PEOPLE IN PRINT - Christianity Today

Coloring Outside the Church’s Lines

Creating Your Own Future by Lyle Schaller, Abingdon, $11.95

Reviewed by Greg Asimakoupoulos, pastor, Crossroads Covenant Church, Concord, California

Coloring inside the lines was never my strength as a preschooler. So imagine my delight thirty years later when I was asked to review a book that invites church leaders to color outside the traditional lines of ministry.

In Lyle Schaller’s latest book, a coloring book for church visionaries, the prolific parish consultant for the Yokefellow Institute articulates a repeated principle: A congregation’s future is either the friend of thoughtful planning or a victim of a paralyzing dictator known as the status quo. The choice, as the title suggests, is up to each local church.

Adjusting to the future, though, isn’t automatic, even for churches who want to remain (or become) relevant. According to Creating Your Own Future, one of the most common mistakes made by church leaders is underestimating the attractiveness of the status quo.

“Churches, like other organizations,” contends Schaller, “tend to naturally drift in the direction of what is perceived as a reaffirmation of yesterday.”

This “debt to the past” is perpetuated in the typical church by too many standing committees. When I asked Schaller to explain, he described the kinds of individuals that sit on church boards: by nature they are more comfortable with continuity and stability. They enjoy overseeing and maintaining responsibilities but tend to resist change. The result is that these official leaders attract members who are comfortable with the way things are, have been, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. In short, they like to color within the lines.

I unknowingly proved Schaller’s hypothesis at a recent church council retreat. We sat around the fireplace in a rustic mountain cabin, the scene reminiscent of the pioneers of a century ago. Our council, like most church boards, is composed of pioneers, people who’ve been around a long while. Their idea of planning for the future is folding arms and rehashing how to maintain programs the church has always had.

In an attempt to challenge my pioneers with a new way of planning, I invited them to a kind of zero-based program procedure: each program would be evaluated on its merits. Only one young salesman with a heart for missions was willing to unfold his arms and face the horizon of untried options. The rest continued to face each other, and the fire.

Suggestions for alternative worship forms, a relaxed dress code, contemporary singing, and creative outreach were met with muskets of opposition. My exercise in “harmless” brainstorming was perceived by the pioneers as an ambush. The weekend ended with hard feelings and misunderstandings. It was a retreat all right, but in the wrong sense of the word.

If I had read Creating Your Own Future prior to the retreat, I would have been less ambitious with my expectations of the council. I realized they weren’t the right group with whom to test new ideas. As Schaller says, “What makes for good council members does not necessarily make for those who will lead the church into continued relevance.”

A former urban planner himself, Schaller explained to me that his experience in city government proved that governing boards are not the best body charged with charting a map for tomorrow. Rather, he found that ad hoc committees specifically appointed to research long-range options are the most effective groups for cities and parishes.

If it’s true that too many churches have too many standing committees, Schafer asserts that too few have identified the need for long-range planning task forces. For him, such groups are the best way to demagnetize the status quo mindset. It is really for these future committees that Creating Your Own Future was written.

Beyond being a well-documented apologetic for having them, this 154-page volume explains how to form a futures committee. Schaller enumerates several church crises when formation of such a committee would be appropriate. These include dramatic membership increase or decline, budgetary shortfall, facility expansion, staff hiring, congregational disunity, and church relocation.

Schaller also suggests that the best futures committee is filled with people who are (1) supportive of the pastor’s leadership and vision, (2) discontented with the status quo, (3) convinced the best days of their church are still ahead, (4) actively involved in the life of the church already, (5) of a harmonious mindset with other members of the committee, and (6) venturesome risk takers.

They also work under the assumption that everything is permitted unless specifically prohibited: “They rarely feel guilty about coloring outside the lines. Change, not continuity, is their guiding light.”

He also devotes several pages to current issues the futures committee must take seriously, among others: lack of institutional loyalty among today’s young families and people’s preoccupation with quality programs and facilities.

Such sociological sensitivities may very well poise a long-range planning committee to shake hands with tomorrow. But Schaller told me there is one condition apart from which the committee will not succeed: the pastor must maintain a high profile, participating with, even overseeing the task force: “The pastor is the resident planning consultant for the congregation. They expect him (or her) to be on top not just on tap.”

If you’re not satisfied to simply color within the current lines of your church, Creating Your Own Future is a book for you. I’d also suggest buying a copy for each member of your futures committee, along with a box of crayons.

Ministry within Unchurched America

Effective Church Leadership by Kennon Callahan, Harper & Row, $19.95

Reviewed by John Vawter, pastor, Wayzata Evangelical Free Church, Plymouth, Minnesota

In a recent speech, the president of an evangelical denomination noted that his denomination was averaging a third less conversions per year than were some other like-minded denominations. For him this was a call to battle, not with other denominations, but to bring his denomination up to par in terms of evangelism.

Few pastors or denominations, no matter how well they do, feel they are effective enough at evangelism. We know the great need of people and the Great Commission of Christ, and we stand in the middle wondering how to connect the two.

Kennon Callahan has stepped to the front to tell the troops that in spite of our frustration, the church’s best days are ahead, especially if we are willing to rethink the purpose of the church. Indeed, Effective Church Leadership is the clearest call I have read for the church to return to the mission of evangelism.

Callahan has taught at Emory University in Atlanta since 1970, and he has been working with and helping pastors for over thirty years. He began his consulting career in 1958 while working with Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. He was so effective at helping his long-range planning committee develop the church’s mission that other churches began inviting him to help them.

In this book, a follow up to his well-received Twelve Keys to an Effective Church (Harper & Row, 1983), he expands on some of that book’s key concepts and helps pastors lead their churches in what he says is a decisive time in the American church’s history.

Callahan says that different generations need different styles of pastors. In the 1940s and 1950s, the church needed a professional pastor who could relate to the growing professional culture in our country. This style of pastor fit well with a churched culture. Today, however, our unchurched culture needs a different style of pastor.

More particularly, the church needs to see itself as living in the middle of an unchurched mission field. Consequently, the church needs to be led by a missionary pastor.

Missionary pastors don’t spend all of their time with the people of their church, administering the programs and staff. Instead, a large chunk of their time is spent with the unchurched.

“Changes are needed in the way a local church thinks of itself and the way it operates,” says Callahan. “Think of yourself as pastor of a mission outpost.” He reminds us that mission outposts are driven by the sense, thrill, and spirit of mission-evangelism. Such outposts are not consumed with becoming a churched-culture local congregation.

Callahan manages to combine this clarion call to evangelism with practical suggestions on how the church can organize itself for evangelism. For example, he devotes one chapter to helping churches evaluate and improve their mission objectives, sharing such insights as: “Your concern is to set forth two to four major objectives, not eight to ten.”

Key principle: 20 percent of the things a person does yields 80 percent of the results. “In your evaluation, focus on the 20 percenters,” he writes.

In our church we implemented many of his evaluation suggestions with our personnel committee-composed mostly of personnel managers of local companies. They consider many of his ideas revolutionary.

I also found helpful his analysis of motivation. The five yearnings that most commonly motivate people are compassion, community, challenge, reasonability, and commitment. Most pastors and church leaders try to motivate people through challenge and commitment, emphasizing the demands of Christ. Obeying Christ sacrificially is what motivates them, and they naturally think it will motivate others.

But most lay people are motivated more by compassion and community, by the desire to help others and to belong.

Callahan tells the story of a consultation in which a leader in one congregation said, “Dr. Callahan, what we need in our church is people with more commitment.”

When Callahan asked what drew this person to faith and the church, the person essentially pointed to compassion and community.

Callahan then said, “If those two factors drew you into the church and into its mainstream, why would you expect others to be motivated by commitment and challenge?”

Such topics, of course, are not evangelism, but they give us some handles on how practically to make outreach effective. Although I finished the book yearning for more how-to’s, I still gained many penetrating insights about outreach.

Callahan has the unique ability to both educate and motivate. In short, he wisely reminds us that Christ’s first words to his disciples were not “Come, let us worship” but “I will make you fishers of men.”

All Things to All People

U.S. Lifestyles and Mainline Churches by Tex Sample, Westminster/John Knox, $12.95 Reviewed by Leith Anderson, pastor, Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota

The tennis pro told me, “The first thing you must notice is whether your opponent is right-handed or left-handed. The difference determines your whole game strategy.”

The same principle applies to the church, according to Tex Sample. He says that Americans are either culturally left, right, or middle. Knowing which is which determines much of the strategy of any church hoping to reach Americans in the 1990s.

Sample, professor of church and society at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, started out in the cultural right, but he says, “When I left high school in 1953 and went away to the university, I began a process of alienation from my roots that would proceed unabated for the next thirty years.”

That puts Tex Sample a long way to the left of his Mississippi parents and most other Americans, but his pilgrimage has given him insights into the three significant subcultures of America.

The cultural left is 33 million strong. It includes every age, race, and income, but most are baby boomers. They are inner-directed, refuse to abide by traditional “oughts” and “shoulds,” come from affluent families, and have a deep and abiding commitment to personal freedom and tolerance.

“The people in our society who are least likely to attend church are those on the cultural left,” writes Sample.

So how is a church supposed to reach them? With a “journey theology,” where faith is a process not an arrival, where spiritual growth is more valued than having been saved. Also, journey theology will foster programs that meet immediate needs, are emotionally expressive, use hands-on tasks, and don’t require long-term commitments.

Also, when the extremely busy cultural left was asked about what they would like to do most if they had more free time, the number one answer was “sleep.” Sample says, “With lives like these, the church cannot do business as usual.”

The cultural middle is where much of America’s upper middle class land. They are career-centered. Work gives meaning to life. Although some are successful, others spend their lives striving but never quite make it. Some are conflicted, caught between family and job with too few resources to adequately handle either.

Those in the middle tend to be individualists and are usually private about their religion. They like middle class churches where civility, good manners, and tolerance are practiced-even if those churches are not vital.

Those in the middle are often well-educated, and that’s why they respond well to “explanatory theology,” that is, they like to have things explained to them logically, coherently.

On the outside, the cultural middle may seem the most comfortable and “together” of all. But there is stress, pain, and lots of fear of failure. Perhaps, more than any others, those in the middle can be reached by churches and pastors who understand and identify with the pain. This becomes a stepping stone to change.

Then there’s the cultural right. Sample, himself a mainliner and theological liberal, puts most evangelicals and fundamentalists in the cultural right. The ranks are swelled by people whose lives are centered in the local community as well as many who are poor, from ethnic backgrounds, and less educated. Family and kinship are very important. Authority is valued and honored. Love of country and conventional morality are prized.

In order to reach those on the right, the church must honor these values. In addition, stories are generally more effective than careful linear logic. And the Bible is more of an authority here than in the other two cultures.

The target readership for U.S. Lifestyles and Mainline Churches is clear from the title. Mainline churches have significantly shrunk in recent decades, not so much from members who have left as from the failure to attract newcomers.

The purpose of this book is to help mainliners (who are mostly in the middle) to understand some cultural differences and then do ministry in ways to attract new people from each group.

Although some of his suggestions for churches are ethically and theologically debatable, his analysis of the three cultures is invaluable. It is essential to know the language and lifestyle of those outside of the church, to the left, center, and right, in order to effectively speak to them.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

Youth Ministry Nuts and Bolts by Duffy Robbins, Zondervan, $12.95

A well-oiled program does not a youth ministry make. There is, however, more to ski retreats, lock-ins, and Bible studies than warm, fuzzy relationships.

Duffy Robbins, veteran youth professional and chairman of the youth ministry department at Eastern College, writes to aid youth leaders with the not-so-glorious stuff of teen organization and administration. Packed into four sections, Robbins’s book is a how-to manual with ideas, illustrations, principles, and charts on everything from budgeting to resigning from a ministry.

Prayer in Pastoral Counseling by Edward P. Wimberly, Westminster/John Knox, $10.95

Too often, prayer in Christian counseling is just “a spoonful of sugar” that “makes the medicine go down.” But according to Edward P. Wimberly, prayer is the medicine. It’s the prescription that empowers counselees to spot God at work in their lives, invigorating them with a fresh sense of his presence.

Wimberly, associate professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, offers ministers the “discernment” model of pastoral counseling: counselors help counselees see the history of their problem, set new goals, and then reach those goals by discerning the Spirit’s leadership in their lives.

The Church Is in a Stew by Jerry Appleby, Beacon Hill, $6.95

The melting pot theory of American culture is obsolete. Instead America is more like a stew, with a variety of cultures mixed together.

So says Jerry Appleby, pastor of the Bresee Avenue Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California. And churches should meet the needs of their diverse neighborhoods by adding ethnic congregations to their present facilities. Appleby, whose own church embraces Armenian, Hispanic, Arabic, and Anglo congregations, advocates the multi-congregational model for church planting and growth.

And he doesn’t ignore the tough stuff, like how congregations can share facilities peacefully and productively.

Solving Church Education’s Ten Toughest Problems by John R. Cionca, Victor, $8.95

The toughest problem facing church school leaders? Recruiting teachers. But it’s just one of many problems.

John R. Cionca, dean of Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, surveyed more than a thousand pastors and church leaders, compiled a top ten list of church school problems, and wrote this book of solutions. Each chapter discusses one problem, like the lack of interest in Bible memorization, and offers practical principles for the struggling C.E. worker.

Inside the Sermon: Thirteen Preachers Discuss Their Methods of Preparing Messages by Richard Allen Bodey, ed., Baker, $15.95

Criminal experts try to probe the mind of serial killers. But what of preachers’ psyches? Who fathoms the inner workings of their minds, week after week, as they prepare to utter a word from above.

Richard Allen Bodey, professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, does. In thirteen chapters, thirteen preachers-including Stuart Briscoe, J. I. Packer, Ray Stedman, J. Sidlow Baxter, and Leighton Ford-unveil their diverse methods and philosophies of preparing a message. Included in each chapter is a complete manuscript of a sermon they’ve preached.

CLOSE UP

User Friendly Churches: What Christians Need to Know About the Churches People Love to Go To by George Barna, Regal, $14.95

Author: Founder and president of Barna Research Group, and author of The Frog in the Kettle.

Main help: Barna distills the successes of the fastest growing churches in America to principles the average church can put to use. He applies these principles at the end of each chapter, asking readers to take inventory of their own churches.

One practical takeaway: Curb the advertising costs at your church by using media selectively. Advertising should inform, not persuade. Use it to build an awareness of your presence in the community, not to coax them into attending a Sunday worship service.

Growing churches rely primarily on word of mouth to get people in the door. Think of your people as the most effective and efficient marketing tool in your arsenal. Be sure you know how cost effective your advertising really is.

Key quote: “In today’s society, commitment to satisfying felt needs through excellence in effort is the only sure ticket to growth.”

-Reviewed by David Goetz

Mountain Christian Fellowship

Golden, Colorado