Create Quick Wins
Reggie McNeal, director of leadership development, South Carolina Baptist Convention, Columbia, South Carolina
A major reengineering of a church culture takes four to six years, unless a crisis fast-forwards the process, so this case is fairly typical. In the transition process, people in the church will go through four stages: denial, resistance, exploration, and commitment. Certain leadership actions are appropriate for each stage, and leadership will determine the outcome.
The congregation proceeded normally coming out of denial (characterized by business-as-usual, commitment to the past, withdrawal) into resistance (marked by anger, anxiety, loss of members). A significant breakthrough occurred with the big Sunday night meeting.
The congregation may be stuck in the exploration phase. This phase is typified by a lack of focus, an outbreak of the “crazies” (both people and ideas), and a need to quit doing some things. In the exploration period, the congregation needs some quick wins under their belt to build confidence that their future dreams are realizable. Inserting a vision retreat here may have prematurely pushed the horizon too far ahead.
It’s time for the next chapter to become evident. The church needs to distill how it will carry out the Great Commission.
Other questions emerge surrounding the pastor. I cannot tell if he is ambivalent about his own life mission. He has a strong sense of call, but does he know what to do with it? What are his strengths, gifts, and passions? The pastor needs sufficient self-understanding to lead this church into its next chapter.
My hunch is his workaholic tendencies impact his ministry in several ways. Workaholics tend to entwine themselves into too much, and it does appear that most of the lines in the church run to him. His enmeshment seems normal to him, but it is one way that leaders stunt growth. The key question is not how to get administrative help; it is how to release ministry.
Second, workaholics create work to feed their addiction. His people may be flat out exhausted. Less usually would mean more.
Third, the workaholic personality can also be a micromanager or control personality. The key shift that must occur is for the pastor not to be in the spotlight as the ministry hero, but to assume the coaching role to make winners out of others.
It is significant, far beyond numbers, that through the pastor’s leadership the church has had a shift in its values—which is the toughest work—and is reaching people for Christ. The pastor must keep in mind that God keeps score differently than we do.
Whom to Reach?
Leith Anderson, pastor, Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota
Good news: Faith Baptist has a lot going for it. The pastor is a committed, godly leader who is serious about his faith, loves God, seeks the mind of Christ, has a heart for evangelism, works hard, and loves the people.
The church has a proven ability to do what many churches cannot do—change. There is one baptism each year for every ten members, which is high compared to most American churches. People are growing spiritually, and newcomers are regularly coming to the church and staying. It’s about the median size of an American congregation.
The challenges are common. Most churches have a continuous flow of people going and coming. Smaller churches struggle to provide the services offered by larger churches. The battle to prioritize allocation of limited resources is constant.
Churches don’t grow for a variety of reasons, so simple answers are usually wrong. However, one factor is worth considering. Faith started as a church to reach Southern Baptist migrants in Michigan. While much has changed, the church still has many typical Southern Baptist characteristics, including Sunday evening services, altar calls, the name Baptist, highly congregational polity with frequent business meetings, and study of the popular Southern Baptist Experiencing God curriculum.
All of this is very appealing to southerners and Baptists. Unfortunately there appears to be a shortage of both in this area of Michigan. It may be like trying to grow an English-speaking church in a primarily Spanish-speaking city. Most people think Catholic churches are for Catholics, Lutheran churches are for Lutherans, and Baptist churches are for Baptists. This works well for Catholics in Boston, Lutherans in Minnesota, and Baptists in Texas. But it’s tough recruiting outside of a denomination’s home territory. My guess is Faith Baptist Church looks, sounds, and feels pretty Southern Baptist to people in the area.
If the pastor and people are convinced God has called them to reach the kind of people they are currently reaching, they are on the right track and will have a long-term positive ministry. However, significant growth is unlikely.
If God’s call is to reach northern-born, non-Baptist, native-Michiganders, more cultural changes may be necessary. Then the question becomes: What are these people like, and what kind of church will most effectively reach them? The wrong question: How can we get these people to like the way we’ve always done church?
To begin, (1) study the people to be reached as diligently as past studies have considered those already in the church, prayerfully seeking what it will take to reach them, and (2) find at least one other church with similar background that has effectively changed to reach northern-born, non-Baptist, native-Michiganders and visit that church to learn what it did. In other words, become a Michigan church that happens to be Southern Baptist rather than a Southern Baptist church that happens to be in Michigan.
Finally, I encourage this pastor to stay at Faith Baptist. He knows the church, and the church knows him. There is a high level of mutual trust. Many critical elements are already in place for future effectiveness. If he were to leave, Faith Baptist will have a difficult time finding as good a pastor, and he may go to another church with the same issues and have to start all over.
Better Presuppositions
Paul M. Dietterich, executive director, The Center for Parish Development, Chicago, Illinois
This sounds like an area with a highly mobile population. It is very difficult to build strong congregations in a transient environment.
But it appears to me the primary blocks to growth are deeper and more complex than a transient population. I wonder if the obstacles do not lie in the pastor’s presuppositions. The pastor appears to be driven by a particular church growth model. Numerical growth is his goal; size is his indicator of success.
According to his model, the congregation needs to become fully responsive to people who are not members. The church is to proclaim the gospel in words nonmembers and “baby Christians” can understand. The pastor is to preach a theology of glory with an emphasis on success rather than a theology of the cross. Thinking of the church as a vendor of religious goods and services, the congregation is to provide programs of high quality to meet the self-defined “needs” and “wants” of the members. Using marketing methods, the primary targets for the congregation are nonmembers.
When the pastor imposed his model on the congregation, those who resisted or who had a different model were viewed as adversaries, and a power struggle ensued. Those who didn’t share his vision gradually filtered out.
I wonder about a model that creates a competitive climate within a congregation, creates losers, and drives them out of the church. Such a model appears to be informed more by North American culture than by New Testament teaching about the unity of the church. Such approaches to church leadership leave a toxic residue in the congregation. The imposition of a growth model tends to dumb down the gospel. The result is a weak, thin, and unattractive version of Christianity and a congregation that reflects rather than challenges culture. When faithfully proclaimed by word and deed, the gospel is inherently attractive.
The congregation’s growth in faith and faithfulness is the goal, not numerical growth. God, not the packaging of the gospel, will give the growth.
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1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
