PURPOSE:

Ministry is giving and receiving. The focus of Wisconsin's circuit ministry is to use individual gifts and congregational resources for the spiritual, physical, and emotional well being of the larger community. Circuit ministry is outward directed with leaders, participants, and congregations working in mutuality.

ORGANIZING CORE VALUES OF CIRCUIT MINISTRY TEAMS

• Strengthen and care for local congregations' ministry and well-being.
• Strengthen and care for other congregations' ministry and well-being.
• Strengthen and care for the lives of people in the community and the world.
• Strengthen and care for individual ministry and well-being.

• Link to Frequently Asked Questions

ORGANIZING CORE VALUE OF CLERGY CIRCUIT TEAMS

• Growing effectiveness
• Emerging excellence
• Mutual support among peers
• Mutual accountability among peers

• Link to Circuit Clergy Development Teams

SHIFTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY CHURCH

The following is a summary of four "shifts" that are taking place in the 21st century Church. (Based on an article that appeared in NetFax [Feb 1999] and taken from a presentation made by Rev. Steve Polster to the Circuit 46 Conference held in Sun Prairie on Saturday, November 20, 2004.)

• From machine to garden metaphor. The Church is not a machine to keep "operational," but a garden to tend and develop. It is more important to grow people than it is to grow churches. Instead of managing a church, we are invited to nurture people.
• From volunteers to servants. Managing volunteers is history. Today, the Church must recognize and enlist gift-based servanthood.
• From coordinators to mobilizers. Rather than coordinating volunteers, the Church's task is mobilizing servants around their spiritual DNA. People must be given permission to exercise their gifts.
• From control to permission-giving. The days of managing and controlling are gone. Today, the shift is from centralized to cellular, from top-down to bottom-up.

These shifts are helping the Church to discover its spiritual DNA; that is, its mission, vision, values and beliefs. When that happens, discipleship happens, which, after all is the purpose of the Church: to make disciples who make disciples.