Transforming Church

Membership presumes that “we” operate and control the congregation and its ministry. It would take a rare person of spiritual strength not to let that be compromised by personal interest and preference. All of us are only a baby-step away from seeing this as “my” church, and I’m sure going to see we do what “I” want. The task would be much easier if we did not have to ask those in the congregation to become members.

Confirmation has become a major culprit as well. Through instruction and confirmation we reach the summit of membership. Because it IS the summit, in spite of all the apologetics and denial, confirmation ends up being a graduation. As such it fully derails disciple growth. It determines how to be a better member but it kills the vision of how to become a better disciple. Once confirmation takes place members feel they have arrived and no longer need to attend class.

With generally no further significant contribution to either disciple or leadership training, membership based congregations quickly succumb to electing and appointing untrained leaders to fill key ministry positions. Committees put enough untrained leaders together in hopes that ministry will happen. Already using many members, and with a shortage of volunteers, committees have been charged with agenda responsibility for too many pieces of ministry.

This way of operating was easy for corporate America to give up, because in a profit driven environment such unprofessionalism more often ended in bankruptcy. We’ve all seen the statistics on how many small businesses fail. It’s no different with congregations, only attaching the name of God does not force those congregations to go away for even a long time. Profit is not the cleanser and principles like “do not judge” are called upon all too frequently. Congregations adopt a whole string of apologetics like, “Maybe next year we’ll get this off the ground,” and, “She or he tries, but they weren’t really trained for it.”

Membership thinking leads one into the environment of authority, management, titled leaders and control, all of which encourage mistrust. Discipleship thinking flourishes with responsibility, servanthood, excited gifted leaders and permission, all of which are encouraged by trust.

More often than not members are untrained volunteers, serving as a favor to someone. Disciples in contrast are passionate, gifted people, serving with calling and excitement. The irony is these disciples are the very same people previously seen as untrained volunteers. The difference is the Holy Spirit does a much better job of calling and gifting people to serve than we do enlisting volunteers. A disciple based congregation does not have to look for volunteers. I have seen the same congregation pull its hair out trying to staff nine standing committees, and later have no difficulty at all fielding seventy-eight ministry teams.

In our society committees are made up of members and teams are made up of players. In the church a player is called a disciple, a player who is totally committed to Jesus Christ. Committees, whether in society or the church, do not really work anymore anyway. When you find places where there is still some success with committees you are likely to find highly committed volunteers who are headed for burnout. Most congregations still trying to operate with committees find they struggle with ineffectiveness and spinning their wheels.

Since finding volunteers has become much more difficult, congregations today have fewer and fewer operational standing committees. In certain areas of ministry, however, a number of congregations have been fortunate to almost accidentally have teams come forward to meet the need. This has been in areas like specific outreach ministries or repair teams with property. Councils would like to either add more tasks to these, or get them to function more properly as a committee so they, as the Council, can manage resources and ministry. If they are successful, usually they kill the team.

A team is not just another name for a committee. The two are as different as day and night. Committees, along with many other phenomenon of the Modern Age, are no longer effective. Click here to find out the real difference between committees and teams. Congregations do not need members to serve on committees. What they need are disciples who serve as part of teams.

Most denominations in the last fifteen to twenty years have struggled to help congregational members sense their role as disciples. That same period of time has more than demonstrated that you cannot simply superimpose discipleship traits and characteristics on top of being members. Like so many other examples of completely setting aside the old life in favor of the new one, sooner or later membership is going to have to die to let discipleship rise as the new life for the church.

Disciples do not try to own the church. Their focus is on what Jesus is counting on them to do. How do they know specifically what that is? In the larger picture the disciple based congregation has a clear sense of its mission, vision, core values and core beliefs. Inspired by the Holy Spirit from start to finish, together these shape ministry, not a congregational vote, not a council decision, and not a pastor’s predisposition. If it does not fit inside the mission, vision, core values and core beliefs of the congregation, the congregation simply does not do it.

Important for the individual disciple is the discernment of the gifts they have received from the Holy Spirit and a sense of calling from the same God. If there are no existing teams offering that excitement, chances are God is leading that person to start a new ministry. If there is a piece of the congregation’s vision that does not appear to have disciples ready to run with it, be on the lookout for the gifted people the Holy Spirit is leading to that congregation to fill that role. The Spirit will not abandon us. If nothing appears to be working, it is time to pray anew for discernment.