Transforming Church

Spiritual Leadership. You see, effective leaders live out the values of the organization. So, you cannot hope to see your membership embrace discipleship if their leaders have not. So, pastor, if you have come to realize that the existing membership model of church is unsustainable, and are feeling the call to discipleship, how do you proceed?

We are talking about planting a new vision at your church, a vision of discipleship, gift-oriented ministry teams and permission giving. Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, lays out the steps a leader takes in moving from mediocrity to greatness.

First Who, then What. The principle Collins explores is "First Who then What." Collins found that the best leaders first get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, and get the right people in the right seats. Then, with the leadership team, they decided where to drive the bus. Many pastors miss the point that you must build a core team of spiritual leaders before pressing ahead with visioning.

Most pastors think that the Council is THE leadership team, and that they are restrained in the shaping and forming of this team. Indeed, most churches have some sort of nominating process for the election of Council. And, spiritual leadership is not the typical criteria for choosing candidates. Sadly, it often becomes a matter of checking for a pulse, and whether their breath will fog a mirror. Councils now operate so ineffectively, in many instances, that the question becomes "Who will say yes?"

Raising the Bar. If you are ever to build a discipleship community, you must raise the bar on what it means to be a leader here. No longer do we say in Nominating Committee, "We need someone for Finance and Management, well, Jerry is an accountant, let's ask him." We look for two key characteristics, are they leaders (people whose opinion matters) and are they committed to deepening their spiritual journey.

So, at the same time you begin to preach a sermon series on the Marks of Discipleship, you begin to lay out the expectation that the leaders are expected to make a commitment to the Marks. If Council members are nominated from the floor at your annual meeting, then you should communicate the expectation and ask that nominees indicate their willingness to meet that expectation before they go on the ballet. Perhaps you display a large banner with the Marks, and you point to it before the election, and say, “This is what it means to be a leader here.” For more on the Marks, see Mike Foss' Power Surge.

Building the Core Team. Easum said to me, "You start by preaching on Discipleship, and then invite those interested to join you for coffee after the service." We must find whom the Spirit is touching with a call to a deeper faith walk. One of the mistakes I made was trying to pick people for a transformation team at my church. Easum says, let the Spirit pick the team.

You can do this by creating an informal leadership team. As you surface people who are feeling called to something more, draw them close to you. Start a small group to study discipleship, and let those hearing the call be inspired by the faith of others. This informal group can be a pool of leadership that can surface on Council as the formal process moves forward.

Confront Reality. John Kotter, in his book, Leading Change, lays out the steps to a change process. First, you build a sense of urgency. Building a sense of urgency requires you to see reality clearly. Often, reality is blurred because we don’t step back and look at the trends in play. Looking at the report on your congregation will show some of the trends affecting you. (The ELCA posts these trend reports for every congregation on their website Locate a Church feature.)

Principle number two in Collins' book is "Confront the Brutal Facts" (yet never lose faith). You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail, regardless of the difficulties AND, at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality. I have found churches to be inoculated against seeing reality clearly. 80% of our churches are stagnant or in decline, but most members are not willing to acknowledge that something is amiss. Mike Foss says the main reason churches do not achieve their desired vision is that they misdiagnose their starting point (their current reality).

Kotter's second step is to build a Guiding Coalition. That's what we are talking about here. If your current Council is unwilling to commit to a discipleship journey, start building the coalition outside the council, and move to grow a council of disciples through the steps already laid out. Once you have a sense of urgency, and a guiding coalition, you are ready to cast a vision and create a strategy.

Culture of Discipline. Finally, according to Collins, you must create "A Culture of Discipline." A culture of discipline (for us discipleship) along with an ethic of entrepreneurship will foster great performance. For us in the church, the discipline we are talking about is the practice of our faith, the Marks of Discipleship: Pray daily, Worship weekly, Read the Bible daily, Serve within and beyond the congregation, Relate to people for spiritual growth, and Give the tithe.

Statistics tell us that a population of any significant size will fall into a normal distribution, the dreaded bell curve that we all found out about in school. 16% of the population are early adopters, 34% are the early majority, 34% are the late majority, and 16% are not coming along. So, you have to find the early adopters, and help them see the vision. Since they might not be on council, we suggested creating an informal team of leaders who are ready for discipleship. Once the early majority sees the early adopters moving to discipleship, they won't want to be left behind. So, creating a discipleship community begins with getting a few trusted friends on board, and then let them bring their friends along, and so on.

Discern Spiritual Gifts. Beyond that, you need to bring a focus on spiritual gifts. Once you create a clear statement of mission, vision, values and beliefs, you can build a permission-giving church. This model is based on building ministry teams rooted in peoples’ gifts and passions, and turning them loose within the boundaries set by mission, vision, values and beliefs. This goes way beyond the old, tired Time and Talents form. Most churches do not have a system in place to help people discern their gifts and be equipped for the call from God rooted in those gifts. For details, see Lou Forney's article, Gift Oriented Ministry.