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?

The Board of Directors of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina voted in their September 27-28, 2011 meeting to sell the Hollifield Leadership Center at www.Hollifield.org. The announcement is on the www.NCBaptist.org web site. Here is an excerpt from the news story:

 

"The Board approved a recommendation from the Business Services Committee to sell Hollifield Leadership Center, located on a peninsula above the Oxford Dam on Lake Hickory, near Conover. The BSCNC purchased Hollifield Leadership Center in 2000 and has made major improvements and renovations since acquiring the property.

 

However, with Hollifield unable to operate in the black, the Convention can no longer justify expenses related to operating the facility. [Note from George: As the first director of Hollifield Leadership Center our goal was to operate in the black within five years. We accomplished that, but it was unable to be sustained after I left the employment of BSCNC.]

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It is budget preparation time in many congregations as they anticipate how to allocate their financial resources to operate during their next fiscal year. They are also hoping there may be enough money to engage in high quality, effective programs and ministries plus to engage in missional engagement. As to this latter point, many will be disappointed.

I have talked with or read accounts of the budget development in several congregations this week. The news is not good Many congregations are going to begin or continue being managers of museums rather than leaders of congregations engaged in missional action. What do I mean?

Once the expenditures for facilities and staff reaches 80 percent of the annual budget of a congregation it has moved from being a congregation to being a museum. The staff are not leading a missional movement. They are curators of the museum. To be leading a missional movement facilities and staff need to be no more than 70 percent of the annual budget.

The other two annual budget categories are programs/ministries and missional engagement. Once the 80 percent level for facilities and staff is crossed then programs/ministries and/or missional engagement fall to single digit percentages of the annual budget. Each of these areas need to be at least in the range of 12 to 15 percent of the annual budget for the congregation to be doing the real work of a Christian congregation.

Many reasons exist that get congregations to the place where they become a museum rather than a congregation. Some are avoidable and some are not. Some can be anticipated and some cannot. Some can be changed and some cannot. It is a complicated situation that often will take several years to resolve. However unless congregations resolve the dilemma as to whether they are a museum or a congregation, they will be relegated to permanently being a museum. That is, short of the direct, dramatic, divine intervention of God.

Where is your congregation as you prepare for the next fiscal year?

As I pulled up to the hotel entrance Thursday afternoon, I realized I had been here before. It was a Marriott in Colorado Springs, but it was not always a Marriott. At the front desk I asked about a special conference room in the facility and they knew exactly what I was thinking about.

The last time I was here was, I believe, December 1996. The occasion was a Leadership Network learning experience. The speaker was Jim Collins, author of Built to Last and later Good to Great. The topic was succession planning. The audience were the pastors of many of the 20 largest churches in the USA.

A few of us who were not pastors were allowed to sit in and learn from the experience. It was, indeed, a great experience!

Collins, who was not at that time a Christian, but I know a lot of people who have been working on him about this issue ever since and I do not know his current spiritual status, had a tremendous statement that hooked everyone present. Here is how I remember it:

“If building your great church has been all about you, then do not worry about succession planning. If building your great church has been about your God, then it is worth investing 20 years in developing a succession plan.”

Collins was there for one day. The rest of the learning experience was having the pastors in small groups talking about their reactions and what they needed to do about what they had heard.

It was a learning experience from which I am still learning.

 

Today while traveling to Denver, Colorado—by airplane, of course—I read through a book I first read when it came out in 1974. A book on a phenomenal social action congregation, Gideon’s Gang: A Case Study of the Church in Social Action, is an inspirational book for those who take special purpose congregations seriously.

I loved this book when I read it in seminary. It talked about commitment. While not necessarily the flavor of commitment at all points I would personally choose for my own congregation, the principles surrounding the unique ministry of the primary congregation discussed—The Congregation of Reconciliation—are very much on the cutting edge of Christian ministry.

Their overall focus was racial reconciliation which is obviously a theme I would fully embrace. Their specific, most noteworthy social activity I still laugh about. I experienced it before I knew about the congregation and this book.

It related to the perceived collusion of an American-based corporation with a foreign government in several African countries. The company was Gulf Oil. The country was Portugal. The action was to place round orange stickers that said “Boycott Gulf” in Gulf service stations restrooms throughout the country.

I saw those! My family traveled a great deal. We often stopped at Gulf service stations. Usually we had to use the restrooms. Often the stickers were there. I never understood why. [If the Internet was in existence then I could have found out.]

Ever since then I have always wanted to be part of a congregation that had a special, focused purpose and an impact far beyond its size and scale. I have experienced that in part in various congregations. There is much of life left. One day yet I will be part of such a congregation.

How about you?

 

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