The Chapel Light - July 2010

Although a few of our ministries here at Mountain View Chapel are program-based, a good many of the things we do are worker-based. My philosophy of pastoring favors worker-based ministries, because workers with a passion for what they are doing drive the ministry. It lives and succeeds because they love what they’re doing. I’m not as opposed to program-based ministry as I used to be; they can do very well with passionate people working them as well. The downside to     program-based ministry is that it can continue as a living corpse long after the passionate people driving it have left the work. It is often believed that if a  program-based ministry stops that there has been some sort of failure; we must keep it going at any cost. Things must not stop. Things must not pass on or die. Less passionate people keep the thing alive out of duty, failing to realize that the program’s dead. That doesn’t usually happen with worker-based ministry. When the worker who is passionate for the ministry can’t continue the work, you allow the thing to pass from the scene, and you focus on building other worker-based ministries with people who are passionate for those things. There isn’t really a failure; just no need to keep the corpse alive. For 12 years now we’ve had a Chapel newsletter, driven initially by the vision of Linda Hartranft, and then brought to a flourishing life by editor Sherry Peroni who then passed the torch to editor Bev Guy. These ladies poured a lot of themselves into the Chapel Light newsletter, putting all of the news and articles and editorials and features together with painstaking work and a lot of devotion and time. But alas, our present editor is moving to Texas, and no one has responded to the call to the replace her—and so we recognize that to everything there is a season. And the season of this wonderful little newsletter has come to a close. It has been a pleasure pulling thoughts out of my Shepherd’s Scrip for the past dozen years to share with you, and I’m sure our other writers would say the same. I trust our writing has been enjoyable and beneficial to all of you. And if anyone out there has a passion for writing and editing and would like to resurrect the Chapel Light in the future, don’t hesitate to contact the pastor’s office and we’ll get it rolling again. A big thank you to all of our writers, and especially to former editors Linda Hartranft, Sherry Peroni, and our present editor Bev Guy for all of their thoughtfulness and hard work in the production of the Chapel Light. May God bless Dave and Bev as they continue their lives and service to the Lord in Texas! You’ll be missed!