Newsletter Articles
Eight Ways Churches Hasten Their Own Decline-Part 3
a series of eight short articles in four installments…included here are:
E. Clinging To What We Have
F. Wasting Energy Trying To Overcome Weaknesses
E. Clinging To What We Have
With very little exception no one likes change. Even those who like the challenge of change would rather trade it for another challenge. Change, however, is unavoidable. Be clear about it; this is still your Father's world, even if it's no longer your father’s world. Somewhere in the mid-1960's we made the transition from one age to another. That has never happened in less than 500 years, but what we experienced was the transition from the Modern Age, the Age of Enlightenment, to the Post Modern Age, from the Industrial Age to the Age of Technology. Knowledge from the beginning of time to 1900 doubled in the next fifty years. That redoubled again in the next twenty-five years, and now redoubles every 3-4 years, scientific knowledge every decade. The printing press ushered in the Modern Age; the computer ushered in the Post-Modern Age. All this is to say that change is happening at an ever-increasing rate, so much so that it creates the illusion that time is going faster and faster.
You can't stop it. If you resist it, or if you say, "I simply am not going to change," in the next moment change has changed you. Keep using the same words and you end up saying something different than you did the first time you said it. Keep trying to do the "same" things and you end up doing something different than you intended. Corporations that have refused to change have gone into bankruptcy. Congregations that have refused to change have plateaued in membership or gone into decline. Thirty-five percent of all our congregations today cannot be guaranteed their existence beyond the next five to six years unless they have sufficient endowments or beneficiaries to keep their doors open. However, keeping one's doors open without significant ministry happening is counter-productive to the mission of Christ and not a viable alternative.
The increasing rate of change has forced us to come to grips with some other realities. We used to "long for the olden days." We were living the illusion that if we simply tried harder, if we were more faithful, we could turn things around with the world and things would finally start to get better and better. It's been a hard pill to swallow, but we have been forced to recognize that this imperfect world, as the Bible does clearly tell us, cannot be corrected. The very best we can do is try to hold back the decline, slow it down. There is nothing unworthy about trying to do that, and I would be the last to suggest the endeavor deserves less than our best. We are committed to the best of love, forgiveness and redemption, but redemption is through the Cross, through death and in the life to come. Before today no one more clearly understood that than the disciples who lived in the last decade of the First Century as they welcomed the hope offered in the Book of Revelation.
The church needs to transform its posture of being prophetic to apocalyptic, to anchor its hope not in making the world better and better, but in the life that is to come. We need to come to grips with life that is chaordic, lived in that fringe between chaos and order. Not only is that already where the Holy Spirit does His best work, it needs to be where the church does its best as well. This will change a great many of the things that we cling to. As just one example, congregations struggle today to keep vital the educational ministry we call Sunday School. Sunday School is a product of the Industrial Age and has had waning influence since that age ended. With our families today living in the chaordic fringe just described, congregations need to exchange their Sunday School emphasis for a family ministry within which the Holy Spirit can work His needed transformation. Clinging to an outdated ministry style can only hasten a congregation's decline.
F. Wasting Energy Trying To Overcome Weaknesses
A truly unfortunate assumption that exists in the minds of many is that every single congregation should fit a model of provision. What that means is that every congregation should not be content until it can provide everything for everyone. Scripture, especially in Paul's writings, makes it clear that such capability is impossible. Meanwhile congregations end up spinning their wheels in ministry areas where they are weak. Not only do they lose confidence and esteem, some of them give way to feelings of desperation. They waste or use up a significant part of their resources in a distraction from the vision on which God been wanting them to focus.
The source of this overriding motivation or desperation has often come from other misconceptions that stand in the background. Two of the largest such misconceptions are: "youth are the future of the church" and "congregational growth is needed to help us share the expense and running of this ministry." Neither of these will ever accomplish what they are presumed to do, and therefore, noble though they appear, they become distractions from the real mission and vision. See explanations elsewhere in this same “Eight Ways” series as to how this happens.
The real time ministry for each of our congregations is not necessarily what we assume it to be. It has little chance of being identified by consensus or by majority vote. To serve Christ it has to be what the Holy Spirit is leading and guiding us to do in clear stride with the mission and vision of the congregation. Please note that it's the mission and vision "of" the congregation, "belonging" to it, not the mission and vision "by" the congregation. The mission and vision is by God; the ministry is by the congregation. If we trust God to provide the guidance, the Holy Spirit will at the same time lead to our congregation and ministry the persons with the God-given (spiritual) gifts to accomplish it. Some of those individuals may actually have been in the congregation for a long time, with latent gifts heretofore not awakened. Others may be new people not yet on the scene but soon to arrive. You've heard the expression, "light my fire?" Well, these gifts "light my passion," which is the most obvious signal you are on target with the focus of your own ministry.
All of these points made mean that our congregation's ministry is to take shape around the gifts that everyone brings to the table. It means that our ministry emphasis is to be from our strengths and not under constant scrutiny to shore up some weakness. What would be perceived to be our weakest ministry is likely also to be the most marginal in our real time vision.
You should not grieve about that; you should be celebrating the victories to which God is calling you, leading you. Measure the effectiveness of your ministry by your strengths; build your congregational esteem around them. If there are some real needs within your ministry (parish) area for which God has not provided you the resources, check and see if He might be including those in the vision of another congregation in your area. If there are some modest needs "within" your congregation for which you are not equipped, look to partner with other congregations/resources to meet those needs. However, if you are aware of or have a huge need you and no one else is doing it, it's entirely possible you need to spend a lot more time in prayer seeking God's leadership and direction regarding it.
The finest guidance through all of this, however, is to build ministry from your strengths, not your weaknesses.
Other ways that hasten a congregation’s decline addressed in this series include: Focus On Membership Prevents Discipleship, Renaming Committees as Teams, The Copout of Asserting ‘Youth Are the Future Of the Church,’ Leadership In the Wrong Hands, Insisting On Only Traditional Worship, and Mistaken Motivations For Growing the Church.
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Comments on this Entry:
I agree with what you say about building on your strengths rather than weaknesses, but in other places in this web site, the Natural Church Development program is promoted, which seems to take the opposite approach of building on ones weaknesses first. I'm confused! Which one should it be?
Posted by: Jeanne English at February 2, 2006 08:21 PM
Regarding the apparent contradiction between Pastor Roger Ganzel’s article which speaks of building on strengths, and the key point of Natural Church Development research, which suggests building up the congregation's greatest perceived weakness, a couple of key points need to be made:
First: both points of view are right. It is difficult for many of us who do "either/or" thinking to transition to "both/and" thinking, but in this case it is a crucial shift! NCD is quite clear in the central premise that a "congregation's boat" will float no higher than its lowest indicator if it is not identified and dealt with.
Second: NCD is holistic and organic (and biblical) in its approach to the church. Just as a weight-lifter continues to build on her greatest strengths and plays them up, she, also, gives great attention to her weakest muscle groups to keep her body in balance and health. That is what NCD does in the implementation process. The leadership team uses the congregation's identified strengths in ministry to assist and develop the lowest indicator identified.
Third: as a result, it is fair to say that NCD is very targeted and desirable for the leadership team. They continue to do what they do well and publicly affirm it, but now, instead of a "shot-gun" approach to ministry development, they can use a "rifle”" approach and target one specific ministry with their limited resources of people and dollars.
Finally: NCD is a process not a program. A congregation continues to survey on a cycle of every 8-14 months to identify the newly emerging strengths in ministry and emerging "weakest" indicator. NCD celebrates strengths and helps to identify them, but continues to identify the lowest indicator and focus on it the next cycle as the congregation grows and becomes healthy. It is a holistic and organic process.
Posted by: Ron R. Lee at February 5, 2006 03:00 AM
As author of the original article, I just want to echo what Ron Lee has said. I fully appreciate it is not either/or, and since a process the quality of NCD has come on the scene there is a whole lot more to consider than "just" ministering from your strengths. A process like NCD will guide congregations into a platform that can effectively raise barrel staves (weaker ministry areas).
But without a process like that, which can never be regarded as a one-time fix, it has been my experience, as with the example cited in eighth article of this series, that congregations, trying to make informed decisions about perceived weakness, come at it without foundation and blindly stab in the dark as to what to do. Most of "those" efforts continue to fail and the congregation ends up further frustrated and weakened. This is what my articles tries to encourage be avoided. I would much rather those congregations concentrate on their strengths until a time there is a process like NCD in place. We know that congregations are far too prone to go for what they perceive to be the quickest fix.
There can be no doubt that a commitment to discipleship must first be in place. In spite of the lip service by synods for a good fifteen years now, and whether congregations have ever only talked about it or not, the vast, vast number of congregations out there have not moved even the tiniest step toward discipleship.
Hopefully to minister from strengths is not a cop out, or guilty of becoming its own temporary fix; that is not what the article intends. This series is merely trying to address what is perceived to be the eight most frequent ways congregations shoot themselves in the foot even though they "believe-at-the-time" they are being faithful.
Posted by: Roger Ganzel at February 6, 2006 01:53 AM
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