What will determine the future of your church?

Several times I had the privilege of hearing Zig Ziglar speak.  He was one of the best motivational speakers I've ever heard.  He often began his lectures by asking two questions.

1. How many of you believe that regardless of how bad your personal, family, and business lives are at this moment there are still some things you could do that would make them even worse?
2. How many of you believe that regardless of how good your personal, family, and business lives are, there are still some things you could do to improve them?

He asked those questions to help his listeners understand that they were responsible for their own futures.  While outside forces can have some impact on our lives, ultimately we are responsible for our own future.  What we will be, what we will have, and where we are five, ten, and twenty years down the road is largely dependent upon the choices we make now.  This is true of our personal lives, our family lives, and our business lives.  It is also true of our churches.

In my own workshops I often include this message, and many times someone in my audience will want to push back.  That person will insist that their church wants to grow, wants to have a greater impact on its community, and wants to be a more vibrant church, but they also insist that some outside force prevents that from happening.  A few times I have made those persons unhappy by insisting just as strongly that, while they are saying the right things, they are not willing to do what it takes to achieve them.  While most organizations, including churches, will face challenges to accomplishing their goals, the successful ones achieve them anyway.  Here is an important fact we must never forget: If you really want to achieve something, you will find a way; if you aren't committed to achieving something, you will find an excuse.  Life will provide us with many things to blame, but ultimately the final results we experience in life are due to the choices we make.

There will always be roadblocks to a successful ministry, but none of these are greater than the forces and the power available to the believer in Christ.  Romans 8: 35-39 tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Isaiah 54: 17 reminds us that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.  Jesus says in Matthew 16: 18 that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the church.  We could refer to more Scripture, but these three alone are enough to demonstrate the forces are work within the church and the believer.  To accuse outside forces of being able to prevent our churches from fulfilling God's vision for their ministry is to discount the truth of these passages.  The fact is the only thing that can limit the ministry, and the future, of our churches is our own limited thinking. 

As I work with smaller churches I frequently hear the same complaints.  We are an older congregation.  Our people are on fixed income.  We can't attract younger families with children.  We have few resources and can't compete with the larger churches in our communities.  It's hard to find good pastors willing to serve in a church like ours.  The denomination doesn't care anything about us.  Younger people just don't have the commitment that we did at that age.

Over the next few days I'm going to challenge each of these statements in this blog.  Any of them may be true, but that does not mean they have to be limiting.  In fact, everyone of them, and any others you want to raise, can be overcome if you really want to do so.  Or, they can be a convenient excuse for you and your church to do nothing.  Either way, you will decide which it will be for you.

Be sure to check this blog tomorrow to read my response to the first complaint: we are an older congregation.  To be sure you don't miss it you may want to join the other followers of this blog.  You may also want to read my book Intentional Ministry in a Not-So-Mega Church: Becoming a Missional Community that addresses how smaller churches can have a more productive ministry in their communities.