders that Last; and Steve Capper, Executive Director for Mission Houston. It is a privilege to have these leaders with us to share their stories and for them to observe.

We will be focusing on a couple of things during our time here. We will discover how to work together to "increase the water level of the kingdom of heaven so that God's grace will flow through all the churches in the community together." Also what is going to take us from status quo to see a break through of work in the community? In this we need to ask the question of what do we need to know to effectively do ministry. Additionally, we need to develop an understanding of how to put the facts in our context. Then, the conference participants will move into the action of application of what we have learned.

Glenn Barth was pleased to reintroduce Antoine Scruggs with Promiseland Church who is hosting this conference. Antoine talked about the Dream Center which is where the conference is being held. It started seven years ago with a vision of community development in the area. The ministry now includes workshops, a computer lab in which GED and work training is done, partnership work, portable housing, and other ministries.