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Creative Expressions of Worship w/ Lucy Santibanez-Enerio

Cara: Welcome to GC Podcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience. In this episode, we welcome Lucy Santibanez-Enerio, who will lead us through creative expressions of worship.

We invite you to co-create your own experiences of spiritual formation through personal and communal practices. We believe that through such personal and communal practices, we open ourselves and surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us.

May the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst grow us up into the healthiest participants in the ministry of Christ that we can be to the glory of the Father. Amen.

Lucy: Hello friends, my name is Lucy. I grew up in the Philippines, and I started being involved in the music ministry when I was 10 years old. One of my core memories in being transformed through worship is when at a young age, during Sunday service, we were singing the song, “Knowing You, Jesus.” And I looked around the fellowship hall of our local congregation, and I see all ages and all generations who were connecting to God, declaring that there is no other greater thing in life than getting to know their personal Savior.

Since then, I’ve always felt that I, and all people, are called to pursue God’s presence because there is peace in his presence, there is hope, joy, and rest in his presence. I found that God has a way of speaking to me personally through music. A few years down the road, I found myself being drawn to psychology for my undergraduate studies, and eventually I completed graduate degrees in music therapy.

But primarily, all I really wanted to do was worship God and see people join near to God in worship. So, through it all, I continue to be part of worship teams, and I currently serve as a volunteer worship leader and music team coordinator at GC Steele Creek in Charlotte, North Carolina, all by the grace of God, according to his plans.

Today, we will be exploring creative expressions of worship that extend beyond the familiar congregational worship gatherings to a more personal spiritual expression. So, whether you’re a seasoned worshipper or someone looking to deepen your connection with the Lord, we hope you are able to find meaning and resource from this experience.

Our theme for today’s practice is “Making Room to Encounter God in the Mundane.”

Like many of us, I am always in awe of sunrise and sunsets. One, because of the beauty and the mystery of the rising and the setting ball of energy millions of miles away from us interacting with our skies and setting off awe inspiring colors.

And two, in a way, this phenomenon that we often tend to overlook feels like God’s way of taking care of us, motivating us to wake up and also signaling us to take the rest that we need. Creation is reflecting the beauty of our Creator, and I can’t help but break into song about God’s goodness when I witness the beauty of his creation. Psalm 19, verse 1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

Human beings are made for worship. In the posture of worship, we fall into the arms of God and saying, “Have your way in me, Lord.” Disciplines of worship put us in a place to be receptive and responsive to the Holy Spirit’s movements and invitation. The discipline of worship focuses our attention on the beauty of the Trinity, the source of all that is good, true, and beautiful.

There are so many ways and forms of worship, more than we recognize in the ordinary moments of life. We worship when we come together in celebration of God’s goodness. We worship when we come to the foot of the cross to lament an expression of our grief.

We worship in our giving, in holy communion, in making meals for others, in making spaces livable and beautiful, and in so many forms – crafts, woodwork, poetry, visual arts, movement, music. After all, God is the ultimate artist, the creator of the heavens and the earth. he communicates through his creation and relates with his creation.

We come to him to worship individually and as a congregation. We worship in silence and solitude or in holy roars of praise.

The Bible tells us of how David actively pursued God’s presence in worship. In the book of Psalm and 1 and 2 Samuel, we learn about David’s raw expressions of praise to God amidst life’s highs and lows.

Whether it’s in periods of grief and anger or moments of shame, David cries out for forgiveness. In times of joy and excitement, David praises God by dancing and exuberant singing. In moments of need, David surrenders his human desire for control, and instead seeks and aligns himself with God’s heart. he teaches us to do the same.

David’s example shows us that worship isn’t abo...

Discernment and Mapping Pt 3 w/ Heber Ticas

Welcome to the GC Podcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience.

Cara: Hello, friends, and welcome to this episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is devoted to exploring best ministry practices in the context of Grace Communion International churches.

I am your host Cara Garrity, and now in this first quarter of 2024, we are switching things up a little bit. We are bringing you mini episodes that are focused on the processes and practices of discernment, strategic planning, and ministry action plans.

In our last two episodes, we heard from Pastor Hector and Juanca Barrero in GCI Bogotá. They shared about their experiences with their strategic processes and communication, their use of ministry action plans. And so, today we have Latin American Superintendent, Heber Ticas, with us to share, from his perspective as superintendent, what it means and what it looks like to support and develop this discernment, strategic planning, perspective on healthy church growth and vision throughout the region, particularly, from the perspective of Bogotá since that is who we heard from the past two episodes specifically.

And so, Heber, thank you much for being here and sharing with us. We appreciate your time.

Heber: Hey Cara, thank you for having me. It has been quite a while since I have been on the podcast.

I was wondering, did I do something wrong last time?

[00:01:44] Cara Garrity: We got to share the wealth, but this will be your next test, so do not mess it up.

[00:01:51] Heber Ticas: Yeah, I better get praying right now.

[00:01:53] Cara Garrity: No, I really enjoy having you on the podcast, Heber. I hope that our listeners took as much out of the past two episodes as I did.

I love hearing what God is doing in Bogotá and the way that the leaders and members are just saying yes and amen to participating in what they are discerning he is doing. And so, I am wondering in your role as superintendent, what are some of the ways that you equip pastors like Hector to lead their teams in discerning a strategic ministry action plan for each year?

[00:02:32] Heber Ticas: Cara, that is a good question. In my role as superintendent, and for all of us who are superintendents and regional directors or regional pastors, we’ve got to take up this mantle and put on this hat of consulting. Me, I am not too much of a coach. I do not have the patience for coaching but yes, in my role as superintendent, I’ve got to do a little bit of consulting.

When I engaged this congregation, especially the pastors and a few of their immediate leaders there, they had a good dynamic, and with some consulting, they could truly become a healthier expression of the church. With this congregation or this pastor, it is not too different than with other pastors that I have consulted with, in my role as superintendent. Our Team Based—Pastor Led structure really provides us an ability to have a greater understanding of what it is to lead from a good structure. That is key.

So just as with anything, when you are talking about equipping, it must be two sides, right? If I am consulting, you must have a side that is willing to listen and willing to embrace. And Hector and Paulina, particularly in their leadership, they embraced Team Based—Pastor Led from the beginning. With them doing that, then I can move on and talk about clarity of leadership roles and understanding what that means, a greater understanding of healthy ministry practices, and most importantly, a clarity of a preferred future—where it is that they want to go as a congregation, as a team.

I would start in those areas but also particularly in pastoral leadership as well. And I can get into that a little bit if you want.

[00:04:40] Cara Garrity: Yes, please.

[00:04:42] Heber Ticas: Team Based—Pastor Led gives us this really good structure, right? And we do not want to be pastor centric, like you said earlier, we want to share the wealth. We want to share practice. We want to be team-based and participate with Jesus and really understand that others have gifts as well.

The Holy Spirit has gifted others as much as the Holy Spirit has gifted the pastor. With that understanding, as pastors, we need to lead. And when I say that we need to lead, I am talking about [how] a pastor needs to understand, needs to know the vision, needs to know where we are going as the church.

A pastor needs to be a visionary pastor. When I talk about a visionary pastor, I am talking about that a leader who is a visionary develops and defines a clear picture of the envisioned future for others. You...

Discernment and Mapping Pt 2 w/ Hector and Juan Carlos Barrero

Welcome to the GC Podcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience.

Cara: Hello friends and welcome to today’s episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is devoted to exploring best ministry practices in the context of Grace Communion International churches.

I’m your host Cara Garrity. And today we are going to continue our mini episodes for this quarter focused on process and practices of discernment, strategic planning, and ministry action plans [MAPs]. Let’s welcome back Pastor Hector and Juanka who are joining us to share their experiences with the ministry action plans and their planning in the local context of their church, Comunión de Gracia Internacional Bogotá.

Welcome, welcome. Thanks for joining us again today.

Hector: Thank you, Cara, for inviting us.

[00:01:06] Cara: Absolutely. We appreciated all the wonderful insights you shared with us last month about your team based processes of planning and putting together your ministry action plans.

Today, I wanted to focus more specifically on putting those action plans into action. Sometimes we plan and then it stops at the planning. But with the ministry action plans, we really want to move into action and true participation in the ministry that God’s up to in our very midst.

And I want to start with this question. What steps does your team take to actually put your ministry action plan into action?

[00:01:53] Juanka: Yes, Cara. The first step will be defining our goals as a team. Defining those goals is a process that takes every member to take some time during the week. For example, on Saturdays, we are meeting every single Saturday. The first Saturday of each month, we are gathering with all the ministry leaders. And we are just going step-by-step, taking our time with a lot of patience and analyzing, for example, the calendar in which we have all the information and analyzing what is next and the steps that we need to work on.

For example, the priorities that we have and also the deadlines that we have for events. Most of the time we talk about what’s happening during the week, what’s happening, for example, on Sundays, who is in charge of what.

The steps that we take are basically to gather each Saturday, gathering sometimes on Zoom and having clear our goals and specific events that we have, and the person responsible for that.

It is not always perfect, of course. People change, for example, locations and they get pregnant. The families get bigger. And because of that, sometimes the dynamic is challenging, but nonetheless it’s flowing, and it is very positive.

Basically, the steps are just to make time to have meetings virtually or face-to-face. Obviously, we like more meetings that are face-to-face because we can have a chocolate with bread, that we call here in Colombia como chocolate y pan. And so that’s something that we love to do. And so, when we do that, we can make things happen and we talk about the events, all the plans.

[00:04:29] Cara: Yeah. Actually, consistently meeting together as a team and then referencing the ministry action plan that you’ve put together as you meet and having those check-ins. That seems very practical and a basic way to really make sure you’re getting into action. It’s good.

[00:04:49] Hector: I could say, for example, in the Faith Avenue we decided to study, We Believe. Each class is planned with who is going to teach it in the group of the Faith Avenue. We are preparing the leaders first. We want them to know our doctrine, what we believe. Also, that’s the first step because now we are preparing them to be teachers.

So, we have a small group training those who are going to train others and that has a specific timing. We give the responsibilities to everybody with dates and subjects for everybody. And it has been very good. It’s a good exercise. For example, last time it was Tuesday, yesterday, we had a class on the beliefs on hell.

That subject is very challenging. What is the future of those who are not ready to or not willing to believe, those who rejected the gospel? Where are they going to end up? That’s a very difficult subject. So that’s why we have to train our leaders how to respond, how to prepare, how to analyze certain scriptures.

So we go through our booklet, We Believe, and I would say that’s an example of how we planned specifically on how to reach [goals] and people are doing it. Leaders are doing it. They are following their plan.

[00:06:50] Cara: Yeah, that’s excellent. And using the resources that are available to them. And I loved what you said...

Discernment and Mapping Pt 1 w/ Hector and Juan Carlos Barrero

Welcome to the GC Podcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience.

Cara: Hello friends and welcome to today’s episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is devoted to exploring best ministry practices in the context of Grace Communion International churches.

I’m your host, Cara Garrity, and this is the first episode of 2024. And in this first quarter of 2024, we’re switching things up a little bit. We’re going to be bringing you three mini episodes focused on the process and practices of discernment, strategic planning, and ministry action plans (MAP).

And so today here to talk with us about their experiences with Team Based—Pastor Led discernment, strategic planning, and ministry action plans are Pastor Hector and Juanka, coming to us from Comunión de Gracia Internacional Bogotá. Thank you both so much for being here with us today.

Juanka: Hello, everybody. How are you?

[00:01:08] Cara: We’re doing well. We’re doing well. I appreciate y’all spending your time today. And so why don’t we just jump right in because we got some mini episodes, and I know y’all have some really insightful things to share with us in just a little bit of time.

So, when we talk about team-based discernment and planning for the ministry locally there in Bogotá, what is a best practice that you guys have found that helps your team plan all together?

[00:01:36] Juanka: Yes, Cara, thank you for that question.

We can honestly tell you that we can describe our planning into virtual planning meetings and face-to-face planning meetings, using the MAP. And definitely virtual meetings are more practical for maybe the first part of planning. And the face-to-face meetings are also very important because we plan, and we analyze what we did. Maybe more ideas are shared.

And generally speaking, we gathered via Zoom to collaborate and that’s the best practice that we have. And within those two practices, they complement each other. As I mentioned before, we use the MAP document or the idea of the ministry action plan. Basically, that’s what we have.

Very practical and very cut to the chase.

[00:02:53] Cara: I like that, practical and cut to the chase. That’s good. Just get to those priorities of participating in Jesus’s ministry.

And that idea of cutting to the chase: when your team’s coming together to plan, in these meetings virtually and in person, what process do you use to decide what your priorities are going to be either that year or that month that quarter?

[00:03:22] Juanka: Yes, most of the time we meet for example on December the 1st or some time in December, let’s say. And we write down all the necessary and most important events and ideas based on our calendar. Our calendar is the most important thing for us.

It’s like our infrastructure. Let’s say that the calendar has everything related to every single Avenue’s planning. In that calendar, we have all of the activities and the events with the dates, with the person in charge. So, the calendar is something super important, and so the calendar has to be ready beforehand.

We can modify it in the Zoom meetings that we are telling you about. And in those meetings, we, as a team, step-by-step, can determine which tasks are truly important for each Avenue and for each ministry.

And because of this, we have to stick to a schedule and some dates that reflect, for example, the priorities, and how are we going to fulfill those priorities. So as a team, again, the calendar is so important.

And finally, I guess I will say that the process to decide those priorities is that we gather with each ministry leader, and we evaluate the goals based on the following questions, right? The questions that the MAP proposes.

And the questions are like this, does this outreach provide the opportunities for church members to volunteer and serve? So important. Does this give the opportunity for neighbors, for the community, and for organizations to participate with the church in events that are not, for example, the Sunday mass or the Sunday gatherings and are more related with the community?

Also, another question that we ask is, is this outreach inclusive? For example, if we want to go and make an event for elderly or for children, are we being inclusive for the community? And all of these priorities and all of these plans are based on: how can we make our community participate in what we’re doing?

Yes, basically that’s the answer.

[00:06:25] Cara: Yes, and I don’t want it to be lost, that last thing that you said. When your ministry leaders come together, you fil...

Culture Creation w/ Julie Frantz

Welcome to the GC Podcast. A podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience.

Cara: Hello friends, and welcome to this episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is devoted to exploring best ministry practices in the context of Grace Communion International churches.

I’m your host, Cara Garrity, and today I’m blessed to interview Julie Frantz, pastor of Grace Communion Cincinnati East and West, wife and mom of four. She loves New Mexican food and adventure in all its forms, good, bad, and ugly.

Julie, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s so good to have you on the GC Podcast.

Julie: Thank you, Cara. I’m excited to be here.

[00:00:49] Cara: Yes, and I’m looking forward to the richness of this conversation today. We’re going to be talking about creating culture in our local congregations. The first thing I want to ask is when we talk about the culture of a local congregation, what does that mean to you?

[00:01:06] Julie: When I think of the culture of a local congregation, I think about people—people who have shared life and shared belief and ultimately, we hope and we look for a shared mission and a people that shares their identity in Christ where we together grow and together become who Christ created us to be and who we are in him.

It’s this people coming together unified by Christ. And we develop new rhythms together, a rhythm directed by him and led by him, and we discover as we journey with Christ what those rhythms look like and how those rhythms are expressed within the body. It becomes a beautiful thing—a little bit of chaos and a little bit of beauty and a lot of grace.

[00:02:06] Cara: Yeah, absolutely. I love how you’ve described that. It is a beautiful thing, chaos and beauty and grace and all. This year on GC Podcast, we have explored a lot of different angles on rhythms that are part of healthy church. You mentioned that as part of culture too. So how do our rhythms contribute to creating culture and in the maybe reverse order? How does culture contribute to the rhythms we choose to create?

[00:02:41] Julie: Yeah. Our rhythms within the body of Christ really are part of our discipleship path. It’s learning that new rhythm of who Christ is and who we are in him as a body. And that’s a timely thing.

It takes time and patience and a lot of grace for one another. But it is part of our discipleship process with the Lord. And so that part of becoming and having a consistent rhythm, that’s totally led according to the Lord’s timing. We have a little bit to do with that as far as the consistency and participation.

But really that’s led by the Lord. And what’s interesting about our rhythms and culture is that culture can absolutely challenge the rhythms of a church. And cause us to rethink some of those rhythms and possibly respond differently as culture transforms around us.

But our rhythms are really not controlled by society, but instead led, maintained by the leading of the Holy Spirit. And even though the culture can make us rethink those and make us consider how we participate in those rhythms led by the Holy Spirit, those rhythms are the Holy Spirit’s leading. The culture doesn’t determine how the church lives that out.

And can’t and shouldn’t determine how the church lives that out.

[00:04:26] Cara: Yeah. And I love that you’ve highlighted that those rhythms, in the context of church community and the formation of the culture of church community, those rhythms are formed and led by the Spirit, by who God is.

Because we were stepping in time with his rhythms, with his ways. And so really, we’re being shaped and formed into the culture of his kingdom and who he is versus—and I think that comes in line with what you’re saying—versus all the various different pulls and pushes or different ways of thinking. Culture can come in a thousand different forms, but the rhythms that we’re trying to sync up to are the rhythms of God’s culture that he has for all of his people.

That’s beautifully said, Julie. Like I said, or I just mentioned, culture can come in a lot of different forms, and we’re on this journey that you’ve mentioned of seeking it, syncing up with those rhythms that are led by the Spirit and not necessarily whatever we want to do.

And so, I say this quote unquote church culture—things like church “in speak” or those things that might make us feel like, oh we’re an “in” crowd, or you have to belong to this church club. Sometimes that form of church culture can be a barrier to actually living missionally because it makes this dynamic of an insider / outsider.

But in contrast to tha...