Transforming Church

The starting point is spiritual leadership. You must first gather a core group of people who are formal and informal leaders who will personally commit to living the Marks of Discipleship. Once you have a guiding coalition, then you can consider other structural changes. For further thoughts on this point, see the notes on John Kotter's Leading Change, and Jim Collins' Good to Great.

Think organism, not organization. We are trying to grow something here. We are not building a machine. Too much of what's stuck in today's churches is rooted in a mechanistic view.

Be forewarned, starting down the path of constitutional change will bring all those for whom Robert's Rules is a holy book out of the woodwork. So, unless you have already got a strong leadership committed to discipleship, opening the constitution will be like opening Pandora’s box. Roger Ganzel, an ELCA pastor with a heart for this work (bless him) has created a number of resources that are posted below, including sample constitutions and organization charts. While these documents are Lutheran in origin, other churches might find them useful.

If this information evokes questions, or if you need further information or clarification, please pose your question as a comment in response to this entry. That way, others can see your question and Roger's response. You can also e-mail questions to contact@transformingchurch.com. For another look at this question, check out this entry.

From Roger Ganzel:
You are aware that today’s congregational structure has to change, but maybe you are not sure where to start, or, for that matter, how to proceed with it. In this package are some tools you can modify to fit your ministry setting, tools that will assist with setting direction for you and your congregation, and for getting going. Along the way you will discover how you will want to do it different.” Also somewhere it should be made clear that what is demonstrated here is only one organic system.

We can actually provide diagrams for other systems as well, a couple also represented in TLG congregations. And finally, if someone gets hung up along the way sorting this out, leave a comment here and I will respond.

This document illustrates a map of the emerging organizationDownload file

System Organization Explanation: Download file

Sample Constitution: Download file

Bylaws: Download file

Transformed Continuing Resolutions: Download file

Congregational Machine Model: Download file

For comparison purposes, here is the ELCA Model Constitution for Congregations