July 20, 2009 issue
Urban church leaders offer ministers advice
By Ryan Miller Mennonite Mission NetworkPage:
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Some congregations need a spark to start. Others need to be reignited.
Sally Schreiner Youngquist and Karl McKinney speak to the 2009 Urban Leaders Network meeting in Columbus, Ohio — Photo by Ryan Miller/MMN
Karl McKinney and Sally Schreiner Youngquist agreed that both require common tools, as well as a few specific ones.
The two ministers, who once served together on the leadership team of Living Water Community Church in Chicago, spoke about planting and revitalizing congregations at the Urban Leaders Network gathering July 1.
Organizers also honored Schreiner Youngquist with the 2009 George and Pearl Kauffman Urban Leader Award.
Schreiner Youngquist spoke about being in a group that began Living Water in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. McKinney addressed renewal at Northern Virginia Mennonite Church in Fairfax, Va. McKinney also is a housing manager for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City.
The church can perish under stress of exhaustion — both individual and structural — without periodic changes, McKinney said.
“The gospel is all about change,” McKinney said.
Unfortunately most pastors are not taught how to lead a congregation through change, he said. Church leaders may spend more time in meetings than in ministry and lay members may be reluctant to do ministry themselves.
A core group — a hula hoop — must form around and focus on specific changes within a congregation, McKinney said.
“I want three or four people in that hula hoop with me,” he said. “We’re going to bind our lives together and work on this now.”
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