Many of us whose intellectually formative years fell during the 1960s will be scarred for life. Remember those days? We accepted very little at face value. We bucked tradition. We questioned authority. We tweaked the Establishment.
Now, closing in on age forty, I find myself a member of the established clergy. I am conservative in many ways. Yet that old habit of questioning the obvious has never left me. If Hegel was right that history is a matter of normalcy (thesis) being met with its opposite (antithesis) and blending into the answer (synthesis), then when we turn the normal upside down, maybe something better will shake out. Even if nothing better comes, the very shaking will have been fun.
Try it with me on a few “obvious truths.” Then you can do it on your own with any other issues.
“Growth Requires Specific Goals”
You have heard it said: Churches that aim at nothing usually hit it.
True enough. Yet holding forth an overall direction for your church’s progress is not the same as setting “growth goals.” A vision for what God could do is one thing. Planning exactly what God will do is quite another.
Many churches take planning as the medicine to cure both the “illnesses” of uncontrolled growth (I’ve heard such growth compared to cancer) and of no growth (such a lack has been compared to death).
Dear me! Is our planning an aid to healthy growth, or is it an attempt to gain control of growth, which only God gives (1 Cor. 3:6)? Growth spurts are by definition not long lasting, nor are growth pauses necessarily permanent. How many parents plan for their six-foot son’s period of uncontrolled growth? How many homeowners tug on their bushes during the winter?
In my last parish, Sunday morning attendance grew from two hundred to nine hundred in six years. When we reached the seven hundred mark, a strange phenomenon gripped us: panic. “Quick! Reactivate the long-range planning committee, or we won’t be stable!” The committee, composed of some of the most intelligent people around, extrapolated the church’s present characteristics ten years into the future. Then our committee neatly set a goal of around 10 percent growth per year (seemed a reasonable figure for God to shoot at). We adjusted church plans accordingly and kept an eagle eye on our charts.
The problem? We got sidetracked, spending our time talking about people rather than with them. We began to invest so much time preparing for the masses of people who were not yet there that we became insensitive to the needs of the individuals already present. Our planning had diverted us from our primary goal: loving people better and trusting God more deeply. Certainly we needed to plan, but we needed to look up from our crystal balls long enough to consider the unmet needs of individuals.
The end of some planning processes is to set number goals and to target a certain segment of the population. Yet making x number of contacts, or striving for x number of conversions, can make us more calculating than faithful. Zeroing in on a certain segment of society sounds logical. But one wonders if the Holy Spirit were hoping someone not in that socioeconomic or age bracket could be included.
We can and should anticipate the growth God could give. Indeed, we did need to prepare materials and facilities to minister to the people being added to our congregation. But we shouldn’t become myopic about arbitrary goals we have decided God should fill.
Perhaps on our way to “quality growth” or flat-out “blessed bigness,” we can figure a way to pay attention to individuals rather than categories. When we started talking about blocks of a thousand people rather than considering the unique needs of each person in that thousand, we realized that something had been lost in our stampede to growth. Numbers don’t fill classrooms and pews; only people do.
As a popular song in those formative sixties wailed, “Do you only care about the bleeding crowd? How about a needing friend? I need a friend.” The acid test: Does your church’s planning for growth provide that friend?
“A Large Church Needs a Large Staff”
You have heard it said: Quality ministries require a quality staff.
Hmmm. I wonder. A former parish saw the staff grow from one pastor and two part-time secretaries to four pastors, four program staff, and five on administrative staff. Expense for staff rocketed from under $30,000 to over $300,000 a year.
There was some discomfort about the large staff, but we really believed a good-sized staff was necessary to answer everyone’s needs. I’m not so sure anymore. We followed the church experts’ advice on so-many-program-staff-per-hundred-in-worship, so few people questioned our need for them. And we had hard workers and no inner conflicts. Our staff situation was the best it could be. But we staggered under a huge building debt (“Not too bad for a congregation our size,” said we). Our missions giving floundered at only ten percent, while staff expenditures soared to nearly sixty percent of our budget. Comments began to float to the surface in conversations:
“The staff is running this church.”
“Oh, I’m not qualified to do that. We have professional staff who can do it so much better.”
“A staff member didn’t even meet with our committee. We must not be important enough.”
Whoa. Something was wrong.
One of my hopes in this new parish (I’m virtually starting over), is growth in ministries without a correspondingly large growth in hired staff. I know that is a bit naive; maybe it can’t be done. But I’m beginning to wonder if people will feel the empowering of the Holy Spirit if they continually refer every problem or pressure or potential to the professionals.
Besides, how much less would it cost to train laity than hire permanent staff? And-big question-how much more of the budget could be spent on missions, building, program ministries, or church planting?
Maybe we hire staff sometimes because we don’t want to bite the bullet to recruit and maintain volunteers. When we hire too readily, perhaps we forfeit lay ownership of the church’s vision and lose the pressure that brings out the best in us.
I’m convinced that a paid staff is God’s plan for many churches. But wouldn’t it be refreshing to see God grow a huge church in which the staff was an equipped congregation?
“People Who Leave Are Disloyal”
You have heard it said that pastors leave churches because God has “called” them elsewhere. We all understand, don’t we, that a pastor’s ultimate loyalty cannot be to a local congregation, but only to God and his church universal. Granted, we pastors seem to hear a call more clearly when the present ministry is not going well. Yet the idea of a pastor moving on to develop new ministry opportunities is widely accepted.
But often we don’t grant lay people the same freedom. Why are pastors “growing” if they change churches, while lay people are “disloyal”?
We tend to call our brothers and sisters every name not in the Book if their experiences point them toward another type of church family. We feel abandoned.
When the pastor leaves, congregations say, “We knew we couldn’t keep him forever” or “We just weren’t right for each other. Glory be to God!” When a member leaves, pastors or congregations say, “I wonder what we did to offend her?” or “What makes him so holier-than-thou?”
When people leave one congregation for another, we rarely recognize the departure publicly. But there is an unspoken sense that the congregation has failed or in some way is not good enough. When pastors leave, however, there is often a fond farewell. There is a sense that the church and the pastor have profited from their time together.
I remember going to such a reception for a pastor. Soft and tender words were said about him and spoken by him to others. Hope for some future contact was expressed. A sense of progress pervaded.
Yet I remember also a family in that church coming to a new experience of God and wanting to serve him in ways that were not realistic options at their present church. They sought fellowship with people who’d had similar experiences, with a church where they could use their ministry gifts. That family finally joined another church.
There were no touching words of farewell. Despite (perhaps because of) all that family had meant to this congregation, there were no celebrations, no tokens of appreciation exchanged. There was a load of guilt given and received. The hope was for no future contact. It reminded me of Mark 9:38-“We tried to hinder him because he was not following us.”
If we believe in the priesthood of all believers, surely lay people as well as pastors can be led to a different ministry occasionally. We could hope that the different ministry might happen within our own congregation, but if not, let it be well with them. Why not a public handshake or hug of appreciation? Why not a prayer for continued ministry and growth? Neither the church nor the person needs automatically to assume guilt. Separation could be a healthy way of improving relationships that God intends to use for parallel, not overlapping, purposes.
“Rules Must Be Rigid”
You have heard it said that good government treats all people alike. Indeed, church governments create rules (most prefer the word policies) to ensure that everyone gets treated the same.
Watch out! Good policy does make clear how people can be involved in the church, but it also has at least three dangerous tendencies.
First, policy (and church programming, too) operates by categorizing people. If you fit into such-and-such category, our church offers such-and-such for you. Policy says, “You must fit us.”
The problem is plain. While the church categorizes for the sake of simplicity, no one I know goes to church as part of a category; everyone comes as an individual. When the church speaks primarily in category-talk, ministry dies.
I’ll never forget an early ministry error when Martha came into the church office. She had been a pillar in the church longer than anyone could remember. She made a simple request to use a piece of office equipment, and I responded with church policy: “The trustees said that unauthorized persons are not allowed to use the machines . . .” A reasonable request met by a reasonable policy. Ha!
“Listen, Rev-er-end”-she drew it out so I could consider what trouble I was in-“I’m Martha Roberts, remember?” I had to admit, she was qualified to use the machine. There was no good reason not to let her.
The point is this: Rules can’t cover everyone. Martha, of course, could use equipment even if someone forgot to authorize her. A six-year-old child who wanted to play with the computer could not. Fair isn’t always fair. People seldom fit neatly into categories.
Second, churches use policy as a cop-out. Instead of asking hard questions, or saying no face to face, we forbid an activity generally.
Judy wanted to start an aerobics class in a church. The church board considered aerobics, which itself didn’t seem too bad, but then the inevitable “what ifs” started. “What if she uses sleazy songs?” “What if someone gets hurt?” “Judy is terrific, but what if the church klutz who likes to lead everything wants to lead an aerobics class, too?”
So the church responded to Judy with a policy, instead of providing the kind of leadership that develops people. Instead of asking questions such as, “Judy, would you use Christian music?” or “Could you help us figure out what our legal responsibilities are?” Instead of, possibly, “Mrs. Klutz, we don’t believe aerobics is your gift . . .” the church took the easy way out and closed the door on any aerobics ministry.
Third, policy-making boards seldom develop the leadership potential of the individuals on those boards. The board usually deteriorates into a group that arranges rather than becoming individuals who influence. The system of boards making policy usually strangles individual possibilities for leadership. When was the last time you saw someone come off the ruling board better able to respond to people as an individual spiritual leader?
There are alternatives to policy government. For example, in our church a small group of lay people formed specifically to help individuals develop their ministries. Informally called “The Dream Machine,” the members of the group do not make people fit into church categories. Rather, on behalf of the church, they ask needed questions and work with people to make the individuals’ dreams of ministry come true.
All of this questioning is no fun at all without faith. Nor is it effective. We can only improve the situation by recognizing that God is sovereign. To relax enough to question traditional assumptions, we must realize that traditions are there because they are what has worked best so far. If they are still best, they will hold up under scrutiny.
But if they could use some reform, maybe God can use us in the shakeup. We may be too mellow to picket, but we are not so established we cannot pick at. I believe, with Gamaliel, that if new truths are God’s, they will prevail.
Joel C. Hunter is pastor of Northland Community Church in Longwood, Florida.
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