How elastic is your church?

 When Jesus talks about the problem of putting new wine into old wineskins He is referring to the way the wine expands as it ferments. An older wineskin is rigid and won't expand as the fermenting wine expands.  The result is that the old wineskin breaks and becomes useless. A new wineskin is still flexible and elastic allowing it to expand with the wine. 

For decades the church has operated with an attractional model. We invited people to attend our worship services and tried to provide incentives to get them to come. We might have changed our musical styles, offered new programs, changed the name of the church, and a host of other things that we thought might attract people to our church services. Unfortunately, what happened more often than not was that we were just swapping people with other churches. Our programs often did little more than entice someone to leave the church they were attending to come to ours. When another church began to offer a newer program or ministry, these same people often left to attend that church. There was little impact on reaching persons who were not yet Christians.

People who are not Christians have little interest in our programs or ministries. They could care less what name is on our signs or our musical styles. They are not interested in our branding. They are living their lives without the church and see no reason to add it to one more thing they need to introduce into  their lives. The attractional model of church is seldom going to be effective as we continue into the 21st century. We have to find new ways to minister to people where they are both physically and spiritually.

One of the lessons learned from the Covid pandemic is that organizations have to be flexible if they want to achieve their mission. Schools have had to adapt to online learning forcing teachers and administrators to scramble to provide that education to their students. Many businesses have struggled to have employees, and many have reduced their hours due to manpower issues. Churches who never thought they would have an online presence had to take crash courses in Facebook and YouTube to provide worship opportunities to their congregations. This same flexibility will be required if we want to reach our communities for the Kingdom of God.

If people won't come to our churches, we must go to them. Incidentally, this is what Jesus told us to do in the Great Commission.  We are to go into all the world, not unlock our church doors and ask people to come to us. The question for each church is where do we go? Who are the people God has given us to reach? How do we take the Gospel to them in a way that is relevant to their daily lives, and how do we earn the right to speak it to them? Is our church elastic enough to move from an attractional model to a missional model?

Some churches will be like old wineskins. They are simply too rigid to allow the necessary changes to occur. They will continue to function as they have in the past until the day comes when their doors are locked. Other churches will have the elasticity to allow the expanding changes to occur that will permit their ministries to be more effective. They will find new ways of relating to people who do not yet know Jesus and learn new methods of sharing the Gospel with them. They will try some things that may not work, but rather than becoming discouraged and quitting, they will try other methods of reaching those God has given them.

Your structure is perfectly designed for the results you are getting. If you are in a rigid structure, you will keep getting what you've been getting. If you are in an elastic structure, you can accomplish far greater things than you can imagine. How elastic is your church?

Change in the digital world

I'm currently reading a very interesting business book that was published in 2009. That doesn't sound very long ago until you begin researching some of the things recommended in the book. The book focuses on doing business in the 21st century and the importance of having a web-based business. In one chapter the author suggests six free online tools that entrepreneurs should use. Two of the six have been discontinued since the book was published. Just as quickly as online tools are developed, they are replaced by something better and faster. It's kind of the like the new computer you buy with all the bells and whistles, and three months later it's outdated due to new technology having been developed.

Think about other changes that have occurred in the digital world. From 2005-2009 My Space was the largest social networking site in the world with over 100,000 users per month. However, it was then surpassed by Facebook, and today it is but a fraction of its former size. Now, Facebook faces challenges from newer social media sites such as MeWe, which is the currently the second most downloaded app on Google Play Store, Pinterest, WT Social and a host of others.

Another change that is coming in 2021 is that Microsoft 365 products will stop supporting Internet Explorer. In 2003 IE was the most widely used web browser, but its popularity has decreased steadily since Firefox and Google Chrome were introduced. In 2015 Microsoft announced that Microsoft Edge would replace IE on its Windows 10 devices.

Now, you may be like me and these changes do not affect you very much. Or you may be a person who is always on the lookout for the latest and greatest in technology. If you are in the latter group, good luck keeping up with all the changes occurring in the digital world. I suspect these changes will only increase in their rapidity. 

The real purpose of this post is to point out that changes are coming just as quickly in the church world as well. This year we saw the need for churches who had no online presence to quickly develop one. For many of these churches their online presence was an introductory one. The challenge now will be to understand how to build upon that. 

Many churches that began offering their worship services online found that their in-person attendance and the number of those who were watching the services online were more than previously attended their services. I mentioned in a previous post that we now have three congregations: those who attend in person, those who attend only online, and those who attend some services in person and other services online. How do we minister to these three different groups of people? How do we even identify the ones who only attend online? How do we do discipleship with each of the three groups? How do we help the ones online to feel connected to our churches? How do we provide pastoral care to our online congregation if we do not even know who they are? I'm sure you can add many more questions to this list, but this is enough to help us understand that we are facing an entirely new way of doing church that most of us have not considered in the past.

We can ignore these questions, but we do so at our peril. If we want to continue to be used by God to be a witness to this generation we must find answers to these questions, and many others as well. In my opinion, if you think 2020 has been challenging to the church, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Is your church ready for a bivocational minister?

 Yesterday I wrote about a pastor who had asked permission to seek part-time employment to supplement his salary due to financial challenges the church was having due to Covid. I mentioned that he would probably have no problem finding such employment in his area, but the greater challenge will be for the church making the shift from having a fully-funded pastor to one who is bivocational. During my time in denominational work I found that churches often had more trouble making that transition than did the pastor.

Churches whose pastors move into a bivocational role cannot expect that individual to be available as they once were. Their other work now requires a certain amount of their time, and they still need time for their families and their own well-being. That means the church has to assume more of the ministerial tasks that they may have asked their pastor to perform. For instance, he or she is not going to be able to be in immediate contact with everyone in the church. When the pastor is at the other place of employment he or she cannot be reached at the church office as before. His employer likely will not want him or her taking phone calls regarding church business when he is at work. 

Some bivocational ministers contract with the church for a set number of hours each week. I've never been a fan of this. No minister is going to refuse a phone call because they have already worked their contracted hours for the week. When I served as a bivocational pastor I told our church there were some weeks I probably didn't do more than 5-6 hours of church work a week. There were other weeks I did 50. I felt it all balanced out. Like most bivocational ministers I know, my motto was "Whatever it takes." So I didn't worry about tracking hours.

One pastor who moved from a fully-funded role to a bivocational one in his church was able to make the transition smoothly, but his church didn't. Although they agreed he could go bivocational, they could not overcome the mindset that they held when he was fully-funded. They resented he wasn't there at their every beck and call. I had met with the church before he made the transition and explained to them the differences they would experience. They were in agreement with all of them until they actually began to experience them in real life. I understand it eventually led to so much conflict in the church that the pastor resigned.

If your church is considering making the shift from a fully-funded pastor to a bivocational pastor make sure you understand all the changes that will occur. Bring in a consultant who understands bivocational ministry or a denominational leader who has helped lead other church through this transition to meet with the pastor and congregation so everyone is fully aware of how things will change. Make sure there is agreement within the congregation as to their willingness to accept greater ministry responsibilities. Identify who will be primary contacts for people when the pastor is unavailable. With proper planning this can be a smooth transition that can benefit both the church and the minister.

Churches and the problem of committees

 In yesterday's post I addressed why new churches can often grow while many existing churches around them struggle to remain open. I looked at how the structure of the two churches affect making decisions that can lead to growth. Today I want to compare how committees impact church growth and compare that to a church structure that has teams.

Have you ever seem a basketball team hold meetings to discuss plays they might run and after months of discussing these plays bring their thoughts to a gathering of people to vote on it? Teams might discuss how to best run a play, but then they go out and run it. The first scenario I mentioned wasn't a team; it was a committee. That's what committees do. They discuss things, often forever, and then bring their thoughts back to a group of people (congregation) who has not been privy to all the discussions so they can vote on whether or not to proceed. This is a structure doomed to fail. It is also a structure that demonstrates a lack of trust in the church.

Committees discuss things; teams do things. Doing is always more productive than discussing. Our society is changing at incredible speed. No organization can afford to sit around and discuss their options for extended periods of time. That includes churches. We lose valuable time and miss opportunities for ministry because of the committee structure many of our churches depend upon.

Many growing churches have eliminated most of their committees and replaced them with teams. These teams are often short term that end when they have completed their assigned tasks. Some are on-going because of the nature of their work, but they have been given a lot of authority to fulfill that task. Churches should never give teams responsibilities without also giving them the authority to fulfill them.

I mentioned above that the committee structure in many churches is the result of a lack of trust in the church. In low-trust churches everything has to be voted on by the congregation and only after it has come to the congregation through a committee or board. Such churches will seldom grow because visitors to the church can sense the distrust that exists in these churches.

It's not easy for existing churches to change from a committee structure to a team-driven one, but it is possible. I've seen some very traditional churches make the change. Admittedly, this change was often resisted by some within the church, and I'm sure churches have lost members after making this change. I can also say that in the churches I've seen this change occur, it has led to healthier ministry and growth in the church.

Those churches that successfully made the change often did so as a trial. They identified the new format they wanted to adopt and said they would try it for 2-3 years. At the end of the trial if it wasn't working out they would return to their old structure. I haven't seen one yet return to the former ways of doing things.

If your church is overloaded with committees and boards you may want to look at moving to a team structure. This is especially true if these committees and boards are hindering the growth of your church.

Tomorrow I will address the importance of welcoming guests to your church.

Challenge of finding volunteers in the smaller church

 About now Nominating Committees in many churches will begin seeking people to fill the various slots their church has decided is important to the life of the church. In many cases the committee will only need to ask some people if they wish to continue doing what they are doing, and the answer is often yes. Then the hard work begins. Now they have to find people for the remaining positions. This is when we begin to hear comments like "Please, accept this position. If you do, you really don't have to do anything," and "This committee hasn't met in years, but we need to have it filled just in case we need them to meet," and other ridiculous statements.

If you look at the list of names who are filling the positions in most smaller churches you will find the same people listed numerous times. I was working with one church in a conflict situation when one member told me she held six different positions in the church. Although it was overwhelming she said it could be worse because two of the committees she was on never met. I asked why they had those positions if they never met. Her only answer was that their constitution called for that committee.

As I've told countless churches and pastors, maybe it's time we rewrote some things in our constitutions and eliminate some positions that may have made sense at one time but aren't really needed today. Much of committee and board work is maintenance work. Some of this is necessary, but much of it isn't. Maintenance work keeps people from doing ministry, and ministry is what leads to transformed lives and growing churches.

The reality is that the largest group of volunteers in many churches has been the Builder Generation, a generation that is quickly becoming smaller and smaller. The Boomer Generation has stepped up some, but the generations following have been less likely to accept long-term positions in the church. Those who are willing to serve are often asked to fill too many slots, and eventually they begin to back off. Eliminating unnecessary positions is the easiest way to solve this challenge.

Another option that some churches are doing is asking people to serve for limited times. Instead of asking someone to teach a class for a year they are asking for a three-month or six-month commitment. If the person chooses to go beyond that they are certainly welcome to do so, but it becomes their choice at the time.

The problem of finding volunteers to fill all the positions that may have been necessary when the church was larger is not one that is going away soon. Churches must find better ways of using the people resources it has in order to do the most effective ministry.

Signs of a healthy church

In my book The Healthy Small Church: Diagnosis and Treatment for the Big Issues I listed some of the signs of a healthy church. These include

• They have a positive self-image. They don't equate church size with church significance.
• The church shares a common vision that gives it a sense of purpose and unity.
• Although family ties are important, those who visit the church are warmly welcomed and affirmed.
• Church members understand the importance of faithful stewardship and financially support the ministry of the church.
• Ministry is understood to be the responsibility of all the members, not just the pastor and staff.
• People are encouraged to serve according to their spiritual gifts, not by their seniority in the church.

The reason I wrote that book is because I have seen unhealthy churches become healthy again, and I wanted to give churches and their leaders the tools to become healthier. Transforming an unhealthy church into a healthy one is never easy, but it's always worth the effort. It also doesn't happen quickly. As I've told many church leaders, your church did not become unhealthy overnight, and it won't become healthy overnight. Church health, like physical health, isn't permanent. If a person ignores symptoms of disease in the body they can become physically unhealthy very quickly. Likewise, if a church ignores symptoms  of disease it too can become unhealthy. The book was written to help churches diagnose various components of its ministry and structure to see if unhealthy habits were creeping in.

A healthy church will be a growing church. An unhealthy church can sometimes grow as well, but it will grow to become even more unhealthy. When an unhealthy church grows it becomes a hindrance to the Kingdom of God and can bring great harm to its members and to the community around it.

Church health is the responsibility of all the members of a church but especially that of its leaders. These leaders must be willing to ask the hard questions that determine just how healthy a church is and must be intentional about taking the necessary steps to bring healing to the church. Restoring health to a church often requires making significant changes to its structure and ministries, and these changes are seldom easy to make. It will require disciplined, intentional effort from the leaders to make these changes. As difficult as they might be to implement, it will be well worth it.

How would your church be different if all the qualities of a healthy church listed above were evident in your church? Does that sound like a church you would want to attend?

Structuring the smaller church for success

A few days ago I mentioned that in small church leader conferences I lead the question is often asked why the newer, nondenominational churches in the area seem to be growing when many of the established churches are in decline. In that previous post I shared one answer I give. Today, I want to share another response I often make to that question. The reason is often in the way the churches are structured.

These newer churches often have a much simpler structure than some of our smaller churches. Many of them may only have one business meeting a year, or at the most one each quarter where many of our traditional churches have one every month. The newer churches often function with active teams assigned to different areas of ministry in the church while our existing churches still operate with committees with no authority to do anything without permission from the larger church body. Their only function is to talk endlessly about things until they can bring a proposal to the business meeting for more discussion. The newer churches expect the staff to handle the administration of the church freeing up the congregation to do ministry, and traditional churches often expect the staff to perform all needed ministry while the congregation handles the more important tasks like determining the color of the toilet paper that the church will use and which brand of coffee should be used during fellowship times.

To sum up the above paragraph, most of these new growing churches are structured for ministry and growth, and many of our traditional churches are structured for maintenance and decline. One of my favorite sayings is "Your system is perfectly designed for the results it is getting."

There is one other thing that should be noted about church structure in smaller churches. Our smaller churches are frequently highly over-structured. Many of them are still structured as they were when they were much larger churches. They still have the same number of committees, the same number of officers, with the same expectations placed on each of them that they had when they were a larger church. Now, they have more slots to fill than people to fill them.

I am aware of one church that decided to change it's structure. This very traditional church eliminated all their standing committees and boards and replaced them with two teams. One was responsible for the spiritual well-being of the congregation, and the other was responsible for taking care of the property. Members of the congregation were told they could only be on one team, and they could choose which team they wanted to be on. When things come up that need to be addressed ad-hoc teams are formed from within the primary team to study the issue and make a recommendation to the team which them takes action. The church has one business meeting a year to approve the budget and officers for the coming year. There are very few things the congregation must vote on, and if one of them come up a meeting is scheduled to vote on those items. It is a much cleaner structure that provides for growth which this church is experiencing.

The reason such a structure would not work in some churches is the trust issue. This type of structure requires a lot of trust of the leaders, and some churches simply do not trust their leaders, or for that matter, each other. Regular business meetings have to be held to keep an eye on what is going on and to hold people accountable. Without trust, a simpler structure will not work, and while we are keeping an eye on one another we eventually find there are fewer people we have to watch.