Goals and systems

 Perhaps one of the most powerful thoughts I've read this month comes from a book by James Clear who writes, "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." I've always been a big believer in setting goals, and they have helped me accomplish a lot of good things in my life, but the goals only give a person direction. The goals themselves do not accomplish anything. It's the systems we put in place that enable us to accomplish the goal.

For several years I had a goal of writing a book that year, and that goal was realized several times. However, it wasn't in the setting of the goal that enabled the book to be written; it was accomplished because I set systems in place that helped me write and publish the book. I committed a certain number of hours each day to the writing. I focused on doing the research that needed to happen for the book to have integrity. I was in contact with my publisher to keep me on track. Lots of things had to happen in order to have a system in place that would result in the book to be written and published. The goal gave me direction, but the system resulted in the end product.

This is true in all areas of our lives whether we are talking about our families, our careers, our businesses or our churches. Setting goals are important in every area of life, but without having good systems in place our goals will be nothing more than dreams.

As a denominational minister for 14 years I heard many churches tell me they wanted to grow, but when I looked at their systems it was obvious their systems would not lead them to grow. They would remain at a plateau at best and eventually begin to decline. They had no outreach system in place to reach new people outside their church. They had no discipleship system in place to help them grow their current members. They had no budgeting system that directed funds to outreach and growth. They had no youth ministry system in place that would retain and grow the number of youth in the church. They dreamed of growth, but that growth would not occur under their current systems. As I've told many church leaders, your system is perfectly designed for the results you are getting. If you want different results you have to change your systems.

One of the problems in changing systems is the pushback that comes from those who prefer the current system. I've warned churches that if they change their current systems they might lose some of the people they have, and some of these churches have been honest enough to say they don't want that to happen so they keep their systems. They did not want to lose the relationships they had with these individuals in the hopes of reaching new people. I understand that thinking, especially when there are no promises of reaching new people. Furthermore, even if new people are reached, it will probably happen slowly tempting the church to revert back to their old systems that were more comfortable. If the church decided to revert back, that is their decision to make. They just need to be honest enough to admit that growth really isn't a high priority for them.

Set your goals to give yourself direction, but spend more time creating the systems that will help you achieve that goal. It is the systems you establish that will give you success in all your endeavors.

Staffing for growth

 In his book, Staff Your Church for Growth, Gary McIntosh quotes a couple of other authors, Lyle Schaller and C. Peter Wagner regarding staffing problems. Schaller wrote, "The most common policy is to staff for numerical decline. A smaller number of churches staff to maintain on a plateau in size. A relatively small proportion staff to grow in numbers." Wagner's contribution was that "Most churches are understaffed for growth. They are staffed for maintenance and survival, but not for growth. If your church is to sustain growth momentum, staffing must become a very high priority." I agree with both assessments.

Smaller churches are often served by a solo pastor. These churches stop growing once they reache the limit of the pastor's ability to handle all the tasks assigned to him or her. For most churches that will mean they will stop growing once they reach about 120-150 people. Few pastors can adequately minister to more than that number. Some might grow beyond that, but it's not uncommon for them to begin seeing people exit the back door as more and more of their needs are unmet, and their attendance will begin to settle back down to the above range. It's not the pastor's fault, although it's often blamed on the pastor. That is just all the people a pastor can reasonably connect with and serve.

A church with a solo pastor and 120 or so regular attenders is staffed for maintenance. If a church wants to staff for growth, they need to begin adding staff at about 100 in attendance. This may be ministry staff, it might be support staff, and it might include volunteer staff, but more people need to be added to the leadership. A good ratio for a growing church is 1:100, one staff person for each one hundred people in attendance.

The most aggressive growth-minded church I've encountered was running about 450 in attendance. They had 18 people on staff and were seeking a senior pastor at the time. They did not have a youth minister; they had a Jr. High girls minister, a Sr. High girls minister, and so forth. They were very aggressive in their staffing because they had a large vision for growing and reaching their community, and that vision was being fulfilled.

Of course, one of the challenges for staffing for growth is the financial aspect. Churches will complain they cannot afford to add staff for each 100 people because the money isn't there. Perhaps adding staff won't produce the growth they seek, and their current finances won't support more staffing salaries and benefits. They decide once they reach more people they will then add the staff to support that growth. Unfortunately, without the needed staff, the growth probably won't happen. Even if it is, it might not be maintained while seeking the additional staff.

Smaller churches also should be thinking about better utilizing their volunteers as staff persons. Too many smaller churches use their volunteers in non-productive committees and boards rather than making full use of their gifts and time in more productive endeavors. Paid staff is not always needed in smaller churches when there are gifted volunteers who can lead various ministries if they are freed from the maintenance activities too often assigned to them.

If your church is serious about growing, it needs to look at how it is staffed and how it is using its volunteers.

Model the behavior you want to see in others

I'm currently reading John Maxwell's book Change Your World.  Like most of his books, there is so much good information and ideas on just about every page. I just read this thought.

Motivation is overrated; environment matters more. We become like the people we spend our time with. If you grew up in a family of intellectuals, you probably tend to be a thinker who likes ideas. If you spend all your time around fit athletes, you probably value fitness and work to stay in shape. If your social circle is filled with high-caliber businesspeople, you probably talk about business and have a knack for it. If you're an artist, you probably gravitate toward other artists, and it fuels your creativity.

While there may be exceptions to this, I think it's pretty accurate for most of us. We become like the people we like to spend time with. We begin to use their language, dress like they dress, and focus on the things they focus upon. We find ourselves reading the same books they read, and, often, we begin to share their thoughts on political and religious issues. So much of our lives are shaped by our environment that it's important to be mindful of the environment in which we spend our time. It's also important to ensure that we provide the kind of environment that will shape the thinking of those who spend time with us.

The Babylon Bee, a Christian satire newspaper recently ran a headline that read "After 12 Years of Quarterly Church Attendance, Parents Shocked By Daughter's Lack of Faith." The article went on to say that they planned to talk to the pastor about their concerns as soon as their son's soccer season ends.

Graduations are now occurring in our area. One of the things I notice on social media is how many parents talk about how fast the time went. One day they are taking the child home from the hospital and the next day they watch their child receive his or her diploma. It does seem to almost happen that fast, and that is why it's so important that we provide an environment that will model the behavior we want to see our children have throughout their lives.

A family that makes God and church a priority will likely see that be a priority in their children's lives as well when they leave home. Children who grow up in a home where values and morality are taught and lived out are more apt to share those moral values. When parents model loving respect for one another and for others those attributes are more likely to be found in their children. It's often said that values are more caught than taught, and it is certainly true. What values are being caught by those who spend time around you? 

You can't move forward looking in your rearview mirror.

One of my favorite Bible verses is found in Philippians 3: 13-14 in which Paul writes, "one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." He understood that he could not accomplish the tasks God had for him if he spent his time focusing on the past events of his life. This is a lesson for each of us and our churches."

Zig Ziglar used to say, "Yesterday ended last night. Today is a brand new day and it's yours." There is no one who would not like to be able to change things about our past, but the truth is we can't. We cannot undo past mistakes. We cannot change past hurts. They are part of our lives, but they do not have to control our present opportunities, and they do not have to dictate our futures.

As I mentioned in this blog last week, as a denominational leader I worked with many churches that had painful events take place in their past. Pastors had failed them. Church controllers had abused them. Some had wandered for years with no sense of vision for ministry.

In other churches, they had enjoyed a great ministry in the past but had seen things change dramatically in recent years. One pastor served a church that was once one of the leading churches in the community with a sanctuary that seated over 600 people. Now, they were lucky to have 50 people worshiping on Sundays. Many in their congregation grieved over their loss and could not see a positive future.

I think of the families with whom I've served as a pastor who had such wonderful hopes for the future but were stuck in painful memories of broken dreams due to affairs, children who made poor choices, and other setbacks. They could see no hope of a better future as all they could see was the mistakes of the past.

Again, I wrote last week that our present circumstances do not define us unless we allow them to do so. Certainly, they can affect us, but if we respond to them properly all they can do is to determine where we begin as we move forward into a better future.

The apostle Paul had made mistakes in his past, but he refused to allow those mistakes to keep him from achieving what he knew to be God's plans for his future. Refusing to focus on the past he was determined to keep his eyes on the goals set before him. This should be the mindset of every church and every believer. We can only more forward by keeping our focus on the future, not the past. We cannot move forward by looking in the rearview mirrors of our lives.

Don't let your present circumstances limit your future

Sometimes the greatest truths are found in the simplest words. Recently, I came across a sentence that reflects this. "Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start."

As I read these words I immediately thought how they applied to every aspect of life. Whether you are talking about your personal life, your family, your business, your career, your church, your future, these words apply.

So often we hear people downplay any hope for a better life because of their past or their present circumstance. They repeat to every one they know all the reasons why their lives can never be better than it is right now. They may point to a lack of education, a lack of opportunity, a poor upbringing, a string of broken relationships and a host of other reasons why they are stuck in life with no hope of ever improving their situation.

Churches do the same thing. As a denominational leader I heard every excuse why a church was stuck and unable to move forward. I heard about previous pastors who did not serve the church well. I heard about controllers in the church that held the church captive for years. I heard about explosive business meetings. I heard about generational issues that focused on music and worship styles. I heard every excuse in the book and some that probably weren't included in any book.

These are all just excuses that ignore the power of God to change your circumstances so you can go further than you've ever gone before. Read the quote again: "Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start." Yes, some of us have to start further back than others because of our present circumstances, but that doesn't prevent us from accomplishing great things. We simply have to choose to rise above those circumstances and do the things that will take us where we want to go.

No matter how broken you may be, God wants you well. Businesses have risen from the ashes of bankruptcy to become strong and successful. Individuals have come out of dire circumstances to become leaders in their communities. Families have overcome tremendous challenges to become healthy and whole. Churches have conquered everything the enemy could throw at it to become mighty for the Kingdom of God. The transformations in every case came when people made the decision to refuse to allow their present circumstances to determine their futures.  

What gives a person value?

  When we talk about the value of something there are two terms we need to keep in mind. One is extrinsic value. Something with extrinsic value has value only outside itself. For example, a hammer has extrinsic value because it can be used to do something.

Intrinsic value is the other term. Something has intrinsic value just by its existence. Its value is not dependent upon circumstances or the opinions of others. Christians believe that humans have both intrinsic and extrinsic value. We have intrinsic value because we have been created in the image of God. That alone gives us value. Furthermore, we have extrinsic value because we were created for a purpose. In contrast, atheism and secular humanism, in their rejection of the concept of God can only assign extrinsic value to people. In other words, unless others outside ourselves assign value to us, we have no value.

But what happens if value is not assigned to a group of people? Nazi Germany saw no value in Jews, Gypsies and others and tried to eliminate them from the face of the earth. For many years some in America saw no intrinsic value in slaves, and still today there are many who see no intrinsic value in people of color. In 1973 the Supreme Court decided unborn babies had no intrinsic value and made abortions legal. Today, some argue that parents should be allowed to end the life of their children up to one month of age if it is believed that the child might be a burden. These individuals contend that infants lack self-awareness and are unable to place value on themselves.

When a person believes that he or she lacks value it becomes easy to decide to take one's life. Suicide rates increased 33 percent between 1999 and 2019. A study conducted by the CDC found that one in four young adults had seriously considered suicide during the pandemic. When depression and anxiety are added to a feeling that one has no intrinsic value suicide can seem like the easy way to escape the pain.

The Bible makes clear that all persons have intrinsic value. It tells us that are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God with value and purpose. We do not have value because someone has given it to us. Our value comes to us from God who created us and loves us unconditionally. We are not the product of chance and circumstance but are fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

If you are struggling with the feeling that you don't matter, that your life is meaningless I encourage you to talk to a pastor. Begin reading the Bible. Contact me and let me help you address those feelings. You are precious in God's sight. He truly does love you and sees great value in you.

Seeking God's direction

 Since August of last year I have been serving as the Transitional Pastor of a wonderful church. It's been an interesting challenge trying to serve a church during a pandemic, but things have gone very well. It is a great congregation that met the various challenges presented by the pandemic and has continued serving its membership and the community. Like many churches, we are seeing things begin to open up. This past Sunday a number of members returned for the first time since the Covid hit.

Now, the church is ready to face another challenge...the calling of a new pastor. At our last business meeting a search team was created who will soon meet with a representative of our region and begin the process of seeking new pastoral leadership. This is always an exciting time in the life of a congregation and also a challenging, and even a little scary time.

One of the ways I will help the church during this period is leading them through a vision discernment process. It's a mistake for a church to wait until they get a pastor who will "give them a vision for ministry." It's far better for a church to understand God's vision for their church and then explain that to prospective candidates and ask them how they will be able to help them achieve that vision.

Our first congregation-wide session is scheduled and will focus on the Core Values of the church. The second session will identify the Bedrock Beliefs of the congregation. It's important to begin with these two as God's vision for the church will always be congruent with its Core Values and Bedrock Beliefs. Once we've identified these two elements we will be ready to spend a day attempting to discern what God has been saying to us through the process. We pray that we will identify a clear vision from God for the future ministry of the church.

Sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't. In either case, going through the process is helpful to a church. It gives them an opportunity to examine things about their church that perhaps they've not discussed in years, if ever. It gives them some new common language. Sometimes it resurrects old issues that still simmer beneath the surface and occasionally create problems. These can then be addressed.

After working with hundreds of churches over the years as a regional leader and conference speaker I'm convinced that few churches have a clear sense of vision. They repeat what they've done for decades hoping that eventually something good will happen. They go through the motions of doing ministry without any real sense of purpose. As I often say in my conferences, a church without a clear, unifying vision is like an octopus on roller skates - you might have a lot of movement, but you're not going anywhere.

Does your church have a common vision that is understood by everyone who attends there? Does it influence the decision making in your congregation? Is it clearly reflected in your budget and ministries? When was the last time it was reviewed? How often is it communicated to the congregation? Some believe that it should be shared with the congregation about once a month to help remind everyone and to make sure the church is on track to accomplish that vision. That seems like a good idea because it's easy to forget the vision while dealing with all the daily needs. It's important to always keep the big picture in front of the congregation to ensure everyone is focused on what God wants to do in and through the life of the church.