Missional Leadership Articles by Director Mick Noel
This month I completed my third year of ministry at Biblical Seminary’s C4ML ministry center. It has been a pretty wild ride with many ups and downs and a few unexpectedly sharp curves. Think a roller coaster with dubious guard rails! As a start-up enterprise, unknowns were expected as we sought a “ministry vision” that would serve both the seminary’s needs AND the needs of church leadership clients.
Add to the mix an unfulfilled pledge that would have provided key funding for the center, and the economic recession with all the general anxiety about giving, and you have a recipe for difficult times.
Like many, we’ve been greatly tested financially and have sought greater efficiency without sacrificing the quality of our education. This is an exercise many ministry organizations are engaged in during these uncertain times. Through it all we have experienced Abraham’s insight—“Jehovah Jireh”—the Lord will be my Provider. (Gen 22:14)
God has also provided opportunities for significant ministry. In just the last week we have ministered to:
• A teacher from China who teaches Mandarin Chinese in a Midwestern university and returns regularly to her home in Shanghai
• A group in Allentown, PA forming a new, independent congregation
• A church planting team in the Wissinoming-Tacony neighborhood of Philadelphia
• A pastor “re-planting” a congregation in Levittown, …
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what's going on in the C4ML world?
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The Longbrake Family Foundation of Seattle, Washington recently awarded C4ML a $35,000 grant. The grant will fund recruiting associate coaches and developing an online learning and coaching system.
“We are grateful to the Longbrake Foundation,” says …
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C4ML Director Mick Noel reports that he is excited and impressed with the ad hoc cooperative ministry venture that is emerging in Philadelphia. Inclusively crossing denominational lines the group is meeting regularly to discuss how …
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Executive Director, Mick Noel, recently announced that Rev. Jerry Mapstone has agreed to join the C4ML Board of Reference. Jerry is the Executive Director of Life Impact Ministries, a ministry that plans and administers large …
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Thoughts from current and past participants
Catalyst for Emergent Church Leadership has provided the spawning grounds for me to learn about the transformed landscape which I find myself and my church in. In it I have found that my traditional seminary training is helpful (for I was trained at Biblical!) but incomplete as to leading people to live on mission. Through C4ML I am learning, with other seasoned pastors, how to engage our culture with the Gospel of redemption in a relevant, meeting-real-needs way. I find that energizing and effective.
Jason W. Blair
Senior Pastor
Grace Bible Church
Souderton, PA
215-723-3992
www.gracebiblesouderton.org
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Quotes to stimulate missional thinking
“I like to think about theology as reflecting on or thinking about God. Reflecting is a helpful word because it not only addresses the act of seeking an understanding of God, but it also implies the act of reflecting who God is as a result of seeking him out…In other words, theology-the act of reflecting on God-should change both how we think and how we live.”
(Cyzewski, Coffee House Theology, p. 22)
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