You and Your Resume

Each day, in my reference and referral work, I deal with resumes – lots of them. And they are as varied in content and format as the ministers who send them my way. While resumes are a very subjective thing, there are some basic things that any candidate who wishes his or her resume to get a second look should pay attention to.

A recent article in FastCompany.com shared with me by John Lepper, coordinator of Kentucky Baptist Fellowship, talks about how to make a resume stick. The writer says that “to advertise yourself with a resume is like trying to advertise a box of cereal with its UPC code.” He goes on to say that resumes have one role – to establish credibility – to help you clear the bar. Or, I would say to be able to have your resume set aside for further consideration. Your resume is a sales brochure in which you need to present yourself in the most positive light possible. While of course you should never stretch the truth, this is not a time for being overly modest.

 A well-written cover letter can give a search committee a bit of personal insight into the candidate that cannot always be gleaned from the usual bulleted data contained in the standard resume. It’s a place to let a bit of the passion of your ministerial call shine through. Unlike a resume for a secular position, this personal touch is something that is welcomed by church search committees. Try to keep the cover letter to one page while sharing information about yourself that makes a committee want to know more.

Ten tips for blogging

Working in communications, I’m frequently asked about blogging … specifically, tips and ideas I might have for writing a blog. I’m not an expert by any means, but I have consulted some fellow bloggers (try googling “blog tips” and you’ll find lots of suggestions). I’ve taken what I know about writing basics for the web and what I’ve learned from experience …and created a list of 10 tips.

Please feel free to share your knowledge and add to this list…whether you blog on facebook, wordpress or another site.

 Ten tips:

1. Keep it short. Most people reading online are scanners.

 2. Write short, catchy headlines. Use keywords in your headline that sums up your blog post.

 3. You don’t have to be a natural born writer to write for a blog. Write like you speak. Write as if you were talking to a friend. Write what you know or what you want to know. 

 4. Pick one topic, one aspect of an event, one idea or one memory to write about. Don’t try to cover too much.

 5. Share short stories or vignettes from your experience. Write about a meaningful experience or someone you’ve met. BUT, remember to ask permission before using anyone else’s name.

 6. Remember the journalist’s rule of the 5 Ws – who, what, when, why and where. Stay focused, but cover the basics.

 7. Use multimedia. If they are available, post photos and videos. This makes your blog more interactive. If you mention a person, organization or event, link to their site or post an image.

 8. If you are contributing to a community blog, identify yourself – informally. Try “as a minister…..”  or  “as a Georgian….”.  You don’t have to provide your entire bio, but it helps the reader if they know a little about your background.

 9. Use lists. Lists with bulleted points are easy to read, especially online.

 10. Proofread. Even if your posting is short – read it over before you post!

Ever heard of Ning?

With technology we can do some wonderful things.  Take, for instance, the social networking tool called Ning. It’s like Facebook in that you connect with new and old friends. But at www.ning.com, the emphasis is on social networking around a specific idea or interest. There are groups about everything from gardening to television shows – and also CBF. 

The Fellowship has a Ning site that helps connect you with others who have similar ministry interests – like addressing poverty, starting new churches, Together for Hope (CBF’s rural poverty initiative), and nearly 30 more groups. You can discuss issues, leave comments, and use online chat to communicate with others. Plus, there’s plenty of information about how to become more involved and use your God-given gifts and talents.

Check it out at http://fellowshipportal.ning.com/. You can create a free account, join the Fellowship’s groups and begin connecting with others.

Shift happens to Fellowship Baptists, too

Ben McDade, October 30, 2009

This August, about 30 Fellowship Baptists gathered for a three day working retreat to look into the future.  We attempted to discern the best avenues for telling the Fellowship story in order to engage more people in our part of God’s work on earth and to help ensure that we have the financial resources needed to collectively support our ministries and partner congregations.  The retreat theme was “Shift Happens,” borrowed from this video. 

Since this gathering, I came across another video that is even more descriptive of the shifts we are facing in social media.

 You have probably heard the old saying that there are two things that Baptists don’t like: change and the same old thing.  The world isn’t just changing any more. Change is simply the substitution of one thing for another. I believe we are living in a world that is much more dynamic and complex than simple change.  I believe we are now in the midst of a world that is churning. Churning by definition is to shake or agitate with violence or continued motion. Shake. Agitate with violence. Continued motion.  If large segments of Baptists don’t like change, they’re really not going to like churning. 

 Read the headlines in any newspaper (if you can still find one), blog or tweet, or catch a news segment on the cable news station of your choice.  Our world is churning.  What this means for us as Christians is that more so now than ever, people need to experience the love and saving grace found only in Jesus Christ. Our world needs those who are willing to be the presence of Christ. Our collective call is to engage churches and individuals to this end. Are you ready? Are you prepared to be the presence of Christ in a churning world?

 I invite you to find and live out your passion with like-minded Christians.  Plan now to come to Charlotte, N.C., the last week in June for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s annual General Assembly.  It’s more than a meeting; it’s a place for you to discover and engage your passion while being the presence of Christ to a hurting and churning world.  Check it out at www.thefellowship.info/assembly.

The missionary as a mediator: a journey

The Missionary as a mediator: a journey

David F. D’Amico

Eminent missiologist Paul G. Hiebert contends that the rise of globalization during the 21^st century must elicit a new paradigm amid a tenuous consensus among evangelicals. “Increasingly, missionaries are bridge persons, culture mediators, who stand between different human worlds.”

He suggests some principles that are very helpful to understand the present situation.

• The globalization of the church has made us much more aware of the need to contextualize the message in our local cultures and the messenger and the church in local social systems.
• Missionaries are mediators between Christianity and non-Christian religions.
• Missionaries are mediators in global church-to-church relationships.
• Missionaries are mediators in the academy between theology and human studies.
• Missionaries must be mediators between missions as a movement and Missiology as an academic discipline.
• Missionaries as mediators are central to global theologizing.

Source:  “The missionary as mediator of global theologizing,” by Paul G. Hiebert. Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity. Craig Ott and Harold A. Netland, eds. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), Chapter 14: pp. 288-308,

In my missionary experience I have attempted to practice the “spirit” of mediation guided more by instinct and intuition than by rationality and scientific data.

As one born in Argentina and living in Texas during the late 1950s, those different from the prevailing culture were mostly Mexican and Mexican-Americans. I learned to navigate the turbulent waters in which I was swimming because my Spanish accent connected me with my fellow Mexicans but my white skin unsettled those with whom I interacted.

In academia, I served as a mediator between the discipline of mission and the practice of mission. I was officially a missionary in two functions: once as executive director of the Metropolitan Baptist Association and then as a representative at the UN of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. In addition I taught evangelism and world mission in two Baptist seminaries. These ministries afforded me the joy of implementing some deeply believed missiological principles from the classroom and from the field. It also confronted me with the reality that on occasion, organization and bureaucracy tend to negate the best motivated and perhaps efficient missiological principles. As a person, scholar, and missionary, I consider this role as the most rewarding and fulfilling of my vocational career.

Advent Resources

Advent has always been, after Lent, my favorite season in the Christian calendar.  As a Christian educator in the local church, I loved teaching about Advent and observing spiritual formation in the lives of people as they journeyed through this counter-cultural Season of preparation.  Often a church member would remark about how much more meaningful their Christmas was as a result of observing Advent.

As the first Sunday of Advent quickly approaches (November 29), I wonder what your church is doing to pay attention to Advent this year?How will your church emphasize Advent in its worship, fellowship, and discipleship opportunities?  What resources does your church use to help members “prepare a way” for the Christ-child?  What time-tested resources can you recommend for corporate and individual formation?

I’ve listed a few recommendations below which I hope you find helpful:

 

• God’s Most Generous Gift: An Advent Devotional Calendar is a new resource available from CBF for families.  One side of this table-top flip calendar has reflections for adults and the other for children.  The resource offers families instruction in building and using an Advent wreath and offers insights into the various Global Mission field ministries of CBF.  You can order or preview this resource by visiting, www.thefellowship.info/advent.   You might consider offering these reflection calendars to the families of your church as an Advent ministry. 
• www.textweek.com/advent.htm - Textweek.com is the premier online worship preparation site (especially if your church follows the Christian calendar).  This particular page is for Advent resources. 
• www.followingthestar.org/ - Followingthestar.org is an online Advent devotional experience created by Passport (youth and children’s camping options) in partnership with CBF, PC USA, and the Episcopal Church.   It is done really well.  I highly recommend that you share it with your church members.  Note:  this devotional begins with Advent (November 29).  Until then, you will be directed to the d365 website, a Passport/CBF partnership which provides an online daily devotional. 
• www.baptiststandard.com/2000/12_4/pages/cyber.html - Not sure about this whole Advent thing?  Well, here’s a great article on how other CBF partnering congregations are observing the Season.
• Preparing for Advent - Finally, I’ve made available a PowerPoint presentation from my previous local church ministry.  Feel free to modify it to suit your purposes.  You might use it as a primer on Advent for church members on a Wednesday or Sunday prior to the Season.
• Advent Wreath Liturgy - A gift from Courtney Krueger from FBC Pendleton, SC.  Thanks, Courtney.
• These and other resources are available at www.thefellowship.info/advent. 

What resources or recommendations do you have to share?

CBF Pioneers

A few weeks ago, I spent several days on retreat with a number of our CBF new church starters.  I have rarely been a part of a more diverse gathering within the Fellowship: young and old; black, white, and Hispanic; male and female; urban and rural; from the Deep South to the Far West. 

 Relatively few in number, CBF church starters are often forgotten within the other numerous activities of the Fellowship.  With the current economic pressures, constant internal debates, and activities within our own local churches, it is so easy for us to turn inwardly and focus on the concerns close to home.  But despite that tendency in almost all of us, there are a few pioneers among us who feel called to start new CBF churches. 

 Often with little outside financial support, these church starters follow the call to plant churches with passion.  Church starters do not simply want to start a church simply to do things their own way or to split from another local church when tempers flare.  I have found that those called specifically to church starting have a desire for evangelism: to introduce people to a relationship with Christ.  Many are working to reintroduce the Christian faith to those who have fallen away from church years ago or those who have been hurt by the church.  They are also working with many who have never found authentic community – a place where people feel comfortable sharing their lives with one another. 

 Over our weekend together, we shared experiences and methods, we named our successes and failures, and we prayed for one another.  We prayed that others in our seminaries and in our pews might feel the call to venture out to start a church.  We prayed that CBF churches will see the importance of church starting for our movement.  If we are to grow, if we are even to sustain our current size, and if we are to continue to exemplify a vibrant faith and witness to our communities, we must be working to start new churches.  Remember, every church at some point began as a church start.  It’s hard work, but it’s a clear part of our missional calling.

Reverse Mentoring – A Bible Geek Squad! The Students become the Teachers!

We are inviting all Fellowship congregations to participate in the “You’ve got the Time!” Bible listening initiative during 2010. Each youth and adult participant will receive a FREE MP3 disc with the dramatized New Testament on the disc. Each child will receive a FREE MP3 disc with Bible Stories and original songs.

Some of the resistance from some church leaders is around the MP3 format and the confusion of the technology. They are not sure that older adults can embrace the MP3 idea much less figure out how to get the disc to play! (About 87% of us have access to some technology that will play the MP3, think IPods, Computers with disc drives, DVD players, smart phones etc.)

But here is the wrinkle: Try REVERSE mentoring! Your youth know exactly how to download MP3’s ; they know exactly how to work the technology.  They are not intimidated by a little MP3 disc!  So let your youth TEACH your older adults how to use the disc! That’s reverse mentoring, when the “student” becomes the teacher!

Think about starting a Bible Geek Squad where youth “adopt” Senior Adults and help them learn the technology. Think about youth and older adluts listening together to the Scriptures once a week. Think about youth and older adults having spiritual conversations about what the Bible passage means to them.  Suddenly, an innocent MP3 disc holding a dramatic recording of the New Testament becomes the instrument of friendship, spiritual formation, and fellowship.  Technology is just a new tool for delivering a fresh understanding of God’s truth.  In one or two visits, youth and older adults will bond friendships that will have eternal implications.  Youth will love being the “experts”!  Older adults will love the interaction!  Ain’t it amazin’ how God works!

Conversations that matter

Seems we have a lot of conversations that don’t really matter – polite small talk with strangers, a quick “how are you?” with co-workers and acquaintences, silly banter on Facebook with a wide variety of “friends”… All have a place and serve a function – but don’t always have a lot of substance.  There is a lot of ”noise” in our lives…e-mail, texts, phone calls, telemarketers, TV, Facebook, Twitter, radio, news, weather, sports, updates and opinions 24/7.  We are constantly bombarded with more information than we ever wanted or could possibly digest… 

It makes the significant, meaningful conversations you occasionally get to have stand out all the more against the background  noise of  life.  Those rare moments when you really have the time connect with someone and talk about issues that really matter to you.  To ask questions, ponder answers, and wonder out loud about the things you think about.   How long has it been since you had that?

In December, students have the opportunity to be part of an event that is built around this idea – conversations about things that matter.  Antiphony is unique in that it’s purpose is to create space for meaningful conversations about issues that are important to all of us.  At Antiphony – students will have the time and space to talk about things like global poverty, environmental stewardship, how to relate to your families as an adult, the global imporatnce of water, females in minsistry, HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, students loans and personal finances, food and hunger,  consumerism, the emergent church, politics, campus activism and much more.   Antiphony creates the space for these conversations, and also for innovative worship, and creative fun with new friends – including a New Year’s Gala to ring in 2010. 

The theme for Antiphony is Faith. Hope. Love. Now.    When all else falls away – these are what lasts – and what the world needs.   In the midst of all of the noise – these are the things that matter.  Join the conversation Dec. 29 – Jan 2 in Decatur, GA.

CBF Youth Ministry Network

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit with a college student that has recently sensed God’s call to vocational ministry.  He was a thoughtful young man with a long list of questions about everything from which seminary he should attend to whether or not he would be able to feed his family on a minister’s salary.  He conveyed a deep understanding of the responsibilities and challenges faced by those in ministry.  He was aware of the fact that many ministers are prone to burnout, isolation, and moral failure, so I wasn’t surprised when he asked how he could protect himself against those things that might threaten his ability to fulfill his calling.  While this can and should be done in a number of ways, my suggestion was to find a group of peers with whom he could meet and interact with on a regular basis.

While a call to ministry is unique in many ways, those that are called are just like anyone else.  They need be surrounded by others that will offer them encouragement and strength as they do the work to which God has called them.  My experience as a minister has been that peer groups offer a level of support and understanding that’s hard to find in any other setting.  Peers are those that know the challenges you face on a day to day basis because they face those same challenges in their own setting.  They have learned from their experiences and care enough to carry you through your struggles as well.

CBF has given strong support to peer groups over the last several years by providing ministers of all stripes with resources that enable them to meet, to encourage one another, and to grow together.  Additional grant funds are now in place to support the development of a youth ministry network among CBF congregations.  This network is still in the developmental stage, but the desire is to create a focused network of support, encouragement, and resources for those that work with teenagers in our congregations.  Whether you work with teens in a full-time capacity or simply volunteer, the work that you do is important, and we hope that our commitment to building a network of peers will help sustain you in the work that you do.