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Although my book High-Voltage Spirituality is a compendium of forty-eight different spiritual habits (disciplines), in practice I maintain there are five core spiritual habits that provide a foundation for personal maturity and church growth.

And so it was with a mix of horror and relief when I was informed my book High-Voltage Spirituality was going out of print. Horror because I realized that I hadn’t been talking about spiritual disciplines as much on other topics. With a core belief that sustainable transformation is only possible when church leaders are committed to spiritual formation, I realized I’d lately been putting cart before horse. On the other hand, relief came when I realized that the Kindle version will still be available, and that we’ll be able to directly offer the PDF version on our sites.

And so, as a first-step to rectifying my recent lapse, I present the foundational five core habits. Practice these yourself and watch life fall into place. Get your leadership to practice these and watch your church embrace transformation. Over the next couple of days, I’ll post on each habit separately and there I’ll share details on how to practice the habits effectively and offer observations on what happens in churches when the leaders collectively begin to practice them.

The five core spiritual habits are:

• Personal, Regular Scripture Reading
• Prayer that Listens More than Talks
• Intentionally Encouraging Other Christians
• Kindnesses Done in Jesus’ Name
• Personal Faith Sharing

In my experience, the list order provides a progression from those habits that most aid personal transformation to those habits that most aid church transformation. Sort of. Without the personal transformation of the leaders, congregational transformation simply isn’t going to happen. The church might grow by having excellent programming or an extraordinary marketing budge, but it won’t be sustainable growth – and it won’t transform the lives of those who come to taste-and-see. If leaders aren’t spiritually transformed, it’s a virtual guarantee wanderers (seekers/guests) won’t be either.

The next five posts will explore each spiritual habit in detail.

From the beginning of 21st Century Strategies, a long, long time ago, we’ve had one driving value: help transform churches. We suspect that pretty much all our readers understand that one of the ways we do that is by offering professional consultation services, church leadership coaching, and congregational training. What many folks may not realize is that when we write books, articles, newsletters, FAQs, ore respond to questions on the Advanced Leadership Forum of the 21st Century Strategies Community, we don’t hold anything back. Everything we do is focused on helping churches – and ultimately, for us, there is nothing more important than that, so we don’t keep back the secrets to success.

All that’s to say, for those willing to do the work, pretty much everything we teach, every recommendation we make, and every “secret” we have is there on our website and in our books. And with that knowledge, there’s really no reason they couldn’t do a respectable and effective Do It Yourself Consultation. With that in mind, let me (us) point the way.

Step One: Data Gathering

The foundation for every consultation we do begins with demographics. Now, before you surf over to the Census Bureau, Percept, or MissionInsite, some of the most important demographics you need to really “know” and “understand” are those of your congregation. And how old and how many and how long and how much and so on is just the start. You’ll want to measure attitudes toward leadership, hospitality, and their aversion to changes – and what specific changes will create the most waves. The forms we use for gathering and compiling all this data is found in The Complete Ministry Audit.

Congregational demographics are only the starting point for understanding your congregation. Next, you’ll need to pull some decadal statistics. You’ll be looking for trends, once the data is compiled, so make sure you pull the statistics for each year so you can plot them. You’ll want to get the information on income and giving; expenditures, including capital, maintenance, program, staff, and missional spending; attendance in each worship service, Sunday/Sabbath school, choir, and any small groups; baptisms, transfer of membership, deaths, departures, and general membership figures. One of the revealing, and often startling and disturbing, trends can be seen when these are plotted on a line graph. In far too many churches, the trend lines trail off and even the least savvy can make an educated guess on when the church will be no more and/or have inadequate funding to sustain even the most basic ministries.

Once you have a true understanding of the congregational, then it’s time to pull community demographics. The boundaries of your ministry area are important, so choose them carefully – and remember, your effective ministry area may not be equivalent to a particular zip code or a simple circle with the church in the center. In addition to the standard demographics, you will want to get a psychographic workup as well so you not only the raw statistics, but will have some understanding of what’s important to those in your community, plus how they spend their time and money and affections.

With the basic data gathered, you’ll be able to find connecting points for reaching into the community, but you’re not even close to ready for that now. The next step is to begin the evaluations.

Evaluating

Data is pretty much black and white, so it can be tempting to start making recommendations immediately. But before effective recommendations can be made, you’ll need to honestly and seriously evaluate virtually everything associated with the church. And though everything we’ve covered up until now can be found in our books, it’s time to mine the 21^st Century Strategies website (ChurchConsultations.com).

Building and Grounds

It’s probably easiest to start with evaluating the physical plant. How much property do you have – and need – for the number of seats you have in the worship center? How is the property divided up and how many parking spaces do you have? What is that state of your property? Is it in good repair, or do you need to resurface the parking lot and paint the church’s shutters? Once you’re done outside, move inside to check the usability, access, and repair of the facilities. How many usable seats are there? Where is the nursery and does it meet minimum hospitality standards? The list can go and on, but literally everything you need to evaluate – and the measures to use – can be found on the website. Here’s a mining tip: most of the information you need can be found in the extensive FAQ section.

Congregational DNA

Once the building and grounds are out of the way, you may be thinking it’s time to evaluate the programs of the church. Before you can do that, you’ll need to put on your critiquing hat and look over the congregational DNA. Start by evaluating whatever foundational work has been done in the past and consider whether or not the mission statement is even viable. The sad fact is, many are theological and sociological treatises that carry lots of baggage, but little weight. Next, if the congregation has done additional DNA work, carefully evaluate the core values, the bedrock beliefs, the vision, the expected behaviors, and any strategic foci that’s been adopted. Again, you can find evaluation tools on our website – and don’t forget to check out our respective blogs (www.billeasum.com and www.billtennybrittian.com).

Of course, the real evaluation is in whether or not decisions are made based on the DNA, or is it just so much window dressing? The only way to find this out is to check the hierarchical, organization, and decision making structures – and here’s the tricky part, to get a real feel, you’ll have to ferret out both the formal and the ever-elusive informal structures. Once you discover these, then compare the DNA to the way decisions are made. Is the loudest voice more influential than the congregational DNA statements? If so, who are those loudest voices?

The DNA evaluation doesn’t stop with decision making though. The next step is to compare staffing against the DNA and the congregational size/budget. You’ll need to consider whether the current staffing is effectively organized around the congregational mission and vision or are they organized around anachronistic “generalist” or age-graded structures. In addition, you’ll need to consider whether you’re staffed for growth, maintenance, or decline. And of course, there’s the question of budget projections you’ll need to consider as well before you begin the recommendation process.

Programming

Finally, it’s time to evaluate your congregational programming. For sanity’s sake, you’ll want to consider your worship programming separately from the rest of your programming.

Once again, begin your evaluations by comparing everything the congregation does against the congregational DNA – and we’re talking about measuring everything. Start with the obvious programs: Sunday school, small groups, fellowship events, classes, gender and age based groups, ministry and outreach events and groups, and so on. It may be easiest to work from the congregational calendar and ask of everything on the schedule, “Does this specifically support and enhance the congregational DNA?” If you have to think about it for more than a split second, the answer is probably that it doesn’t. Make your list so you’ll be ready to make your recommendations for what programs should get the axe, which should be phased out, which should receive no support (a Do Not Resuscitate order), and which should be embraced and enhanced. Your recommendations will need to include these, along with specific steps for accomplishment while minimizing conflict (you can’t avoid conflict, but you can certainly minimize it).

As you consider each of the congregational programs, you’ll also need to seriously evaluate whether or not they are “doors” for guests to become integrated with the congregation. It’s critical that you identify each open and closed door. For instance, some Sunday school classes may “say” they are open to guests, but in reality guests may find it difficult to become a “part” of the group. This kind of information will be necessary for making effective recommendations later on.

Worship

In most churches today, the worship service is the core practice of the congregation and so demands significant scrutiny. However, this can be difficult for an “insider” to evaluate – but again, mining our websites will offer concrete suggestions.

If your congregation has multiple worship services, you will want to evaluate each separately, unless they are duplicate services. For each service, begin the evaluation by asking yourself, “For whom is this service targeted?” Begin by exegeting the explicit target (heavily churched sixty-year-olds and older; church-lite baby boomers; rarely churched thirty-somethings with families; etc.). Next, compare the actual service to the expectations of that target. It’s not just about music – you’ll need to consider style, formality, language, dress code (including the unspoken code), technology, participation opportunities, music selection, music performance, instrumentation, sermon theme, sermon delivery, presumptive participant foreknowledge, gender/age/dress/appearance of anyone who conspicuously serves, the content and layout of any bulletin/handouts, hospitality, feedback opportunities, level of excellence, and more. In addition, when evaluating the suitability of a service to a particular target don’t forget to check the supporting services such as children’s worship and nursery care.

When it comes to the worship service, you will want to take special notice of hospitality services. Start with the parking lot and work your way in. Are there smiling, friendly, gregarious “never-met-a-stranger” greeters on both sides of the front door? How long after the service starts do they remain in place? Are there greeters at other doors of the church that might be used by a first time guest who didn’t know for sure where the front door is? How about ushers? Are they glorified bulletin dispensers, or do they actually ush? Is there anything in the service that could embarrass a guest who wanted to remain anonymous and unmolested? Don’t forget signage. Is there any place in a hallway, narthex (vestibule/entry way), fellowship hall, auditorium , multi-use room, etc. where a guest would be unable to see a sign that pointed the way to the restrooms, nursery, or worship center?

Marketing and Follow Up

When embarking on the DIY consultation, don’t neglect to evaluate the systems the church is using to reach out to the community, let them know they’re there, and then follow-up once someone has visited. Check to see how much money the congregation is spending on low-response marketing such as newspaper and Yellow Pages advertising. Check the website for missing critical information or critical information that’s buried deep within the site. If directions or worship times are more than one click from the home page, it may be considered inaccessible by the average web surfer.

Guest follow up cannot be overlooked either. You’ll need to evaluate the church’s effectiveness in getting guest contact information. The next issue to check is to see what they do with that information. How soon after a visit is there an in-person home visit and who makes that visit? You’ll also need to find out how effective the follow-up is by crunching the return rate of first time guests.

Finally, check to see if there’s an intentional integration (assimilation) plan for helping guests connect with those in the church. If not, do guests have to claw their way into the fellowship? You can find out how effective the congregation’s integration programming is by crunching the number of first time guests who remain active in the congregation a year after their first visit.

Evaluate the Main Thing

Although there is much more that can, and perhaps should, be evaluated, there is one more area that is essential when attempting a Do It Yourself consultation. I’ve left this to last not because it’s least important, but because without  making this area a priority in the evaluation, it won’t matter what you recommend: the transformation will fail.

The main thing of the church is discipleship. The question that must be answered is whether or not new people are becoming effective, practicing disciples of Jesus who engage in the spiritual disciplines or not. And the second is like the first – are the church leaders spiritually centered, grounded, and practicing disciples of Jesus who engage in the spiritual disciplines. In any consultation, whether we’re doing an onsite consult or you’re engaged in a DIY consultation, this is the number one, most important, make it or break it question. If the leaders are not model disciples of Jesus who are engaged in the regular study of scripture, immersed in prayer and reflection, sharing their faith with the unchurched and marginally churched, and practicing the one-anothers in every aspect of their lives, then it won’t make any difference what you recommend. Indeed, this was the primary failure of the Church Growth movement of the seventies and the eighties – program without spiritual foundationing.

Evaluating the main thing can be difficult, but you can get a pretty good read on it by measuring the level on ongoing, unresolved conflict and by simply asking some key questions of the leaders (try the Discipleship Development Questions – again, found on the website). If the leaders aren’t modeling discipleship, then it’s a pretty good bet the congregation isn’t. And if the congregation isn’t, then guests will come and guests will go, but it will be the rare guest who is still a part of the congregation eighteen months after their initial visit.

Making Recommendations

When it comes time for making recommendations, there is a specific order – at least at the front end – that is imperative to follow … at least if you want to actually transform the church.  Top on that list is the spiritual discipline practices of the leadership. This, of course, also includes intentionally dealing with unresolved conflict and implementing systems for dealing with conflict as it arises. How you recommend putting this into place is largely contextual, but leadership modeling, integrity, and accountability is core to a successful transformation.

Next on the list would be shoring up the DNA if it’s needed. Since the DNA infuses every aspect of the congregation’s function and form, it’s virtually impossible for a congregation to move forward without  clear, concise, embedded, and modeled mission, values, vision, beliefs, and behavior statements.

Third comes hospitality. In this case, we’re not just talking about greeters and hosts, but everything the church does to engage both those outside the church as well as those inside. For instance, as “friendly” as a church might be when a guest walks through the door, if the music is foreign to their ears; if the language is encoded with Christianese;  if there is an expectation that they are familiar with the Judeo-Christian meta story and/or have memorized the rituals and rites; if the location of the restrooms is the church’s best-kept secret; if the nursery has security, sanitation, or safety issues; or if a newcomer has to commit felony breaking-and-entering to get into a group, then there are hospitality issues.

The rest of the recommendations are pretty much determined by context. Reorganization and bylaw rewrites are rarely more than a miscellaneous item – giving it priority is a rookie mistake since form follows function, not the other way around. Again, virtually every recommendation we’re likely to make can be found on our websites or in our books.

So, there you have it – a veritable step-by-step DIY consultation. If it sounds complicated and complex, it’s because it is. Between us, Bill Easum and I have done hundreds of customized consultation and each one is as unique as your situation. On the other hand, as you’ve no doubt surmised, there’s a method to the work we do and the recommendations we make. Follow the steps in this article, mine the depths of our sites and our books, and you’ll have at your fingertips everything you need to work from data gathering, through evaluation, and ultimately to making church-transforming recommendations.

Final Note

Just in case this all seems like too complex and too much work, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Bill Easum and I both have room in our schedule to work with you and your church. Whether your congregation needs an onsite consultation, you or your leaders need coaching, or there’s a  need for congregational training, we’re committed to helping churches become increasingly effective.

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.

Over the years, it’s become clear to me that the single most difficult ministry in a local church is just that … singles. Those “College and Career” groups are literally just killer. Of course, one of my “answers” is always to focus on life-transforming small groups and then let the good times roll from that. In our experience … I checked with my bride, Kris who has as much or more experience in working with singles than I … although there are a number of reasons singles’ ministries are difficult, one of the biggest is over-programming and over-thinking. This is especially true for small groups. We want the “study” to be engaging and informing and filled with ice breakers so the group bonds. Yeah. Over-programming.

Instead of scheduling the small group time moment-by-moment, we suggest letting the small group time be a lot more free-flowing. Do something over a meal … always the ultimate ice breaker … and then get someone who’s been trained in Discipleship Small Groups (see the webinar recordings at www.easumbandy.com/store and upcoming live small group webinars or the upcoming training event in Palm Beach) and let it rip. In a nutshell, Discipleship Small Groups are focused around discipling using a curriculum that some have called a “non-curriculum.” The whole evening kicks off with a single question: “So, what have you read this week in scripture that intrigued you?” This will spark some interesting conversation, since the #1 answer will be “Huh?” followed by comments like “I tried to read through the Bible” and “I tried to read the Bible, but I just couldn’t understand what I was reading.” The facilitator helps the conversation along and typically doesn’t have a lot of answers … but the conversation tends to lively. There are other Discipleship Development questions that the facilitator can use to keep the conversation going, if needed, though in my experience this one question is lively enough for the evening (other questions include the likes of, “Who’s life did you intentionally touch in Jesus’ name?” and “Who did you encourage in their faith journey this week?”).

In week two, when the reading question is asked again, the conversation will be equally “Huh? I can’t believe you asked us again!” and the conversation will probably hinge on excuses and talk about how to fit spirituality practices into real life. By week three, though, people start sharing and the conversation become tailored to the group’s interests and whims. Other DD questions are introduced during the coming weeks, all of which are designed to raise the “Huh?” factor into consciousness and help stimulate discipleship behavior during the week.

The best thing about these kinds of small groups is that the singles (or anyone else doing them) set their own agenda overall. They can do these questions over pizza, at a club, while camping or skiing (at the lodge), and even keep in touch with the questions with those not there via SMS.

Is this the only answer for effective small groups? Hardly, but in our experience, it works out pretty well. Letting the small group set their own agenda within the context of becoming more effective in their faith walk seems to be a winner overall.

Today has been a Net Results kind of day. This issue’s theme is discipleship and I’ve had a lot of fun editing articles and adding graphics and doing all those things that a one-man shop does to get a magazine ready for release. One of the great things about all this, though, is reading what leaders from around the nation have written about discipleship. Gary Straub’s article on the devotional life is a litany of incredible devotional ideas. I especially liked his idea about “Waking Thoughts”:

I often find my waking thoughts contain dream fragments that offer guidance around people I need to pay attention to. I ask myself two questions before my feet hit the floor: What one thing must I accomplish today? and What must I definitely not do? Answering these questions provide the rails to guide my tracks in the morning.

One of the things Net Results is doing to help build subscribeship is to give away six month trial subscriptions, so if you aren’t subscribed yet, you can do so and read Gary’s upcoming article and a host of other great stuff as well.