Leadership & Church Life Cycle

As a church planter I have had the opportunity to attend a variety of church planting conferences as a delegate and I have been a guest speaker at a half dozen seminars dealing with church planting. At all these conferences, the event coordinators make it very clear to future church planters that they need to have the right leadership team in place if they want their church plant to be successful. I believe the same is true for the church that is wanting to be rejuvenated. Leadership is the key to a successful turn around BUT it has to be the right leadership.

Just like the life cycle of the church can be plotted on a distribution graph, so to can the five types of people within any congregation. The graph to the right shows these groups and the percentage of people who generally make up each of these groups. Here is what each category means...

Innovators (2.5%): These are people that see a gap in mission and ministry and they think of ways to fill that gap. They can create solutions to problems others don't even see; they are interested in new ideas and are willing to experiment. Church planters are almost always in the "innovator" category, but in an established congregation the lead pastor may not be an innovator. If that is true of your congregation, then you have to look for the innovators and get them on your leadership team. Innovators are often seen as "the wackos" by the denomination because they think outside of the organization's box. (I'm proud to be an innovator wacko!)

Early Adaptors (13.5%): Early adaptors do not normally come up with new ideas but they are willing to try new things. These people like to see what the latest and greatest program is out there and then try to implement it into their church. If you can convince them that the new way of doing things is possible and beneficial, they will support the idea.

Early Majority (34%): These people have to see that the new way of doing things will work before they will participate. This group makes up a large portion of any congregation so it is important to get some "wins" under your belt before they will join and when they do join it will build momentum for the new idea to take hold.

Late Majority (34%): For this group to participate in any new venture they must clearly see that the new way is better than the old way. These people tend to like the status quo and leaving things the way they are.

Laggards (16%): These people will not be convinced that the new way is better. They remember the good old days, even if the old days were not that good! They never have fresh ideas on how to make things better.

I noticed that when the church growth cycle and the leadership distribution graph are overlapped that it gives a good representation of the type of leadership that is needed if a church wants to be revitalized. The innovators and early adaptors are important people in the dawning and development stages of any church. Since revitalization requires a church move from "decline" to "developing", these are important people to have on a leadership team leading a congregation in revitalization. The early majority are important during the late stages of development and the dependability stage because they like to see that things are done "right" within the church. The late adaptors are very good at making sure the church stays true to its beliefs and traditions while it seeks to reengage in mission to the community. Laggards are, well, laggards and will not really contribute to the process.

The important thing to remember is that God has put you where you are for a reason and he wants to use you, with the Holy Spirit's guidance and power, to help your church fulfill its mission.

If you are reading this and you would like more information of revitalization or if you would like my help leading a congregation through the process, please send a comment below.

Blessings.

The Growth Cycle and the Way Back

It is a sad reality that many churches are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their doors open because the church is no longer viable. The reasons why churches find themselves in this situation is as varied as the churches themselves. There many be problems with people, programs, finances, facilities, style of ministry or a cumulative combination of these factors. Or perhaps the fault lies with theological issues that have negatively affected the ministry of the church and thus contributed to its decline. However, there is a way back to ministry viability for any congregation willing to invest the time, effort and resources necessary.

All congregations can plot their current state of growth/decline on a simple distribution graph which has come to be known as a Church Life Cycle graph. There are a number of different categories that can be used to identify the growth stages, I use the following markers:

Dawning: This the birth of the church. At some point in the history of the congregation someone thought it was a good idea to plant a church that you now call your own.

Development: This is the process of the church discovering who they are by answering three questions - 1. Who are we? 2. What are we here for? 3. Who is our neighbour? Policies, procedures and programs are developed around the answers to these questions.

Dependability: Once the congregation has forged a clear faith identity and has organized its church life to express that faith effectively and persistently, we could say that the church is dependable. You know what to expect in any given situation.

Decline: If you have ever watched the Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons you have seen the coyote run off a cliff and keep running for a while until he realizes that he is over the cliff and he begins to fall. At some point all churches in decline realize, like the coyote, that they are falling. They take note of the decrease in attendance, first time visitors, new members and financial giving. Often as a way to reverse the trend they are seeing, they will try to do the things they have always done, only better, while little to no energy is used to better understand their community or develop new ways to be involved in the mission they are called to as a church.

Death: If the church waits too long to reverse the decline the result is the death of the church. Death can take decades to become final and during that time the congregants often play the "blame game" as they blame the denomination or pastors or certain programs for their demise. Death does not have to be the final word for the church at this point in the life cycle. They can either die gracefully and bless another congregation with their resources (if any are left) or they can restart. More on this in a moment.

An honest evaluation by the church leaders and members can pin point exactly where the church is on the graph.

All churches that I have been involved with either as a pastor or as a consultant have wanted their churches to be growing and vibrant. For this to be a reality all the time, the congregation has to move from wherever they are on the life cycle to the "developing" stage.

There are 4 ways to reenergize the church towards growth and mission effectiveness. If you notice on the diagram to the left, the lines from "decline" to "development" vary in length. This is because the further the church slips towards death the longer the process and the harder the journey back to mission effectiveness is. Often you will see a further slip towards death before you see an upswing in growth. So what are the 4 ways to get new life into the church?

1. Renewal: For the church that is just starting to see a decline or they have been dependable for a long time, all that is needed is a fresh look at the 3 questions asked in the development stage - 1. Who are we? 2. What are we here for? 3. Who is our neighbour? The answers to the questions should inspire a renewed interest in the missional quest of the church.

2. Revitalization: This can happen when there is still substantial vitality within the church and the members want to see new things happen. Again the three questions are asked to determine how far the church has wandered from its original mission.

3. Redevelopment: If the church has been on a steady decline for years, perhaps decades, it has little of the vitality needed to turn the church around. It takes a great deal of resources - spiritual, financial and political, to see an improvement in this congregation, but it can be done.

4. Restart: If there is no possibility to bring the church out of its death spiral, a restart may be in order.

The success or failure of churches wishing to reenergize their ministry and be fully engaged in mission has much to do with the leadership within the congregation, which is what I will talk about next time.

Blessings

Explore Faith

Have you ever questioned your faith? I know I have, many times. Those times when you are just not sure that what you have based your life on is true. Now lets make one thing clear, we all put our faith in something we believe will produce in us or for us the life we desire. For some people that faith is in fame, fortune, power, prestige, pleasure or self. For others their faith is in a transcendent God, like Christians whose faith is in Jesus Christ (Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6). Which ever is true for you, it required a "leap of faith" for you to fully trust in that which you believe will bring the most satisfaction to your life. And when that thing you put your faith in failed, you were left questioning your faith.

The true test of what you put your faith in is what did you put your faith in after the time of doubt. Did you put your faith in something new, or did the doubt and questions and exploration of faith strengthen and renew your beliefs.

The Gospel of Luke records a conversation Jesus had with a lawyer(Luke 10:25-37) which started by the lawyer asking, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" In other words, "What life should I live to possess what matters the most? What should I put my faith in?" So Jesus asks him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" or in other words, "What is your faith in now? What is the guiding principle of your life?" The lawyer responds with the guiding principle that he was taught ever since he was a little boy, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and, love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus says that is the answer, if you do that you will have what you are looking for. But the lawyer has one more question, "Who is my neighbour?" Jesus responds by telling the story of the Good Samaritan and ends by saying, "Go and do likewise."

Here is what I get from this encounter. The lawyer is there listening to Jesus and asks a question to test him. He wanted to understand if what Jesus believed was the same as what he believed. I think he might have been pleasantly surprised with Jesus' answer that loving God and your neighbour was the right answer. But I think he was not expecting Jesus to say, "Go do it." Faith, especially if we are taught a certain belief system from a young age, can sometimes become a "head knowledge" instead of an "action" experience. We "know" that this is how we should live but we may never see our faith in action. I can imagine the lawyer pondering this..."So my faith tells me I need to love God and love my neighbour; I know how to love God - go to temple, say prayers, read the Torah, but how do I love my neighbour? A better question is who is my neighbour?" After telling the lawyer the good Samaritan story Jesus again says, "Go and do this."

The lawyer, whether he knew it or not, was exploring his faith. There was a disconnection between what he believed and what he was doing and Jesus understood that. Jesus showed him, through the story, that he was just like the two "religious guys" in the story because those guys also believed that they should "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and, love your neighbor as yourself." But they didn't live out their beliefs. At the end of his faith exploration, the lawyer would have been faced with decision of "What do I do now?" We don't know what he did in the end because the story stops there and we are left wondering what happened to the lawyer. Maybe we are supposed to ask, "What would I have done if I was in the lawyer's shoes?"

The lawyer's life goal was based on his desire to "have eternal life" and he followed a guiding set of principles that he thought would help him achieve that goal. At the end of his faith exploration he discovers that he is missing an important component in his faith to ultimately achieve his goal of eternal life - that missing piece was action.

If you find yourself exploring faith you need to ask, "Am I doing what I believe?" If you don't think the Christian faith is living up to your expectations, look and see if you are actually "living" your faith. The Christian faith is not only about hearing and knowing but DOING. When you read the Gospels, Jesus is always sending his disciples out to do something because Jesus knows that mission can not be done by always sitting behind closed doors.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. James 1:22-23 (The Message)

Blessings.