Not So Hidden People Undermining the Health of Your Church
A Travel Free Learning Article

By George Bullard, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

Maybe you are killing your congregation. It is possible you do not mean to; but it happens. Your motives could be commendable. Yet perhaps you have fallen victim to EGO which is Edging God Out according to management guru and Christian leader Ken Blanchard. It could be that you are trying to reimage your congregation in your image of what it should look like rather than allowing it to be reimaged in God’s image.

In many cases, the classic Pogo cartoon is right when it suggests we have met the enemy and it is us. Often we discover that the person who is a fault—even killing our congregation—is the one we see in the mirror each morning as we put on makeup, shave, or brush teeth.

If you are undermining the health of your congregation, you may be the last to acknowledge it. Others around you may realize it long before you do. Maybe they are afraid to tell you, they have told you several times and you do not hear and understand it, or they have told you and you have protested.

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Here are two announcement videos prepared and posted to YouTube by Masonboro Baptist Church in Wilmington, NC to entice people to come to their Future Story of ministry presentation today [April 29, 2012]. There are really neat!

By George Bullard, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org

The Situation

Edward Ambrose had a three hour drive home to reflect on the conference he had just attended on congregational transformation. He turned off his cell telephone and his car entertainment system because he wanted a quiet ride to allow him to unwind and think. He was stressed by what he had heard and what he was feeling.

Christ Community Church is his third pastorate. Each one has been a congregation in need of a turnaround, redevelopment, or transformation. He has tried various program and project approaches. He has faithfully signed each church up for the latest, greatest church growth or congregational transformation project suggested by his denomination. Each time he was convinced this might be the answer.

The truth, however, is that neither of his first two congregations experienced lasting transformation during his tenure as pastor. Some short-term gains were experienced. Now after several years at Christ Community he is not sure it is ready to experience significant transition and change. The congregation diagnosed their weaknesses, but improving these is not empowering a new future. They tried several new programs, but are only working harder and not making progress.

He is beginning to wonder if congregational transformation can really happen in churches more than 35 years old without radical intervention or closing the church down and starting over. This conference, while not his last hope, was an occasion to do some deep soul searching about his leadership capacities.

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Hidden Factors Undermining the Health of Your Church 

A Travel Free Learning Article

By George Bullard, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership

Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org 

Life is fragile. But you know that. All of us who are more than a generation old realize the physical and mental sharpness of our childhood and youth has diminished. It may not be obvious when we are twenty-something or thirty-something, but it is there. It becomes more obvious when we are forty-something and fifty-something and still trying to trying to push ourselves like we were much younger.

By the time we are sixty-something and seventy-something the aging process is in full swing. Many of the symptoms of our aging have been present for decades, but they are just now having an obvious impact on us that we cannot overcome by just working harder. We must work smarter and choose carefully those things to which we commit ourselves. Health conditions that were not obvious in earlier decades are now part of our daily concern and actions.

If we make it to eighty-something or ninety-something, for the vast majority of us health and life expectancy issues are not only a primary concern for us, but often for our family who love us and have a responsibility to help care for us.

Is The Same Pattern True for Congregations?

Absolutely! The patterns are clear. Congregations often thrive for the first generation of their life. At some point when they are twenty-something their founding dream or vision wanes. If they do not intervene in their own journey in response to the spiritual nudge of the Triune God, the vitality and vibrancy of their congregation will diminish incrementally for the succeeding decades, and they will approach death at some future date.

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A Travel Free Learning Article

By George Bullard, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership

Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org 

Way too few senior and solo pastors are FaithSoaring. They lead by sight rather than by faith. They lead with the short-term in mind rather than the long-term. They are captivated by the tyranny of the urgent rather than the democracy of the patient. Their vision is myopic rather than farsighted. In their weakness they are afraid to ask for help whereas strong leaders enjoy help when they cannot figure out what is next.

How do we know this? Because senior and solo pastors regularly tell researchers, peer learning communities, consultants, coaches, and at times even their staff and lay leaders that their lack the Vision to take their congregations beyond what is seen to that which only God can see.

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Try Out Some of These

A Travel Free Learning Article

By George Bullard, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership

Voice: 803.622.0923, E-mail: GBullard@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org 

Recently I was thinking about unusual crises congregations face. I pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote down the first ten crises that came to mind. Ok, the truth. I skipped over a couple that I was not ready to put on the list. Stating them would clearly indicate who they are and not everybody knows about them yet. Here is my almost the first ten congregational crises that came to mind.

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I have always appreciated the research and writing of Jim Collins. Built to Last, Good to Great, and How the Mighty Fall have all clarified, reaffirmed, and provided a scientific research basis for many concepts I have been using in 35 years of consulting. I have had a lot of "Ah ha's" when reading Jim's books and hearing him speak.

This adventure of learning from Jim that is now about 17 years old is continued wonderfully through his latest book with Morten Hansen entitled Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All.

Too many concepts abound in the book to try to talk about them in one sitting. Today, however, I was struck by the application of the principle of the 20 Mile March which he introduces in his chapter on fanatic discipline.

The basic concept--although there is deeper stuff when you get into it--is that it is better for an organization to journey a measured amount of distance forward each year than it is to rush forward and burn out. The measured journey will make much more significant progress in the long-term. [Jim is always about the long-term.]

The applications for this are virtually limitless. The one that smacked me in the face today relates to collective missional strategies by networks of congregations or denominational Great Commissions efforts. When a bunch of folks, congregations, and others put on a big push in a give metropolitan area, country, etc. to try to do something big and impactful in the short-term, they often totally miss the need to develop capacity and sustainability in the people on the field, in the grassroots, who will seek to harvest the impact in the days, weeks, months, and years following the emphasis.

Steady strategy implementation is always better than the big bang theory. Yet there is so much excitement and self-satisfaction for the providers of the Great Commission effort, that they can only see the short-term thrill and not the long-term capacity and sustainability needs.

Sad.

 

Some lay leaders in some congregations actually say this about visitors/guests when it is suggested that better signage or greeters outside the facilities and not just inside one part of the facilities might help visitors/guests find their way in the church facilities the first time.

Perhaps this is not a tremendously bad statement. Perhaps it is. Here are some problems with this statement:

1. It suggests an attitude of low openness to new people connecting with the congregation. I wonder if such congregations either do not need more people to connect with them, or feel that is not a necessary part of congregational ministry?

2. It suggests as caste system that the current members' viewpoint is better than the viewpoint of visitors/guests. New people must learn how to see things from the perspective of existing and especially long-term members. If they can figure out the culture of the longer tenured people in the congregation and follow it, then they are welcome.

3. It suggests not only a lack of sufficient sensitivity to new people, but also suggests that if such attitudes persist that even once people visit multiple time they may find it difficult to be assimilated into the congregation. They may be made to feel like outsiders for a long time.

Actually very few congregation proactively and openly act like this. Many, however, unintentionally act like this. They are myopic and do not realize what they are doing.

Where is your congregation in its openness and sensitivity to the viewpoint of visitors/guests?

 

I have always been a proponent of  pledging to your congregation more than just your tithes and offerings. So, it is always a pleasure to encounter a congregation that takes this seriously. This weekend I am working with a congregation whose fall stewardship campaign offered the opportunity to state interest in 15 areas of service in the congregation where people could give their time and talents in addition to making a tithes and offerings commitment to the congregation for the coming year.

What would it be like to commit 10% of your income and 10% of your time to the life and ministry of the kingdom of God in and through your congregation? Are you already doing this? How far are you from these benchmarks? What progress will you make during the coming year?