Five questions for your ministry plan.

All churches are resistant to change.  Some act as if they are from Missouri-insisting that you “Show Me”.  Others act as if they are made of concrete all mixed up and set in their ways.  Every church that is resistant to change is reacting to the fear of loss.  “If we make this change what will we lose if it works (or fails)?”  Some churches will never move beyond superficial changes regardless of how good the ideal or persuasive the case. However, for those churches that might embrace change if it can be demonstrated as a positive here are five questions to help you prepare your cause.  Before you present anything to your leadership team and before your leadership team presents to the congregation at large you need to answer these five questions very carefully. Going off half-cocked is a guaranteed source of failure and frustration within your faith community. 

Question #1: What are we doing? This is where we have to be very specific about the project at the foundational level.   It is not the time to discuss every detail of the project, such as the tint of the paint on the walls or how much a visa for the mission team will cost.  It is, however, time to make sure that we are on the same page about the very nature of what we’re doing. Generalities are dangerous because they are open to interpretation.  Being very specific about what we are doing will save a lot of headaches as a project is drawing closer to completion.

Question #2: Who is doing this? In a project that involves several constituent congregations or organizations it’s important to answer this specifically and get buy-in from each entity. However, within a single-faith community project it’s really critical that we have clear buy-in from all the stakeholders in the church.  If this great new ministry plan is only supported by 50% of the congregation, its support will not only receive only half-hearted backing from the other 50% it might even lead to authentic and genuine opposition. Our objective is not to gain 100% support for every decision but to have a consensus of support from the whole body as we move forward.

Question #3: Why are we doing this? This is not the first question but it is the most important one.  This is not about the immediate need that we’re trying to fulfill.  This gets back to our vision and mission answering two critical questions, “Why did God put us here on earth?” and secondly, “What are we doing about it?” Every action, every spending decision, every future plan needs to fall into that matrix as we answer these two questions.  This is where the rubber meets the road of us carrying out our God-given calling and purpose.

Question #4: When are we doing this? Developing a realistic timeframe is critical.  Whether the project is a capital campaign, a building project or implementing a new ministry a time line is vital.  It must be realistic. A goal without a deadline is just a dream.  A goal with an unrealistic deadline is a nightmare.  Even simple projects become complex as soon as we fall behind on an idealistic time line. A realistic timeframe cannot predict delays. But a wise timeframe includes some margins for the “just in case” scenarios. It is better to have a long time frame and unexpectedly be ahead of schedule than to have a tight timeframe and face hopeless frustrations.


Question #5: How much will this cost? This is more than a dollars and cents question.  Cost estimates on construction are pretty easy to obtain. By all means be realistic and get competent help on any such projection.  But there are other costs that are much harder to estimate.  Any ministry change will also mean a change in the leadership dynamic and power structure of your church regardless of what people say.  The ministry that was for a generation the beauty queen of the church may become “Miss Congeniality”.  There will be a price to be paid but it will not be in shekels.  It is impossible to anticipate all these costs, but the more people are aware of these costs the better.

We should also note that even with the most careful plans inevitably things don’t always work out just right. But better planning will result in fewer frustrations.  These five questions are not the end-all-be-all of planning, but they might serve as a good beginning point for your next ministry step. 

The Advantage of the Homely Wife

Being a Leah kind of church

Can you imagine Jacob’s surprise that first morning of the honeymoon?  You go to bed thinking you married Rachael and first thing you see when you wake up are those weak eyes of Leah staring at you.   How that happened remains a point of debate; some people imagine Leah was wearing Rachael’s clothes and so deceived Jacob, some think that it was so dark that Jacob couldn’t tell the difference, others have proposed that Jacob had drunk so much that he was too inebriated to noticed the nuanced difference between the sisters.  For whatever reason, Jacob got stuck with the woman he didn’t want.  Her dad may not have wanted her either and he saw this as a way of unloading unwanted baggage.  We are not told, other than the weak eyes, what was wrong with Leah.  Perhaps she was attractionally-challenged, maybe she had a personality loaded with sarcasm, cynicism, and negativity (Not everyone finds these traits attractive.  Who knew?), maybe it was those eyes (Perhaps they were very affectionate eyes, always looking at each other).  Her dad, her sister’s suitor and her husband all rejected this poor woman.

But for her faults, whatever they may have been, this woman could have babies.   You get the idea that all Jacob had to do was watch Leah hang up the laundry on the line and she was pregnant.  She was popping out babies like a specialist.  It seems like every time you turn a page Leah is having a baby.  She is so good at having kids that her rival had to bring in a ringer to try to even the score.  Even then Leah takes on the whole field and bests them all.  Even without her own ringer she gave Jacob as many kids as all the other women combined, six sons and a daughter.  This woman was gifted in her ability to get pregnant and produce offspring.

When it comes to our churches we are more like Rachael than Leah.  I’m not talking about numbers in the nurseries, but rather our ability to reproduce disciples.  Some churches depend on a ringer or surrogates to do the work of evangelism.  Some are completely sterile and are quietly content at being that way.

Ed Stetzer reported these interesting statistics:

• Churches less than 3 years old win an average of 10 people for every 100 church members.
• Churches 3-10 years old win an average of 5 people for every 100 church members.
• Churches over 15 years old win an average of 3 people for every 100 members.

Mr. Stetzer may be generous in his evaluation.  I have talked with churches that cannot remember the last time a non-believer from outside of their church became a convert to Christ.  In one conversation an ordained staff member speaking of evangelism said, “I don’t know what that would look like in our church.”  When you factor out children who are raised in the church making a profession of faith when they reach the age of accountability the productivity of the American church is even less like Leah. 

Could it be that in the church we have made a priority of being attractive and have lost the ability, desire or know-how to be reproductive?  Fads in the church-industrial complex come and go so quickly that it takes all of our time to follow and emulate the latest cool thing done by the latest phenom church.  I get a chuckle out of what I call the “Pallet Churches”.  Somebody somewhere, likely strapped for cash, to redecorate used old shipping pallets as a last resort and sha-zam, cool new fad is born.  I am convinced that if a cool preacher started delivering his sermons with a dead fish on his head there would be a run on fish markets.  I am not opposed to churches decorated with pallets or fish strapped on a preacher’s head for that matter.  But when we spend our time, energy and effort focused on the secondary things we are not focused on the main thing of making disciples.  

Okay, Leah was not desirable for one reason or another.  But in an agricultural society the ability to produce healthy offspring was much more important than the shapeliness of figure or the sex appeal of the eyes.  In a world with lost people going off into a godless eternity the effectiveness of making disciples is a lot more important than the level of our attractiveness as a faith community. 

Something weird happened Monday

Yesterday, Monday, something weird happened.  Not totally weird but something just a little different.  I went to work.  To make sense of this let me give you a little background.  When my mom when into labor my dad was away preaching a revival.  Dad got back just in time to see mom into the delivery room.  I was born on Saturday.  I missed church the next day, but I was there the following Sunday.  I lived in a preacher’s home for the next 17 years.  Then I went to a Bible college and after four years there I moved into a parsonage.  For the next two plus decades I worked in the church.  Then six years ago, I left the pulpit and became a church consultant.  From July of 1962 till January 2019 I have lived closely connected to the institutional church.  Yesterday, I began working in a secular work place. 

I have held fulltime secular employment from time to time, but that was always as a bi-vocational minister.  I have served churches or church plants that could not pay a living wage so I did secular work, but it was always in the context of the institutional church, as a way to make ends meet.  It also was done in the hope that I could become mono-vocational.  This is different. I am not pastoring a small church that can’t pay me.  This is a volitional choice to move from the career path of being a minister.  I have begun working in a career that has no ministry applications, nor as a way to develop a church ministry position.

What I am doing and saying is descriptive of my personal attempt to be a disciple.  It is by no means an attempt to be prescriptive of what everyone or anyone else ought to do.  Some may wonder what has become of me.  Let me tell you what has not happened and then I’ll tell you why this has happened.   I have not left or renounced the faith.  I am still deeply committed to our Lord.  I have not become a heretic; I remain completely orthodox as a believer.  I am not in a marriage crisis; our relationship is as strong as it has ever been. 

The painful conclusion that has crept over me is that the ministry of the church keeps getting in the way of the Ministry of the Gospel.  Let me explain it with a bit of antidotal evidence.  Last year, I did a non-scientific survey of about 40 churches.  I pulled up their online bulletin and counted the announcements placing them in two categories.  The first was events, activities, or programing that was exclusively or primarily focused on those people who are already members.  The second category was events, activities, or programing that was exclusively or primarily focused on those people who are not already members-outreach or evangelism.  I tried to be generous with the subjective evaluation giving the benefit of the doubt whenever I could.  The result was that 90%-95% of the function of the church was to provide something for Christians to do.  Less than 10% of the announced action of the church was about proclaiming the Gospel to a lost world.  I know this is far from a definitive and authoritative study.  But if you are honest, in your heart of hearts you know this is true.  

This summer a huge tree fell in my yard.  The trunk was almost completely hollow.  In that trunk was a fantastic collection of nutrient rich mulch.  As the tree shed leaves and twigs many fell into the hollow truck and began to decay.  It was teaming with earthworms and made a rich type of potting soil.  The tree began to grow roots from the inside of the trunk into this rich potting soil.  It was literally feeding on itself. 

This is my path and I cannot call for others to take it.  But I can ask you to question whether the great bulk, the committees, the conflicts, the well-intentioned dragons, the battles over music and style, the demand for sacred entertainment have not made the church its own worst obstacle to its calling and mission?  Is the ministry/operations of the church getting in the way of the Ministry of the Gospel?  I do not have all the answers in fact I may not have any.  I am not sure I have the right questions.  What I do know is I can’t go back, so I must go on.  Please keep me in your prayers.

Magic and Ministry Evaluation Advice

I am a bit of a magic geek. I’m not a performer in any way but I enjoy watching magic performed. The illusionists who are at the top of the craft are artists of the highest caliber.  I suppose the reason I enjoy magic so much is both the excellence of the performance but also the challenge of trying to figure out how they do it. Even when you know how they did it, which for me is very rare, it is delightful to see the artistry of the performer.  I especially enjoy the show Fool Us that features the great magic team of “Penn and Teller”.  As two of the world’s leading magicians not a lot of people can fool them by performing the trick while keeping the process secret.  Those that do are genuinely magnificent performers.

One of the things I do as I watch a trick is to remember that the reality at the end of the trick has been the reality all the way through the performance; the performer was simply making it look like something else.   If the rope is authentically a loop at the end, it was always a loop, but there was an illusion that it was something else.  If the playing card with the torn corner is genuinely sealed in a solid block of acrylic at the end of the performance it was always sealed in a solid block of acrylic.  The laws of physics that govern the universe were not set aside by slight of hand.  These are not miracles they are tricks.  What you have to focus on is the state of being at the end.  During the trick the objective is to miss lead us.  Do not trust your judgment while the trick is going on; your perception is not reliable.

That is what Paul is saying in I Corinthians 4:5.  “…do not go on passing judgments before the time…” We have a terrible tendency to look at what is going on in Christianity at the moment, in our churches, and in ourselves and offer authoritative judgments.  Often times in so doing we are wrong.  I am not that old, but in my lifetime I have seen churches and leaders all excited about programs, initiatives, ministries, gimmicks and plans that were going to “change the world,” all of which are now little more than memories, some of which are embarrassing. 

Just for fun let’s take a walk down memory lane.

• Bus Ministry: certainly bus ministry had its moments but it did not change the face of American Christianity the way we were told it would. 
• Puppet Ministry: I knew a college so committed to the life changing impact of church ministry that it offered upper level 4 credit hour classes on puppets.
• Drama Ministry: The arts of acting were to make Christianity understandable to those who grew up with television.
• Promise Keepers: I loved PK and attended several events including “Stand In the Gap” at the capitol.  We were told we are on the verge of a dynamic revival.  But the excitement of those moments did not match the following reality.
• Seeker Sensitive/Driven Ministry: This model of ministry was so dynamic that new organizations began doing specials about the changing power of the new face of Christianity. 
• Christian Role Play Games:  This was or is if it still exists a Christian version of Dungeons and Dragons.  The person I talked to offered the pitch that people would play the game and it would bleed over into their daily life.

I do not mean to be cynical, except for the Christian D&D, all of these efforts had some value and accomplished some good and filled some needs.  What I am saying is that we need to be a bit more prudent about our pronouncements that the latest and greatest thing in church is actually all that great.  It might be a bit of a flash in the pan.

Rather, let us do two things: love and live.  If Jesus has any authority it would seem that loving God with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves is the place to start.  How that applies to daily life is what brother Paul said in Romans 12:2.  Holy living is the life of a living sacrifice.  When we get to the end of our days and we find something was a temporary tool we need not be surprised, it was a temporary tool all along.  We are better off never having defined it as the end-all-be-all of Christian history.

It is what it is.

As we head into the New Year I am reminded of a conversation I recently had with a very bright and talented young man.  He was frustrated by his job and the silly rules and regulations he has to put up with working there.  As he talked about the rules it seemed that his work place was more of a day care than a work place for grown ups.  I am sure that his frustrations made him more negative than was warranted. Never the less, he had some legitimate complaints.  But as he ended the conversation he said two things that were very disconcerting.  They were two phrases that expressed the same sense of helplessness and hopelessness: “nothing matters” and “it is what it is”.  He seems to have meant, “I can’t change any of this, so why try?  I will just play the game.”  If you are in ministry at any level you can relate to some degree to this sentiment. 

The phrase “It is what it is” has become the slogan for an age that has become very willing to simply accept the status quo and assume that our circumstances must dictate and guide our lives.  It is a statement of the radically obvious, so much so, as to be a statement not worth saying.  To say, “A duck is a duck” doesn’t often need to be said, to say “A duck is a 67 Shelby GT 500” is nonsense.   This statement also assumes that what we perceive is a complete, full, and flawless knowledge of the circumstances.  That simply is not possible.  We do not know what spiritual forces may be at work.  It is only to God that all hearts are opened and all desires known and from Whom no secrets are hidden.  We can say, “It is what it is” because we do not know all of “it”.  I am not advocating that we escape into some Pollyanna realm in which we pretend that hardship and difficulties don’t exist.  Rather, I would suggest two questions, which we’ll follow up with, “It is what it is”.

First question: “What should “it” be?”  Like my young friend it is pretty easy to find faults with any system then, in exasperation say, “It is what it is”.  Once we have seen a/the weakness (es) is a great time to look for better ways to operate.  My young friend is fairly new at this job and this is a very large and old organization so the chance of his implementing changes soon is fairly remote.  But there can always be the internal changes of our own life.  If we don’t like what “it” is, we can make sure we don’t do that ourselves.  As I look back at 2018, I see a lot of things in my year that I didn’t like.  But rather than say, “It is what it is” and maintaining the status quo I have decided to make some internal and personal changes.  Which leads me to the:

Second question: What are you going to do about it?  If something is wrong it will most likely not get better unless something is changed.  If something is radically wrong it will take radical changes, small adjustments simply will not do.  Wishful thinking is not a strategy, at least not one for success.   It may mean dumping everything we thought we knew about our career.  It may mean letting go of all our relationships that are satisfied with the status quo.  If what we are doing is only marginally effective it may be time to do something completely different.  I am not talking about an infinitesimally small (but ridiculously) difficult change like from hymns to choruses.  Rather, a radical reshaping of our lives and ministries.    If what “it” is is not working, what would we have to lose?

I would challenge you this year to make the radical changes that will transform, “It is what it is” into “It is more than we asked for or imagined!”