I
recently attending a lecture by Dr. Larry Griffin the President of Midsouth
Christian College (http://midsouthchristian.edu). Larry’s college has developed a
coaching/mentoring program called Rediscovering the Dream. This is a yearlong discovery, or Rediscovery,
of God’s plan for the local church, especially smaller churches. What they have put together is really good
stuff. They are kingdom minded, servant-spirited
and are focusing on helping churches that are often over looked. If your church has hit a plateau, or is in
decline, I recommend that you call the college about “Rediscovering the
Dream”. I am not compensated in anyway for this endorsement.
During
the lecture Larry outlined six key elements that are present in growing
churches. These are aspects that are
available to almost any congregation.
They are not easy; in fact, they demand high levels of commitment and
sacrifice, but these are available to any congregation regardless of size,
budget or location. Larry, being a good
preacher uses alliteration for the sake of memory. And being a preacher myself
I use his outline and fill in my own material, so if you don’t like it blame me,
if you do blame Larry.
- Prayer
This is likely the hardest part of growing a
church. Going through the motions of
prayer are actually pretty easy, but passionately praying about what matters to
God is a different thing all together.
God so passionately loved the world He sent His beloved Son to the
horrors of the cross. In most churches
we pray very little about evangelizing
the lost. In most churches the prayer
list is little more than who’s who of the sick.
I am saving my rant on ‘church prayer lists” for another time. We may need to begin with prayers of
repentance that we have not been praying about what matters most to God. (May I offer a “Cycle of Dangerous Prayers” http://beyondharan.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-cycle-of-dangerous-prayers.html)
In prayer we must wrestle, recognize, and submit to
the Lordship of Christ in our church.
- People
A church will NEVER EVER out grow its
leadership. Therefore you must have a
core of people committed to growing.
There must be people willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary
for growth. Ideally, these people will
be your formal and recognized leaders. If the
formal leadership is not committed to growth there will come a point of
conflict over the changes growth causes.
In that day all parties involved will have to make some difficult
decisions. Those people who are committed to the church’s evangelism and
discipleship must be an inter-supportive team.
That team needs to be of no less than three highly dedicated people. They will need to have relationships with
each other that go far beyond their official roles or positions.
- Perspective
I once visited a church that was in the midst of a
poorly managed and drawn out renovation.
In the entryway of the church materials for the renovation were
stored. In itself this is a bad idea,
but to make matters worse among those stored items was a salvaged commode. Yes, the first thing a visitor would see when
they walked in was a used commode sitting off to one side. However, when I asked the leaders about the
commode they couldn’t remember if it was still there or not. What we see frequently we do not see in
detail.
You may not store a used commode in your foyer, but
it is possible that you see your church so frequently that you fail to notice
obvious problems. We need to learn to look
at the church with the eyes of non-believers or visitors. The only way to do this is to get their
input. We are eager to tell people about
our church, we also need to be eager to listen to what they have to say about
our church. (If you would like a simple
practical tool to getting perspective contact me.)
- Plan
When I consult or coach a church I use two questions
that are foundational. “Why are we
here?” And second, “What are we doing
about it?” I am astounded at how many
churches have no answer for either of these questions, beyond clichés that are nearly
meaningless. Never do anything without
asking, “Why are we doing this?” Everything
a church does must directly relate to the answers for those two foundational
questions. The answers to those two
questions are the core of your calling. If
you have a ministry, program or activities that are unrelated to the core
calling for your church terminate it A.S.A.P.
Make it a point of thinking things through and being intentional about everything
in ministry.
- Programs
What is the difference between plans and programs? Plans are where we want to go and programs
are the things we do to get there. Programs
need to be an outworking of our plans.
Sometimes we have programs because we have a lack of plans. Here are a few quick points about
programs. First, programs like mayo have
a shelf life. At some point every
program will have out lived it’s effectiveness. Check the expiration date on
your current programs and see if they need to be tossed out. Second, programs should never be copied from successful congregations. Learn from other churches, borrow ideas, and
take advice but never just copy programs.
Third, make sure your programs meet the needs in your community and not
simply focused on the wishes of your church members.
- Perseverance
Jesus never promised us that it would be easy or
quick. If you want growth in your church
they will need Patience and Long Suffering.
Neither of these is the same thing as doing nothing and waiting for
things to change. Patience and long
suffering is about the endurance of difficult circumstances and difficult
people. We endure circumstances and
people while actively doing the right thing regardless of results. All the while we are waiting for the Lord to
move. We live in a culture that wants
instant results and those results had better be great. There is a great temptation to try the latest
ministry fad in hopes of quick success.
This is a temptation we must resist.
I
would like your feedback. Which of these
will be the most difficult for you and your church to implement?
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