Leading a Growing Church
Recently I spent the day reflecting on my fumbling attempts to
lead our church in growth. To say that I've felt unprepared for
my current assignment is an understatement...the Three Stooges
meet Forrest Gump strikes me as a more accurate picture. While
my initial list filled three pages, here are four things I wish
someone told me before my boat left the dock:
Gain Altitude
A while ago I was going through one of the most difficult times
I've ever experienced in ministry. I was dealing with a
difficult staff relationship, an emerging land deal, financial
stresses, vision clarification and a dozen or so other issues
that never seem to leave a church leader's desk. I felt like a
deer caught in the headlights. I had major decisions to make and
couldn't find the direction I felt I needed from God. In the
midst of it all, I decided to hop on a plane to California to
attend a church conference. As it turned out, the plane ride
itself was a divine appointment. While jetting somewhere over
Oklahoma I felt God impress on my heart, "Brian, the problems
you are facing are too close to you. Look out the window and
notice how you can see to the horizon. When you spend time with
me I'll help you gain altitude and clarity."
You wouldn't think you would have to suggest to leaders of
growing churches that they need to spend time with God. Quite
the contrary! Spiritual entrepreneurs are doers by nature. I
hear ministers complain all the time about working too much. But
honestly, I can't remember a single time I heard a minister say
they pray too much. You would think it would be the other way
around. As leaders we need to remember that our primary role,
first and foremost, is to be a divine listener. How can we
expect to know what to do next if we don't take long, leisurely
walks with the Father?
This is why, no matter how grueling my schedule becomes, I've
learned to block out time for long seasons of uninterrupted
prayer and meditation. I find that these times are more
essential to knowing what to do next than everything else I do
combined. In fact, sometimes someone will ask me where I'm going
as I'm walking out the door and I'll quip, "Going to gain
altitude."
Make Good Decisions
The perception most people have of leaders of growing churches
is that they are risk-taking nuts that throw caution to the wind
and forge ahead. While that may be true of some, that's not
necessarily the case for the really good ones. To the contrary,
I've found the truly great church leaders out there are not
great because of their personality or intelligence but because
they are great decision makers. After mulling over every aspect
of a decision, thinking through every possible scenario and
outcome, and beating a decision to death, they'll table it and
approach it again another day just to be sure. Why? They know
that the margin for error is much smaller in a growing church
than in one that isn't. What makes matters worse is that
sometimes you don't find out how bad a decision is until it's
too late.
One new church I started was going gangbusters until we received
word we were getting kicked out of the school we were renting.
We quickly scanned potential sites and found a storefront that
we could renovate. New churches were doing this across the
country with success, so I assumed we would follow suit. Two
years of slumped attendance and low morale just about killed our
church, and me. It was the right decision for the wrong church.
I learned then and there that if I had spent just a little more
time thinking through that decision we could have avoided a
near-fatal leadership collision. The same will be true for you.
Kingdom leaders charged with discerning the direction of a
growing church must approach critical leadership decisions with
great trepidation and deliberation.
Resist The Need To Fill In All The Blanks
I'll never forget sitting down with a seasoned church planter
from another denomination who received my direct mail and
offered to take me out to lunch for extra encouragement. I
proudly laid before him my mission, vision, values, strategy,
and a host of other things people told me I needed at church
growth conferences. Mid-way through lunch he smiled and said,
"Please don't be offended, but you remind me a lot of my four
year old when she plays 'dress up' with my wife's clothing." I
wasn't too thrilled with that statement at the time, but now I
recognize the wisdom in what he was saying.
Most church growth books and tapes recommend you craft a
well-defined philosophy of ministry before you launch out with
anything new. This may sound counter-intuitive, but my
suggestion is that you don't do this. Filling in all the
philosophy of ministry blanks before you embark on a new venture
ought to sound as strange to us as an expectant mother saying,
"It's going to be a boy and he'll be six feet five, love soccer,
enjoy horseback riding, marry a girl from Texas and work in a
bank." Who would presume to know anything about a baby that
hasn't been born yet? Why would an emerging church be any
different?
The issue is contextualization. Too often we assume we know what
God wants this church to become years in advance. Don't make
that mistake. You don't want to create the right church for the
wrong area. My suggestion is that if you are planting a church
or leading an established church in growth, all you start with
is a very simple mission statement. That's it. Then as you
observe what really works in your context, you identify and give
vocabulary to what God is doing as it emerges. Yes, as church
leaders we are called to find out what God wants the team to do
next. However, in my experience, it has been helpful to discover
that God only shares one leg of the journey with you at a time.
Be Prepared To Pay The Price
Last year I felt a crystal clear call from God to lead our
congregation through three difficult changes. I knew going into
it that the changes would be immensely difficult on our church,
our staff, and ultimately me. However, I was convinced these
were the steps God wanted us to take to strategically move to
the next stage of growth in our church. Three months after
leading our church through those changes, we added 100 new
people almost overnight. To me, the changes were clearly
inspired and executed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, I have to say that it would have been a whole lot
easier to just keep things the way they were. After services one
day, while we were in the middle of those changes, I got
blindsided by one critical person after another that didn't
understand the need for the changes. I could sympathize with
them, I hardly understood myself. The only thing I knew was I
was being led by God to make them. With tears in my eyes I
walked off and hid in a room and took out a pad of paper and a
pen and wrote the following words:
"The reason the vast majority of churches never reach their full
redemptive potential is because at every stage of growth, the
point person, the person charged with rallying the troops,
figures out that the price is too high. Every leader, at some
point, clearly sees the price that must be paid to achieve his
or her vision. At that point a decision must be made: "Am I
willing to pay that price?"
How would you answer that question?