Why do new churches grow?

For the past several years many denominations have focused on planting new churches. Some of these new churches were planted in areas where the denomination already had churches. When I was doing judicatory ministry some of the existing churches, most of them struggling to remain open, asked why their denomination didn't spend that money to help them rather than starting a new church. They felt their years of loyalty meant nothing to the denomination. I would explain that denominations were focused on starting new churches because new churches reach new people.

A similar question I was often asked was why a new, often non-denominational, church could come into a community and quickly grow when so many of the existing churches were barely holding on by their fingertips. While there are many reasons for this, one of those reasons is the way these new churches are often structured.

Traditional, existing churches are often so focused on doing things the right way that they fail to do the right things. Many of them must have a monthly business meeting to discuss mundane reports and vote on every detail of church life. By the time committees and boards discuss issues and make a proposal for the church to vote on the opportunities presented by the issue those opportunities have already passed. I know churches that still vote each month on whether to pay their bills or not. The treasurer reads off the monthly bills and asks for a vote to pay them. I hope the church is going to pay its bills! You won't find the new, growing churches structured like that.

These churches may have a quarterly business meeting, and often just one meeting each year to approve the budget and the slate of officers for the coming year. In some of these churches they are limited to only 3-4 items that requires a congregational vote. This may include the calling of a minister, the budget, the new officers and the sale or purchase of property. Everything else is handled by the leadership of the church. That primary leadership may be the pastoral staff or an Elder board or a church council.

Established churches, especially smaller ones, often depend on congregational voting to handle the administrative and maintenance tasks of the church and look to the pastoral staff to provide the ministry tasks. In a church with a solo pastor the task falls upon him or her to grow the church, and if growth does not occur the pastor is often replaced with one who, hopefully, will grow the church before it declines even more.

In new churches the roles are often reversed. The leadership is entrusted to handle the administrative and maintenance tasks while the congregation is challenged to grow the church and to minister to one another. As I've said to many pastor gatherings where I have spoken, no matter how good the pastor may be, he or she can only be in one place at a time doing one task. But, if 50 people in the congregation see themselves as ministers, as Ephesians 4 teaches, now the church has 50 people in 50 places doing 50 things. Which is likely to grow a church faster? In Ephesians 4 the apostle Paul challenges the pastors to equip the saints to do the work of ministry and challenges the church to do that ministry.

These new, growing churches are growing because they are following this biblical model. They trust the pastor to lead the church, to make decisions that will benefit the church and to equip the members to do ministry. Those members are then expected to be involved in ministering to their communities and to one another.

Tomorrow I'll address another difference between existing churches and many newer churches that leads to growth.

Dining on sacred cows

There's a line in a song that says, "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die." Similar to that line is one that says most churches claim they want to grow, but no one wants to make the changes necessary to grow.

A few years ago I was working with a church as they were seeking a new pastor. In my first meeting with the search committee I asked what they wanted in their next pastor. I got the usual answer: We want a pastor who will grow our church.

Although I had never done this before, I asked the committee chair if she was sure about that. I said, "You do realize that if you could grow by doing what you've been doing, you would already be growing. What you are telling me is that you want a pastor who will come in here and change everything you are doing. Is that what you really want?"

She looked at me and the others on the committee, smiled, and responded, "Well, maybe we better talk about that a little more."

Many churches have a number of sacred cows that cannot be touched. It may be the time  of their worship services. Just because a church has always met for worship at a particular time doesn't mean that time cannot be changed if a different time might be better for the people you want to reach. I know one new church that began by starting their worship service at 2:00.

Another sacred cow is the style of worship or the music. It seems we've been fighting these worship wars forever. The reality is that much of what traditional churches have done in worship does not appeal to younger people, the very ones churches claim they want to reach.

Another sacred cow is often how the church is structured. Too many churches are over-structured for their current size. When a church is structured for maintenance it cannot expect much ministry to occur, and without effective ministry a church will not grow. Remember, your church is perfectly structured for the results it is getting.

Some sacred cows have been members of the church for generations. Nothing happens in these churches unless the controllers approve, and they will not approve anything that might threaten their position or power in the church. One of the things they find most threatening is growth because growth means new people, and new people are seen as a threat to their standing in the congregation.

There are many other sacred cows that exist in various churches, but they all have one thing in common. They hinder a church's ability to grow. These sacred cows need to be removed and changes made that will facilitate new ministries and new growth.

What sacred cows exist in your church? What will you need to do to remove them?

Transforming churches from maintenance-minded to missional

This past weekend I had the privilege of leading a conference for a Presbyterian district in northern Indiana on leading a church from a maintenance-mindset to a missional mindset. This is the second year in a row I've been invited to work with these pastors and lay leaders. We had about 35 people attend this event. They took a lot of notes and asked many good questions.

The majority of churches are stuck in a maintenance mode. Such churches have primarily an inward focus that is committed to caring for its members and less committed to serving those outside the church. When churches begin to go down the decline side of their life-cycle they also begin to move from an inward focus to a survival mentality. Now they become very risk averse and are very protective of whatever resources they do have. Although such churches can survive for years, this mindset will eventually lead to their death and eventual closure.

During this conference we covered a number of things churches can do to move to a more missional mentality, but it really begins with capturing a fresh vision from God for their future. The good news is that God does have a vision for each church; the bad news is many churches never understand what that vision is.

The mission of the church is found in the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. It is the same for all churches regardless of size. The vision is how a particular church will fulfill that mission today in the community they serve. For that reason, the vision will be different for each church. Because churches are made up of people with different spiritual gifts and different ministry passions, and because communities have different needs, the vision will be different for each church. It is not enough to try to copy what other churches are doing. Each church must discern God's vision for their church.

Without a fresh vision that is owned by the congregation a church will never move out of its maintenance mindset. Why should they? They have nothing to move towards. However, if a church captures a vision for ministering to those outside the church community it now has a reason to abandon its ruts and identify ways to better serve that community.

Our nation needs the church more than ever, but it needs a church that has a passion to fulfill the mission God has given the church and a vision for how to do that. I pray that your church will begin to make that move to a more missional mindset.

Activity does not equal ministry

What does your church calendar look like? If it's like many, it's packed with various activities throughout the year. There are the usual ones like Sunday school, worship services, Vacation Bible School, and perhaps others depending on your traditions. In addition there are probably many committee meetings, church business meetings, staff meetings, board meetings, and other activities necessary to keep the church functioning. Add to this list various fellowship activities like Thanksgiving Dinner, Sunrise Service breakfast, Mother-Daughter banquets, and more, and you've got a pretty full calendar.

Now, at the end of the year what was actually accomplished as a result of all this activity? How many people outside your church were touched through the ministry of your church? How many were led to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as a result of these numerous activities? How many people were added to your church's membership role, and more importantly, to the Kingdom of God?

There is often a huge disconnect between a church's busy calendar and its impact on the community. Churches struggle to understand why it's so hard to reach new people especially given the fact that they have been so busy all year. What these churches fail to understand is that the vast majority of that activity was focused on the current membership of the church and keeping the church machinery running. The activities have been about maintaining what already exists, not in new ministries that will impact the lives of new people.

There is nothing wrong with any of the things I listed above that will be found on many church calendars. The question that needs to be asked if whether or not these activities are the most effective use of the church's resources. Some of these are sacred cows that many churches feel they have to continue, but are they still effective?

Our daughter became a Christian at Vacation Bible School. As a result, my wife and I soon asked Christ into our lives. A few years later I became a minister. VBS has always been important to me and was an important part of our church's ministry. But, even back in the 1990s I could see that it was less and less effective. People's work schedules made it difficult to have enough workers. Children were involved in so many activities in their shortened summers from school that attendance was often disappointing. Few received perfect attendance certificates. When I was a child, our churches offered two week VBS, when I was a pastor most churches only offered one week VBS, now I see some offering it over a weekend or one evening a week for four weeks. Maybe it's time to acknowledge that VBS was for a different time period and move on to another ministry that might be more effective.

These are the kinds of questions we need to be asking about everything we're doing. Does a church really need a monthly business meeting in 2015? Not really, unless this is a very low-trust church where people are paranoid about what others are doing. Do all committees really need to exist? I've said for years that most churches could eliminate 80 percent of their committees and nobody in the church would ever be able to tell the difference.

When you eliminate the activities that no longer have much impact you free people up to do ministries that do matter. When you do ministries that matter you will see the difference in your church at the end of the year.  For more on this, check out my book Intentional Ministry in a Not-So-Mega Church: Becoming a Missional Community.

Your church will accomplish more by doing less

A common complaint in many smaller churches is the lack of commitment people have, but in reality I find that most such churches are actually over-committed.  They are structured for a time when they were probably a much larger congregation and have far more committees and boards than they need.  These churches often find it difficult to fill all their teaching and leadership slots and can only do so by having people volunteer for four or five positions.  If you want, you can argue that if more people would accept these positions then the few who are willing to work wouldn't have to have so many responsibilities.  However, the reality is that the Pareto Principle is alive and well in the church.  Twenty percent of the people are going to do eighty percent of the work.  Stop fighting that, accept it as reality, and adjust your workload accordingly.

When I meet with churches having this problem I assure them that if half of their committees and boards never met again, no one would be able to tell the difference.  Yes, some of these are needed in the church, but ask yourself how much real value do most of these add to your church.  How has your church been significantly impacted by the work of most of your committees?  The only reason some of them are still in existence is because they were created years (decades) ago to meet a real need, and no one has had the courage to suggest they are no longer needed.

Along the same line, many small churches try to offer too many programs and ministries for the resources they have available.  They do this thinking they must compete with the larger church in town.  That is like a Mom and Pop store thinking they have to compete with Wal-Mart on price.  It's not going to happen!  Mom and Pop, if they are to stay in business, have to find something that sets them apart from Wal-Mart and compete in that niche.  Small churches are the same way.  You cannot offer the same ministries the largest churches in your community offer because you do not have the manpower and finances to do so.  Attempting this will result in doing many things mediocre, and you cannot build a ministry around mediocre.

A much better ministry strategy is to identify the giftedness of your people, find out what they are passionate about, and then prayerfully begin to discern how God would have you use that to meet ministry needs in your community.  Believe me, there are many such needs going unmet where you live.  I am convinced that many smaller churches are uniquely positioned to meet those needs, and it is there where those churches are going to thrive.

However, you won't be able to do this if you insist on continuing to ask your twenty percenters to do more and more maintenance-type work.  They only have so much time to invest in church work so you want to use that time wisely.  Eliminate the tasks that add little if any value to the church and free people up to do ministry that will make a difference.  Then begin the task of discerning how to have the greatest impact on your community for the Kingdom of God.

What are you willing to give up?

In his classic book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You (10th Anniversary Edition), John Maxwell discusses The Law of Sacrifice which teaches us that "A leader must give up to go up."  There is a price to be paid if one wants to be successful in ministry, in business, in family life, or every other area of life.  The more success we want to achieve the more it will cost the leader and the organization.  Think of the President of the United States and the personal costs associated with that position.  The president's every move, every word, and every inaction is scrutinized by everyone and criticized by many.  Millions of people are impacted by decisions he makes, and for some of those impacted it is truly a matter of life and death.  For the rest of his life he will live with a lack of privacy as he will continue to be protected by Secret Service agents.  For many, including myself, those are costs they are not willing to pay.

As a bivocational pastor the differences between being a pastor and a worker were quite obvious.  My factory job required me to be there 40 hours a week and do my job.  For eleven years I worked on the assembly line, so for those years I attached parts to a diesel engine as it came down the line.  I worked on various machining lines during my years with that company, and I would simply go in and operate my machine.  There was very little pressure associated with any of those jobs.  I had few decisions to make, and my job was protected by our union.

As a pastor my role was much different.  Each week, regardless of what else was going on, I had to spend time in sermon preparation.  There were meetings to attend and administrative decisions that I had to make.  People went into the hospital and expected their pastor to visit while others needed advice on how to deal with personal and family related matters.  And, as a Baptist pastor, I was never more than one business meeting away from being asked to resign if people became dissatisfied with my ministry!

There is no doubt that I had to make many more sacrifices as a pastor than I did as an employee of a manufacturing company, but these sacrifices are all maintenance type activities.  Everything I just described is just basic Pastor 101.  To take one's ministry to another level more sacrifices are going to be required.  As Maxwell writes in the book, "The Law of Sacrifice maintains that one sacrifice seldom brings success.  James Allen writes in As a Man Thinketh, "He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly."

Too many ministers are satisfied with doing the basics believing that is all that is really required of them.  I would imagine that these basic pastoral roles are all they were taught in seminary, so when they accomplish them they feel they have done their jobs.  But, if a pastor wants to lead his or her church in doing great work for the Kingdom, more will be required.  Both the pastor and the church will have to make much greater sacrifices than many are comfortable making.

I can't tell you what those sacrifices would be because they would be different for every pastor and church depending on the ministry needs of the church and community.  It may be the death of some sacred cows that haven't produced anything of value in years.  It may be a significant investment of time and money in a new ministry that is needed in the community.  It may require investing time in learning some new skills.  Perhaps the church needs to give up its current meeting location and move to a new place that will provide it with better ministry opportunities.  The list is endless, and each ministry leader and church must prayerfully decide what they need to give up in order to go up.

What can the church learn from Microsoft?

I read this week that Microsoft was cutting its prices for Windows 8 installs by 70 percent to makers of low end tablets and other devices.  The article said this was an attempt to recapture the market being lost to their competitors.  One would think if Windows 8 was everything Microsoft claimed it was when it was released their competitors would be scrambling to find ways to compete with Microsoft.  Of course, as those of us who purchased computers with Windows 8 learned, it is not a user-friendly system at all.  When one installs the newest version of Microsoft Office on Windows 8 the problems are compounded as many of the features we were used to using are no longer available or hidden so deeply in the program that only a computer tech can find them.

My laptop had XP installed, which I continue to believe was one of the best systems Microsoft offered.  I knew I needed to replace it before Microsoft stopped supporting XP.  My desktop was developing some issues and needed replaced.  After going through the Vista fiasco and never being comfortable with Windows 7 I had almost convinced myself it was time to join the Apple crowd.  I am comfortable with my I-Phone, my I-Pod, and my I-Pad so I felt I would probably make the switch to Macs with minimal difficulty.  My biggest concerns was that my co-workers all use PCs and I wasn't sure how much difficulty we would have exchanging files and I have all my books, presentations, and hundreds and hundreds of files in Office, and I was concerned that it would take a great deal of time to make them accessible on a Mac.  I was afraid of the time it would take to overcome my learning curve.  I'm now convinced it would have probably have been quicker than learning how to use Windows 8 and Office.  Unless Microsoft makes major, and I mean major improvements in their products, by the time I replace these computers they will have lost me as a customer.

What does all this have to do with churches?  In my opinion, Microsoft's problems stem from being completely disconnected from what their customers want.  When one does a Google search on the problems people have with Windows 8 and with the newer versions of Office one finds hundreds of complaints about the same issues, none of which Microsoft addresses.  I was looking for a solution to a problem I was having with Word, and I found hundreds of people asking for the same solution I was, and some of these dated back two and three years ago.  The problems have never been corrected.  Microsoft seems to take the attitude that their customers can just learn to deal with their disappointment in their products.  If we don't like their product they will just lower the cost to keep their products cheaper and attract new customers on price alone.

I find too many churches also disconnected from what people are seeking from church today.  I meet with many churches that claim they want to reach young people and families, and yet they do nothing that would be appealing to young people.  They do nothing with social media in an effort to connect with people who spend vast numbers of hours each week texting and tweeting.  When a church's worship service is exactly the same as it was 40 years ago it is not going to reach the 20-year-old of the 21st century.  I recently asked one church why they thought they could reach young people when they were not able to keep the ones they had.  No one had an answer.

The flip side is true also.  I have visited several churches that decided if they only installed a video system and sang contemporary music their problems would be resolved.  The problem is, everyone in the congregation was over 50 years of age.  They didn't know these songs, didn't want to sing these songs, and no one was able to effectively lead them in worship.  Worship is all about enabling people to connect with God in a way that is meaningful to them.  Singing words on a screen that is unfamiliar to a soundtrack that was designed to be a performance track is not likely to be effective in these churches.

If people cannot receive what they need from a church, they will seek out another one.  Or, if they can't find what they need they will stop looking.  This is why we see so many house churches appearing on the scene today.  Several well-known Christian writers and speakers have recently admitted they have left the traditional church scene and are connecting with other Christians in small groups to have their spiritual needs met.  Barna wrote a book in 2005 called Revolution in which he stated that "Eight out of every ten believers do not feel they have entered into the presence of God, or experienced a connection with Him, during the worship service."  As a result, Barna noted, growing numbers of people are looking elsewhere than the church to have their spiritual needs met.  What he wrote nine years ago is even more true today, and yet many churches are still not listening.

For years Microsoft has insisted on giving people what it wanted to provide and not listen to what people wanted.  Now, they are reducing their prices in an effort to compete in the marketplace.  Many of our churches have followed the same mindset, insisting on offering people what it believed people wanted without really listening and adapting to what people was seeking from the church.  For Microsoft and the local church, this is an attitude that will not be effective in the 21st century.

Upcoming speaking engagements

This week I finalized plans for two speaking engagements in March.  The first is with the Old Colony Baptist Association in Massachusetts.  On March 15 they are hosting a conference called "Small Churches Big Possibilities."  I will be the keynote speaker that morning and will be speaking on "The Healthy Small Church."  That afternoon I will lead a workshop on "Transforming the Small Church from Maintenance-Minded to Missional."  In addition, there will be other workshops and a panel discussion on small church issues.  The conference is open to anyone in The American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts.  For more information and registration go to http://oldcolonybaptist.org and click on Spring Meeting.

On March 27-29 I will be with the American Baptist Churches of Vermont and New Hampshire for a conference they are hosting.  Thursday evening and Friday I will be presenting a workshop on "The Healthy Pastor."  Saturday's session will address "Bivocational Ministry in the 21st Century."  Ministers in that region should look for promotional material to be coming soon.

It is very exciting to see judicatories offering training opportunities specifically designed for their smaller and bivocational churches.  As more of our marginally fully-funded churches transition to bivocational such opportunities will be even more important.  Not only are they needed for the ministers serving in those churches, they are also important for the lay leadership.  Significant changes occur in a church when it makes this transition, and many churches are not prepared for those changes which often creates problems.

I found it interesting that the four messages I have been asked to present at these events are the most popular workshops I offer.  That tells me there is still a need for this material.  If you are a denominational leader reading this and believe your smaller church leaders would benefit from one of these workshops, or others I offer, I would be glad to discuss presenting them to your leaders.  You can contact me through this blog.

For the bivocational and small church ministers reading this, when your denomination, judicatory, or association does offer this kind of training, be sure to take advantage of it.  For many years those of us in small church leadership had very few training opportunities specifically for us. and many of us got out of the habit of attending any training that was offered.  If your regional or district leadership does offer something like this please make every effort to attend.  Future events often depend on the attendance at the ones that were offered, so you can help ensure more training in the future by attending the events that are offered today.

I hope to see a great turn-out at these two events and look forward to seeing many of the readers of this blog at them. 

Small church complaint #6 - Young people don't have the commitment that we did at that age.

This is the final post in this series of articles on common complaints often heard in smaller churches.  I have never led a consultation with a small church that this wasn't mentioned at least once by the participants.  The complaint usually comes from an older church member complaining that the younger members in the church are not willing to serve on various committees and boards and that their attendance at church services is often spotty.  From that perspective the complaint often is valid, but I don't think it means that the younger ones are less committed than the older members.

The Builder generation were the ones who built many of the institutions we have in this country.  That includes the churches.   They were very committed to these institutions and gave both their finances and their time to seeing that the institutions functioned properly.  When they moved to a new community they would visit a few churches of their denomination and quickly choose one to join where they would continue their faithful support.  My generation, the Boomers, tended to be less committed to institutions but were more attracted to causes in which we believed.  Future generations followed our example and became even less involved in institutional structures.  Many had little, if any, commitment to a denomination but would choose a church based on how well it met their own needs.  It was not uncommon for them to not join a church even if they attended there for years as church membership was not something they considered important.  Nor were they interested in serving on a committee or board in the church.  They often were much more interested in helping on a Habitat for Humanity house on Saturday than attending a church committee meeting.  Younger generations are typically committed to activities they believe make a difference in people's lives, and many of them do not see that happening in many church committee meetings.  To say they are less committed is not fair; they are committed but to different things than the older generations who often make the complaint.

The reason so many smaller churches struggle to attract younger families is because the only thing we can offer them is maintenance work on some committee or board.  Many years ago I was trying to balance working a full-time job, serving as the pastor of a bivocational church, attending a Bible school, and being a husband and father.  Reluctantly, I agreed to attend a monthly men's meeting of our association where I heard a message criticizing all the men who did not faithfully attend the meeting each month.  The next month the meeting was held at our church, and when it was time for me to bring the message I told them I would be speaking on "Why I Don't Attend Your Men's Meetings."  You could have heard a pin drop.  Basically, I told them I didn't normally attend their meetings because they never did anything.  As I explained, the highlight of their meeting was the refreshments served at the end, and I would just as soon spend that time with my family.   This same message could be given to many of the churches that struggle to attract younger people.

Give a young person something to do that is in line with his or her gifts and passions and you will find someone with great commitment.  Stop asking them to serve on some board or committee that could never meet again with little effect on the church and give them the freedom to minister to people and you'll find the commitment you're seeking.  Recognize that when they have children they are being pulled in many different directions which often includes activities on Sunday mornings.  Do not judge their commitment to God by how many church services and meetings they attend, but recognize that many reflect that commitment in ways that may be different than those of us in older generations.

Smaller churches with a missional mindset

The past couple of days I've been with some wonderful church leaders in the American Baptist Churches of the Great Rivers Region leading a workshop that addresses how to help a smaller church transition from a maintenance-mindset to a missional one.  It was a joy to be with these church leaders and the leadership of the Region and share with them some of the ideas that come out of my book Intentional Ministry in a Not-So-Mega Church: Becoming a Missional Community. 

Many of our smaller churches have a maintenance-mindset that has greatly limited their impact on their communities.  These churches have an inward focus rather than an outward one, they seek chaplains rather than pastors to lead them, they work very hard to preserve their resources instead of using those resources for ministry, and they see missions as something they support instead of do.  Most of these churches are either plateaued or declining with the majority of them in decline.  They can often survive for decades in this state, but for all practical purposes they have forfeited their right to call themselves a church.  They long ago forgot their purpose for existence was is to impact their communities with the Gospel.

The good news is that these churches can change and become more missional in their understanding of their ministry.  As they develop a more outward focus and recognize that their primary mission field is within their own communities they can see lives changed through their ministry.  Such a transition does not occur quickly; in fact it can take years to transform a church from being maintenance-minded to missional.  The important thing is to begin making that transition and doing it in a way that makes it more likely to succeed.

This is why these small church leaders attended these workshops this week.  They know their churches can do much more than they are currently doing, but they needed help in knowing how to lead their churches in the needed transition.  The Region provided copies of my book to the pastors attending the workshops, and we spent the day at two workshops discussing the steps their churches need to take to become more missional in their ministries.

Would you describe your church as maintenance or missional?  What kind of impact is your church making on its community, or is it even involved in the community at all?  How much of everything your church does is for itself and how much of it is for persons outside your church membership?  Does your church need to make the transition discussed above?  You can start by reading my book.  As you think about hnow to implement the ideas you'll find there you may want to ask your denominational or judicatory leader to invite me to lead this workshop for the small church leaders in your judicatory.  I would love to help your church become more missional in its approach to ministry.

Why you may feel led to leave your place of ministry

I admit that I am a little biased about long-term pastors.  As many of you know, I served one church as a bivocational pastor for twenty years before believing that God was calling me to judicatory ministry.  Depending on the particular survey, the average pastoral tenure is normally about 3-4 years, especially in smaller churches.  This simply is not enough time for a pastor to enjoy an effective ministry in his or her church.  In one of my pastor workshops I comment that many pastors will reach the end of a thirty year ministry and realize they really didn't have a thirty year ministry; they had 10 three year ministries, and none of them were especially memorable.  Studies have found that growing churches are nearly always led by pastors who have invested several years in that congregation, and the growth is a return on that investment.

When pastors announce they are leaving their current place of ministry it is usually for another church.  They tell their congregation that they feel God has called them to this new place.  But, isn't that the same thing they told their last congregation only three years earlier?  Is God confused about where He wants them?  I think God gets blamed for a lot of decisions that are really the result of frustration, burn-out, laziness, the lure of a larger church with comparable income, or the desire of a spouse who wants to be anywhere but where they are.  However, having said all that, there are several valid reasons why a pastor will want to change his or her ministry.

• You may be called to a different type of ministry.  That is what happened to me.  God opened up a door for me to serve in a region-wide ministry that also allowed me to continue to focus on resourcing bivocational ministers and the churches they served.  Someone else may be called from a pastorate to a teaching ministry or asked to lead a para-church organization.  Any of these could certainly be a valid reason to leave your current place of ministry.
• Your church does not share your vision for ministry.  A pastor who is especially gifted in evangelism will struggle in a church that wants their pastor to serve as a chaplain.  A minister who whose vision is for a missional church will not fit well with a church that is maintenance-minded with no desire to change.  Too often, pastors and churches find they are not good fits for one another, and it's usually best if the pastor leaves when that occurs.
• You have financial needs that cannot be met by your present church.  Some churches want to spiritualize their inadequate salary and benefit packages by questioning the motivation of the minister.  Maybe someone should question the spirituality of a church that doesn't tithe and refuses to provide a decent salary and benefits.  The fact is that ministers and their families are entitled to live as comfortably as others within their congregation, and a church that refuses to treat their pastor fairly in this area should not be surprised when the pastor leaves for another church or secular job to provide for his or her family.
• You or your spouse develops health problems.  Little needs to be said about this reason.
• You are in serious conflict with people within your church.  No pastor should run at the first sign of disagreements in the church.  If a minister attempts to lead he or she is going to run into challenges with people.  However, some churches are filled with controllers who are determined to oppose anything that threatens their power of position in the church.  No one in the congregation will stand up to them, and if the pastor tries to do so he or she will find themselves abandoned and at the mercy of the controllers.  Such churches are usually so toxic that no pastor can serve there.

If any of these exist in your situation it does not mean that you must leave your church, but if you find that despite repeated attempts to correct the problem it may be an indication that it is time to begin asking God to open up new doors of ministry opportunities.  You can read more about this in my book The Bivocational Pastor: Two Jobs, One Ministry.

Pastor leaders

Yesterday's post looked at the need of our churches to have leaders as pastors.  Today we want to explore this from a pastor's perspective.  As I pointed out yesterday, many churches do not really want their pastor to lead them, at least not to a point where things actually change and they become uncomfortable.  They prefer managers who can keep the church machinery running and keep conflict low.  Such churches seldom grow nor do they have much of an impact on their communities.  They are nice little "Bless me" clubs in which Christians can congregate and feel comfortable.

This is actually good news for many pastors because they don't really want to be leaders anyway.  They prefer the managerial role because that is what they were trained in seminary to do, and this is the role in which most pastors feel most comfortable.  Pastors are human too, and they don't enjoy conflict any more than do the members of their congregations.  They know that if they try to lead any significant change in their congregations that it will create conflict, so the easiest way to avoid that is to manage what's happening in the church, work hard to serve those who are already members, and remain as uncontroversial as possible.  Maintaining the status quo in most of our churches will win you the approval of their members.  Unfortunately, maintaining the status quo isn't what our churches are called to do.

If our churches maintained the status quo most of the older churches in our area would still be meeting in one-room log buildings served by a pastor who spent most of the week teaching school in that same building, farming a small farm nearby, or owning a general store in town.  The status quo would mean our churches would have hitching rails around the building, a couple of toilets behind the building, and a wood or coal stove in the middle of the building.  Assuming this doesn't describe your church then someone at some time suggested some changes to the church.  Someone took a leadership position, confronted the conflict that was sure to arise, and led the church to make needed changes.  These people refused to accept the status quo as acceptable because they recognized the status quo would not take their church where it needed to be.

According to some studies 50 percent of the population in every county in the United States, and in some counties the number is as high as 80 percent, is unchurched.  Some have walked away from the church for various reasons, but a significant percentage of that number represent people who have never invited Jesus Christ into their lives.  The status quo of most of our churches will never reach these people.  The status quo will never even identify who these people are nor consider their needs when developing the calendar and budget of the church.

The mission of your church is simple.  It is to fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.  That's it.  Those two things are all your church has to do to achieve its purpose in this world.  The vision of your church isn't so simple.  The vision of every church should be how it will accomplish this mission in its community today.  The mission remains the same for every church; the vision will be different as different ministries will be needed to impact each community.  The status quo is not acceptable because it will not allow you to achieve your mission.  It may have worked in 1950, but it will not be effective today.

Pastors, your churches need you to lead them to renew the mission God has given them and they need you to lead them in discerning a fresh vision from God as to how that mission will be achieved.  If you cannot do that because you haven't been trained as a leader, then seek that training now.  Leadership can be taught, and every person can grow as a leader.  If you cannot lead because you don't want to be a leader, you need to step away from pastoral ministry and find something else to do with your life.   The work of the church is too important for it to be limited by a pastor who is unwilling to lead.

In my next post I will examine what I mean by a pastor-leader.  You can read more about pastoral leadership in my latest book The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision.

Member values vs missionary values

In my book The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision. I quote Reggie McNeal who wrote "Member values clash with missionary values.  Member values are all about church real estate, church programming, who's in and who's out, member services, member issues (translated: am I getting what I need out of this church?)  Missionary values are about the street, people's needs, breaking down barriers, community issues (Translated: am I partnering with God's work in people?)."  The question for each church leader is which of these values best represents the thinking in your church?

Maintenance-minded churches focus primarily on member's values.  That is why these churches are often plateaued or declining, and usually declining.  If people are not having their needs met they will either go elsewhere or change the leadership in hopes that new leaders will meet their needs.  As members, they expect to be served.

Missional churches focus more on the missionary values.  The majority of their congregations see themselves as called to serve others, not to be served.  They seek to minister in the areas of their giftedness and passion to make a difference in the lives of people in their community.  They continue to enjoy great fellowship with other members of their church, but that fellowship is often in the context of ministering to the surrounding community.

The values your church focuses on will determine the look of your church five years from now.  I recently spoke to a men's group and told them their church will change in the next five years.  It will either have a number of new people attending who have been reached through your church's ministries into the community or it will be a smaller, grayer congregation.  Either way, it will change, and their decisions about whether they focus on member values or missionary values will determine which change they will experience.  The same is true of your church.