Plan B: Austin Catalytic

At CSU of July 2005, I met with my HR director. Previous to this time I had been serving on a staffed campus for approxiamately two years, plus another previous year of rasing support and living with someone on the same team...thus feeling as though I served on that team for three years).

At this time I did not want to leave staff with CCC, but had continued to feel very frustrated in my efforts to create innovative and effective change within the campus ministry on my local team. Though they were open minded and supportive...I felt trapped in the current paradigm of ministry that has an established system of operation that runs like a machine.

The ministry at that campus had been closed at the end of Spring 2005 and the team had been dispersed. I was meeting with my HR director to hear my options and decide wether or not to stay on staff.

I had one main desire: to be on a team where I could try different things...

I ended up joining a Catalytic team. They were a new team(had only operated one year) and though self-described as non-creative, they were open to new ideas and were excited to have me join them.

The agreement: I would need to carry my traditional load on the team and in return would be able to have freedom to try new things.

The results:

Though I had heart support and listening ears, I didnt have adequate additional time or additional resources to develop new ideas.

My team, though supportive are probably more "modern" in their experience and thinking...where as I am more "post-modern". Therefore they can cheer me on, but can not join me unless they can begin to learn and experience ministry in a post-modern matrix.

My leadership is still accountable and measured by the success of the current model and therefore trying anything outside of that seems in competition for our time and goals.

Initially as we were launching campuses I had the idea to have a focus group to discuss Jesus' teachings the day that we gave out FSKs. Originally this idea was accepted...but then, it was decided that it would be in conflict with our current model to focus our efforts on finding strong Christian leaders on campuses rather than using our time to do evangelistic focus groups. Those should be the work of these Christian leaders that we find. I pushed the issue and ended up having several of these focus groups. I think my leaders felt torn in that we were putting time into something that wasnt supposed to be our focus as staff. I continued to follow up with initial contacts from the focus group on this campus and it grew to be a small movement which included a Muslim, a 37 year old American/German who was Catholic but not a committed believer in Christ, two very new believers...one of which now wants to be a volunteer, another non-believer who joined us in New Orelans for Spring Break...and some others. This group has been very messy considering its contents...but also very exciting to me.

The demands of traditional ministry are unending and carrying that load did not leave room for creating.

( My leadership encouraged my ideas...but our schedule with conferences,etc. left little room for creating)

January- April

Dallas Winter Conference (led the design team) - one week...plus mutiple weeks before hand

Summer Project Director's Training - one week

New Staff on the Field Training - one week

IAM - A conference for those in the arts - 4 days ( this one was optional - I chose to go)

New Orleans Spring Break - one week

A Spring Retreat for Texas Catalytic students

Catalytic Training School - one week

I show this to illustrate the current system...to this add: weekly discipleship, movement launching, travel to distance campuses, evangelism, support raising, team meetings, development, planning for summer project or conferences and retreats,etc.

I have thouroughly enjoyed my semester...but as you can see it would leave little room to develop new ideas, gain support and resources, and to execute them.

In conclusion, though I had an enjoyable year of ministry...my efforts to pioneer new ways of reaching students were limited because I did not have the adequate resources needed to do so (time, money, people, freedom from the other system).

+++Please see the next post for further understanding of why this didnt work well.