More Than Programs

This month we have made some quiet, but significant changes in our church. We have welcomed Kelli Hofstra to Highland, and she has begun her work as our new Director of Youth Ministries (Kelli will be commissioned on Septemer 12). We have also commissioned Liz Fledderjohann to serve as the Director of Community Outreach in our church.

With the arrivals of Kelli and Liz, we have a good representation on our church staff. We hope and pray that the programs and activities that Kelli plans for the Middle School and High School students in our church will be tremendously successful. We also look forward to the challenge that Liz will bring to our congregation as we seek to be more intentionally engaged in our broader community.

More than likely, you will notice some of the programs that are introduced by Kelli and Liz. The Director of Community Outreach may plan activities to welcome people into our church and may challenge us to be ready to welcome new people into our church family. The Director of Youth Ministries will probably include announcements in our News and Notes about activities, service projects, and regular meeting times for the students in our church.

As we move forward as a church, it will be important for us to realize that effective church ministry is not measured in the “buzz” that surrounds a particular program.

Earlier this month, our church partnered with Mercy Hill Church and Suburban Bible Church to host the “Share the Rock” basketball camp at the Lincoln Center in Highland. It was a great event, as more boys came to the camp each day. There was even an article in one of the local newspapers about this ministry program. It might be tempting to think that the program was a success because many people attended the camp, and because the local newspaper wrote a favorable article. The basketball camp certainly received favorable “buzz.”

We could also argue that there were many intangibles about the camp that made it successful. It was wonderful to partner with other churches from our community for a purpose that supersedes denominational differences. We were blessed to work with Dan Voudrie, the men’s head basketball coach at Purdue University Calumet.

But the effectiveness of our ministry should not be measured by the “buzz” our programs create, nor by the good feelings we get from cooperative efforts. The focus of our ministry efforts is to see lives transformed by people coming to a deeper knowledge of God’s grace.

Sometimes, we see this transforming work in the lives of people who attend the ministry programs. After the camp concluded, I received a phone call from a mom who expressed her thanks not only for the camp, but for the volunteers who dropped off school supplies and information about other church ministries for her son. Hopefully, that family saw God’s hand at work through the ministry of a program.
Sometimes, we see this transforming work in the lives of people who serve within our ministry programs. I was excited to see young men and women from our churches using their gifts to lead boys from our community. I hope that those who participated were able to see God’s hand working through them to touch others.

Please welcome Kelli and Liz to our church staff, and pray for them as they serve God within our church family.  And remember: as we work to create and manage ministry programs, the goal of our ministry is not merely to create successful programs, but to see lives transformed.