Welcome to the website of the Ministry Excellence Center at the Sunshine Cathedral in association with Metropolitan Community Churches.
The mission of the Ministry Excellence Center is Helping Good Churches Reach Their Greatness.
It’s not about size. It’s not about numbers. It’s about being the church God calls you to be…and doing it well!
Our key organizing principle is that excellence in ministry is best achieved when leaders shape the culture of a church with an attitude of abundance, spirit of generosity and outward focus on mission.
We hope that the Ministry Excellence Center will create new connections of church leaders who become a part of learning networks that improve the health and vitality of their congregations. Let’s learn and grow together!
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TRENDS AND TOPICS FOR MINISTRY EXCELLENCE
Book Review
The Other 80 Percent:
Turning Your Church’s Spectators into Active Participants
By Scott Thumma and Warren Bird
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011)
A Book Review by Rev. Don Eastman
Are Missing Members a Mission Field for Your Church?
The famous 80/20 Rule or Law of the Vital Few serves as the major premise for this book. It suggests that in churches, as in other organizations, 20% of the people do 80% of the work and provide 80% of the financial support. The authors’ advocacy is for effective mobilization of these “missing” members into more frequent worship attendance, increased giving and greater participation in ministry.
The authors draw upon several national congregational studies as well as their own research work with megachurches to create picture of the “other 80 percent” – the marginal people already associated with your congregation. These are individuals with low participation levels; they attend infrequently, give little, do not serve but they might have friendships within the church. From their analysis of studies on 100,000 Protestant churchgoers in the USA the authors constructed an “involvement continuum” that included everyone in one of three levels of participation:
• High Involvement: Attend, give, invite, serve, lead, and develop deep friendships.
• Medium Involvement: Attend less frequently, might give, and have friendships.
• Low Involvement, nonattenders, dropouts: Attend rarely or never yet have some affiliation past or present, might still give, might have friendships.
