by Gary Shockley
Recently, I conducted assessment interviews for two potential church planters. Our interview team asked the candidates some very tough and challenging questions. We take this work very seriously because we believe the church will rise or fall on issues of leadership. Because of that we are looking for the most extraordinary leaders to plant our newest communities of faith. And why shouldn’t we?
It boggles the mind to think how many of our churches receive NO new members on profession of faith, are stagnant in worship attendance, and function mainly from a “serve-us” versus “service” posture in the community. It’s alarming how many of the churches we consider to be “healthy” and “models” of effectiveness in our annual conferences have not grown in worship attendance or financial stewardship in the past several years. While many of these churches show growth in new members they also report an overall decline in active participation. Excuses abound! “Every church our size is experiencing the same.” “We’re more interested in quality than in quantity.” “Our culture’s consumer mind-set is to blame.” And the list goes on. It seems we’ve gotten more comfortable formulating our excuses than addressing the real issues. The plain truth of the matter is–if we are not growing we are dying! Ministry from a place of mediocrity is killing us!
We know that mainline denominations, like the UM Church, have been on the decline for a long, long time. NPR (National Public Radio) announced a study this week that report mainline denominations continue their downward spiral. Catholic Churches are holding ground mainly because of the growth of the Hispanic/Latino community. Interesting enough the only “mainline” church that seems to be growing is the Universalist Unitarian Church.
There are three keys to turning this around: leadership, leadership, leadership!
In his best-selling book, “The E Myth Revisited” author Michael E. Gerber points out why most small businesses never make it past infancy. As I read his book I substituted the word “church” for “small business” and found the wisdom and practical experience Gerber offers incredibly helpful. In short, churches (just like businesses) succeed and fail on leadership. Back in 1995, when E-Myth was first released, Gerber sites that over a million people in this country started a business of some sort and by the end of the first year at least 40% of them were out of business. Within five years, more than 80% of them failed.
Between 1870 and 1920 we were planting one new church every single day. Since then we’ve done well to plant one new church every 8 days. Studies have shown that when we were planting new churches by the “parachute-drop” model (plunk a planter down into a community with limited resources to grow a church) about 80% of them failed within the first three years and another 10 % didn’t make it to year five. Fortunately we’re moving away from that as a primary model for church development. Add to this failure rate the sad fact that, on average, we continue to lose the equivalent of a large membership church every week in the United States.
What Gerber discovered in his research is that the most important key to small business success (church growth for us) is leadership AND the ability of the leader to CHANGE and GROW. He writes, “any limitation (leaders) place on growth is unnatural, shaped not by market or by lack of capital (even though that may play a part) but by the (leader’s) own personal limitations.” (p.61,62) He goes on “(success) requires attention at the outset of the business, entrepreneurial intention, as well as a willingness—no, a true passion—for the personal transformation such a process will call for: accessing new skills, new understanding, new knowledge, new emotional depth, new wisdom…a business is reduced to the level of its owner’s personal resistance to change, to its owner’s comfort zone.” (p. 63) And then he adds, “the job of the owner is to prepare himself and his business for growth.” (p.64)
One of the things we look for in high-potential church planter’s is an insatiable desire to grow, improve, change AND the awareness that one of his/her fundamental leadership tasks is to find and invest in other leaders in the church who understand and desire these things to.
Churches that are stagnant or complacent are often led by people (clergy and lay) who have “settled” into their comfort zones, no longer work at “sharpening their saws”, and are simply content with the way things are. Guaranteed appointments tend to promote such mediocrity. What successful corporation or business would tolerate it? When leaders become mediocre is it any wonder their churches tend to become like that too?
The challenge of each one of us in leadership—from the pulpit or the pew–is to wage war against the terminal mediocrity that is killing the church. I think we are making gains in this regard in our planting of new churches. The Path 1 Initiative is certainly a huge step in the right direction for us. But we can’t plant enough new churches to offset the ones that are playing it safe and dying a slow death.
I recommend reading “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael E. Gerber (1995 Harper Business). Put yourself, and your church, in the text and see if you aren’t challenged to lead differently.
My leadership prayer of late has been, “Lord, comfort me in my afflictions—but more importantly afflict me in my comfortableness. Kill off the mediocrity in me–in MY church!” Amen.
