Leadership Journal

It may be the most common frustration among pastors today: "I'm doing everything I know, but I don't see the church growing. What's wrong?" Here a pastor explains his situation, then three respected observers offer their analysis.

I was a former pastor working a secular job when my wife and I sensed God's call back into pastoral work. We moved to Faith Baptist (names have been changed), a traditional Southern Baptist church in Michigan, in a town of 40,000. Two decades before we arrived, a band of pioneering members from a church on the other side of town started a mission, meeting in a tent on what would become the front lawn of our property.

With evangelistic preaching and lots of follow-up visits to guests, the growing group graduated to a rented "trailer church" until the first building was constructed five years later. The church's culture was strongly influenced by the southern "chicken and grits" subculture of transplanted auto workers who had moved north for the relatively high paying, blue-collar jobs.

Our small church culture was seasoned by rural America, complete with a strong-willed patriarchal deacon and a "we've always done it this way" mentality. After a year of heartfelt preaching and a couple hundred home visits, I concluded the church's culture was largely responsible for inhibiting growth beyond the 80 regular attenders.

I listened, learned, loved the people, and increasingly sensed that loving confrontation would be necessary for some who were standing in the way of progress. My saying to newcomers, "You're welcome here," wasn't convincing when some families looked offended if a newcomer sat in their pew.

A major conflict arose just after our first anniversary when the senior deacon, an outspoken auto worker approaching his retirement, decided it was time for another pastor. I would have been number five in a line of pastors who had come and gone.

As the deacon said, "There are plenty of other churches with that modern music and namby-pamby preaching. All these new people can go there if that's what they want."

My wife and I chose to surround ourselves with mature Christians, hunker down to pray in our living room, and hold on for dear life.

A few months later when the smoke had cleared, only two families had left the church, the leading deacon's family and one other. We were left with 70 shaky saints to heal the wounds and write a kinder and gentler chapter in the congregation's history.

Shortly afterward, groups in our church began studying Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, by Henry Blackaby and Claude King. That changed the way we do church. Rather than dreaming huge dreams for God, we started listening for him to tell us what we were supposed to do. Instead of expecting every member to make evangelistic visits, we started looking for those who felt God was leading them to make those visits. God raised up three men with a heart for evangelism and the willingness to visit.

Not everyone ...