Simple Church

The mission of the church is to “make disciples.”  It's really that simple.  There is no Plan B.  That means our sole function is to reach people for Christ and move them through the stages of spiritual growth.  Changed lives are the bottom line.  Christ formed within people is the goal.

THE PROBLEM:

Pastor Joe goes to a conference.  He hears some great ideas and comes home with a notebook full of plans and begins to implement them right away.  Six months later a staff member comes forward with a stack of ideas and the church begins to implement those too.  A few months later a group of church members wants their ideas to be incorporated into the ministry menu.  This goes on for years and years until they have stacked programs on top of programs stacked onto more programs.  The energy is diffused.  There is no clear direction.  People are running in different directions.  The church is going nowhere.  Resources are depleted.  People are busier than ever, but there is little progress.

I've written on this subject extensively the last few years.  If you're interested in more related articles, go to the left sidebar under "Index of Categories" and click "Keep it Simple."

THE SOLUTION:

1. Write one mission statement for the whole church. (Not multiple statements:  i.e., a purposes statement, a vision statement, a mission statement, and a core vales statement.  That's confusing.  Neither should there be separate mission statements for each department or group.  That's even more confusing, not to mention it creates splinter groups in the church).

2.  Align everything in the church under that one mission statement.

3.  Ruthlessly eliminate everything that doesn’t fit.

HOW TO DO IT:

1.  Design a simple process.  Q:  What are we trying to do?  A: Make disciples.  Q:  What does a disciple look like?  A:  Put the description down on paper.  Q: What are the steps for making disciples?  A:  Put it down on paper.  Keep it simple.

2.  Implement the process. 

3.  Unite all ministries around this process.  Instead of treating discipleship as a seperate ministry,  all our ministries should be saturated with a discipleship emphasis.  Worship, music, fellowship, volunteering, groups, etc, should be viewed as part of the discipleship process.  Disciple-making should permeate everything we do.  It's the main thing.

4.  Eliminate everything outside the process.  This is where the rubber meets the road and things get painful.  Most people will be grateful that a process for discipleship has been developed.  However, some people will struggle or even resist abandoning pre-existing programs.  Everyone believes in a balanced budget, but no one wants their line item cut.  Everyone agrees that you have to trim ineffective programs, but no one wants their program eliminated.

While becoming simple will be difficult, it is also worth it.  The gates of hell will be pushed back, God's kingdom will be advanced, and people in our church family will be placed in the pathway of God's transforming power.

Looking ahead, this is what 2013 is beginning to look like for PCC.  Are you in?

Faithful with What We've Been Given

I suppose it’s normal for most people that they want to leave their mark on the world.  We want to leave a legacy.  And there is something positive about wanting to reach large numbers of people with the Gospel.  After all, Jesus said to ‘go into all the world’ and preach the gospel.

Yet, very few of us really get to influence large numbers of people.  That’s just the way it is.  The task is too big and we are limited in abilities and/or resources.  There are billions of people in the world and tens of thousands in our community, so it is simply impossible for me or you to reach everyone with the good news, to help everyone, or minister to everyone.  Even if we could, not everyone responds to the message.

This is where we have to accept God’s sovereignty:  We are not called to do more than God gives us to do.

In the parable of the talents, one man was given five talents, another two, and the final servant was given one talent.  These talents were distributed according to the ability of each man.  Then each servant was instructed to do business with what he was given – and was not expected to do more than he was given to work with.  The expectation of those with fewer talents was less than those with more talents. 

So if you are a pastor of a small flock, enjoy the flock that God has given you and remain faithful in your call. If you are a small group leader, Sunday School teacher, youth worker, nursery attendant or parking coordinator, serve faithfully and be confident of God’s approval of your labor.  That’s what you’re called to do.

Regarding PCC, the principle is the same:  We are not called to do more than God has given us to do.  But we must be faithful with what we have.

It is a big world out there, but God has not lost track of all the billions of people in it.  We can be confident that His plan for humanity will not be thwarted by our limitations, so rest in His sovereignty. 

Be faithful with what God has called you to do, and let Him worry about the rest.  The standard of judgment is faithfulness in what we’ve been given to do, not your own grand design.

Razzle-Dazzle Not Needed

I like to cook.  Some of my cooking is pretty good.  The secret?  Buy quality food products to begin with. 

When I’m buying steak I usually choose Rib Eye or New York Strip.  When buying vegetables, I choose fresh produce.  By using a better cut of meat I can skip all the crazy seasonings or drenching marinades.  When I throw a marbled steak on the grill, all I have to use is salt and pepper  for seasoning because that’s all I need – and the steaks come out perfect.  When I’m cooking fresh vegetables, I’m careful not to overcook them (or cook the color out) and the only seasoning I use is extra virgin olive oil, and, – you guessed it – salt and pepper.

There’s no need to overpower the food with secret sauces, heavy spices, or multiple seasonings if you start with a quality product up front.  Sure, heavy seasoning is needed for foods like "Potted Meat" or "Deviled Ham" or "Vienna Sausage" because that stuff so nasty and unhealthy that it's the only way you can get it down.  But with quality food, simple is better - you never want to mask the flavor of the original food item.

Simple.  Quality.  They go together.

In church work, it’s the same.  You don’t have to dress it up with a bunch of razzle-dazzle.  A worship service with good music and a good message doesn’t need any hype added to it – like putting a bed on the roof of the building for 24 hours and calling the new sermon series SEXperiment or SucSEXful Marriage.  That’s immature and silly.

When you do a good job on the basics – like God-honoring worship, strong meat from God’s Word, fellowship with the saints, and communion at Lord’s Table – flash is not needed.  Solid food makes disciples while dazzle entertains spectators.

Five Reason Church Calendars Get Out of Control and What To Do About It

When churches gets too busy it really does become like a hamster wheel, where everyone needs to pitch in to keep the wheel turning.  There are programs that need to be staffed, departments to be funded, teaching times to coordinate, building-usage schedules, activities to attend, and meetings to conduct.  Some churches have something going on virtually every day of the week and most week nights.

At some point it becomes exhausting and people accept activity in the place of relationship because it seems to be expected of them.

So why do churches fill up the schedule and work people to the point of exhaustion?  We add programs, activities, and ministries because we think we must.  Consequently, we fall into the trap of busyness.

Here are five reasons why churches fall into this trap:

1.  The expectations of people coming from other churches.  People from other churches have certain expectations of what it means to “do church.”  They evaluate a new church based on whether or not it offers their favorite ministry.  If enough people express this expectation, then the leadership feels the pressure to provide that ministry.

2.  The program fad.  Church strategists tell us that this or that program will draw in un-churched people and promote growth.  The experts sometimes promote a program that is intended to attract a different demographic than currently attends.  Remember the fad of adding a “contemporary” worship service to attract younger people?

3.  The desire to be spiritual.  If I am doing church work, then it means I’m a spiritual person, right?  We can fool ourselves into believing that we are important and indispensable to God by working ourselves to death by trying to accomplish in the flesh what God can simply speak into existence.

4.  The need to be needed.  We can fall into the trap of needing to be needed which results in us being available 24/7 to do anything that needs to be done, regardless of gifting or calling.

5.  Lack of a clear vision to God’s calling.  Without a clear vision of what God is calling me to do, I am subject to being pulled in many directions, and so is our church.  Many of these directions are places that God never intended me (or PCC) to go.

Let’s face the fact that it is easy to be drawn into a trap of busyness.  Expectations, traditions, and a false sense of importance each have a strong pull.  It does not require any real thought to do what is “expected” of you because you don’t have to resist – you just comply.  I can easily do “church activities” because “that’s how it is done.”  And this same thoughtlessness can happen in a group like a local church.

Strong leaders need to resist these pulls to busyness.  We need to ask the question of “why” we are doing these things.  We need to seek God to determine if He thinks these things are really necessary.

How to Fix It and Make Disciples...

Jesus told us the mission of the church is to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19-20).  The apostle Paul repeatedly promoted the idea of imitation by following the example of another as the means of raising up disciples (see I Thess. 1:6, 2:14; 2 Thess. 3:7-9; I Cor. 4:16; I Cor. 11:1; Eph. 5:1; Phil. 3:17). This imitation implies repeated contact in a discipling relationship. We are called to be in fellowship and body life so that this imitation can take place.

So if people in the church are experiencing burn-out; if some leave the church because they did not feel connected; if it is becoming increasingly hard to staff and fund church ministries, then it means we have a bad case of busyness caused by replacing relationships with activity.

The fix for busyness (and to begin making disciples thorough mentoring relationships) is to step off the hamster wheel and begin asking ourselves why we have each activity and asking God to show the real result.

We also need to have the discipline (courage) to drop any activities that are not producing healthy disciples.  We need to do a gut check and be honest how relational our church is and whether or not we are laying a foundation of love and fellowship on which discipleship is based.

We must be people oriented and not program oriented. 

Why Do We Make Church so Complicated?

It is enough for a disciple to be like his teacher, and a servant like his master  (Matthew 10:25a KJV)

When I first became a believer I was very excited about my new-found faith.  Since I attended a large church which offered a full menu of programs and activities, and not knowing how to grow spiritually, I enthusiastically signed up for everything the church had to offer.  I was literally at the church six days a week.  It was perfect for me since I was single – I had nothing else to do.   After I got married and started a family, I kept up the pace.  And this was also how I learned to do ministry – by replicating what I had been exposed to.

Over the years, however, I came to realize that such a ministry model has a serious downside:  (1) Keeping people too busy with church-realted activities is actually detrimental to family life and puts a strain on marriage.  (2) Secondly, you don’t need to be at the church all the time in order to grow spiritually.  (3) It usually the same handful of workers who are burdend with running the program activies.  (4)  It is usually the same handful of peopel who participate in the programs, and before the current one ends are asking "what's next?  It's very hard to keep these widow shoppers happy for very long.  (5) And as a minister, I have also come to understand the futility of keeping myself that busy by launching and maintaining new programs all the time. 

As I have mentioned before I am a devotee of the simple church concept (see here).  I don’t think churches should be complicated, over-programmed, or keep people too busy.  But it is a daunting task to actually convince people of the benefits of keeping a church simple.

Churches typically have such a full menu of programs and activities that would make the average cruise ship activities director envious.  There are men’s groups, women’s groups, singles groups, college groups, newly married groups,  coffee shops, concerts, parents ministry, senior citizens ministry, counseling ministry, recovery ministry, midweek services, Sunday night services, classes, field trips, small groups, softball teams, outreach events, and the list goes on.

The question for me is:  do we even know why we are doing them?  Do they serve a real purpose – say, towards making disciples – or are we doing them because someone somewhere decided that’s how church is supposed to be done?

I know the expectations of church shoppers are quite high and the competition is stiff.  If the church down the street has a gymnasium, we’d better think about a building program to keep up.  We don’t want to lose families who have athletic kids.  The pressure is incredible – we have to keep doing more, producing more, and constantly thinking up fresh ideas to retain our visitors or they might not return.

My point is that many of the expectations people have (of churches) are not even based on the Bible.  Church leaders, in response to these expectations, get on a treadmill of busyness in an attempt to meet the perceived needs of people.  Combined, it becomes an endless cycle of unbiblical duties.

The goal of the church is to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19) – nothing else.  There is no Plan B.  And for those who are successfully discipled…. “it is enough” for them to simply be like Jesus (see Matthew 10:25a above).  They are perfectly content to be like their Lord.  They don’t need a full list of activities on the church menu, smoke bombs, light shows, cutting edge technology, or a church baseball team to keep them in church.  The pursuit of Jesus is enough for them.

Maybe the church should emphasize “being like Christ” – since “it is enough” – instead spending inordinate amounts of creative energy trying to think of a hot new program to launch or spending gobs of money to prop up that program.  We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  It’s already been decided for us exactly what we are supposed to be doing – make disciples.  All that is needed to make disciples is (1) The Spirit of God, (2) The Word of God, and (3) The People of God.  The book of Acts is the explosive example of what happens when all three work in combination.

I’m convinced that most church activities fail at the higher mission of making disciples.  Sure it keeps people busy, active, and connected for a while, but it doesn’t translate into actually making disciples.  A hamster on a wheel is active, but he’s not going anywhere.  Salmon swimming upstream to spawn are making progress.  The difference is glaring.

I’ve observed that churches talk about fellowship, yet, too often people are so busy getting their kids checked-in and themselves off to their ministry stations that very little fellowship takes place.  And church staff are so busy plugging ministry holes left by vacationing volunteers that it’s difficult to say much more than a hello.

Can we slow down?  Can we slow down long enough to actually say hello to someone this Sunday morning and have a meaningful conversation with them?  Can we take the time to notice the person who is barely holding it together?  Can we create an environment where it’s okay to not be okay?

Maybe we should do less church stuff so that we are free to pursue Christ.  After all, "it is enough" for the person who truly longs for Him.

The Tyranny of Always Striving for the Next Level

PCC got off to a good start on our very first Sunday in 1998.  After that, it took a couple of years to really start growing.  Before long we were breaking attendance barriers, seeing people come to Christ, baptizing scores of new believers, and discipling them.  At one point we were consistently running 500 hundred in attendance, which made us larger than 95% of the churches in America.  We actually had a peak attendance of 1,200 one Easter Sunday a few years ago.  In a town of 20,000.

And it never felt like enough for me.

Why?  Because there was always another growth barrier to break through.  Or a new ministry we needed to start.  Or a new semester of groups we needed to launch.  Or another staff member to add.  Or another outreach event to conduct.  Or another special service to conduct.  Add infitim.

No matter how much we accomplished, it was never enough.  This thing of “finally getting there” was too elusive.  I particularly remember when we crossed the 200-threshold – it didn’t feel anything like I thought it would.  It was dry and disappointing for me.  I quickly realized that it meant more people to take care of, more to do, and not enough resources to cover the bases.  So I pushed myself to break the next threshold thinking it would be better when we got there.  It wasn’t.

When you go to another level you have to face another set of devils.  You still have all the same issues to contend with, but now there are more zeros behind the number.

There’s nothing wrong with growth.  In fact, NT churches should grow.  But they should also grow in a healthy manner.  For me, focusing too much on the next level was harmful.

Next-level thinking kept me from appreciating where we were because I was constantly focusing on what was next.  Trying to get to the 700-800 level kept me from rejoicing over the 450-500 people God had already sent us.  Even the church bulletin or Sunday announcements was always about what’s next and what’s coming, rather than taking time to celebrate where we were - as if we had to give the impression that "things are always happnin at PCC." 

Even worse, next-level thinking kept me from focusing on my own health – both spiritually and physically.  My soul dried up more times than it should have.  I almost burned out.  There was some church conflict that messed me up for a while too.  And throwing in the added dynamic of personal and family challenges that are common to us all, it was almost too much to bear.  I was lost in the middle of too much clutter.

So I embarked on a journey of fixing things by first fixing myself.  Somehow I found my bearings again and started to get healthy.  I reconnected with God and myself.  But I quickly found out that not everyone in our church was on-board with me to simplify.  After all, I had been leading this way for years and now I was trying to un-ring the bell.

The good news is that we’ve been able to neutralize this tyrannical striving for the next level.  I taught, led, pleaded, fought, argued, and hammered it out until people began to see the wisdom of slowing down.  Yes, it has resulted in the departure of a few people who have found other places to attend.  But for PCC it has been a good thing.  Our church is at a manageable size right now – we are “right sized” – in proportion to our facilities, resources, staff, and ability to shepherd our congregation.

And we are much healthier.

God is not against church growth.  Neither am I.  In fact, I look forward to the day when we regain that kind of momentum again.  But if or when that happens, we grow to the next level by the breath of God.  It will occur naturally as a sovereign move of God's Spirit and it will not be forced by me or anyone else.

In the meantime, we will simply make disciples, shepherd our flock, and worship God.

Ten Reasons to Not Over-program Your Church

I’m a devotee of the simple church concept.  I’ve written about this more than twenty-five times (see the left sidebar “Keep it Simple” and “Organic” and “Burnout” for additional reading).  But I have come to realize how daunting a task it can be to actually convince people of the benefits of keeping a church simple.

For instance, we are inundated with opportunities from outside organizations to participate in their activities (which we are afraid to turn down lest we appear uncooperative or standoffish).  We hear about other churches with sizzling programs and feel the need to incorporate them into our own church.  Or someone steps forward with a new idea and we are reluctant to say no lest we hurt their feelings.  A newcomer visits our church and immediately wants to see the program menu, and if they leave because of a “lack of activities”, we are left feeling like we have done something wrong.  Worst of all is the bloated church calendar.

Here are 10 reasons to not over-program a church:

1.  Over-programming often results in doing a lot of things in mediocrity rather than doing a few things extremely well.

2.  Over-programming creates an illusion of having a fruitful ministry when it may just be busyness.

3.  Over-programming can hurt organic community.

4.  Over-programming keeps us at the church too much.  That’s why we don’t know our neighbors and fail to reach them.

5.  Over-programming dilutes ministry effectiveness because it overextends leaders, requires increased administration, more time from volunteers, and additional financial resources that are limited to begin with.

6.  Over-programming leads to segregation among ages, life stages, and affinities, which can even lead to division within a church body.

7.  Over-programming creates satisfaction in the “illusion” of success.  For instance, if a church looks like it is doing a lot of things, we tend to think it is doing great things for God, when it may really be doing nothing more than offering religious activities.

8.  Over-programming leaves no room for margin (time) in the lives of church members.  It’s a fast track to burnout for families.

9.  Over-programming gets a church further away from the New Testament mandate of simply making disciples.  Here’s a good test:  take a look at the typical over-programmed church and see how many of the activities actually resemble things seen in the New Testament or are actually making disciples.

10.  Over-programming is usually the result of not knowing how to do ministry any other way, and an unwillingness to change.

Call it What It Is and Keep the Language Simple

I remember seeing a job posting and it read this way:  “Remuneration commensurate with experience.”  I thought; why not simply say “pay based upon experience.”  That would have been too easy.  People like to say things that sound profound, professional, or creative, even if they don’t make much sense to the reader.

When we were making signage for our children’s ministry, I resisted the idea of using cute, but obscure names.  The problem is that nobody knows what “Wamba-Land” is, or “Megaville” or “Jam City” or “Power House.”  We just call ours PCC Kids because everybody knows what that means, even a first time guest.

You can call your website an “interactive web experience”, but most people are still going to call it a website.  You can call an oil change something creative like an “engine performance maintenance”, but the rest of us will still call it an oil change.

You can call it “soteriology” but almost nobody knows what that means because it doesn’t appear in English translations of the Bible.  Instead, just say “salvation” or “study of the doctrine of salvation.” People get that.  I don’t use the word “eschatology” either because it’s unfamiliar to most.  The term “end time events” is what people understand.

The point here is that simple or familiar is usually better.  You can spend time agonizing over cute phrases, neat sounding words, or complex sentences with lengthy schemes of logic, but if you’d just call it what it is more people will understand and be drawn in.

That’s why I’m in favor calling Sunday worship “church services” because that’s a term that most people know.  When we call them “gatherings” or “experiences” or “holy convocations” on the front end, we have to take time to explain what that means and it costs us clarity.

Do we want to impress people or influence them?

Keep It Simple

Keep it simple.  All of it.

1.  Don’t overdue the signage.  Make it big.  Make it clear.  Make it matter.

2.  Don’t announce or promote everything going on at church.  When everything has the same perceived importance, then nothing is more important than anything else.  Fewer is better. 

3.  Provide a bulletin or program for the Sunday service, not a newsletter or multi-piece magazine filled with multiple inserts.

4.  Meet people where they are – not where you wish they were.  Especially newcomers.  Right now they're just asking where the restrooms are.  Help them with that.

5.  Simply serve, and serve with simplicity, practicing the golden rule.  It’s what Jesus taught.  It should be sufficient for us too.



Planned Abandonment

Programs that are terminally ill need to be put out of their misery. Any ministry that has lost its effectiveness needs to eliminated.  This is called PLANNED ABANDONMENT.

Eliminating dead programs has the same positive effect on our future as tilling the soil has for next years crop. It makes the future possible. It sets the stage so that new seeds can grow without the old roots choking them out. Without this commitment and willingness to cease funding and staffing the programs that no longer work well, we will never have enough money and energy to create the future.

The difficulty with axing certain programs is that every program has its champions. Even after rigor mortis has set in, someone will champion the cause. Usually these champions are leaders who invested time and energy into making the program successful in the first place, or a tiny remnant who believe that if it “helps just one person” it’s worth it whatever it costs.

But a senior leadership team cannot allow these people to sway how resources and time are allocated. If we give-in to everyone who pleads for heroic measures to save their favorite ministry, it won’t be long until we’ve become a historical preservation society, so loaded with ‘yesterday’ that we have no energy or resources left for ‘today’ or ‘tomorrow.’

We have only a limited supply of time, energy, workers, and money. That’s why I will ask the question, “Why are we doing this?” If there is no good reason, we will abandon it. I will say, “Show me the results.” If there is not enough measurable data to demonstrate its effectiveness, we will discontinue the activity in favor of a newer initiative.

We need to understand the importance of planned abandonment. We must deliberately ask ourselves, “What ministries or initiatives in PCC are no longer effective?” And once identified, we must let them go. Most people will see it as heartless, but it’s not. It’s about making room for the future.

My Thing, Your Thing, & Our Thing

My Thing

Every pastor or church leader has something that he/she likes more than anything else.  It is what we might call “My Thing.”  This is my personal interest or passion.  This is what I LIKE.  This is what I ENJOY.  For some leaders “my thing” might be fishing, or it might be hunting, or camping, or motorcycle riding, or football.  Or it might be some type of cause such as collecting clothes for the homeless.

Our Thing

Then there is “Our Thing” which is defined as WHAT WE DO TOGETHER as a church.  It’s our overall mission.  For us, “our thing” is PACE COMMUNITY CHURCH. Specifically, it’s teaching, leading, worshipping, loving, serving, and helping people as best we can by the grace of God.  That is “our thing.”  That’s what we do TOGETHER.

So as a leader I need to be very careful that I am not recruiting the people in our church to some agenda that is “my thing.”  Instead I should always be recruiting people to “our thing.” 

I’ve seen it a thousand times before.  The pastor loves to hunt so all of a sudden “hunting” becomes a big ministry in the church.  Or maybe the pastor is a Republican and all of a sudden a Republican agenda gets a foothold in the church.  Or the pastor takes up karate and the next thing you know he needs floor space in the church building for a karate ministry.  As good as those things are, they are NOT “our thing.”  The pastor should simply say, “That’s my thing and I’ll do it on my own time and I will spend my own money on it because it is my interest, my hobby, and my agenda.”  Just because the leader likes it, doesn’t mean that everyone else should be recruited to it, and neither should church money or resources be used on it.

Your Thing

Then there is “Your Thing.”  This is what YOU LIKE.  As a Christian there are some things that you are highly motivated about, excited about, and passionate about.  It might be home schooling, end times prophecy, the gifts of the Spirit, a certain doctrine, helping orphans in Kyrgyzstan, stacking brick in El Salvador, community activism, or some other thing.  You like doing it because it’s “your thing.”

The problem is when some people in the church want to take “their thing” and make it “my thing” or “our thing.”  They want to make sure that everyone sees it they way the see it, likes it as much as they do, and will support it as much as they support it.  Why?  Because it’s “their thing.”  It’s what YOU like, although the rest of us are not as passionate about it.

You should never pressure a church leader to make “your thing” to be “his thing” or the “church’s thing.”  This happens all the time.  “Hey Pastor Ron, I’ve got this great initiative that I would like for PCC to support.  I want to make an announcement in the Sunday service.  I want to let everyone know how important this issue is.  I want to recruit volunteers.  I need to raise some money.  I need PCC to write a check to X-Y-Z organization.  It’s such a great cause.”  Or “Hey Pastor Ron, I’m starting this new business and I would really love to get the word out.  I’m really excited about what I’m doing.”  Or, “Hey, we’re having this charity fund-raiser and I’d like to get PCC involved” and the list goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on!  There is never an end to it all.

As a leader it feels like somebody is always hawking something, selling something, trying to get me to join something, or sell something for them.  So I have learned how to handle it by simply saying this: 

That’s ‘your thing.’  It’s not ‘my thing.’  And I’m not going to give you permission to make it ‘our thing.’  You can’t recruit volunteers away from PCC.  You can’t dominate our mission.  You can’t ask for money.  If you want to, put your own time into it.  Put your own money there.  Bring your friends along and ask them to join.   BUT… don’t try to make ‘your thing’ to be ‘our thing’ because I can’t allow it to happen.”

I can give you dozens of examples in which I have been approached in this manner.  For instance, I was asked by the Supervisor of Elections if they could use PCCs building as Polling Station for political elections and be allowed to set up voting booths in the atrium.  Once I was asked by a group of members in our church if we could have a Girl Scout Promotion ceremony as a Sunday morning service!   I have been asked by members to let Boy Scouts have award ceremonies and little league baseball teams to have trophy ceremonines in PCCs building.  One man in our church, an insurance salesman, wanted me to promote his business in the bulletin and even had the audacity to ask me for a mailing list!  One lady wanted to start a “dancing ministry” in our church.  Another asked to use our building to host conferences for outside organizations.  Southern Gospel enthusiasts ask me to host concerts in PCCs building.  One lady tried to get me to join her efforts to drive the School Superintendent out of office.  The list goes on and one.  In the last six months, I have been approached at least once a month by such requests from members in our church.  Even as recently as last Sunday, yes, yesterday, I was approached again.  It never stops. 

Unless I am brutally frank and emphatically say “NO” to these requests, what people hear me say is “yes.”  Unless I use a response that sometimes feels like rudeness, (and yes, I believe there is a redeemed version of rudeness), what people hear is, “the pastor approves and he has just said that ‘my thing is going to become ‘the church’s thing.’”  The next thing you know, people all across the church are demanding floor space in the building, air time in the Sunday morning announcements, write ups in the bulletin, a seat at the leadership table, a line in the budget, and a page on the web site.

But the truth is this:  if they are not excited about our thing then they are simply using us to do their thing.  

We can't do everything.  We are NOT going to do my thing.  We are NOT going to do your thing.  Together we are going to do “our thing” – and our thing is Pace Community Church.  Our church has had its fair share of “single issue” voters and the only way I have been able to keep us on track is by sticking to "our thing."

Are Churches Becoming too "Event Driven?"

You know the drill.  There’s something happening every night of the week.  Or there is a big pageant, cantata, banquet, special play, meetings, activities, membership drives, potlucks, special concerts, add infitim.  It all adds up to a bloated church calendar and burned out people.

Generally speaking, churches are event-driven or program-driven.  We plan an event, get people to sign up, and ask them to show up at a specific time.  Then, when they don’t show up to our event, we assume they are either unspiritual or uncommitted.  And those who do show up are often dead tired. 

Let’s be honest here.  Most people are already very busy with good things going on in their lives, such as work and family responsibilities.  Consequently they have a limited about of time they can donate towards church related activities.  As a rule of thumb, most people will participate in only one or two time slots a week.  This doesn’t mean they are unspiritual, don’t love Jesus, or don’t love the church.  It just means they are living their lives investing in their families, going to work, and contributing to society.

Why do churches become event driven?

·        We don’t know how to do ministry any other way

·        Events are easy to measure

·        We do events because we are afraid to say no

Yes, a certain number of programs and events are necessary in church ministry.  My only point is that there are usually too many of them and people get so busy propping up the program that they miss out on the relational aspect of Christianity. 

The Greek word for fellowship is Koinonia which means communion, and is used in the New Testament to describe Christian relationships in the early church.  This is the missing ingredient in event-driven churches today.  That is why we have narrowed our focus of ministry events at PCC to a few things only.  Beyond that, we want to be more “organic” and relational - just like we always have been.

I’m pondering a phrase - Organic Community - and I want this become part of PCC’s vocabulary and ministry philosophy.  You'll be hearing more about it soon.

Let Dying Programs Die

Programs that are terminally ill need to be put out of their misery. Any ministry that has lost its effectiveness needs to removed.

Eliminating dead programs has the same positive effect on our future as tilling the soil has for next years crop. It makes the future possible. It sets the stage so that new seeds can grow without the old roots choking them out. Without this commitment and willingness to cease funding and staffing the programs that no longer work well, we will never have enough money and energy to create the future.

The difficulty with axing certain programs is that every program has its champions. Even after rigor mortis has set in, someone will champion the cause. Usually these champions are leaders who invested time and energy into making the program successful in the first place, or a tiny remnant who believe that if it “helps just one person” it’s worth it whatever it costs.

But a senior leadership team cannot allow these people to sway how resources are allocated. If we give in to everyone who pleads for heroic measures to save their favorite ministry, it won’t be long until we’ve become a historical preservation society, so loaded with ‘yesterday’ that we have no energy or resources left for ‘today’ or ‘tomorrow.’

We have only a limited supply of time, energy, workers, and money. That’s why I will ask the question, “Why are we doing this?” If there is no good reason, we will abandon it. I will say, “Show me the results.” If there is not enough measurable data to demonstrate its effectiveness, we will discontinue the activity in favor of a newer initiative.

We need to understand the importance of PLANNED ABANDONEMENT. We must deliberately ask ourselves, “What ministries or initiatives in PCC are no longer effective?” And once identified, we must let them go. Most people will see it as heartless, but it’s not. It’s about making room for the future.

An Honest Evaluation....

One of the reasons new churches are so effective in reaching people for Christ is because they are typically very lean. The leadership structure is simple. The ministry strategy is very focused. The mission is clear. Unencumbered, ministry leaders are free to be creative and launch initiatives.

But as a church ages the ministry strategy gets more complex. New programs and events get layered on, one after another, without ever removing ineffective programs. The agenda gets bloated. Church growth eventually slows down or plateaus altogether as the complexity increases. The typical response is to add even more structures or systems to fix the problem. Big mistake. This is the very time when programs must be slashed and the whole church needs to get back to basics. The solution is found in doing less, not more.

PCC, like other churches, has gradually drifted towards a complex matrix of varied ministries. These ministries, each with its own champion for the cause, are competing internally for resources, attention, support, and use of the building. We want to avoid the turf battles, volunteer raids, and budget wars that usually follow this kind of scenario. To that end, we are going to be taking steps to fix things:

1. We will not become a federation of sub ministries. Pace Community Church is one unified body – not a federation of sub ministries. We have one mission and one purpose statement. Our staff and volunteers do not belong to a particular ministry; they belong to PCC and serve our church “through” that ministry. Each ministry does not need it’s own website – our main website should have all the content. Each ministry does not need its own advertising budget – our church’s outreach budget covers that effort for everyone. We are not building a house of separate brands; we are one brand.

2. Staff members and ministry leaders must have a CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE about the ROLE of their ministry. People sometimes get tunnel vision. They operate their ministry in a certain corner of the church and lose sight of the bigger picture. The only vision they have is for their own ministry and its needs, and don’t fully embrace the vision of the church. If not corrected, some people will actually begin to think that their ministry is autonomous (independent of the church) and that the only role of the church is to make them and their ministry successful. That is a wrong perspective. Actually, it’s the other way around. Each ministry exists by permission of PCC and the role of these ministries is to serve mission of Pace Community Church.

Instead of asking “What’s best for my ministry?” staff members and ministry leaders should start asking, “What is best for the church?” In other words, sometimes changes need to be made in certain areas (i.e, small groups, teens, children, seminars, hospitality, building usage, etc,), and when those changes are made the guiding principle is NOT what kind of impact will it have upon that specific ministry, but rather what kind of impact it will have upon the church as a whole. If we scale something back or if we increase our efforts in a certain area, it’s for the benefit of the whole. It’s not about you - it’s about the church. It’s not personal - it’s about the bigger picture. Each ministry exists to serve Pace Community Church; not the other way around.

3. We are going to do less. Look. We can’t do everything. We can’t implement every idea. We can’t authorize every kind of ministry that everyone is passionate about. It’s just that simple. To do so diffuses energy and gets the church running off in too many directions at once. To combat this trend we will keep ourselves decidedly simple at PCC, limiting our ministries to about five areas only. Read more here and here. I have written about this before.

To ensure that the most important and productive ministries thrive, it is necessary for us to periodically cut competing systems or programs from the church docket. We just have to SAY NO to some ideas. Even though they would broaden our ministry they would also blunt our impact. For instance, from the beginning we decided not to have choirs, mid-week church services, Sunday night worship services, Easter cantatas, Christmas specials, and a host of other good but potentially competitive programs. There is nothing wrong with any of these programs or ministries. But for us, we can’t do everything that comes along.

4. A significant investment is going to be made in emerging and future leaders who understand these principles. My number one priority is to raise up leaders who get it. I’m looking for people who are loyal to the vision and mission of PCC (which, btw, is the Great Commission). I'm looking for people who understand that the big picture is more important than the little picture. Loyalty to PCC's vision is something we expect because our church can never grow if our leaders are not loyal to the vision of this church.

We will never allow our vision from God to get hijacked by anyone. If we permit people to do their own thing we will wake up one day and not even recognize the ministry that we have allowed to be created. I want PCC to grow and that can’t happen if everyone goes off on a tanget and does what they want to do. Everyone, including myself, must operate withing the boundaries of our mission, statements, and strategy.

It is the job of all ministry leaders at Pace Community Church to carry out the DNA of our church. The leaders that will take this church to the next level are those who know our vision, teach our vision, operate within our vision, and fulfill our vision. These will be the people who are appointed and delpoyed. These are the people who we will deeply invest in.