Tested Methods for Local Ministry
David Gemmell believes a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in Oregon, United States whose church plays mariachi music to make worship more meaningful for the largely Mexican immigrant congregation ought to be able to share his idea with other pastors—from California to Connecticut.
That’s why five years ago Gemmell, in partnership with the church in North America, produced the first Pastor’s DVD, capturing new and tested ideas for ministry in local churches. Eleven volumes later, the Pastor’s DVD reaches an estimated 80 percent of North America’s roughly 5,000 Adventist ministers.
“There should be great advantages to being part of a denomination; no pastor should have to go it alone,” says Gemmell, an associate director with the church’s North American resource center. He originally pitched the DVD idea to church administration while pastoring in Las Vegas. “Since pastors give tithe to the ‘club,’ so to speak, they should be getting something in return,” Gemmell says.
Each DVD, designed as continuing education for pastors, is based on research by Christian A. Schwarz, founder of the Institute for Natural Church Development.
After studying a wide swath of congregations across the country, Schwarz concluded that regardless of denomination, race, ethnicity or any other demographic, all growing churches shared eight characteristics: empowering leadership, effective structure, passionate spirituality, loving relationships, gift-oriented ministry, holistic small groups, inspiring worship and need-oriented evangelism.
The Pastor’s DVD is based on Natural Church Development characteristics. Clicking the entries links pastors to related stories, sermon illustrations and video clips. Gemmell says each DVD provides 30 to 50 resources.
Dan Day, who oversees the church’s North American resource center, says unlike some church resources, which he says tend to push local pastors to arbitrarily adopt a program developed by church administration, the Pastor’s DVD takes the best ideas from local churches and makes them widely available.
“It is this very real, grassroots character that makes the Pastor’s DVD worthy of the [tithe dollar] investment we’re making,” Day says.
Distributed free of charge by each region’s conference, the DVDs are fully supported by the Adventist Church’s North American region.
“Being able to weave the video clips into my sermons is a real plus for me,” says Andrew McCrary, pastor of the Pendleton Adventist Church in Pendleton, Oregon. McCrary adds that he wishes the series came with an index, so “I can find all my resources without plunking a bunch of DVDs into the machine and going through them all.”
Gemmell has also produced several special edition DVDs that “zoom in” on one of the eight topics. One DVD is packed with graphics to help pastors avoid frittering away hours scouring the Internet for appropriate sermon visuals and PowerPoint backgrounds.
An upcoming DVD, called AdventPraise, will teach pastors how to incorporate culturally relevant music into their congregations. By teaming with dozens of artists, the production will pair contemporary music with distinctly Adventist lyrics.
David Carreon, an associate pastor at the Auburn Adventist Church in Auburn, California, says he appreciates the DVDs, but wishes the resources were online. “I think the producers should take a look at companies like Sermonspice, and modify them with Adventist content.” Gemmell says Web delivery of the Pastor’s DVD with a searchable index is the “next wave” and will be ready in six months.
Ed Gallagher, a pastor from Aspen Park Adventist Church in Conifer, Colorado, finds the DVDs “helpful,” but worries they might “ultimately distract some pastors from studying and preaching the Word.”
The Pastor’s DVD “doesn’t replace anything else, certainly not the need for pastors to study the Bible,” Day says in response. “What it does is provide pastors with ways of making what they’ve studied and are prepared to present more vivid and more readily accessible to their listeners.”
Pastors who don’t work in the church’s North American region can find the Pastor’s DVD on the Web site AdventSource.