Image by Jean-François Chénier via Flickr (Creative Commons)
- Drive people around them nuts
- Piss off critics
- Take you places you would/could never go on your own
- Care deeply about the goal, but even more about the people under care
- Celebrate victories
I think the opposite it true, as well. I know someone isn’t really a leader if they…
- Are laid back about their work
- Worry about what critics say
- Talk a lot of crap, but don’t ultimately take you anywhere you couldn’t go on your own
- Care more about the goal than the people under care
- Worry more about the next goal than celebrating a victory
I don’t know about your world. But in my world everyone calls themselves a leader. These are some criteria I use to tell the fakes from the for-reals. What are your criteria?
People don’t like to talk money and the church. It makes people instantly think of TV evangelists.
And while those TV evangelists swindled millions out of well-meaning, hard-working Americans, the truth is that 99% of churches are great places and not full of crooks.
I have an encouragement for my friends just entering their 30s, you’re finally hitting the earning power to make a difference in your church.
Here’s something that may be news to you: It only takes about 10 solid givers for a small-to-medium-sized church to stay solvent.
Working for a small church this was clear. 6-7 core “giving units” provided a solid foundation of giving on which our monthly budget was built. We didn’t really know who they were but we were thankful for their faithfulness. But the $200-$500 a week they each gave weekly was the difference between the staff having a heart attack about the budget and knowing we’d at least make payroll! And, of course, people beyond that core group gave substantially too which made all the difference in the world for doing more than making payroll. Yet the fact remained that without those 6-7 anonymous folks we would have been in deep trouble.
Now, I’m sure $200-$500 per week seems unattainable. You’re saying that’s a lot of money! In some parts of the country $800/month is more than the mortgage. So you’ll have to do the math to figure out what that translates to in your local economy.
But here’s the point: These weren’t a special breed of super-givers. These were regular Joe’s and Mary’s. The median family income in that part of Michigan was about $60,000. That meant the median family brought home about $800/week after taxes. ($80/week if they tithed) Yet most of the folks in our church had professional jobs which paid much, more than that. All of a sudden you realize… the 6-7 families funding a big chunk of the church are really just average professionals tithing about 10% of what they brought home.
That’s where you come in. If just 5% of the church actually tithed, your church could stay solvent. I don’t mean they’d be in great shape. I just mean that 5-10 solid givers per hundred forms the foundation of giving for your church.
And if you are wise with your money you can be one of them soon.
Again, that may seem impossible. But if you got serious for the next 6-12 months on reducing your debt load you will be able to give a lot more. And while most people in their early-mid thirties are just starting to dig their way out of mountains of credit card debt, college loans, car loans, and the fat part of a mortgage… as they do that they are discovering they can have a lot more giving power.
It only takes 10 givers to fund a church. The question is simply– Do you want to be one of them?
Which came first? The staff who ran the programs or the programs which required the hiring of staff?
No offense to my friends who work at churches– but I wonder if their goal is to secure a job for life or to work themselves out of a job as quickly as possible?
When I read church growth strategy books and articles I’m always amazed that they only talk about getting larger budgets, larger buildings, and larger staffs. Never mind that it’s a horrible strategy. Most think tanks only think about one strategy… how to get bigger. The idea of getting more efficient is ludicrous.
When I read about the church of the first 100 years after Jesus I see a church growth strategy of “get in, train people up, and get out as fast as possible.”
Here’s a centuries old tried and tested church growth strategy we have rejected: With no staff your church will grow.
The “if you build it they will come model” of the last 50 or so years has lead to utter devastation of the church. Numbers are down big time. Sure, you can point examples of big churches. And no doubt people will leave comments saying how awesome their programs are. But the percentage of Americans regularly involved in the local church has declined sharply in the current multi-staff model.
The fact remains that a church with less staff will be forced to be the church more than a church with programs where people show up and everything is done for them. This “worked” for thousands of years. What we are doing now isn’t working and we all know it.
At some point someone decided that everyone needed to be on staff at the church. So we hired a music pastor. A worship pastor. A youth pastor. A children’s pastor. An associate pastor. An administrative pastor. A senior ministry pastor. And all of that staff required administrative support. Oh- and they’ll need offices and space– so we’ll need a bigger building.
If I put my businessman’s glasses on I examine this trend and say: You’ve added a lot of overhead. Your business multiplied by 25 times, right?
Wrong. The strategy didn’t work. But now we have an entire industry of church workers in an environment where they are reaching fewer and fewer people with bigger, more expensive programs. Now we’ve created an entitlement that simply isn’t sustainable nor is it leading to the growth long ago predicted.
It’s almost too easy for me to point to examples of this in other countries. (We certainly saw this in Haiti.) But it’s also true among the exploding Latino and African-American churches in the United States. With almost no infrastructure they reach thousands. In your own community it is likely that there is a church kicking butt with nearly no overhead of staff or a building.
I’m well aware of the biblical justifications that church staff deserve to make an income. Yes, I’ve used that myself. I’m not arguing that you have a right to claim that to be true. I’m merely questioning the strategy and inviting you to recognize that this strategy has seemingly paralyzed the church.
Even those who bring up the Pauline argument for getting paid in ministry often neglect to mention that Paul also didn’t implement this strategy in all the places he ministered. Nor did he ever buy a house and start a family.
Some questions to get you thinking
- Where does the offering at your church go?
- Where did the funds in Acts go?
- How much has your church grown in the last 10-30-50 years using the current staff-heavy strategy?
- What would it look like if say… 90% of that offering were given away in your community to feed the poor, care for the sick, take in orphans, protect widows, on and on?
- Don’t you think that would be good news to the neighborhood?
What I’m not saying
- The church is wrong to have staff
- The church should fire staff
- All of my friends who do associate level ministry are bad/dumb/hurting the ministry of the church in their community
- My own church is bad, filled with money hungry punks who make fat salaries. (Um, they all raise their own support!)
What I am saying
- A church as effective as the Book of Acts is possible today.
- Churches should ask hard questions about meeting the needs of their community.
- A lot of church growth strategies are really “church growth industry” growth strategies.
- Church leaders should challenge their assumptions of what they know vs. what they know to be true in Scripture.
- It is possible for the local church to reach 90%+ people in your community.
- We should not be satisfied to “pay the bills” and reach 5-10% of our community.
“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14
I chose to be just crazy enough. More importantly, I want to encourage others to be crazy enough to recognize that they can change the world. — Adam McLane, August 28th 2009
In moments like this I feel like there is little I can do. While I would love to hop on a plane and “go help” the truth is I don’t have any skills that are actually useful. (I doubt they need a blogger) I will do the next best thing. I will give what I can and commit to joining the people of Haiti who stretch out their arms and call out Jesus’ name. — Adam McLane, January 13th 2010
It’s now been a couple weeks that I’ve known I was headed to Haiti to help in relief efforts. In the course of that time I’ve been all over the place emotionally. I’m scared, I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m worried, I want to just jump on the plane, I pretend like it’s 10 years away, I shop for stuff I think I may need, I change the subject when people bring it up, I watch more CNN than humanly necessary.
Back on January 13th I had no idea I would be heading to Haiti less than one month later.
But it is true. On February 11th I will land in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and begin an overland journey to earthquake stricken areas of Haiti. In my mind I keep hearing reporters say, “Haiti is a dangerous place on a good day, and certainly this is no good day for Haiti.” (While I am not an expert in rapid response relief, I’m happy to be traveling with a team who is!)
And yet I hear the voice of Jesus over that. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
On top of the obvious, there are a couple other elements that have me excited for this trip.
- The team assembled by Adventures in Missions for this trip is crazy diverse! The first time I talked to Marko about the trip he joked that when talking to a couple other bloggers one of them said, “We’d all just have to get together and hug it out.” We come from different denominations, liberal/conservative stripes, theological heritages, ministry-types, and even ministry companies who compete against one another. And yet, the need in Haiti is way more important than anything that should/could potentially divide us.
- The team is calling you to Haiti. As soon as I told others that I was going they asked me, “How can I go too?” This is one of the secondary purposes of the Advance Team. We are going first, we are exploring what you can do, we are answering your questions, and we are imploring (begging?) you to come to Haiti with a team soon. That resonates strongly to how I encounter the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I long to see Jesus not just regenerate the hearts of the people we encounter but also the places we go and even the institutions which seem beyond renewal.
Soon the world’s cameras will leave Haiti. We will not have daily updates from Port-au-Prince. What will remain when the spotlight leaves is the hard work of rebuilding a country brought to its knees. This will be done by the Haitian people, NGOs, and the church.
I am going to Haiti because God’s people in Haiti cried out in Jesus’ name for help. I am one little tiny part of that very big response from Jesus to those cries in the darkness on January 12th, 2010.
And it is my hope that this little diverse team of people who is laying aside their differences for the sake of the churches response to the crisis will begin an amazing opportunity for Jesus’ people to change the world’s mind about believers.
What would happen if tens of thousands of God’s people laid aside their differences and came together in one response to change on country forever?
What would happen? I don’t really know. But I do know that it’s going to start with you.
