Developing a Significant Church

I have been a part of the church all of my life. It is the rare Sunday that I am not in a worship service of some type somewhere. I have served on staff, taught, led small groups, spoken to and preached at Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), Churches of Christ, Baptist Churches, Methodists Churches, Lutheran Churches, Presbyterian Churches and Pentecostal Churches. I have consulted with several different types of churches and coached pastors of six different denominational backgrounds. Depending on how you want to look at it, I have either been around or I have a rich and varied background.

The truth is I have, by accident, learned more about the church of North America than your “normal” pastor. In my years of working as a church consultant I have been called by some an expert in the area of church transformation. I am not sure there is such a thing. But church transformation is what I do spend most of my time reading about, writing about and working on. I may not be an expert, but I do know something about the subject.

Though many definitions are bandied about, I see church transformation as the process of turning a plateaued or dying church into a vibrant, growing church that is impacting its community in a positive way with the love and message of God. How churches accomplish this turnaround may be different, but there are basic systems changes that must take place in every church for transformation to happen.
Most church leaders are aware that the church they are a part of is not healthy and growing but they are not trained to turn them around. The most often attempted initial strategy to fix the church is to implement a new program or ministry. Though that particular ministry might be successful, rarely is a church transformed into a healthy, growing church with one new ministry. For a church to be transformed, it must endure a change in its DNA. There must be a basic change in mission, vision and core values for a lasting transformation to take place.

I use the term endure advisedly. Transformation is a long and difficult process. You see, we do church like we do church because it is how we have learned to do church. It is the only way we have ever seen church done. It I show up with this grand new design for doing church I will be looked upon as a complete idiot. We all know that what I am proposing is not how church is done. We must enter into a process.
The place to start in transformation is to make a commitment to being transformed. Even though we may not be sure what that means, we are willing to do whatever it takes to do it. We can make that commitment because we realize that what we are presently doing, how we are doing church, is just not working. So, before we, the church, dies, let’s try something new.

The process works something like this. First we must provide new information about the why and how of church. My suggestion is that we take this information from the Bible. I say this because it is not over stating the case when I say that a vast majority of our church members are basically Biblically illiterate. Said new information must be repeated… over and over and over and over again before it begins to sink in. This new information will eventually produce new thinking. And new thinking will produce new attitudes and new attitudes will ultimately produce new actions. And there you have it; church transformation.
There you have church transformation in a nutshell. And like most changes that we are called to make, it is easier said than done. One of the most often questions I field is, “How long does church transformation take?” That is a difficult question to answer. Much depends of the willingness of the congregation to embrace the needed changes. But a good ballpark figure is 3 to 7 years. That calls for a deep and long term commitment from both the lay and clergy leadership of a church.

I can tell you from personal experience; it is a commitment well worth making and keeping. The end results are amazing. To be a part of a church where God is at work and God’s people are joyfully serving the church, the community and the world is worth it all. With all my heart I urge you as a church leader to go for it.

Before you get too far into this book you will begin to wonder about my feelings about and relationship to the church, so let me clear that up. I will admit that I am very critical of the church in North America. It is important to know that I love the church. The most meaningful happenings of my life happened in the confines of the church; not the building, the people.

I am proud of much of what the church has done throughout its history and feel that it is still having a generally positive impact on the world. With that said, I also believe that we, the church, can and must do much better. It is not by happenstance that the church in the United States is shrinking in membership and loosing cultural impact at an alarming rate. Most people without a vested interest in and history with the church view it is irrelevant at best and as a negative influence on the world at worst. More and more people who had been neutral about the church have become negative. The church has to wonder why this significant shift in a relative short span of time.

I have no intention of even attempting to address the cultural reasons for this shift in thinking about the church. My only intention is to take a look at the church, seek to root out those things we are doing that may not be helpful in fulfilling our mission and suggesting new ways of doing church that might be helpful and make for a healthier church.

This book is not the last word on church transformation. My hope is that my readers are encouraged to take a fresh look at what they, as church leaders, are doing and start thinking about the possibility of doing some things differently. I truly believe we, the church, can do church better. Much better.