Potholes for the Turn-Around Church and Pastor

The dream of being a turn-around pastor comes when a pastor looks at a church that’s not producing fruit and realizes that God wants him to do something about it. Usually, he sees something in that congregation that others can’t or won’t see. It’s a glorious challenge that some pastors accept. Sometimes, he has to work hard to get the congregation to simply recognize that changes need to be made. Then he must convince the people that things can be different and that they can, with God’s help, regain positive momentum. Once the church agrees to be open to the pastor’s leadership, the temptation is for the pastor to think he’s home free because everyone is behind him and the church is on its way to new relevance, strength and growth. He thinks that since the church has decided to make the U-turn, things should be easy now. However, as difficult as it is to get a declining or plateaued congregation to agree it needs to make changes, the would-be turn-around pastor should be aware that more opposition is likely. There are potholes in the road after the church turns around.

Check out the book of Nehemiah. The project God assigned was to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. This was the start of the turn-around for the city after its destruction by the Babylonians. Nehemiah received a vision from God. He got the okay from the king. He had every reason to believe that he would be successful, but he still had plenty of continuing opposition to overcome.

Turnaround pastors can learn from Nehemiah that even with assurance of success, you can expect opposition when you strive to fulfill God’s dream. It’s easier to deal with a pothole if you know to expect them. Here are some of the things you can expect to hear:

-        “This is not the right time.” These folks will say they agree that the church needs to change, but this is just a bad time to make those changes. They will point to any one of a number of things as evidence—from a bad economy to the wrong time of year. Delay is their goal.

-         “It will take too much time.” Those in opposition will say they don’t really believe it can be done because they believe either the pastor or the people will lose interest or become exhausted before the job is done.

-        “Your dream is too expensive.” This point of view may well have contributed to the decline or plateau the church has experienced. These people have yet to realize that turning the church around is the most important thing the church spends money on.

-        “Your results will not be done well.” This may imply that the speaker doesn’t believe the pastor is smart enough or competent enough to lead the church to turn around. Or it could be that the speaker has no confidence in the ability of their people doing things effectively.

-        Some who oppose may be crass enough to use ridicule to try to demoralize the pastor or the people, so that they will just give up.

-        Elements of the opposition may try to find ways to halt renewal efforts by finding obscure bylaws clauses or parliamentary procedures.

The turn-around pastor must then anticipate opposition and find ways to counteract the influence of the opposition. Either he can steer around the pothole or brace himself and his supporters for them.

-        First of all make sure you stay close to the Lord. God will give you the assurance and encouragement you need.

-        Make sure you spend time with people who encourage you.

-        Listen to encouraging words and music. Fill your mind with good stuff.

-        Don’t just be a consumer of encouragement, but also give encouragement to your supporters whenever and however you can.

-        Prepare well. Make sure you know as much about what you’re doing as you can. Be ready for questions. Have answers.

-        Work hard. Let your effort show the way.

-        Do all you can do and trust God! Do your best. Remember that is all you have to do and all that God expects of you.

It seems that there will always be negative people. Some of them think that their purpose is to cause potholes in your path. They have no dreams and resent the fact that you actually think you can achieve yours. Do your best not to let them bother you, because when it comes down to it, what do negative people win?  All they win is a jeering laugh at the expense of the person who is trying to make the dream come true. On the other hand, what does the dream achiever win?  Usually he achieves the objective, and win or lose, he always receives God’s approval.

Remember that turning a church around is difficult. Admit that. Know that. Deal with that. Let the congregation know that turning the church around will be tough, but keep reminding yourself and them that, “It is not the things we fail at that shame us, it’s the things we should have done, and could have done, but never even tried.” In football they tell players to “leave it all on the field”, which is to say, don’t hold anything back. Turning a church around is your SuperBowl. It is the ultimate test for the pastor and for the people. If God is calling you to be a turn-around pastor, don’t let potholes scare you away. It’s worth the risk. It’s worth the effort. Go for it! 

Click here Check out my post, "The Turn-around Challenge: Will You Take the First Steps to Turn Around Your Church", from February 18, 2014

Fickle Holy Week Crowd – Fickle Congregations

The crowd in Jerusalem was a fickle bunch. On Palm Sunday they welcomed Jesus as a new king coming to lead the Jews to throw off the oppression of Rome and establish Israel as God’s great kingdom on earth. By Friday morning they were yelling for Pilate to crucify Him. How could they change so fast? I know the easiest answer is that the Sunday crowd and the Friday crowd were not the same. Maybe that’s true, but if it is, what happened to the Sunday crowd? Why didn’t they show up on Friday when the heat was on Jesus?

Actually, this kind of sea change is often seen in congregations. Pastors are welcomed with great fanfare. They are invited to lead the congregation. The church believes that he can get the congregation off a plateau or bring it back from near death. The people can’t wait to see their church return and perhaps surpass its glorious past. They are sure that soon things will right themselves and it will be just like the good old days. This pastor is a leader and they know if they just have a leader their congregation will succeed.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem the crowd were sure He was the king they wanted. Even though they were greatly outnumbered by the Romans, a King Jesus could heal their wounded and restore their dead to life. If their supply lines got thin, Jesus could multiply rations like He did with the loaves and fishes in Galilee.

It didn’t turn out that way. Instead of rousing the crowd against the Romans, He went to the temple and deliberately irritated the temple authorities. He even went so far as to disrupt their money-changing operation. When He should have been getting people mad at the Romans, He criticized the Jewish authorities that He needed to legitimize His kingship. Jesus was leading a revolution, but not the revolution they wanted. So … “Crucify Him!” “Crucify Him!”

The new pastor turns out not to be what they thought. He has some strange ideas about how things ought to be done. He makes big changes in the music. He brings in guitars and drums, and not just on youth Sunday, but every Sunday. The choir is down to singing only once a month and the only time the organ is heard any more is at a funeral. He’s got somebody leading some kind of recovery group and a few of those people have been showing up in church. Somehow he got the board to let him remodel the children’s area with all kinds of wild color schemes and decorations. It looks more like a fun area than a classroom. And there are so many kids running around making noises and messes … It’s not at all like it used to be. Sure, the attendance is coming up, but those people aren’t like us. They don’t know how to dress for church. They have tattoos and some of them smell like tobacco. He doesn’t seem to care about the way things have always been done and doesn’t think he needs the approval of the long-time lay leaders. The church may be growing, but it’s not growing the way they want. The pastor is a leader, but he’s not leading the way they wanted. Someone get up a petition; let’s get rid of him. In effect, “Crucify him!” “Crucify Him!”

The Holy Week crowd got rid of Jesus and preserved the way things were, but in a relatively few years the temple system was destroyed. The local lay leaders usually get their way too, and while they may preserve the traditions of their congregation, the church dies in a few years. Sometimes, the pastor survives and leads another congregation to growth. Too often, he’s so damaged that he decides to walk away from pastoral leadership.

Jesus was just doing what God sent Him to do, and the crowd reversed itself. In the same way, the pastor was doing the Lord’s assignment too, and the congregation turned on him. It’s a small consolation for the pastor to realize that he faced the same thing Jesus did. The congregation, like the Holy Week crowd, couldn’t trade their pipe dream of the future for God’s vision. They couldn’t submit to God.

Names of Churches

What’s in a name?  What’s in a name for a church?

A new church is meeting at a high school near my house.  It is called Kingdom Come.  Interesting name.  I haven’t yet found out why this name was chosen, and I am sure there must have been a good reason, but I am having fun thinking about what that name means.  It probably has to do with a verse from the Lord’s Prayer, or about wishing Jesus would come back.  But what do people driving by the sign in front of the school think it means.  Most people use the words “kingdom come” in a sentence like, “The tornado (or hurricane, or explosion) blew that house to kingdom come.”  So, is this church explosive, or the aftermath of an explosion? Or, perhaps the church members know that the Hebrew word for spirit is the same as the word for wind, so they are very poetically thinking that the Spirit is blowing in the church until the Kingdom comes.  The problem is that the Bible says:

Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21, NIV).

To me that says the Kingdom is already here.  

Anyway, I don’t want to argue Kingdom of God theology at this time; instead, this post is about church names. 

I find them very interesting.  Historically, we have named churches for a saint or other leader, for a biblical place, for a doctrinal position, or a combination of these.  Some churches are named for the area or the street on which they are located.  Sometimes, that creates problems when the church relocates.  When I was a young student minister in Louisville, KY, the biggest church in town was Walnut St. Baptist Church: it was located on Broadway and had been for many years.  The First Church of God in Wichita, KS was pretty much in the middle of town when it changed its name to Central Community Church.  A couple of years later they moved to what was then the west edge of town and kept the name.  (Central Community has a sister church named West Side.  West Side is now 5 miles closer to the middle of the city than is Central—confusing.)  It has also long been the practice for churches to use numbers to identify themselves.  Usually, the only number they use is First, but I have seen a few Seconds.

Some churches that started in the 70s and 80s, perhaps inspired by 7Up’s uncola commercials chose to use an unchurch name.  They took names like Christian Fellowship, or Koinonia, or Ekklesia and left out the word “Church” … I guess to show they were different from your Grandma’s church.  Also, in that period lots of churches put “Community” in their names:  Faith Community, Fellowship Community, Ourtown or Our Neigborhood Community.  Many of these were inspired by Robert Schuller who chose not to name the church he founded Reformed Church of Garden Grove, but instead, Garden Grove Community Church.  His purpose was to identify with the people of the town.  Of course, when they built an amazing building, the name was changed to Crystal Cathedral.  Hmm … that church, which for decades was one of the most influential ones in the country, recently declared bankruptcy.  I wonder if the emphasis, like the name, turned from the community to the church.  I don’t know about that particular case, but I know that a lot of other churches have turned inward, which has led to their downfall.

In the last 10 or 15 years the fad has been for churches to choose a one word name that somehow describes the mission, so we now have churches named Journey, Catalyst, Discover, Hope, or _______pointe (fill in the blank with Life, Bridge, Faith, Touch). 

There are also some very unusual names for newer churches.  Last week I heard a speaker from Australia whose church is named Small Boat, Big Sea.  It’s located in a depressed area and wants to bring God’s rescue to the people there, at least that’s what I think it means.  Also, there is a church in Denver, CO that is called Scum of the Earth.  No kidding.  They are targeting people who feel rejected by everyone.  A good thought, but I think it might limit their clientele. Perhaps that’s the idea, and they are only interested in reaching that niche which they feel is being rejected by other churches.  I can’t help being reminded of a youth pastor friend of mine who, when we were young, was fond of saying he was going to move to Beverly Hills because he felt called to minister to the filthy rich.  I wonder how the name Church of the Filthy Rich, or Rich and Famous Community Church would have worked out.  Maybe it’s just as well he never went there.

Some church leaders are saying churches should think about changing the name every five years.  I don’t know about that.  It seems to me if a church has a reputation for being a loving community that welcomes and accepts new people, a name change is probably unnecessary and may be counterproductive.  However, if a church which has been declining or on a long plateau because it has become inward focused is choosing to turn over a new leaf, repent, and seek to have an outward focused future, then a name chance should be considered.  The new name can reflect the new life the church is now living.  Changing the name won’t change the focus, but if the focus is changing, then changing the name can make sense. 

Naming the church is a big decision.  I had the privilege of naming a church that I planted.  It was the middle 80s and I wanted to name it Hope Community Church.  (Basically, because we had little money, little training as a church planter, no people, and hope was the only resource we had.)  When I shared the name with the congregation, which at that point was my wife, my 6-year-old son and myself, the vote was 2 to 1.  My wife was fine with Hope, but my little son, being wise beyond his years, said, “Name it Jesus’s Church, because it’s His church anyway.”  I learned right then that naming a church causes controversy in any size church.  Of course, Jarad’s statement was correct, but Dad and Mom won and we named it Hope Community anyway.  As I think about it, perhaps Jesus’ Church would be a pretty good name.  Maybe it would help a body of believers to remember who is in charge and keep the focus on Him and his design for His church. 

What’s in a name?  For a church there can be a lot, especially in this day when people are less and less impressed by denominational and doctrinal names.  I think the name should reflect what the church aspires to be and the mission it hopes to accomplish.  Is your church living up to its name?  Beyond that, is it living up to the mission that Jesus gave it?

Making Disciples is What the Church is All About

The last words of Jesus that Matthew records are a command to His followers to make disciples:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age"(Matthew 28:19-20, NIV).

Yet, is that the first priority of your church? Is it your first priority in regard to your involvement in the church? If it is not your priority, it’s probably not your church’s priority, no matter what the mission or purpose statement says. I think this scripture, along with Luke’s last words of Christ from Acts 1:8 indicate that everything that the church is and does should be targeted at making disciples. I’m afraid our churches do a lot of things that have very little to do with making disciples. Some traditional church programs probably began as means to bring people to a saving relationship with Jesus and help them grow in that relationship, but as the years have gone by the programs have become an end in themselves. Churches also are victims of what the military calls “mission creep.” By that, I mean the church starts with the very simple mission God gave it, but other things get added. For some, the unspoken mission becomes protecting the building, or reaching only a certain kind of people, or preserving the past, or even putting on a show.

Don’t get me wrong. I am amazed at how much many people do for their church. People give generously of their time. I applaud their efforts, but some of them work very hard at church doing things that don’t have anything to do with what Jesus said was the main thing. What do you do at church? Does it contribute to making disciples? Make a list of the ministries, programs and activities of your church. Are there any that don’t contribute to making disciples? Then why is the church doing them? Often the answer is, “Because we’ve always done it.” Churches are not very good at stopping things. Old programs that no longer make disciples need to be stopped to make room for new more effective ones.

There are a lot of churches that are declining. For many, the reason is that they have chosen to make other “churchy” things more important than making disciples. Christians get comfortable with churchy things and would rather do those things than do what is necessary to help people find Christ’s love and grow in it. A lot of churches are all for making disciples as long as they can do what they have always done. The truth is there is only so much time and so much money. If your church devotes only the time and money that is left after the church does all its churchy stuff to making disciples, it is probably not doing very much. Folks, Jesus said the point of the church is to make disciples. If that isn’t the point of your church, is it really a church?

Hope For the Church (Part 5) The Church Must Organize Itself for Growth

If there is to be hope for a plateaued or declining church to get back on track and become a place where people find Christ, it needs to be organized for growth. To get a church going and growing the congregation’s decision-making process needs to be nimble and able to make adjustments quickly to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. Here are six questions for the congregation to ask itself about its structure:

1. Is the church over- or under-organized?
Many churches are over-organized. The decision-making process takes so long and goes through so many steps that a new idea doesn’t have a chance. If it makes it through the bureaucracy, approval often comes so late enthusiasm has waned. Sometimes the opposite is true. Some congregations are so unorganized that no one feels they have authority to make a decision. Everyone is waiting for someone else to get the ball rolling; consequently, nothing happens. Because no one knows who is in charge, things just keep going as they have been, until they are stopped by inertia. There is no vehicle for change. For a church to do its mission of making disciples, it needs to be organized in a way that encourages new ideas and finds ways for ministry to take place. Some congregations seem to be organized to prevent ministry instead of facilitate ministry.

2. Do the committee meetings enable ministry to happen?
In many established churches members think that sitting on a committee and going to meetings is doing ministry. Committees, task forces, teams, or whatever they are called at your church should be seen as necessary to make the ministry in their charge happen. For example: the meetings of the Christian Education Committee are not the ministry of the Christian Ed. Committee. Its ministry is Sunday school, small groups, teacher training, etc. Team members should meet to find ways to organize, fund, and publicize ministry. They should work together to remove obstacles so the ministry can be more effective. There is no need to have a meeting for the sake of having a meeting. Meetings should be about receiving exciting reports about what is happening in the ministry and making plans for more great things.

3. Is the pastor a leader?
Another leadership problem in a lot of declining and plateaued churches is that the pastor doesn’t lead. This usually happens for one of two reasons. 1.) The pastor doesn’t know how to lead. He doesn’t have leadership gifts, has not been trained to lead, or is lazy and doesn’t want the responsibility of leadership. 2.) The pastor does not have the freedom to lead because he is constrained by the by-laws, the traditional way of doing things at the congregation, or someone or some family has control issues. If church is going to get unstuck from a plateau or turn around from decline, it is imperative that the pastor be a leader and has the freedom to lead the congregation. In some denominations leadership has not been a gift that was considered important in pastors, nor has it been rewarded. However, the word “pastor” means shepherd. Many churches see their pastor (shepherd) as a caretaker of the sheep (church members). Actually the biblical shepherd, (pastor) was first and foremost the leader of the flock. He also protected and cared for the sheep, but the main emphasis of his job was to lead them to pasture and water; and away from danger. See Psalm 23 for a description of the shepherd’s job. It was not by accident that this word was applied to the God-called leader of a congregation in the New Testament church.

4. Is the pastor doing everything?
In some churches one of the things that holds a congregation back from doing the mission God gave it is that the pastor does everything, either because he hasn’t learned to delegate and doesn’t trust others to do ministry; or because the people either don’t understand that each of them have a ministry to perform, or they refuse to perform it. The pastor can’t do it all. If he tries, the church’s growth is limited by his capacity. Besides, that is not the way God intended for the church to function. For a congregation to become what God intends it to be, the members must see themselves as workers, not spectators, ministers, not consumers.

5. Do the pastor, the board, the staff, and the members know their jobs?
A congregation should be organized so that the pastor can cast a God-inspired vision that the board endorses. The pastor, with the counsel of the church’s leadership, then sets measurable goals and objectives that will enable the church to fulfill the vision. In other words, the pastor’s job is to lead. Then board’s job is to hold him accountable to meet the goals in a Christ-like way. The staff’s (paid or unpaid) job is to manage the ministries that are necessary to meet the goals and objectives. And the job of church members is to do the ministry of the church. This is an accountable and measurable way of doing God’s work (often referred to as the governance model).

6. Are newcomers intentionally asked to get involved?
Finally, a church that expects to grow by bringing people to Christ must be intentional in getting new people involved in ministry. Declining and plateaued churches often make it difficult, or have no path to help people get involved. Leaders need to find out what new people are interested in doing and match them up with things that fit their gift mix. If there is nothing for new people to do, then the church needs to try some new things. New people may well also be the source of new ministry ideas. Encouraging them to discover and use their spiritual gifts and talents is the first, and possibly the most important step. The most exciting thing in the world is to discover and do the work that God equipped and called you to do. All church members must be challenged, encouraged and expected to somehow be involved in ministry.

Is your church’s structure helping or hindering your work of making disciples?

Hope for the Church (Part 4): The Church must be Willing to Choose the Right Methods

So many congregations these days are plagued by stagnant attendance figures, or find their attendance dwindling, that the church is in crisis. Some churches realize the danger and are afraid of the future; others are as oblivious as the band that played on the deck as the Titanic sank. However, there is hope for plateaued and declining churches if they realize the danger and do what needs to be done to once again become places where people find the love, hope and salvation Jesus offers. In this series, we have looked at the price the pastor and the congregation must pay, and the priorities that the church must adhere to. The next avenue of hope for churches to fulfill God’s mission of making disciples is to discover and/or choose appropriate methods of sharing the Good News of Jesus.

Let me point out four assumptions which are both frequent and problematic, that congregations make when choosing the methods it uses for building God’s Kingdom.

It worked for Grandpa.
When a congregation, particularly one that has had past greatness, realizes that it must do something to regain its old vitality, it often decides to start doing the things that worked years ago. Tactics that were effective in days gone by seldom bring the same results today. So much of life has changed. Means of communication have changed. People have a higher degree of expectation for quality in preaching, teaching, and music. Also, most Americans these days know much less about the Bible and the claims of Christ than did the unchurched of a few decades ago. As much as it hurts some folks to realize it, Grandpa’s methods will likely fall flat these days.

It worked in another place.
The location of a congregation is unique. The fact that a method works well in one area does not guarantee its success elsewhere. A lot depends on the demographics of the community in which the church finds itself. Still more depends on the make-up of your church. The first thing a church must do is figure out who it is and who it has the best chance of reaching. Many churches balk at the idea of targeting a group because they like to say they want to reach everyone. But the truth is there is a segment of your community that you have the best chance of reaching. I would go so far as to say those folks are the people God has called you to reach. Now, hear exactly what I am saying, and don’t read any underlying meaning into that. A church should never be exclusive; in fact, I think God calls us to be inclusive. However, reality shows that there are some people that some churches can reach with greater ease, likely because that is who God has in mind for them to reach first. And as a practical matter if a church has no target, it will get what it aims at, nothing.

An idea that has worked at another church might work if that church works hard to tailor it to fit their situation. Very few methods or programs are “one-size-fits-all.” Assuming you can plug a program that worked in another location into your church is a mistake that many churches have made over the last 40 years. A better way might be to allow a borrowed concept to inspire an idea that is made for your church’s very special situation. Borrow ideas. Don’t transplant programs.

It worked for so-and-so
Methods that have worked for big name churches or leaders are a blessing to the Kingdom of God. Don’t expect those methods to work the same for you. You are not that other guy. You don’t have his personality, his resources, or his situation. Don’t assume someone else’s methods will work for you. Robert Schuller and his Crystal Cathedral inspired Bill Hybels as he developed Willow Creek Church near Chicago, and also Rick Warren in Orange County at Saddleback Community. Neither of those churches resembles the Crystal Cathedral, nor are they anything like each other. Hybels and Warren skillfully adapted Schuller’s principles to each of their unique situations. Learn principles and apply them … don’t copy. If you copy you will likely be disappointed when you don’t get the same results as so and so.

We never did it that way before
Congregations sometimes resist trying new methods simply because they are new. They fear doing something they haven’t tried before. Some will even keep doing things that haven’t worked in a long time because that is all they know to do. To discover the methods a particular church should use in a particular time and place takes study of both the community and the congregation; wisdom to choose the things that have the best chance of working, and, most of all, the courage to take a risk and try different things. Many churches are paralyzed because they fear that if they try something new it will fail. The truth is some things will fail, but the church and its leaders must have the freedom to fail and learn from the failures. You can learn a lot by failing. You can learn what not to do, and/or what needs to be changed to reverse a failure.

God gave the church the mission to make disciples. He won’t leave us without a way to do that assignment. To reach this generation congregations must get creative and be willing to take risks. This could well be the dawning of the finest hour for the church in America, if she takes the challenge and refuses to retreat. First of all, open your heart to those who need to know Jesus, then open your head to the ideas God wants to give you for reaching them, and finally, do the life-giving work.

Comments?

Next time: Part 5: “The Church Must be Organized so that it Can Fulfill Her Mission”