Category: Church Leadership

  • Why would giving more offerings to the poor change the community?

    Yesterday, I received this comment on the post The Goal of the Staffless Church. I think that the comment is representative of a lot of people’s opinions, and I wanted to report the comment as well my response for the purpose of discussion.

    Pete’s comment:

    I get what you’re saying and where you’re coming from, but I feel like you’re ignoring the cultural differences between AD 2010 America and AD 35 Rome. Sure we can devote 90% of our offerings to the hungry and poor, but that has not had any success when we devoted 20% to it, why would it change now? Plenty of churches offer plenty of services to those in need. It rarely results in anything resembling conversion and is usually simply a faith-based form of socialism. I’m not saying we shouldn’t so those things and indeed, we do far too little of it. but if our motivation is evangelism and growth, as opposed to loving others and obeying God, then we’re missing the boat.

    And in an age where church volunteering is at an all-time low, the idea that churches should ask ministers to do as much as they do AND hold down a full-time job seems a little off base.

    The problem, in my opinion, is that the theology of the modern church is very similar to that of the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. They mean well, but focus on avoiding “dirty” people, doing “good, Christian” things and and are highly judgmental and inbred. Most of the church’s functions today are focused on the congregations and not those who don’t know Jesus. We’ve created a whole new type of Gentile. We spend far too much time and money on conventions, retreats and Christian concerts, books and seminars. We can get 100 people for a special Christmas Eve service but only 5 for an evangelism class. We’ll pay 300 dollars and travel hundreds of miles for a weekend of listening to our favorite authors talk about how to be happy people, but barely drop a 20 for missions.

    And the answer is to refocus and look outwards to those who need God, accept them without judgment and lead them to God’s love–much like Jesus did when faced with a similarly minded Jewish community.

    Adam’s response:

    We’re not too far apart here. I agree with you about theology. My contention is that most churches don’t practice monothesis worship of God, they practice a form of animism. They feed the god of fear with their teaching dependency. They placate the god of safety by reshaping the Bible about the individual. And they lay it all on the alter of the god of church growth.

    Honestly, if all churches in America gave away 20% of their offerings to the poor… we’d live in a country that looked much different.

    I think your wrong about the connection between volunteerism and busy pastors. My contention is exactly the opposite. If the pastor refused to do ALL of that stuff he/she is doing, it’d either force people to step up… or the church would stop doing those things.

    And just a reminder, the early church describes socialism. Capitalism is not a Christian value. It is a perversion of the New Testament’s view of possessions, personal value, and money. Aspirations of a capitalistic/Christian society is a syncretism with Western culture.

    Your thoughts?

  • The Bible is Useful

    Recently we took a survey of Youth Specialties customers. The results of one particular question completely shocked me. Here it is:

    When I was looking through the initial survey results I turned around to Tic, and said… “Wanna know why so many youth groups are struggling to keep students for the long haul? There’s the problem, right there.”

    Of our sample of 600 youth leaders 76.8% of them teach mostly topically?

    The words of Paul echoed in my head:

    All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

    But apparently many youth workers don’t believe this is true. They believe that topics are more important than Scripture!

    Let’s review:

    • All topics are not God-breathed.
    • All topics aren’t useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.
    • All topics are not equipping the man of God for every good work.

    But God’s word is!

    Look at it another way– Most youth workers are getting in the way of this.

    But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 3:14-15

    Don’t even give me the parent comeback. “It’s a parents role to teach their kid the Scriptures.” That’s a joke. Youth workers aren’t paid to babysit, are they? Certainly, parents have a role in teaching their children. But, as a person called and equipped to teach and reach middle and high schoolers doesn’t teach the Bible– what kind of example is  that?

    Don’t give me the “all the kids in my youth group know the Bible” comeback either. If all you are reaching are kids who were born and raised in the church than you’ve lost sight of what youth ministry is all about in the first place! I would argue that if you aren’t reaching teenagers for Christ than you aren’t likely doing discipleship while going anyway.

    Here’s what I am saying.

    • Get back to your first love.
    • Teaching the Bible is more useful than teaching purely topically.
    • Teaching the Bible is taking students to the primary source.
    • Teaching the Bible is equipping your students for every good work.
    • Teaching the Bible is long-sighted and strategic.
    • Teaching the Bible is teaching a man to fish instead of giving a man a fish.
    • Get back to your first love.
    • If you want to change a persons’ life, you need to get them in God’s word.

  • Ministry Beyond Behavior Modification

    Photo by philippe leroyer via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    How do you know if Jesus is changing a person’s life?

    How do you know if “your seeds” have landed in “fertile soil?”

    How do you know if the faith a high school student exhibits will stick into college and beyond?

    How do you know if a student is ready to be a student leader?

    We all want something to measure and we tend to measure the easy and obvious stuff.

    Confession Time

    Most youth workers label behavior modification as spiritual growth. That’s how they measure success. “The kids in my ministry sin less than kids who don’t attend.”

    Of course, that’s a load. You’ve probably merely succeeded at making kids religious so that they repress. Which is hardly helpful for development.

    If you’re new in youth ministry let me offer you this little fast forward on your growth as a leader. Behavior modification/sin management doesn’t change hearts. Don’t believe me? Just read the Old Testament. Jesus’ incarnation wasn’t to teach us how to manage sin among religious people. Jesus’ ministry gave up on sin management in order to win hearts.

    Your youth ministry should be about winning hearts for the long haul– not short term behavior management.

  • The Good News is You

     

     

     

    Giant slice of lasagna
    Photo by Gone-Walkabout via Flickr (Creative Commons)

     

    Have you ever stopped to think that Good News is brought through you?

    Sometimes I wonder if our ideal theology is a bit larger than the practical theology God is actually calling us to do?

    We think global while God is likely thinking local. We get so lost in the vastness of our calling to change the world that we lose sight of being good news to our block, next door neighbor, or even our house.

    Back when I was a kid sometimes I’d order something at a restaurant that was simply more than I could eat. The waitress would bring this massive plate of lasagna and my eyes would get big. As I readied my fork, mouth watering, anticipating the first bite– reality would set in. My dad would say, “Looks like your eyes are bigger than your stomach.”

    Of course it was true. I had ordered a massive portion and my dad had amused me by letting me get it and thinking I could finish it. But he knew from the get-go that there wasn’t a chance I could polish off such a tall order. I’d try but ultimately there would be more meal than would fit in my stomach. When I had finally given up and pushed the half full plate away in defeat my dad would repeat the same phrase with a smile, “Looks like your eyes were bigger than your stomach.”

    The same is true with our desires to change the world, isn’t it? Sometimes we order such a big portion that we barely make a dent. We push away the plate and give up– and our Heavenly Father knowingly smiles and reminds us that our eyes were bigger than our appetite.

    Perhaps the smarter thing is to order a portion we can tackle?

  • 5 Things Leaders Do

    Image by Jean-François Chénier via Flickr (Creative Commons)
    1. Drive people around them nuts
    2. Piss off critics
    3. Take you places you would/could never go on your own
    4. Care deeply about the goal, but even more about the people under care
    5. Celebrate victories

    I think the opposite it true, as well. I know someone isn’t really a leader if they…

    1. Are laid back about their work
    2. Worry about what critics say
    3. Talk a lot of crap, but don’t ultimately take you anywhere you couldn’t go on your own
    4. Care more about the goal than the people under care
    5. 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?

  • It only takes 10 givers to fund a church

    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?

  • The Goal of the Staffless Church

    DSC_0027

    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

  • Preparing for Haiti

    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.

    1. 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.
    2. 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.

  • Activity vs. Impact

    Activity vs. Impact

    Most people’s default measurement tool for their effectiveness is how busy they are.

    The thought process goes like this:

    • If I have a full schedule of activity I feel invaluable to the organization
    • If I am doing a lot of stuff I must be doing some good
    • The result of all these meetings and all this planning is that people have lots to do and are motivated
    • Therefore, since everyone in the organization is busy and excited, we must be effective
    The activity-driven formula
    Impact (?) = activity + resources + more activity

    This is a horrible measurement of effectiveness. This is why billions of dollars are spent in America on the local church and we will impact about the same percentage of people in 2010 as we did in 2009.

    Let’s face it. We measure ourselves by how busy we are when we are trying to cover the fact that we have almost no impact. But there is a better way.

    The impact-driven formula
    Impact = activity – resources + results

    If the local church were a machine we’d call it broken. Lots of activity with no or negative results. That’s a zero or negative mechanical advantage! All of the energy of spinning the organization is dissipated out as fiction.

    If the local church were a corner grocery store, we’d file for bankruptcy. We paid the bills but the owners aren’t seeing growth, in fact they are net losing ground in the marketplace.

    If the local church were a school, the government would take over. We just keep spending more money but test results are not improving, in fact they are getting worse.

    If the local church were a politician, we’d vote ourselves a raise. Wait, that’s not a good example.

    In an impact-driven organization you measure success purely by impact.

    In your mind activity without impact is waste.

    Conversely, if you want to make a large impact you have to take the time and invest your energy in maximizing the impact while limiting your activity.

    If you are stupid busy but not experiencing results— are you frustrated and trying to figure out why?

    Your answer lies in your busyness.

  • Affirm One Another in Christ

    We live in divided times. In particular, those of us who love Jesus are more divided than ever. A trip to the “church” section of the yellow pages or Google is heart-breaking.

    The church is polarized today.

    This is contrary, of course, to what the Bible teaches.

    There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

    If we contextualize that statement made by Paul to the church today that statement would read like this.

    There is no liberal or conservative, Baptist or Catholic, black church or Korean church, suburban or urban. For we are one in Christ.

    I pray that we lay aside or differences… as real and pressing as they seem… and live in the tension and knowledge that all people who call on the name of Jesus for salvation are one in Christ.

    It’s easy and childish to focus on what divides us, it is mature and difficult to instead embrace the common mission we share.

    Amen?