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What is your church’s personality?. Discovering and Developing the Ministry Style of Your Church By Philip D. Douglass. Part one: What is church personality?. Three Elements of Church personality?. Church Personality. Philosophy of Ministry. Theological Convictions. Community Context.
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What is your church’s personality? Discovering and Developing the Ministry Style of Your Church By Philip D. Douglass
Three Elements of Church personality? Church Personality Philosophy of Ministry Theological Convictions Community Context
Expressions of Church Personality • Concrete • Subconscious and intangible • Works quietly behind the scenes like the operating system on a computer • Nonverbal communication
PRACTICAL Adventurous Expressive Fellowship Organizer CONNECTIONAL ANALYTICAL Inspirational Strategizer Relational Entrepreneurial INNOVATIVE
Relationship Among Debatable Matters, Doctrinal Distinctives and Core Convictions Debatable Matters Doctrinal Distinctives Core Convictions Gal. 1:9 Romans 14:5 1 Cor. 10:23-30
Tolerance vs. Intolerance of “Debatable Matters” Church focused upon freedom of expression, spontaneity, flexibility, creativity, and acting quickly in a crisis. Church focused upon responsibility, tradition, maintaining order, attention to details, and subordination to authority. 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 Intolerance of church personality differences Tolerance of church Personality differences.
Building Blocks of Church Personality • Information-gathering • Personal observation vs. intuition • Decision-making • Objective Analysis vs. Based on values • Lifestyle • Planed and structured vs. casual and informal
Information-Gathering PRACTICAL • Pay attention to facts, details and current reality • INNOVATIVE • Preference for working with information on the basis of its meaningfulness, originality, and future possibilities
Decision-making ANALYTICAL • Deal with information on the basis of its structure and function CONNECTIONAL • Interact with information on the basis of its dynamism and potential for enhancing relationships
Life-style STRUCTURED • Motivated into action proactively on the basis of planning FLEXIBLE • Motivated into action through responding to changes in events
FLEXIBLE Adventurous Expressive Fellowship Organizer STRUCTURED STRUCTURED Inspirational Strategizer Relational Entrepreneurial FLEXIBLE