At work today Mandy handed me an envelope from Zondervan. Holding it, I could feel a lump in it. As I opened it I joked to myself, “Geez, are they paying me in cash these days?” To my delight it was not a bundle of cash, it was my copy of The Youth Worker Book of Hope.
Out of pure selfishness, I flipped to the table of contents and scanned for my chapter. Sure enough, on page 99 my name is in black and white. For a blogger that is a funny thing to see. I’m used to seeing my name on a computer screen… but printed in a book was a tactile experience I wasn’t quite prepared for. It was emotional and fun. I then dutifully read my chapter as if I hadn’t read it like 20 times before.
When this project was originally pitched to me I was literally and figuratively thousands of miles from working at YS. As I’ve blogged about before I didn’t have a strong desire to be a part of a book project. When I walk into a bookstore I love seeing books written by people I know, but for whatever reason I’ve never had a strong desire to walk into a bookstore and find a title with my name on it. While my default answer about any book is always “no,” this project was on a topic near and dear to me– encouraging youth workers faced with crisis. That’s what my chapter is about… how do you handle a crisis in leadership in youth ministry. My working title was “what do you do when the crap hits the fan?” How do you deal with being dealt a bad deck of cards as a leader? I’ve been dealt some fun cards… and I jumped on board with this project because I felt like I had a thing or two to help others.
Of course, the book isn’t about me. It’s about hope. There are lots of chapters and lots of authors sharing stories of how they found hope in hopeless situations. In that regard I think the book appeals to everyone, even people who don’t work at churches. That’s why I want to encourage you to buy the book. (Like right now! It’s only $11.04, you can do it.) It’s the type of book you want to have on your bookshelf for when hard times hit. It’s the type of book you’ll want to hand to a discouraged friend. It’s the type of book you may even want to come back to. Or even reach out and connect with an author.
There are two sides to every coin, aren’t there? I’ve had this post stuck in my head for several weeks– and I think the illustration says it all.
Church leaders: Complacency sneaks in. We surround ourselves with people who go to church. We spend a lot of our time at the church. Our perspective becomes that the community revolves around activities at the church. Pretty soon we become ambivelent about the neighborhood we live in. Our schedule is defined on what’s convenient to those who come to church. Our agenda becomes to serve them.
We perceive our ministry as a “city on a hill” when in fact the people living in our neighborhood are completely unaware of our existence. Before we know it, we are so comfortable with our programs, budgets, staff, and people who come to church we forget reality.
The reality is that in most communities about 5% of the population attends a church. And yet we are comforable with that. Go ahead do the math yourself. Spend 30 minutes calling every church in your community and get actual attendence numbers. Next, simply divide that number by the population of your community. In most places that number is 5% or less of people who attend church on any given weekend. And we all know that just because someone attends church on Sunday doesn’t mean they are Christians, right?
Why not take some time to get to know how 95% of the population views your church? Think of it like this. Count the next 20 cars that drive past your house. Only the 20th car will attend a church this weekend. In the illustration above there are 18 houses in view of that church. And none of them will attend that church this weekend. If your theology is like mine, you recognize that Jesus died for all 20 of the people in those cars and all 18 of the people who live in those houses. But who is our ministry serving? The 5% who show up. Most of our money and time is spent serving Jesus from the perspective of the 5% and not the 95%.
That perspective should change things. 1 in 20 people will attend church this weekend. Any church. Even that church that is so bad you won’t even meet with the pastor to pray.
I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. Romans 12:3, The Message
And yet church leaders reassure themselves that numbers don’t matter! This is the state of the church and people say we don’t need to fundamentally change how we do ministry. We worry about offending the 5%. We worry about changing too much too fast while our sworn enemy puts up victory statues all over. We follow leaders who look at this reality, shrug their shoulders, and move on with their lives. We go to denominiational meetings which agree to spend more money on organizations which are smaller every year. In short, we invest all of our time and energy in a broken model.
And then when someone really breaks through. And that community reaches 6% of the population so we flock to hear how they did it? Got a book? Teach a seminar? Our perspective is jacked up, isn’t it?
New leaders are needed. I dream of church leaders coming to the forefront who are drastically interested in the 95%. I long to surround myself with leaders who keep the 5% in perspective. We celebrate those lives changed! But I want to be with men and women who think differently. Where are the leaders who look at those 5% as just the beginning? Where are the people who recognize that a model cannot be built around an individuals talents? Where are the leaders who know they need to start a swarming movement?
Point me to those people. I am tired of those who are satisfied with the failure of 5%.
