But, I haven't been completely useless, I've been working on a business plan (of sorts) to form a DCO consulting business. woot! I don't know about you all, but I'm pretty certain the era of churches hiring full-time workers is over. So what are we going to do for jobs, besides open up businesses, go overseas or waste away in other fields?
I guess one way I see this working is to network with multiple churches to train congregational leaders (small group, elders, etc.). You know, spread the knowledge/expertise AND the cost around to several churches or groups, build bridges between those congregations and create a network of those who are trained and equipped to be leaders in those congregations. In a perfect world, perhaps create more of a market for DCO's.
So... my schedule has been an introvert's nirvana. I wake up, brew a pot of coffee (of course) and then sit down with some books, read, highlight, take notes, and repeat... eat if I remember.
Also, I tracked down a MACO grad, Peter Keyes, who apparently has been working very unofficially with an older bunch of DCOs and DCEs to do something similar, his ministry is called BOLD Outreach. Have you heard of him? It was a little frustrating, but also encouraging at least I'm not the only one with this idea. Also, I learned some pretty valuable things from him:
1) For the love of God (haha), don't limit yourself to LCMS churches.
2) Don't rely on the pastor to get it pushed through the board of elders.
3) Don't be passive in the process, after all, this is sales even if you are certified.
Well anyways, thats what I'm up to. Pray for me please, and if you have any recommendations or advice, I'm happy to listen. Blog at ya later.
Whoa! That's awesome, cuz Pamela was JUST talking about a sort of "temp agency" for church workers, and talking about how important it is these days to network and be able to work at many places for short times to cut down on cost and be more efficient--kinda like Paul was when he traveled around. I only have two questions:
ReplyDelete1. What do you do to establish relationships and disciple church members when you are not "fully" present and "belong" to them? (I don't like using those words, but hey...it's reality.)
2. Could this actually be a full-time job? Or would it have to be more tent-maker like?
Ok, I'm sure there is more...but yay for similar ideas popping up at the same times! And yay for you reading and studying and talking and brainstorming...blessings! :)
Well as to the first question, I'm not quite sure. Networking is a whole world that I'm not very experienced in. But assuming someone was contracted with a church I think trying to structure it like a small group would be beneficial, keeping. It balanced between the four types of groups (let's see if I can remember) loving, learning, deciding, doing a.k.a. care, knowldege, administration, service. Oh yeah.. I took notes in class! Not trying to be all things to all people in the church but focusing on those who have stepped up to be/are leaders in that church. So relationships would be built and maintained in the small group.
ReplyDeleteAs to the second question. It could easily be a full time job. I've worked for several small churches that can barely afford a pastor, but were willing to pay about $100 a week for a part time youth worker, $5200/year. Although let's be honest sometiems even that is hard to land. Well, what I've been think is that since the average church worker is going to make between $24,000-35,000 (based on what people have told me), let's make a contract $6000 ($115 a week). Well if you have 4 contracts that $24,000 a year, and depending on the personality of the worker and how willing to be involved witht the actual church, we're really only talking about 2-4 hours per contract/small group. So truly entrepreneurial person could network with up to 10 churches, that's $60,000.
But good luck to anyone finding 10 churches to work with. Plus there are a whole plethera of problems I haven't worked through yet. I'm just focusing on getting ready to run the pilot.
I think this tent making, basically. Even if you had 10 groups those contracts are only for x many years, so you'd either have to turn a contract into a call, continue to devlop the services offered, or continue getting new contracts.
That's cool that this idea keeps popping up, it's clear that this is what we should be doing to multiply leadership in congregations and to increase our impacts on a given region. Could you imagine 10 churches working together with the same mindset? Wow. It would be a miracle.
It's going to be hard to start though. There's a lack of experience and credibility for those of us with the energy and time to do something like this. And honestly it takes a very motivated and capable sales person to establish those relationships. I even doubt my own ability to do it. Did that answer your questions? What was Pamela's concept?
Oh and I haven't quite got the jargon down either. I'm kinda iffy on whether these would be contracts per church, or contract per small group in a church or a group I somehow assembled myself .
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