THRIVING CHURCHES | PART 1 | CHALLENGE
Some time ago, I sat talking with a friend of
mine from interstate. She was telling me the difficult story of how she and her
husband, along with another half a dozen or so enthusiastic and thoughtful
friends had found themselves attending an middle-aged, traditional congregation
of about eighty folk on the edge of suburbia. It had been years since there had
been growth or fruitful engagement with the neighbourhood. Now, new homes were
being built and young families were moving in. Some were already joining in the
life of the church.
My friend and her colleagues had been
elected to be the leadership group of the church and had with passion and
creativity began to explore ways of growing into the surrounding community.
They had begun to experiment with small-groups, alpha courses, parenting
programmes – thinking the church was with them. “We really thought we could
see God doing things, “ she said, “ but the more we changed things, the
more we began to build bridges, the greater the resistance grew. The inner core
did not want to grow inclusive; they preferred to stay small, to be cared for
in the way they were used to. In the end all of us were voted out and ‘safe’
people elected. The upshot is that we, most of the new people, and all those
with energy and resources have left. They are back to fifty, ‘sound’ and
happy!”
My friend no longer attends a local
church – “I just do church with my non-Christian friends, sharing my story
and life with them, and I’ve never felt so good being a ‘missionary’ in my own
backyard!”
As I listened to her confusion and
frustration, I recalled a conversation with a leadership team in another
church. This was a congregation that had experienced quite dramatic growth in a
short time as its neighbourhood was redeveloped, and the population increased.
With over 200 folks, the old, conventional, hierarchical ‘wineskins’ weren’t
quite stretching to fit the new wine.
They had asked for help to facilitate
‘Vision’ retreat. We had spent a significant amount of time talking about the
changes to the world around us, the mission of the church, and then
brainstorming all sorts of ways they might experiment. All sorts of wonderful
ideas came forward, particularly from the younger adults involved in the
innovative family ministries. I will never forget the chairman of the Board,
towards the end of the time, folding his hands and saying: “ Well, they are
all interesting ideas, but they will never happen here ... because we would
have to change or close down programmes – and besides, these ideas would mean
we the Board would lose our authority.”
The result was formal approval, but
bureaucratic constraints and an undercurrent of continual, quiet resistance. After
four or five years, the innovators moved on, the programmes diminished and the status
quo returned.
There is a
distinct DNA in the traditional mainstream Church that most of us
have been grown in. It biases us towards programmes and structures that have
been part of our past Christian experience. This means that lasting congregational transformation is very difficult! That is not to say that God’s grace is not evident in our
midst, but rather that ‘new wineskins’ will be hard to adopt permanently
for many Christians.
You see it most frequently with
experimental projects or new church
plants – many of which genuinely connect with their surrounding
community and context – they intuitively encourage their pioneering members
live as ‘missionaries’ who are part of a team. They read their culture and
responding as missionaries building relationships and serving ‘out there’ in
their neighbourhood. Their staff-worker is not seen as their ‘pastor’ but their
pioneering team-leader. Worship is often rough-and-ready, but everyone
participates and shares of the wonders of God. There is no greeting-team,
because everyone greets and everyone invites new friends to their home for a
meal and a chat. Non-Christians often roll their sleeves up and begin serving
(and witnessing!) before they even come to faith. Most of the activities,
playgroups, mums-groups, and youth activities happen ‘out there’ in homes,
school-sheds and council buildings.
But their success becomes their
downfall. More and more Christians from established churches hear good reports
and begin to attend. These new attendees unintentionally engulf the ‘communal
spirit’ they have instinctively sensed and their imported institutional DNA
becomes the virus that destroys the fragile new experiment. Seats get put in
rows; ‘real’ bands form around trained leaders; hierarchical leadership
structures emerge, planting-leader morphs into the pastoral-chaplain and the
moment is lost.
The data shows that the most effective
evangelism and missional work happens in those very early, messy, outward
focused years! Once a more traditional, centralized, attractional paradigm
takes hold, you begin to see a dis-integration
between the “Church” (the program based
organization) and “The Members” (individuals
who attend the church and benefit from it).
There are a number of things we can do at the early stages to keep the
vision and the mission focus clear. The next few posts will tease out seven questions
that I have found helpful to ask in order to stay the course... 
