Subscribe to BlogA Transitional Statement
This blog entry is to further detail the transition that Imagine Ministries is about to undertake. If readers have any questions, please feel free to contact Matt Hubbard directly.
Imagine Ministries Transition
A New Adventure
On January 4, 2010, Matt Hubbard, Founder/President of Imagine Ministries, Inc. accepted the position of Minister to Senior High students at Calvary Baptist Church in Alexandria, Louisiana. Since the visionary birth of Imagine Ministries in 2000, Matt has been the primary leader of Imagine. Matt’s responsibilities have included authoring curriculum, marketing a full-resource ministry, recruiting and training staff, coordinating events, creating cutting-edge resources and web presence, fundraising and budgeting, and speaking at most Imagine events. Though Matt’s new ministry position has been more than encouraging in maintaining Imagine Ministries, Matt has felt that a portion of Imagine Ministries should be turned over to new leadership.
A Multifaceted Ministry
Imagine Ministries has been a multifaceted ministry since the ministry’s beginning in 2000. Imagine was created to assist the local church in providing personnel, curriculum, resources, coordination, etc. Small to mid-sized churches in the South have primarily utilized the full-resources of Imagine Ministries. Churches of all sizes and locations have begun utilizing Imagine’s curriculum for their ministries. Unofficially, Imagine has maintained two ministry branches: 1) Ministry Teams and 2) Ministry Resources.
- Ministry Teams—Includes all aspects of Imagine’s ministry to the local church regarding Disciple Nows, retreats, and/or other discipleship/evangelism events. The following is a synopsis of what responsibilities fall under the Ministry Teams arm of Imagine Ministries:
- Market a full-service, team based ministry to the local church.
- Recruit volunteer staff from local colleges, universities, and seminaries.
- Train volunteer staff.
- Regularly connect with worship leaders and speakers for the purpose of partnering with Imagine.
- Oversee and confirm all booking requests for Imagine Ministries.
- Coordinate with local church leaders regarding their booked event with Imagine Ministries. Coordination should include promotional needs, staff needs, curriculum needs, worship/speaker needs, tshirt/resource needs, and budgeting assistance.
- Assign volunteer staff for each booked event.
- Manage volunteer staff for each booked event. Management of staff should include: staff assignment, regular staff contact/follow-up, meet with full event staff prior to event, manage staff during event, and conduct evaluation of each event with staff and local church leaders.
- Order and coordinate with local tshirt company tshirt orders for booked events (when necessary).
- Make appropriate travel arrangements for each booked event.
- Administer necessary ministry funds for travel needs, ministry needs, etc.
- Lead event evaluation meeting following each booked event.
- Follow-up with local churches after their hosted event.
- When churches give love offerings, write and mail letters thanking them for their sacrificial giving.
- Provide necessary vision, leadership, and direction to further the Kingdom effectiveness of Imagine Ministries.
- Other responsibilities to be created by Imagine’s leadership.
- Ministry Resources—Includes all aspects of Imagine’s ministry to the local church regarding authoring and selling of discipleship curriculum, development of cutting-edge ministry resources and web presence, and overseeing and managing Imagine’s ministry budget. The following is a synopsis of what responsibilities fall under the Ministry Resources arm of Imagine Ministries:
- Maintain regular inventory of existing and new discipleship curriculum.
- Fulfill all curriculum/resource orders. Coordinate with Ministry Team branch accordingly regarding booked events. Fulfilling all curriculum orders should include: coordinate curriculum/resource needs with local churches, package/ship curriculum/resource orders, submit invoices, and receive payments.
- Author/edit new discipleship curriculum.
- Coordinate design of new discipleship curriculum.
- Create/provide new ministry resources.
- Coordinate design of new ministry resources.
- Coordinate design of tshirts and other promotional pieces.
- Coordinate Imagine’s web presence including development of new web resources.
- Manage all finances for Imagine Ministries. Management of finances should include: receipt of Ministry Travel expenses from booked churches, receipt of curriculum/resource sales, deposit of all checks, make all necessary payments (does not include Ministry Team travel needs), and provide direction and oversight for all ministry budget needs.
- Submit appropriate 501(c)-3 Non-profit paperwork to the IRS and state of Arkansas on an annual basis.
New Leadership
As mentioned earlier in this document, Matt has sensed the need to turnover parts of Imagine Ministries to better maintain and strengthen the ministry’s Kingdom-effectiveness. Over the past few years, Matt has been able to invest particularly in three young men involved in Imagine Ministries that have impeccable leadership skills, tremendous repor with existing volunteer staff, overall understanding of Imagine’s mission, goals, and structure, and an ongoing walk with the Lord through daily time in His word and involvement in the local church. After much prayer and advisement, Matt believes that God has prepared him to release the majority of Imagine Ministries travel side to these young men. After speaking and meeting with the prospective new leadership and gauging their interest and call to make such a transition happen, Matt was very encouraged that God had provided the necessary people to make the transition happen.
Effective January 14, 2010, Matt will begin transitioning all ministry responsibilities of the Ministry Team branch of Imagine Ministries to veteran staff members Dan Whidden (dan@imagineministries.org), Ricky Cotto (ricky@imagineministries.org), and Caleb Miller (caleb@imagineministries.org). Dan and Ricky will both be Ministry Team Coordinators while Caleb will also share the Ministry Team Coordinator role as well as being the primary speaker for Imagine Ministries. Due to the volunteer structure of Imagine Ministries, each of these men will primarily provide volunteer visionary leadership for Imagine Ministries. Dan and Ricky will be responsible for the primary administrative needs of the Ministry Team branch of Imagine. These young men will slowly mentor Caleb in the administrative needs of the ministry until he feels fully acclimated. Dan and Ricky will likely rotate their involvement in booked events based on their work and school schedules. Caleb will serve as the suggested speaker and team leader for all booked events. Caleb’s partnering with Dan and/or Ricky on booked events will provide team stability and fresh visionary leadership. The assigned ‘administrative fee’ in the Imagine Ministries event expense structure will be split between the Ministry Team Coordinators involved in a particular event. Adjustments to the ‘administrative fee’ may be forthcoming. Matt will continue to mentor all of these young men as they take these new leadership roles with Imagine Ministries.
A New Adventure
As if most of the readers of this blog did not know already, God is God and…well…I am not. I can still remember vividly when God called me to work with students as a senior in high school in Arkansas. A number of years later while working as a student minister, God revealed to me a way in which that call was to be fleshed out. That revelation was Imagine Ministries. While in seminary, God continued to reveal ways I was to flesh out my call to minister to students and those that invest in students (ex. Youth Ministry Lab, weekly discipleship of four young men that continues today, etc.). A little over three years ago, yet another way to live out that call was made known to me when I began serving with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention in their student evangelism area. Though God has allowed me to serve in various ministry capacities, the call to work with students and those who invest in students remains the same.
As God is God and I am not, His timing and revelation of ways to live out my call is not under my control or timing. This has been evident over the past month or so. I have been content with my current ministry which is likely why God has worked in the way(s) that He has recently. About a month ago, I received a phone call from the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Alexandria, Louisiana (David Brooks). To be honest, I really did not want to talk with him due to my ministry contentment and the fact that the church was in Louisiana. For years, I prayed solely for selfish reasons that God would never reveal to us His intentions of us serving in Louisiana. As conviction settled in and my heart was softened, I decided to at least interview with the church. After having quickly bonded with the staff, the vision/direction of the church, and the people that I met in the community, I told the church that we would like to continue our conversations. (NOTE: My wife pretty much knew after the first phone call that we were moving to Alexandria. Oh to have the gift of discernment.) The following weekend my wife and I visited Calvary and their student search team. Our hearts continued to soften while excitement and vision began to bubble up for what God was quickly unfolding before us.
After that weekend visit and much prayer on our part, we accepted their invitation to progress to the final step in coming on staff as the Student Minister with emphasis on Senior High. This past weekend we met with the personnel committee and were presented before the church. As has been the case throughout my ministry, God’s revealing this way to flesh out my call has been continually confirmed. Saturday evening we made and offer on a house which was accepted by early Sunday morning. Our current positions were more than encouraging and flexible regarding this new adventure. Movers are being prepared to help us with the transition. Everything is in the works for us to engage in the new adventure beginning January 21.
So what will actually be my duties? Great question, in fact I asked this of the senior pastor. His response, “whatever you make it.” How exciting and intimidating! I will actually be the primary visionary behind the student ministry of Calvary’s 300+ students. Bryan Masters (currently on staff as Minister to Junior High), along with a number of other interns, parents, and adult volunteers, will help make this vision a reality and make it better. Our student ministry will engage students from 7th grade through college and all of those that invest in this age group (parents, adults, other church staff, etc.).
So what happens with Imagine Ministries? Once again, because God is God and I am not, He has already made the necessary adjustments to continue the growth of Imagine Ministries. The church has allowed me to continue leading the curriculum, resource, web, and financial arm of Imagine Ministries. Additionally, I will continue to mentor those God has prepared to take over the travel side of Imagine. Caleb Miller (caleb@imagineministries.org) will be the primary speaker and one of the coordinators for Imagine. Veterans Dan Whidden (dan@imagineministries.org) and Ricky Cotto (ricky@imagineministries.org) will serve as the primary coordinators for the travel side of Imagine Ministries. This team of servants, in addition to the dozens of other volunteers, will lead Imagine in helping churches staff their DNows, provide event budgeting and coordination, and assist student ministries in the normal and ever-increasing capacities that Imagine has been known for from its’ creation. Bios on each of these men will becoming soon to the Imagine website and will be posted on the “Oh the Possibilities” blog. Imagine Ministries will continue to impress upon God’s people to ’step out of our imagination and into the reality of making multiplying disciples of students and their families.’
In closing, I’d like to challenge you all to consider where your contentment is. As stated earlier, my contentment as of late has been in what I’m doing and what I’m called to do. Though both good things, they are not necessarily the right things to root our commitment in. Our contentment should be in Christ alone! When we are content with striving to glorify Him in all that we do, He reveals things to us that we never thought would happen. What if we truly evaluated where our contentment is…what would that do us individually? Our marriages? Our churches? The Kingdom? What if our contentment was truly in and where we Christians…we ministers…are assumed to have it? What new Kingdom adventures await you when you truly determine where your contentment lies? Oh the possibilities…
To view more information on our new church, check out www.calvarynet.net.