Currents Shaping My Church: Has Your Church Jumped the Shark?

Leadership lessons from Fonzie’s waterskiing feat.

Think of your favorite old TV show. Chances are, you can point to a time when it just seemed to go downhill. Barney Fife left Mayberry. Lucy and Ricky moved to the suburbs. Col. Blake’s plane went down. Scrappy Doo usurped Scooby. The “Very Special Episode.” All of these, according to Jon Hein, are examples of “jumping the shark.”

Hein coined the phrase from an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie, on water skis, jumped over a shark. That signaled the beginning of the show’s creative decline.

Hein created a website that registers millions of votes on more than 2,000 television programs. Even the networks follow the site to gauge viewer perception of a show.

In his book Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad (Dutton, 2002) Hein moves beyond TV and applies his biting analysis to music, sports, politics, and celebrities. “We all know that there’s a moment,” he writes, “a defining moment when something in pop culture has reached its peak. That instant when you know from now on, it will never be the same.”

Is this book about ministry? No, but it could be. Just like cultural icons, churches can also jump the shark. At some point in every church’s life, there is a landmark event, whether bad (a moral failure), good (a successful building campaign), corporate (a church split) or individual (a leader’s personal loss of vision) that can trigger a loss of forward momentum. Unfortunately, the fin is usually visible only as the shark swims away.

The good news, from Hein’s perspective, is that it is possible to jump back over the shark and regain positive momentum.

The book is designed to spark discussion and debate, and therein lies an application for ministry. Dare to ask yourself and your key leaders, “When did our church jump the shark?” (Asking when, not whether, will encourage honest assessment.) Listen to the answers, then discuss what your church needs to do to regain peak ministry effectiveness.

Or, you may find that your church is in the rare company of the “Never Jumped,” along with Dick Van Dyke and The Simpsons. In that case, thank God, remain faithful, and stay off the water skis.

David and Angie WardNew Hope Community ChurchDurham, North Carolina