Consulting, Coaching & Chatter

I wrote this entry the other day and I think I posted it … but in the great server switchover, it appears to have been misplaced. So, just in case, here it is again.

I had a conversation with some pastors about one of the seminars they had attended. They had gone looking and hoping for another program that would help them launch their churches into the stratosphere – or at least grow their churches past where they were. As I reflected on the conversation later, it dawned on me that what they were hoping to find was that elusive bottle of magic pills that would cure the ills and grow their churches for them.

Just a couple of years ago, a Lilly research project looked at mainline churches that were growing through conversion growth, that is, churches that were reaching and transforming the unconnected into disciples of Jesus Christ. That study revealed that there are indeed a lot of “programs” that are being used to grow churches. Small groups, Alpha, Disciple, Forty Days of Purpose, and more. However, what the study suggests is something most of us already know: it’s not the programs that are growing these churches. We know that because small groups, Alpha, Disciple, Forty Days of Purpose, and so many more are also failing to grow thousands of other churches. All these programs, literally all of them, are placebos that have absolutely no power in themselves to transform or even grow churches in the long term.

As revealed in the study, the difference between the churches that are reaching the unconnected with abandon, compared to the many that reach few, is that growing churches have developed a climate of evangelism that permeates the church’s culture. The study also clearly showed that that culture was largely created and maintained by the pastor, staff, and congregational leadership. But we knew that, didn’t we?

So, why do we still seem to be obsessed with finding a magic pill bottle to cure all our ills? I have a number of ideas that I don’t believe I’ll but into print, but I will say this: The solution is not another program. So long as church leaders continue to spend their time overlooking the obvious in hopes of finding shortcuts or magic pills, their churches will continue to struggle.

Maybe it’s the circles I’m hanging with lately, but suddenly there’s a jump in the interest on house church. Bill Easum’s article in On Track (the 21st Century Strategies monthly E-zine) reviewed Frank Viola’s Reimagining the Church because of “the importance of the book.” And I agree, it’s an important book, just as Viola’s Pagan Christianity was important. However, when it comes to the mainline church, I suspect Viola’s message will mostly fall on deaf ears. Why? I invite you to read the books for the whole scoop, but here’s a reality of these books: they discount virtually every practice and tradition the church holds sacred. In these books, Viola slaughters more sacred cows than Iowa Beef Processors. Pulpits and pews? They’re gone. Vestments? So yesterday. Preaching? Gone. Buildings? Apostate … or almost … living rooms are okay.

Don’t get me wrong. On the whole, I like most of what Viola has to say. He and I have been singing off of the same page for a long time. But there’s a weighty question out there for me. Is the church of yesterday really the church of tomorrow?

There are a lot of voices “out there” not only saying yes, but nodding their heads vigorously. Why, aren’t we in what amounts to a pre-Christian world?

Nope. Not at all. Those who claim we’re in a pre-Christian world not unlike Paul’s world are idealistic at best, and a half-bubble off level at worst. It is true that Paul’s world was filled with paganism and a menu of cosmo religions. There are any number of similarities between Paul’s pre-Christian world and ours. But there is one huge, overriding difference. Paul didn’t live and breath and work as a part of a church that had a reputation throughout his culture of being antiquated, irrelevant, hypocritical, and impotent. Weird and cultish, yes. Antiquated, irrelevant, hypocritical, and impotent, no.

I went to Angels and Demons yesterday (I rate it much better and less troublesome than Dan Brown’s other offering). Whether you watch the movie with unconnected or well-connected eyes, you can’t help but notice the church’s struggle with relevance, tradition, and the battle with science (and culture as a whole). The movie hardly helps the church, though I’m pretty sure it doesn’t hurt us either. The church itself has done a marvelous job of shooting itself in the foot (in North America, I’m not convinced we haven’t shot ourselves in the head). A movie that points it out isn’t going to make things worse.

Which brings me back to the question … in order to recapture the faithful practice of Christianity, is going back to the “biblical” church the answer?

Let me shed some light on the myth of the notion of the biblical church. First, the notion that a “biblical” church is/was God’s mandate is seriously flawed. If God had wanted to give us a blueprint for what the church was intended to be like, our New Testament would look a lot more like the Torah, complete with building plans of what the church building should like … or not, as the case may be. Israel got an instruction manual for their version of “church” in the ancient days. The priests were even told what to wear and which fingers/thumbs to dip into the blood of the sacrifices. Everything about that “church” was mandated between the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Turn to the New Testament to look for any sort of similar instructions and you’ll be sore disappointed. The best we get is a character list of godly leaders.

Turns out, God’s been blessing the church in its many different manifestations over the years. Although the house church is the only “biblical” church, it’s clearly not a mandated model. Churches with church buildings have been variously effective over the years and many faithful and effective Christians have been birthed, raised, and sent forth from that model (Mother Theresa and Billy Graham are two that come instantly to mind). On the other hand, churches without church buildings have been variously effective over the years as well and is now one of the most prevalent and fastest growing models in the world. However, the human tendency and need to institutionalize is a strong one, and I suspect that even those flourishing house churches in India and China will one day be in our boat. History has a strange way or repeating itself.

But there’s another fallacy in the notion that house church is the solution for the church of tomorrow – which it could very well be, but it’s not likely to be the prime solution in my lifetime and not likely in yours. We live in a capitalist, consumerist culture. Not only has the church not been able to change that, in many ways, the church has inculcated that (something about the Protestant Ethic comes to mind). In a consumer, post-Christian culture that carries around the church’s reputation like a chip on its shoulder, house church is going to be a tough sale. The typical questions I hear are almost always about nursery care, youth programming, and so on. Until the church stops being a purveyor of services for its members, the house church is going to have limited appeal. Indeed, it wasn’t that long ago that house church researchers were struggling to find a statistically significant number of North American house churches that had been in existence over five years. They may have found enough by now, but what they were finding is that most house churches disbanded within a couple of years. There are many reasons this is true in North America, but that doesn’t change the fact that short lived house churches aren’t around long enough to make the difference that Frank Viola and others are calling for. Apparently, when it comes to “church,” our culture by and large still insists on “programs.” House church isn’t really big on programs … and either is Viola.

All this may sound like I’m suggesting that the house church is not a solution. In some ways, that’s exactly what I’m saying. House churches won’t “save” the mainline … indeed, it won’t save any denomination. Only a very few house church networks are able to support professionally trained clergy (few of whom “get” house church anyway), so it’s not going to be the hope for appointing Methodist Elders or providing full-time jobs to those leaving seminary with student debt. And it’s not likely to “catch on” suddenly anytime soon so that the North American House Church Movement starts looking like the Chinese House Church Movement. Like the Willow Creek model, most of us aren’t Bill Hybles in South Barrington County and most of us aren’t living in China where the pre-Christian culture is actually a pre-Christian culture.

On the other hand, I think that the church as it exists today needs to learn a LOT from the house church. Discipleship simply hasn’t and generally doesn’t happen effectively within the walls of the brick-and-mortar (B&M) church. It hasn’t and generally doesn’t even happen in most church’s small groups. For the past too-many years, the church has lived under the delusion that it could “teach” Christianity by filling our brains with information about God and about the life of a Christian. That’s gotten us to where we are now (how’s that working for you?). The house church is probably the most effective model for developing disciples of Jesus … but it does it because it’s not curriculum based, but discipleship making, living life as a disciple of Jesus based organism. The good news is that this in infinitely transferable to the B&M church.

So, is the church of yesterday really the church of tomorrow? The answer is definitely not. And absolutely yes. But it’s not likely to look like what most of the pundits would want it to look like.

George Barna recently came out with a poll reporting that the majority of Christians don’t believe in either Satan or the Holy Spirit. Since then, I have received a small mountain of emails with Christian leaders crying “Where did the church go wrong?” I suppose these questions probably deserve and answer, but I’m not going to be the one writing treatises on where the church failed – at least not with this blog post. The sad fact is, that anyone who’s suddenly astounded with reports like these are woefully out of touch with the “real” world anyway.

The real question that needs to be answered isn’t about where the church went wrong. The burning question that begs an answer is “What are we going to do about the sad state of Christianity in developed nations?” Just a reminder for those who are unaware, the world of Christianity is doing very well on a global level. Figures show that global Christianity is gaining some 90,000 converts each day. However, Christianity in the West is doing, shall we say, rather poorly. The ARIS report that came out a couple of weeks ago showed that Mainline Christianity has lost over 6 million adherents since 2001 and that Christianity itself has shrunk from 86 percent of the USAmerican  population in 1990 to 76 percent in 2008. Of course, any religion that can claim 76 percent of the population should really be making a difference in the culture, but that cannot be said of Christianity. With less than 15 percent of us showing up for organized worship and discipling on any given weekend, it’s clear that our practices don’t match our verbiage (there are lots of other examples, but that one will have to suffice).

The problem with the problem is that it’s so encompassing that it’s paralyzing our church leaders. It’s one thing to say “Think glocally,” it’s quite another to do anything differently. Since I seem to be particularly fond of lists of five, here are three steps to start turning things around in your world.

1. Build a foundation of faith beginning with you. It’s been said that Billy Graham once estimated that only about 10 percent of church goers were practicing Christians. Hearing his pronouncement, a prominent sociologist reflected that Graham was being generous. As James put it (2:17–18), it’s one thing to say you’re a person of faith – it’s something else again to put it into practice. So, let me ask you a couple of questions (that you’ve no doubt heard before). What did you read last week in the Bible that intrigued you? If you’re a pastor, add the proviso “outside of your sermon study.” Here’s another one – with whom did you personally share your faith story last week and what were the results? Again, pastor, sharing your story in the pulpit gets no credit. And one last one – who have you personally encouraged in their faith journey today? If you’re not praying, reading scripture, encouraging fellow Christians, and sharing your faith with the unconnected then, frankly, you’re contributing to the problem, not to the solution. Without a foundation, the rest of this is pointless.
2. Get excited about what’s going on in your church, or get another church. And when I say “get excited, “ I mean Prius owner excited. According to Ron Crandall, the number one issue facing smaller congregations is self-image. Let me add that it’s not just the little churches that struggle with self-worth. Any church over forty years old is faced with the temptation of looking back on the “good old days” of yesteryear. John Maxwell observed that if what you did back then looks pretty big now, then you haven’t done much today. I’m coaching a congregation that is struggling with that very issue. The reality is that they have a lot going for them, but they’re facing some tough decisions for the future. Some of these decisions are painful, and so there is a feeling of dread amongst many in the congregation. This malaise has perpetuated a sense of “we’re not worthy” or “we’re not good enough” across the congregation. And a member who feels that way isn’t going to invest much in the future of the congregation. They won’t invite their friends, acquaintances, neighbors, or co-workers to the church’s worship service. They won’t write large checks, let alone tithe checks, to support the work of the congregation. The truth is, there are a lot of churches “out there” that are going to continue to choose tradition over  faithfulness to mission. The solution for the faithful is to either instigate a change or to find a new congregation. And when I say “instigate a change” I don’t mean wait it out. I mean do something to bring about the change or leave. If there aren’t enough of the faithful in the congregation to out maneuver  the bullies and terrorists, then leave them to themselves. Get excited or get on down the road.
3. Major on the majors. The Paraeto Principle states that 20 percent of what we do brings 80 percent of the results. The corollary is that we spend 80 percent of our resources dealing with those activities that waste our time. We see this demonstrated in the church regularly. Twenty percent of the leaders do 80 percent of the work. Twenty percent of our programs and activities bring 80 percent of the results. But in a church, what are the majors? I’d tell you that it depends on what your mission is, but if you’ve read almost anything I’ve written you know that I’m a real believer in the “there’s only one mission” of the church school of thought: make disciples. Making disciples includes both making new disciples and making more effective disciples – but you can’t have one without the other. What we’ve found is that most churches do neither effectively. Why? Because they don’t major on the majors.

Emphasizing the majors means putting the church’s resources into those activities that net real results. Although that sounds easy, there’s really little that’s more difficult. It begins by being honest – ruthlessly honest – with your programming and activities. Ask the question of each activity on the calendar, “Will this activity facilitate making more disciples?” If it’s a choir tour of Anglican churches, the answer is obviously no. If the answer to the first question is no, then you ask the second question, “Will this activity help the participants become more effective disciples?” That’s a trickier question. First, you’ll need to determine what an effective disciple looks like. In many churches, an effective disciple is obviously defined as someone who’s heavily involved in the church’s activities. If they show up for committee meetings, Sunday school, board meetings, all church clean-up days, bake sales, choir practice, worship, and Bible study, then they’re deemed “faithful.” They may not have shared their faith with an unconnected person in over twenty years, but they’re “active” in  church, thus they must be a faithful disciple.

Once you’ve defined what a disciple is like, then you can take a stab at measuring your activities. If your activities aren’t helping Bob and Sheila to become more effective disciples in their “real” lives, then it’s probably something that should either be “tweaked” so that it does or else it should be abandoned completely.

I get a good bit of pushback on this, generally because someone has a pet project that fails both tests, but they want to do it anyway. I’m not suggesting that everything that fails the two tests should come to an end, but I am saying that these activities must expend a minority of the church’s resources. But in most churches, that means that there are a bunch of pet projects that are going to end up on the cutting-room floor. Save the annual all church picnic, if the doors would close without it, but do away with the other resource wasters. Simply put, if an activity isn’t making more or better disciples, then it shouldn’t be on the church’s calendar and the church shouldn’t be investing any staff, facilities, or financial resources on it.
So, there you are. Three concrete and practical tasks to start turning around the church. Will it change the minds of those who don’t believe in Satan or the Holy Spirit? Probably no time soon. But in the meantime, it will change the face of your congregation.

Today I’m beginning the last leg of three weeks on the road. It’s been an interesting journey that almost transcends history.

It began almost three weeks ago at the 2009 TYPO3 Conference in Dallas. There, we talked about and learned more about internet ministry, particularly using a Content Management System to create websites that don’t just sizzle, but facilitate real ministry. It was a look at the future.

Next came Exponential 2009 where I was one of the presenters (thanks to Bill Easum for the opportunity). Exponential is the nation’s largest church planting conference. I had the good fortune to rub shoulders with Alan Hirsch, Francis Chan, Ed Stetzer, Tom Clegg, and Neil Cole – all heroes of my faith journey. Since I’ve planted a couple of churches in my day, I found it both exciting and depressing to hear what’s going on in the church planting world (more on why it depressed me in a future post).

Next, it was off to Chicago and the NACCC Minister’s Convocation on the Mundelein Seminary campus (NACCC = National Association of Congregational Christian Churches). I was asked to lead a retreat on the “E” word. It was a beautiful setting and gratifying to know that there’s rising interest in relevant evangelism practices in the Congregational Church.

And so, now I’m on my way to New York where I’ll lead a training/overview on the house church movement to United Methodist clergy who are interested in doing something completely different. That will be gentle look into our past.
Future, Present, and Past. It’s where the church is.

As I take a few minutes to reflect on my journey, I’m heartened by the men and women whose eyes lit up as we talk about ministry practices that can speak to the present and future generations. But my joy is tempered by the reality that has so clearly presented itself by so many of the leaders I’ve rubbed shoulders with these last three weeks. There is a resignation in the eyes, defeat in their minds, and hopelessness in the spirits of far too many of our church leaders. They’ve heard the spiel of the pundants and the promise of their programs for too long and have seen so little change. They’ve tried a little bit of this and a little bit of that. They’ve gone to mega church conferences, micro retreats, and denominational convocations that roll out more hype than a used car sales commercial, but leave with little substance. And so, largely, they’ve given up and are mostly going through the motions.

Who’s to blame them? Most – though certainly not all – got into ministry to change lives through Jesus Christ. But let’s be really, really honest. Most of the members of most of our churches are pretty much the same people they’ve been for decades. They may know more about the Bible and they may know more about God, but their primary spiritual relationship is with the the church rather than with Jesus – with the bride rather than groom.

And so, I continue my journey … physically, mentally, and spiritually. I’m biblically grounded enough to know God’s in charge and the Spirit can do great and awesome things. And I’m a student of history enough to know that just because they can, they’ve seldom moved upon a culture to change the hearts of the adherents, choosing to move on to receptive fields (currently in China, India, SE Asia, Northern Africa, and Latin America). Historically the change, if there is to be one, comes from those who are willing and able to emerge from the culture and rise above it. That won’t come from programs, but from life changes – and until our eyes light up, there will be precious few of those.