Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.” Luke 12:48

This passage ought to strike terror in the hearts of every church leader but especially for those of us in American Churches.  According to data from the U.S. census Bureau and The Barna Group, in 1991, 49% of the people in the US attended church.  I realize that the term “attended church” is somewhat vague.  By 2006 that number had dropped to 47%.  I honestly have my doubts about those percentages. In surveys people tend to over report their attendance.  Additionally, attending four times a year is a little different from attending four times a month.  Percentage of people attending church is a little difficult to count.

It is easier to count spending.  During that same period of time churches in the U.S. spent approximately 100 billion dollars on church buildings. (That is a stack of $100 dollar bills 63 miles high.)  This does not include salaries for staff, programing, operational costs, transportation or education and training.  Strictly the cost of buildings was $100,000,000,000 with a net loss of 2% in attendance. Let’s play a little game. 

·      We will pretend that we were in the business world.  We have been part of a management team that has spent $100,000,000,000 of stockholder money and are now reporting to the board of directors a 2% decline. What would our employment future be? 

·      What if we were a defense contractor having spent $100B on a weapons system that was 2% less effective than the system it replaced.  What would happen to our contract?

·      What if we were tenant farmers who spent $100B of the farm owner’s money on equipment and all we have to show for it was a 2% reduction in grape production?  What would the farm owner do to us?

May I suggest this in not a game?  There are people in the world who have never heard the gospel.  I was once told that over all, 1% of U.S. church giving goes to foreign missions and only 1% of foreign mission funds are directed toward unreached people groups.  There are an estimated 5,574 unreached people groups in the 10/40 window.  What if during those 16 years the churches in the U.S. had directed $180 million dollars toward each of those people groups?  What difference would that have made in the church worldwide? 

I am not saying we should have no church buildings; they can, in fact, be helpful tools for ministry.  I am not saying that all building projects are evil.  I have lead congregations I have served and other churches in building campaigns.  But before we spend one penny on a new building we need to remember that a church building is a tool.  We must remember that its sole purpose is to facilitate the equipping of the saints for the task of making disciples.  There is much more to say but I am still struggling in developing my understanding of the intersection of the ministry of the church and the role of buildings.  I am, however, certain that we have been given much, have not managed it well and will one day be required to give an account.

We can’t out-Disney Disney!

As the church we will never be able to out-Disney Disney, but that is not to say that many churches will not try.  This past week in my travels I passed a church that had a large children’s building.  It was the typical big-box, ugly, metal building but was decorated to attract children and likely their families to the church. Emboldened on the building were the words, “iKids Worship, Fun, Games.”  It was less like Disney than a Crazy Ed’s fireworks in Tennessee from 45 years ago.  It is attractional ministry geared for kids.  I have no doubt that the church and the leaders are faithful sincere people and they are motivated by a high commitment to Christ and His Kingdom.  The attractional model of ministry is the template that dominates our churches.  It goes something like this: have a space, put together excellent programing and gathering events, draw a crowd, preach to the crowd, hope the crowd grows, expand and repeat.  It was what I was raised on and taught.  The variation between highly traditional and highly contemporary churches is not that great; it is more a matter of style and preference.   The growth strategy that 60 years ago attracted youth to the church basement for the “World’s Longest Banana Split” (a bunch of ice cream in a rain gutter) is the same strategy that has an arcade, climbing wall or bowling alley in the youth center.  Please do not use the argument of pragmatism, “We can attract more teens with the new stuff.”  If numbers are the matrix I can get more teenage boys with free pizza and wings served by Hooter girls than you can with a climbing wall and have a devotional afterwards. 

Here are three failures of the attractional model for the church:

#1  It is non-biblical.

We need to distinguish between non-biblical and anti-biblical.  For this case non-biblical will mean those things that are neither commanded, nor forbidden, nor even mentioned for the church in the Bible.  Examples of such things would be printed Bibles or even buildings for that matter.  Anti-Biblical things are those specifically forbidden, such as sexual license or suing fellow Christians.  Jesus never commanded His people to go build a facility and then attract people to come.  The great commission is rather specific about the means by which the church fulfills its command.  Non-biblical things are not inherently evil-I believe air conditioned and heated places for worship are good things.  But what we have to a great degree done is completely ignore the Biblical model and rely solely on the non-Biblical, attractional model.

#2  It is non-effective.

In the big picture the attractional model is non-effective.  If the goal of the Christian community is to be salt and light in the world the American church is failing.  I hate to use this term but it is the one that works best: We are losing market share for the hearts and minds of America.  According to the Washington Post it is predicted that the number of people who identify as Christians (just over 250 million) will remain the same for the next 30 years.  During that time people who identify as “no religious affiliation” will nearly double from just over 50 million to over 100 million.[1]  While church attendance numbers are reported to be holding their own it is doing so in a population growing away from the Christian faith.  I personally doubt that attendance is static; my observations convince me that attendance is in decline.  Most of the “growth” that is occurring in the American church is transfer growth.  People move from a church that has air hockey in the youth room to a church that has a climbing wall in the youth building.  The shift is from the church with a music team on stage to a church that has a concert event every week.   The result is the American church is losing its saltiness and is much less the light of the world.  While this may build a few big churches it is pretty bad at reaching the lost, but is best at producing nominal Christians.

#3  It is non-disciple making.  

Finally, the attractional model is not good at making disciples.  If a disciple is a person who loves, follows and lives like their master our churches are not making disciples of Jesus. For a generation we have been spending massive amounts of time, energy, effort, and resources on building these attractional churches.  We should assume that the result would or should be evidence of discipleship.  The evidence points in the opposite direction.  The use of porn by Christian men mirrors the national average and the use of porn by Christian women is actually higher than the national average for women.[2]  The divorce rate for nominal Christians is about 20% above the national average.[3]  If you compare the states with the highest numbers of churches and the churches with the highest number of out-of-wedlock births you find that the Bible belt is also the Un-wed mother belt.[4]  In fact, no state in the Bible belt is in the bottom half of the nation in the rate of out-of-wedlock births.  Perhaps to attract people to our weekend services we have offered a cheap grace.  We have enough of the Bible to preach against porn, divorce and sexual promiscuity, but not enough discipleship to avoid participation.

I do not have all the answers; I may not have even one answer.  But I do know that denial is never a good solution.  But pretending that if we were able to out-Disney Disney and draw larger crowds we can fulfill the great commission is simply denial. 

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[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/04/03/what-america-will-look-like-in-2050-less-christian-less-white-more-gray/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.82f9373311e2

[2] https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/pornography-use-among-self-identified-christians-largely-mirrors-national

[3] https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-divorce-rate.html

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/unmarried/unmarried.htm

https://www.movoto.com/blog/opinions/most-religious-states-map/

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.