Update: How things have turned out...

If you're reading this, it might be helpful to know that the entries below were entered about a couple of months before this one. In that time frame, the leaders of our faith community made the decision to dissolve our current organization(NWCM-FW) and merge with a bigger congregation (Word international or WIN). The entries below this one describe some of the thoughts that went into that decision.

We've learned a lot about ourselves and about our God simply by placing ourselves in this situation. For instance, we've learned that even if things do not work out with the merge, it would be highly unlikely that we would return to the original way we did things. It was as if we moved forward and there was no going back. We basically flipped a switch and the ripple effect of that choice made it impossible to try to make things the way they used to be precisely because of the lessons learned during this process - just like the way it is in life.

Another thing we learned was the amazing way in which God works all things together for the good - but only if you love Him, believe that you are called according to His purpose and choose to see things in that manner because You trust His word. I have more to say about that in my other blog (http://dondicastillo.blogspot.com - see the entry on Friday, March 12).

In the past two months, one of the "disappointments" that our previous organization felt was the idea that they were losing a partner in the organization. This was because there are only 2 NWCM churches in the USA and now there was only going to be one. However, I choose to see it differently - even though NWCM "contracted" or "shrunk", the Kingdom of God actually "expanded" and "multiplied". Now instead of NWCM north partnering with NWCM south, they are now able to potentially partner with not just one organization, but with 3. Let me explain.

Our youth group, BASIC, rather than trying to get absorbed by the bigger church's youth group, all of a sudden grew up and took on the responsibility that usually falls on adults' hands. They incorporated - legally. WITH Living is now its own legal entity, established as an official certified 501c(3) tax-exempt body. Its officers are the same late teen/early twenties young men and women who have always done ministry their own way; only now they're doing it under the umbrella of...themselves. BASIC, now called WITH has always been very independent and self-motivated, creating their own program and executing their own activities. We, the adults have always just been supporting them but they were always the ones who would decide the course of their ministry/community. The stirring that happened in our group pretty much pushed them towards a higher level of organization to add to their ministry and community life.

In the same way, Team Evergreen WA which was the main ministry project of NWCM-Federal Way, is now an independent non-profit and is also on its way towards becoming its own 501c(3). It's vision of bringing people together from all walks of life and from all backgrounds and faiths towards a common goal can now be more readily realized as its committed team members are not limited by organizational boundaries.

Both of these organization will not fall under the Word International Umbrella - not because WIN doesn't support them, but because organizationally, WIN already has their own Youth and Poverty alleviation programs. Why force them to merge when they can exist separately and have more people involved reaching different groups of people?

Did our members multiply? Did we increase the number of people involved in these organizations? Not really - as a matter of fact, we lost a few more; those who could not transcend the past decided not to come to church after the merge. But here, the people of WITH and Team Evergreen are still the same people whom the NWCM-North folks knew and loved. Now NWCM-North has 2 new organizations it can work with (TEW and WITH) and since these people now also go to a church called WIN, should they choose, NWCM-North has another church to work with.

So it's all a matter of perspective. We, the members of NWCM-FW didn't envision things to turn out this way. But we continued to trust that God is with us and we will continue to serve Him regardless of how our organizations turned out.

On Sunday, April 4, NWCM-Federal Way will cease to exist as its members start attending worship services with Word International (Easter - new beginnings). We're still the same people, serving the same God, doing the same ministries with better effort. Whether other people choose to see things that way is their choice. They can either look at names and banners and organizational titles, or they can look at the hearts of their brothers and sisters and continue to work with them towards a brighter tomorrow for all.

Background

In the Spring of 2010, the congregation of NetWork Christian Ministries in South End of Puget Sound - Federal Way - find themselves at a crossroads. They are considering a dissolution of their independent church in exchange for a merging with a much larger and more stable group of believers. as anyone can imagine, this potential move has caused some uneasiness, especially among those who have friendships with people in the home "denomination". These are the thoughts behind the stirring...

Why It Makes Sense to Merge

I've often been asked if it was advantageous to be in a large mega church (more than 1000 people) or to be in a small church (100 or less). All congregations are different, of course, but it's pretty safe to make a few generalizations about the situation.

Mega churches are efficient - they have professionals who take care of everything - from the facilities maintenance to the accounting. They have higher standards of excellence in ministry - they have to be in order to maintain the numbers they have. Bigger populations require more organization, order and policies. And as a matter of statistics, having a lot more people to draw from allows the members of a large congregation to focus on 1 skill, be good at it and not have to worry about everything else they're not as skilled at. Large congregations also take in a lot of moneys and when administered by the right people with the right heart, can make huge impacts in social or political causes.

There is some disadvantage to all of this, of course. When professionals do all the little things that are required to keep a mega church going - that leaves the ordinary person to do nothing. This is why in larger congregations, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. In addition, large congregations always have the effect of making you feel lost in the crowd - and unless you are the type that initiates contact with others, you'll almost always feel like you are not significant in the sense that the church will move on without you. There are ways to overcome these disadvantages, of course, but that's not the subject of this article. And this is not to say that no mega church can make you feel warm and at home. That's a different discussion for a different time.

Small churches have some advantages, too. The small number of people makes it feel more at home, due to the informal setting. People usually all know each other and it's generally "warmer" simply because of a more intimate setting. There is a lot more tolerance for unskilled or below-par work simply because there's nobody around to do skilled ministry. Workers, musicians, teachers who would otherwise not even be considered for service at a mega church find themselves becoming critical workers in a small church. There's also a higher feeling of significance and ownership for each member because anyone's absence can be felt (i.e. the smaller the total number of attendees, the larger the effect of one person not showing up).

Problems that small congregations experience are pretty common. Typically, it's less organized. Workers perform double or triple responsibilities (i.e. it is not uncommon for the usher to also be the Treasurer and the lead musician at the same time). Workers muddle through ministry areas for lack of staffing just to get through the day. Activities rarely run as smooth as they are supposed to run. Policies and strict operating procedures are often set aside replaced by trust and relationships, which could lead to abuse or lower expectations. In addition, a huge amount of time is spent just trying to meet legal obligations instead of focusing on actual ministry work.

The best place to be, as with anything in life, is right in the middle somewhere. You want to be in a church where it's big enough to drive some momentum in the community, yet small enough to feel like it's a family gathering. You want to be big enough to require some level of excellence in your ministries, yet relational enough that you don't need professionals to perform them. You want to have enough people giving to the ministry that you can support your full time workers (such as pastors) and fixed costs (such as facility rentals) but still small enough to know that your contributions are actually an integral part of the church's budget. You want it big enough to generate excitement at activities and have enough workers doing only small portions of the overall work, but small enough that you don't have to resort to legalism or salaries to manage the people.

Now let's say you belong to a community of believers whose desire is to serve your community. If you are too small in number, you will spend a bigger percentage of your resources (time, money, skill) just getting yourselves up and running and meeting legal requirements. Instead of pouring time and effort with the actual vision of what you want to do, you get exhausted just making sure your i's are dotted and t's are crossed. Those who are employed to do ministry work become the legal owners of the organization by default and are pushed into administrative work or have to shoulder the burden of making the whole organization work – let alone get the actual ministry work going.

Now, being in a faith community means you need someone to nurture you spiritually while you are pursuing that which is your vision. Any resource you spend trying to support employees and keeping your organization intact will take away from you actually doing what you want to do. That is to say - you will be spending a lot of time with overhead.

Imagine, then, what you could do if you had the opportunity to become part of an organization that already has people taking care of overhead. Would it make sense to become a part of that organization? What if that bigger organization actually believes that what you are passionate about is actually something that's good - something they could also learn from and impart to them? So now, not only is your overhead problem solved, but now you have more resources to draw from for your ministry passion and more potential to expand your actual vision.

Isn’t that the same as being in a mega-church? Not necessarily. Joining a mega church may take care of your overhead but you have to deal with some of the disadvantages. However, if you could get close enough to meeting some of those small church advantages with some mega-church positives – you’d be in the sweet spot.

But wait - what about the name of our organization? Don't we value carrying that name? Isn’t there value in being independent of others so we can do as we please (or as we believe the Lord leads us)? When the question comes down to whether or not you can continue to do the work you are passionate about and just keeping an organization's name for the sake of keeping it - which would you prefer? Nothing is free – the price of independence and carrying a preferred name could be less efficacy and more cost in resources (again due to the price of overhead).

Anybody can swing either way – usually, it all depends on timing and the overall need of a group at the time any opportunity presents itself. At NWCM-FW, we are at a point in our ministry where we are passionate about serving the community. But because of our size, we are spending too much resources on just keeping the organization together and taxing the skillsets of its members for the sake of the organization itself, rather than for the sake of reaching the community. We are also in need of a full-time pastor who can oversee us and lead us to “green pastures” as scripture describes.

This essay simply describes the advantages of merging with a more stable group from a congregational size point of view. We are a group of around 20 committed church people trying to stay afloat keeping up with our overhead – in terms of time, resources (both human and financial). What would you do if you had the opportunity to reduce your overhead and yet pursue your passion for ministry? Merging with a more stable congregation will enable us, in our small size, to continue doing and focusing on those works that we are already involved with and still be a part of a larger community where our spiritual needs are met.

Other writings revolving around our transition will come...

How a Merge Would Work

Getting married involves two people coming together, making a pledge that their lives will no longer be apart – but one. They make a vow before God, loved ones and each other that they will do all they can to meet each other’s needs even as they recognize that the other party makes them happy. The wedding, of course, is not the marriage – the marriage happens the day (and into the decades) after.

It requires a few changes in one’s values – things that the other party deems important all of a sudden will become important to you; or at least, because you love the person, you will support your partner in that pursuit of what he/she deems important. You may even find having to adjust the placement of some of your furniture – and yes, even your sleeping habits will change as you try to get some z’s with that snoring partner of yours (and you’ll discover that your partner is also adjusting to your snoring). Practically speaking, you are turning your world upside down for the sake of your spouse. And in the end, all the influence she has on you will change you and turn you into a different person than you would have been if you had never met her. Hopefully, you bring out the best in each other – that’s what a successful marriage is all about.

Now try and apply those principles to a merging of two churches.

Each church has its own way of doing things - its own values, its own priorities and its own needs. So when two organizations merge in order to meet each other’s needs, both must also realize that there are unavoidable changes both should prepare for.

First, one may not have the same values as the other – they may hold some common values, of course, but maybe they tend to express it differently. Both parties will have to be patient with each other as they both learn to do things together. At the beginning, one may not value the same things as the other – but because they are now in a marriage founded on love, they must both submit to each other and vow to support each other in that endeavor. Eventually, because of the relationship, both will soon value what the other values. The one rubs off on the other.

Both will have to be patient, too, in the way the other party serves God. Once again, just like in a marriage, each will have to find time to support the other realizing that it is that activity that makes the other feel fulfilled – and who wants an unfulfilled spouse?

In the end, a merging between two parties does not mean that the personality of the other is smothered by the stronger personality. Rather, just like in a beautiful marriage, the good personality traits of the one should be brought out by the other and even influence the other party towards that good. Just like in marriage, the organization must not think of itself as absorbing another one for the sake of increasing its numbers – but rather, it must give in to the fact that both will be transformed to become a new organization that is equally influenced by both parties. By God’s grace, if the strengths of each are supported and encouraged and developed, it becomes a strength of the whole and just as being married means you are one, so a merging of organizations means that is also your goal.

What's In A Name?

In 1989, my wife and I set foot in America. The first thing we wanted to do was get involved in a local church. From 1989 thru 1992, Alliance Bible Fellowship in North Seattle took good care of us. There we met some of the most loving and wonderful people whom we still greatly admire today.

In 1992, we had the opportunity to speak to our former pastor in the Philippines - from Word for the World in Makati. Through Him, God inspired us to start the work of forming a ministry in Seattle. Together with a sister who was also from Word for the World Young Adults and a middle aged couple from Shoreline, we started the work in Renton and kept it going for 2 years between Renton and Seattle, even without a pastor.

By 1994, Word for the World Seattle was established as we welcomed our pastor from the Philippines. We drew in more members and expanded the ministry in University Plaza Hotel.

Some time after that, probably around 1997 or 98, we became Word International Ministries (WIN) in Seattle. No, we didn't move - we just changed names. Something happened in the Philippines that caused our local church to become a separate ministry from Word for the World and become a part of this new organization. It was nothing that the local church members did or had anything to do with.

In 2002, our church changed names again to NetWork Christian Ministries (NWCM), even as Word International continued to do ministry in South Seattle. Same people, same theology, same Christian work. Once again, the name change having nothing to do with the actual church members’ day to day walk but more to do with disagreements in the higher places.

In 2006, NWCM became 3 churches in order to expand its base and reach more people in their neighborhoods (we were meeting in downtown Seattle even as our people lived in the suburbs). This is probably the first time we experienced an organizational change due directly to the experience of grassroots members who were living all over the city.

A year later, one of those churches affiliated with the Assemblies of God due to the uniqueness of their situation and with the local group's approval.

Now it's 2010 and we in NWCM-Federal Way, one of the 3 original NWCM churches, are potentially switching names again. Does it really matter? We are still in fellowship with the same people who started this whole thing 20 years ago. We still love them as friends, invite them over for parties, reach out to them when they're in need. Of course, because you're more likely to work with the people in your organization, that naturally tends to draw you closer to them than others who used to be really close to you but belong to different organizations.

Is there anything preventing all of us from working together? Could it be that maybe because we're in different organizations, there's an unwritten rule that we're not supposed to work with each other because we should only do things that benefit our own organization? Now that's a conspiracy if I ever saw one.

The Church of Jesus Christ is much bigger than our organizations and certainly the work of the Kingdom surpasses these boundaries. My prayer is that whatever name we choose to serve under, we shall all continue to work as one. After all, we are still the same friends, brothers, sisters that we've always been. We all have the same vision - to preach the gospel, to serve God and to serve His people. Different organizations may have different strategies and may place different emphasis on different ministry areas at any given time - but that's actually a plus. In God's sovereignty, all areas get addressed at the same time because all of us are doing something different.

People Change – So do Their Passions

I was a part of an active ministry that was struggling to stay relevant to its members back in 2003. At that time, my church had established itself in a comfortable space in Seattle, north of downtown - with a couple of classrooms, a conference area, practice room for the band and a few feet away from a large multi-purpose ballroom that we used as our worship area every Sunday. Because of its history (see other blog entries), most of the workers in this church lived up in the north - Shoreline, Lynnwood, etc. So during the week, this "church facility" was largely unused. Sometimes, in the middle of the week, we would have meetings and people would have to drive in to Seattle to make use of the facility.

Around the same time, there were comments being made about the lack of attention being paid to the work in the South area. This wasn't anyone's fault, of course. A couple of years beforehand, this church had established a satellite church in the South, brought in a pastor to take care of it - only to watch it become a different denomination altogether (that's another story). So over the turn of the century to then, the natural focus geographically speaking and the place where all the workers came from was the northern area. There was such a great need to care for the people who came from the South but since most of the pastoral workers were from Shoreline and beyond, that became a very difficult thing to do.

It was during this time that the vision to move into people's neighborhoods was adopted. Pushed specifically and championed by one of the northern based elders, the idea that the church must be where the people are rather than being in a remote place that people have to drive to became a rallying cry. This slowly became a working slogan as most of the leadership and congregation jumped on board. The possibility of not having to drive 20+ miles every Sunday was an attraction to everyone. Potential regions were identified and potential pastors selected and prepared. In 2006, the vision came to pass - a congregation was established as far south as Federal Way, another one in West Seattle and the remnants (which were the majority of the members, including the only trained and full time pastor) who were mostly residing in the north, stayed in the church facility for a while until they could find a location where they could gather up north. They settled eventually in Mountlake Terrace.

In 2007, 3 congregations were functioning and the business of spreading God's Word under the name of this church and working with local communities was in full swing. Originally, the vision was to plant several churches as we developed workers and found opportunities to establish congregations. Church planting was the name of the game… or so we thought.

The work of trying to keep a congregation together by themselves was too much for the church in West Seattle. Led by a bi-vocational pastor and largely untrained church workers, it was all they could do just to keep a Sunday worship service happening. Less than 2 years after the original launching, they had to affiliate themselves with a larger denomination just so they could get some guidance, covering, and spiritual feeding. They loved the Lord and His work. It's just that the structure that had gotten set up by the original church expansion could not support 3 churches all pursuing the same passions. There was no overseeing body to provide support, follow up, guidance - and most importantly, unity. Each church that had gotten set up were on their own to develop programs, workers, training and direction - and everyone just relied on their relationships with each other in the other churches to keep the organization together.

Almost 4 years later, the church in Federal Way is experiencing the same challenges. Although they had stuck with the original church in Mountlake Tarrace because of a stronger bond of friendship between the South pastor and the pastor from the north, their local work became the focus of all their time. They brought in new people - people who had no relationships with the original church - was this not the aim of the original expansion in the first place? The local church’s emphasis began to change to one of local involvement rather than church expansion via planting. Due in part to the way the structure was set up (i.e. no centralized oversight), the 2 remaining congregations from the north and the south drifted apart in terms of their methods, passions, ministry focus and even theology. They could not even keep a shared website as information was not shared as regularly as it should have been and there was no clear owner of functions that encompassed both groups.

As much as the originals remained friends, their passions and ministry focus areas began to change. The pastor from the south - yes, the one who championed the original vision of planting churches around the area - had moved on to a different area of ministry. A new generation of church members had developed whose passions lied in serving the community - locally and internationally - in getting involved with organizations whether Christian or secular. These new people had no ties to the original church in Seattle and did not see planting churches as their primary mission in life – nor did they see it as a priority for their local faith community. They were more progressive, so to speak - left leaning, if you will, focused on social justice, the environment, poverty, human trafficking, etc.

People change, circumstances change - but it's all good. In all of this, God continues to provide, guide and work. The church in the South is now considering a merger with a larger organization in order to keep itself moving forward. To them, as long as they can keep doing what they are passionate about, it doesn't matter what the history was behind the establishment of their local church. What matters is where they want to take it from here. Its bi-vocational pastor says he has reached the point where the congregation needs to be turned over to a full-time pastor, someone who can care for them and nurture them spiritually because that's what he does full time. Most of the new generation of believers have tremendous potential but a full time pastor must take the reins. Unfortunately, due to the economy (half the congregation are laid off workers) and a lack of resources to draw from, the church in Federal Way cannot depend on its sister church in the north to come to its aid. So their best move right now is to merge with another congregation where both can benefit from each other's resources.

Changing visions, changing passions, changing directions. It's all part of our journey in this ministry life. Sometimes we think we've got the future all figured out with our plans of expanding the Kingdom of God - then God surprises us with something different. And that’s all part of the excitement.

Why We Need an Overseer

A local church can dream big – after all, any church “franchise” (i.e. a denomination) started from a single person bringing together a group of people, and then expanding their ideas of ministry to different parts of the country. So it comes as no surprise that people in a small church would dream that one day their organization’s name would be found all over the world doing the work of God.

That happened to our church. Word for the World Christian Fellowship (WWCF) started out in a pastor’s condo in Makati, Philippines in 1980 – then grew to be over 25,000 people by the time we left it in 1989. It was all over the world, literally and it expanded to Seattle. Later, on, some of the people from that organization separated from the group and became known as Word International Ministries (WIN) around the mid 90’s –they too, are now all over the world.

Our current church, NetWork Christian Ministries (NWCM) is a “daughter” of WIN – its founding members all came from the Seattle ministry of this organization earlier in this decade. So it’s no surprise that the NWCM founders also dreamed the same dreams of its “parent” church – that is, to expand the work of God by planting more and more churches in the area. In spite of its small membership (less than 200), NWCM did plant several churches in Seattle. WIN Seattle, as already mentioned was founded by members of NWCM before they even became NWCM. Another church in West Seattle took root under NWCM’s watch. That group, after functioning as a “daughter” church of NWCM, soon affiliated with the Assemblies of God. A third church was birthed by NWCM in Federal Way. This church has been functioning for approximately 4 years but now stands at a crossroads – whether to continue being a part of the NWCM family or to affiliate once again with WIN.

One of the challenges facing NWCM is the fact that it stands by itself as an organization. It has no denomination or larger organization that it can call its parent – having become independent from its parent organizations (WIN, WWCF) through relational differences. So although it is able to birth new churches, it has no overseeing organization, personnel or structure to make sure that its daughter churches all stay in the family. Child churches are given birth and then left on their own to define their culture, values, and direction – regardless of what those who gave birth to it think.

In a typical denomination, daughter churches are routinely established by up and coming pastors but they are constantly overseen by a central authority. The central power makes sure the leaders are on their toes, that their preachers are preaching towards expanding their denomination, and most of all, that their pastors are taken cared of spiritually and emotionally. In many cases, that central organization also coordinates the support required to keep a church plant stable until such a time as that local church is able to support itself.

This is what’s missing in NWCM. God has indeed gifted it with the ability to give birth to daughter churches. But until its leaders decide that it wants to be an expanding denomination, overseeing church plants and making sure the work of planting churches keeps going, any new daughter church that it plants will eventually find its own way and move forward towards a different direction.

It was only a matter of time before NWCM’s latest daughter churches in West Seattle and Federal Way experienced a desire to move on. Although these churches were planted by NWCM, what held the 3 churches together was not the same vision – it was the relationships between the pastors. But even their friendships were not enough to keep the hand of God from moving the daughter churches forward. West Seattle left the NWCM family in 2007, and now Federal Way is considering the same thing. This is through no fault of NWCM’s leaders – it’s just a reality and a fact of life because of the way things are set up.

It is my hope that anyone who reads this article who still belongs to NWCM will process this truth so that if indeed the goal of this organization is to function like its “parent” organizations (WWCF and WIN and before that, Church of God, TN), then they need to function like a denomination and become purposeful working towards that goal. What happened in the past was nothing negative – the work of God still continued and people still came to the Lord.

The church is a church because of its members and its members’ values and ideas will define its direction. This will be the local leader’s natural inclination in the absence of purposeful oversight by the parent organization. If those values do not line up with the vision of the parent organization, the local leaders will have no choice but to take them to the place where their vision can naturally be fulfilled. On the other, if at the beginning of a church plant, an overseer and a purpose is immediately established, and the organization is purposeful in overseeing the plant and meeting the needs of its leaders, then the local leader can work with NWCM towards that goal.

Regardless of what happened in the past, NWCM continues to be a powerful ministry, making a difference in the lives of its immediate congregation. But again, for as long as its own local church remains the focus of NWCM’s leaders, it will continue to do what it has done in the past – birth congregations that eventually move on. In the grand scheme of things, that’s probably not a bad thing – at least it’s helping the Kingdom of God expand and giving all the credit to God, rather than taking it for itself.