Church Growth

Church Strategic Planning Literature Review (Part 2)

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THE PROCESS-DRIVEN STRATEGY

A clear representative of the process-driven strategy for church health is Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church (PDC) model.1  Advocates of a process-driven strategy may or may not have a list of quality characteristics like NCD’s.  In the case of PDC, the five purposes of growing warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism2 may be seen as PDC’s list of quality characteristics.  In the PDC model, church growth is the natural result of church health.  The latter can only happen when the church’s message is biblical and its mission is balanced.  That is to say, the five New Testament purposes of the church must be in equilibrium with one another.4  It uses the picture of the baseball diamond as a visual to help members of a church see the process (and progress) of their spiritual growth.  Each base represents a level of development.  The objective of the process is to move people from membership to maturity to ministry and finally to missions.5  This may also be viewed through another diagrammatic visual called the “5 Circles of Commitment.”6  It shows the clear intention of the church to move people from “community” (the unchurched) to “crowd” (the attendees) to “congregation” (the members) to “committed” (the maturing members) and finally to become part of the “core” (the lay ministers).7  Warren writes, “Our ultimate goal at Saddleback is to turn an audience into an army.”8  Clearly they have a strategy to accomplish this, namely, the “Life Development Process.”  Saddleback’s success is well documented, having baptised their 50,000th person in its 38th year in 2018.9

A more generic presentation of the process-driven strategy to church health is found in Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger’s Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples.10 The authors define a simple church as “a congregation designed around a straight forward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth.”11  The definition is further expanded and includes four key elements.  In the Simple Church strategic process “The leadership and the church are clear about the process (clarity) and are committed to executing it.  The process flows logically (movement) and is implemented in each area of the church (alignment).  The church abandons everything that is not in the process (focus).”12

The genius of the Simple Church is its simplicity and the clarity with which the authors explain the needful strategic process to make disciples and hence, a healthy church.13  Much of the book is about the four elements.  “Clarity is the ability of the process to be communicated and understood by the people.”14  It is a given that when people have a clear understanding about what something is about, they will be more committed to it.  “Movement is the sequential steps in the process that cause people to move to greater areas of commitment.”15  For people to grow spiritually they need to move along in their journey of discipleship, and the church helps by providing them with a process to do so.  In other words, a process helps members of the church to progress.

“Alignment is the arrangement of all ministries and staff around the same simple process.”16  Rainer and Geiger maintain that churches naturally drift away from alignment.17  The result of misalignment in purpose, ethos and strategies is that everyone will be doing their own thing as they compete with each other for the same resources which leads to disunity and the church being pulled in different directions.  Alignment means that the ministry-departments must submit and attach themselves to the same overarching process.18  “Focus is the commitment to abandon everything that falls outside of the simply ministry process.”19  Focus is knowing what to say Yes to, that is those things that are in alignment to the goals of the church, and the courage to say No to those things that are not in alignment.

Many churches have a desire to make disciples as per the Great Commission, but very few have a process to do that.  The authors of the Simple Church make an important call for every church to have a process in place to make disciples.  An effective process will determine progress.

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by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

Church Strategic Planning Literature Review (Part 1)

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by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

INTRODUCTION

A discussion on church health cannot stop at the descriptive level of what a church should be and should do.  The discussion must include how the church is to strategically plan towards health and growth.  The health of a church may be described as the church’s condition when viewed against the New Testament teaching about the Church of Jesus Christ, including its effectiveness in fulfilling the Great Commission (Mt 28:19-20) and the Great Commandment (Mt 22:37-40).  The growth of a church refers to both its quantitative and qualitative growth which are observable and measurable.  Strategic planning in the context of a church may be defined as a systematic process of envisioning a desired future that is aligned with the Bible and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them.18

Apart from the obvious that a church’s vision must be aligned with the Bible, there are four other key elements in the above definition about strategic planning that we must note.  One, strategic planning begins with the church’s desired end or vision and works backward to its current status.  In other words, to quote Steven Covey’s third habit in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we “begin with the end in mind.”20  Two, strategic planning deals with the broader picture, the church’s vision, and is flexible about the methods to reach it.  Three, strategic planning calls for the development of an intentional plan to achieve the defined goals that lead to the realisation of the church’s vision.  And four, strategic planning requires a process.

The purpose of this paper is to review significant literature about church strategic planning that is focussed on the health of the church.  The literature is reviewed under the following categories that I have termed as: Characteristic-Development, Process-Driven and Congregational-Culture strategies.21  The teaching and practises of these approaches are not mutually exclusive of each other as they overlap at some points.  However, their respective emphasis is also evident.  These will be highlighted and discussed as I review the publications.

 

THE CHARACTERISTIC-DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

The study and practise of church health may be approached from a few angles.  One of them may be termed as the “Principle approach.”22  The principal proponents include Christian A. Schwarz and Stephen A. Macchia.23  They have a list of quality characteristics which they deem to be essential to the health of churches in general.  Schwarz’s Natural Church Development (NCD) eight quality characteristics are: empowering leadership, gift-oriented ministry, passionate spirituality, functional structures, inspiring worship service, holistic small groups, need-oriented evangelism, and loving relationships.24  Macchia’s ten characteristics are: God’s empowering presence, God-exalting worship, spiritual disciplines, learning and growing in community, a commitment to loving and caring relationships, servant-leadership development, an outward focus, wise administration and accountability, networking with the body of Christ, and stewardship and generosity.25  Their lists are not identical, but their approach to church health is similar.  They believe that a church must be strong, by maintaining high quality levels, in all the essential characteristics of a church.

A characteristic-development strategy typically begins with an analysis of the health of the church.  This is done with the use of a church health analysis tool that includes a questionnaire survey.  Schwarz’s NCD has a 91-question Natural Church Development Survey26 and Macchia’s Leadership Transformation Inc. has a 72-question Church Health Assessment Tool (CHAT)27 that churches are encouraged to use to evaluate their health.  The completed questionnaires are submitted to NCD or CHAT for a computer generated report that gives a snapshot of the church’s present health.  Included in the report are recommendations that the church leadership team may take to develop greater health for their church.

It appears that NCD is the only church health specialist that gives a definite strategy, beyond providing churches a tool to conduct a church health analysis.  Its strategy is based on one of NCD’s key tenets called “the minimum factor” which theorises that the growth of a church cannot rise beyond the level of its lowest quality characteristic.  Hence, the prime strategy is for the church to give the greatest attention to its lowest quality characteristic.28

What does a church actually do to improve on the quality of its health characteristics, and in particular for its lowest characteristic?  NCD is one of the few church health specialists that has a whole workbook produced for this purpose, the Implementation Guide to Natural Church Development.29  Included in the book is a section detailing “ten action steps” and another section on “how to improve your minimum factor” for each of the quality characteristics.

The strategic process, such as the one advocated by NCD, of analysing, reporting, recommending (solutions) and implementing (the steps), with a follow-up evaluation, is critical for all churches that desire to develop church health.  However, addressing the “minimum factor” may not necessarily be the primary issue that a church needs to focus on.  Sometimes the “minimum factor” is simply a symptom of a deeper issue or it may have at its source another primary issue that requires greater attention.

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Church Health Literature Review (Part 2)

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THE BIBLICAL APPROACH TO CHURCH HEALTH

The advocates of the biblical approach to church health primarily look at what the Bible says about the church—what the church is to be and to do.  One of the most significant contributions to church health literature in this vein is Mark Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church.30  He disagrees with the focus on pragmatism and numerical church growth of popular models of church.31  He also disagrees that appearances of relevance and outward responses are key indicators of being a successful church.32  Instead he opines, “We need churches in which the key indicator of success is not evident results but by persevering biblical faithfulness.”33

The first five of Dever’s nine marks of a healthy church concern the right preaching of the Word of God: (1) expositional preaching, (2) biblical theology, (3) the gospel, (4) biblical understanding of conversion, and (5) biblical understanding of evangelism.  The last four marks concern discipleship: (6) biblical understanding of church membership, (7) biblical understanding of church discipline, (8) Christian discipleship and growth, and (9) biblical understanding of church leadership.34  Dever admits that these are not the only marks of a healthy church and may not even be the most important.35  What’s critically important is that the teaching on these aspects of church health are derived from Scripture itself, hence the qualifying word “biblical” accompanying most of the marks.

Dever states that the first mark, expositional preaching is the most important, which in his mind is the only form of biblical preaching.36  By expositional preaching he means preaching a message from a passage of Scripture in its context.37  In other words, the text determines the point rather than the text being used to support a pre-conceived point.  A healthy church is one whose beliefs and practices are derived from the Bible, such as Dever’s nine marks themselves.

Most of Dever’s nine marks of a healthy church fall under the category of spiritual health.  They are also described primarily from a spiritual angle.  While the church is a spiritual entity, a comprehensive understanding and evaluation of the health of a church must, nonetheless, include its organisational health.  The latter comprise the structures, systems and processes by which a church uses to develop the marks of a healthy church.  A biblical-only approach to the study of church health does not appear to address the church’s organisational health.

John Stott’s The Living Church: Convictions of a Lifelong Pastor38 would fall into the category of a biblical approach to church health.  The purpose of Stott’s book is to set out the biblical and essential marks that characterise an authentic and living church.39  It is obvious that Stott does not mean to stipulate an exhaustive list of such characteristics.  From Acts 2:42-47 he determines that there are four essentials in the kind of church that God envisions: (1) a learning church, (2) a caring church, (3) a worshipping church, and (4) an evangelising church.40  In the remaining chapters of the book he discusses different aspects of church life.  Some are directly related to the four essentials mentioned above, others do not have any connection to the four essentials; such as ministry, giving and impacting our world for social change.

His concluding chapter on “Looking for Timothys” is not really a conclusion.  It could even be seen as another mark of a healthy church—the need to look out and raise up Timothys.  As with Nine Marks, The Living Church is necessary and helpful in the study of healthy churches because it presents the biblical teaching on what Stott deems to be the marks of a healthy church.  His gleanings from Scripture regarding these marks are insightful.

In a slight departure from an otherwise biblical-only approach to church health, Stott encourages surveys to be done of the community and the church to determine if a church has organised itself relevantly to the community, or is there a disconnect between them?41  Surveys or studies such as these are critical since the level of effective community outreach is an important component to determine the overall health of a church.

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by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

Church Growth Literature Review (Part 2)

Soon-Hock Lim 4 Comments

(Click here for Part 1)

DIVERSIFICATION OF CHURCH GROWTH TEACHING

In 1982 Wagner invited John Wimber to teach the course MC510: Signs, Wonders and Church Growth at Fuller’s School of World Mission.  As a result of Wimber’s influence Wagner’s views on the work of the Holy Spirit, like spiritual gifts, began to shift.  His shift moved even further in the following years through the influence of people like Cindy Jacobs and Chuck Pierce.  While Wagner was still focussed on church growth, he was, however, looking at other factors of church growth that were not under the classical Church Growth radar like spiritual gifts, prayer and spiritual warfare.  In the revised third edition of Understanding Church Growth (1990) (done with the consent of McGavran) Wagner added a whole new chapter on “Divine Healing and Church Growth”.36 

In Church Growth State of the Art (1986) there was a whole section consisting of four chapters on “Church Growth and the Holy Spirit”.42  One chapter was on the supernatural anointing of the Holy Spirit for ministry and another was on the importance of power encounter for church growth.  The latter chapter being a contribution by John Wimber. 

While Wagner’s shift did not in itself precipitate the diversification of church growth teaching, it however, left an open field for new ideas about church growth to be introduced43 by practitioners (pastors) demographers and church consultants.44  Gary McIntosh has drawn a helpful chart showing the various sub-branches of what he calls the “Popular Church Growth prong”: (1) Systems Research, (2) Survey Research, (3) Polling Research and (4) Anecdotal Research (Stories of Growing Churches).45

Many books published during this time were about principles and strategies for numerical church growth.  They were mostly written from the perspective of the church as an organisation (albeit a biblical, living, spiritual organism). 

The following is a  sampling of such publications. Carl F. George’s How to Break Growth Barriers (1993).46  The basic thesis of his book is that if a pastor is to lead his church to growth he needs to move from being a shepherd to that of a rancher.  In other words, instead of being the primary caregiver the pastor needs to develop others to care for the members of church and do the work of ministry.  Gary L. McIntosh’s One Size Doesn’t Fit All (1999).47  He says that the size of a church determines how it “does church” including how it is structured, the role of the pastor, how decisions are made, and the strategies it deploys to overcome obstacles and grow the church. 

From a more business approach George Barna wrote a highly controversial book called Marketing the Church .48  It was about using the marketing tools of the business world to reach out and to win a church’s target group.  McIntosh comments, “This marketing emphasis effectively turned many people away from the popular notion of church growth, and caused a reaction toward a new paradigm of church health in the mid 1990s.”49

Then there were the books that proposed models of what churches ought to be and do so that they may grow and fulfil the Great Commission mandate. Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church (1995)50 was one of the first books that provided a balanced approach (The 5-Purposes) to grow a church.  It detailed a process (The Life Development Process) depicted by the baseball diamond and a plan to move people from Community to Core.  It also incorporated the HUP (although he does not attribute to it) by describing Saddleback’s target group, aka Saddleback Sam and Samantha.  

From this small sampling of publications on church growth we can understand why Elmer Towns calls this stage of church growth the “Babel stage”.51  In addition to the classical Church Growth teaching was a new layer of popular church growth teaching.52 

 

CONCLUSION

As I draw the review of church growth literature to a conclusion, I return to the three questions I posed at the beginning of the article.  First, is church growth teaching to be defined by and limited to McGavran’s and Wagner’s views during the classical Church Growth period?  Advocates of CGM are adamant that church growth teaching must employ “as its initial frame of reference the foundational work done by Donald McGavran and his colleagues.”53  While I concur with this, I believe it would be limiting the usefulness of Church Growth teaching if it did not allow for additional structures to be built on that foundation.  A case in point would be Wagner’s “discoveries” in the healing-prayer-spiritual warfare factor of church growth.54  He was disappointed that McGavran and others did not see that it was very much a part of and concerned the Church Growth field and agenda.  Church health teaching falls in the same vein (I will pick up this thread again when I answer the third and final question).

The second question I posed was: what are the irreducible principles for church growth?  From the review of church growth literature, I believe they would be:

  1. Quantitative and Qualitative Growth.  Churches commissioned by Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20 must grow both numerically and in spiritual maturity.
  2. Research and Analysis.  Research must be done to learn (a) about the people the church is attempting to reach with the Gospel, (b) the best means to reach this specific group of people, and (c) the hindrances to the growth of the church, and
  3. Strategic Planning.  Determine the best strategies to be deployed based on the research and analysis to accomplish the purpose of the church with the use of planning and programming.55

However, to say that the above three principles of church growth are foundational does not mean that they are exhaustive.  Upon these foundational principles of church growth I believe there should be an openness to allow for other well-tested tenets of church growth to be added to them.  These would include the contributions of specific subjects such as church leadership, spiritual gifts and ministry strategies as they are applied in the church growth context. 

Finally, what influence did church growth teaching have on the later development of church health teaching?  Church health teaching came about as a response to church growth teaching, whether as a correction in relation to some of the misgivings of the latter or as a development of the latter.  The bottom line is that we cannot separate the two.  Church health is a necessary factor for church growth.  The growth of a church, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, is dependent on the health of the church.  I will look further into this as I review church health literature in a subsequent article.

by Lim Soon Hock, Empowering Churches

Church Growth Literature Review (Part 1)

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INTRODUCTION

Part of the interest in my research concerns the correlation between a church’s health and its growth, especially in view of the Great Commission (Mt 28:19-20).  This article is a review of literature on the subject of church growth.

The literature review shows two distinct phases in the development of church growth teaching.  The first phase was the classical Church Growth period56 led by its founder Donald A. McGavran and his successor C. Peter Wagner.  McGavran’s publication of The Bridges of God in 1955 birthed the Church Growth Movement (CGM).  The second phase began around 1988 when Wagner moved into other areas of interests.  While his new interests were still in relation to the subject of church growth, they were nonetheless perceived as detours from classical Church Growth teaching.57  When he retired from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2001 it left CGM leaderless and rudderless.  As a result, the teaching on church growth that was already evolving became even more diversified.  Thom S. Rainer’s The Book of Church Growth (1993) provides a very helpful overview of the history and diversification in church growth teaching.58  For a more detailed and personal account of these changes in church growth teaching one may read Wagner’s fascinating memoirs Wrestling with Alligators, Prophets, and Theologians (2010).

While this article is a review of church growth literature it does so with three questions in mind: First, is church growth teaching to be defined by and limited to McGavran’s and Wagner’s views during the classical Church Growth period?  Second, what are the irreducible principles of church growth?  Finally, what influence did church growth teaching have on the later development of church health teaching?

 

THE CLASSICAL CHURCH GROWTH TEACHING

Innumerable books on CGM teaching were published during the heyday of the movement from the 1970s to the mid-1990s.  The most important books to consider would be those by McGavran as the founder of the movement and Wagner who succeeded him as its leader and chief spokesman.

As previously mentioned the publication of The Bridges of God (1955) birthed the CGM, but it was McGavran’s Understanding Church Growth (1970) that spelt out his mature thinking on the theology, sociology and methodology of Church Growth.59  Wagner said, “Understanding Church Growth is one of those classics which has become the indispensable foundational text for an academic field.  No one can claim to be a serious student of church growth who has not read and absorbed the content of Understanding Church Growth.”60

The most persuasive point of McGavran’s book is that God wants lost people found.  The church cannot be content with just searching (Search Theology61) but to win the lost to Christ (Harvest Theology62).  Hence, evangelism is critically important and must have absolute priority over any other activity of the church.  In God’s schema it is His will for the church to grow numerically, for this would mean lost people are found.

In order to accomplish this evangelistic growth to the greatest effect, McGavran posits that the church should invest the greatest amount of its resources to the most (or more) receptive people (Theory of Receptivity63).  The way to determine who the receptive people are and what the best means are to reach them is through research, including the gathering and analysis of statistical data (Social Science Research64).  With the necessary information a church is then able to strategise (for example, by building bridges to receptive people) and to set goals to grow the church (Planning and Goal Setting65).

McGavran’s church growth principles are derived from well researched data of growing and non-growing churches in the mission field such as Ghana, South Korea and India.66  He quotes studies that he or others had done.67  Backed by such serious studies it is hard to ignore the findings, conclusions and principles of Church Growth teaching.

In Church Growth and the Whole Gospel (1981) Wagner writes to elaborate and defend the tenets of CGM.  For example, he defends the priority of the evangelistic mandate vis-à-vis the cultural mandate.68  Another concerns the Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP).  It was not the most important tenet of CGM teaching but it became the most controversial.  McGavran observed that “People like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers.”69  Wagner defends the principle by saying that “McGavran’s statement is descriptive, not normative.  It is phenomenological, not theological. …Secondly, McGavran’s statement relates to discipling, not perfecting.  It is a principle of evangelism, not Christian nurture.”70  If HUP is accurate, it then provides the church with a useful key for “effective implementation of the evangelistic mandate.”71

In a later book Strategies for Church Growth (1987) Wagner starts by revisiting some of the basic church growth principles.  He explains how the advocates of CGM understand the terms commonly used in Christian circles.  For example, what does “make disciples” mean?  Wagner says that “The raw material of making disciples in the Great Commission sense is unbelievers who need to commit their lives to Christ for the first time.  The raw material of modern ‘disciple making’ is Christians who need to be helped along the continuing road of Christian discipleship.”72  Hence, he argues, “If we concentrate on church growth, we get to the heart of the Great Commission.  The more we evangelize and the more disciples we make, the more churches will be multiplied and grow.  And this is why, in planning strategies, we aim for church growth.”73

In other words, “making disciples” or winning the lost through evangelism is the goal of church growth and developing and carrying out strategies to accomplish this goal is critical to its success.  We can, therefore, understand why planning strategies is one of the hallmarks of CGM teaching.  Much of the book Strategies for Church Growth focuses on the importance as well as the practical steps to develop these strategies.

Understandably, Church Growth teaching during the classical era was not without its detractors.  I have already mentioned some of the criticisms such as those against the HUP,74 the priority of evangelism, and the emphasis on numerical growth.  Perhaps, the chief criticism against church growth teaching is that it lacked a solid theological foundation.  Despite the attempts of CGM to address this issue, strong criticisms were levelled against Church Growth theology or lack thereof.  This is seen in the strong discussion generated in Evaluating the Church Growth Movement (2004).  For example, Craig Van Gelder charges that establishing church growth principles by simply listing some biblical texts does not mean that theology is done.75  Also, Gailyn Van Rheenen questions whether one should even be doing theology “with Church Growth eyes”.  He contends that biblical theology should form the lens through which cultural and contextual issues and praxis are viewed.76

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Rooting for the Small Church!

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What is the place of the small church? Should we hypothesise that all churches are meant to grow, and therefore, we must do all we can to breakthrough the barriers that keep a small church from growing?

Or, should we say that the small church has its place and accept that, “My church is, and shall remain, a small church”?

Or, after having evaluated our church we come to the conclusion, “Although we may be a small church, we are nonetheless effective.” Now, (and please do not think that I am being insensitive or negative) if we are effective why then are we not growing? Are there valid and happy reasons?

I don’t have the statistics, but from my observation most of the churches in Malaysia are small. (I wish our national and denominational bodies will do more statistical studies so that we can have a better picture of the state of the Church in Malaysia). By definition a small church is numerically under 200 people; from babies to senior citizens (or as someone once said to me, “We count everything that moves!”). Using this metric, depending on who you quote, 80-90% of the churches in the US are small churches. My guess is that, it is probably the same in Malaysia. If we were to add all the churches in the small towns and villages in both Peninsula and East Malaysia they will certainly make up a very large  percentage of churches in the country. Even in the urban centres most of the churches are small.

There is no shame in being small.

All churches started small! Unless a large church decided to send out more than 200 people to start a new church plant; which has been done before, but it is not the norm. Hence, we are not to despise humble beginnings. However, note that it was never the intention of the parent church or the new church plant for it to remain small. It was planted to win more people to the Lord and to add them to the church. Churches that have lost its passion need to recapture the spirit and vision of those early pioneering days.

There is a huge difference between a small dynamic church that is making impact in its community and even beyond, and a small inward-looking church whose main focus are the needs of the members and trying to survive till Jesus returns.

There are good reasons why a church should remain small, and there are wrong reasons for a church to remain small. Below are some valid reasons:

  1. The community where the church is located, serves and is trying to reach with the Gospel is small; such as a small town or village. Even if the church is located in a large urban centre, the particular ethnic group that it is attempting to reach may be small; such as a migrant community.
  1. The church leaders believe that a small church is stronger relationally, can attain a higher level of member-participation, and achieve greater effectiveness in outreach. In other words, remaining small is a philosophy of ministry where growth is an objective. An outcome of such a philosophy would be church planting. Instead of growing into a large church, the parent church keeps on training and sending its members out to plant new churches. This is called extension growth. Or, the main church starts new ethnic-language congregations. This has been termed bridging growth. An example is when a Malaysian English-speaking church spawns a Tamil- or a Myanmarese-speaking congregation.
  1. Most pastors (and church leaders) are not large church leaders. Fewer still are megachurch pastors. If that is the case then, it is better to have many small churches that have pastors who are able to lead with vision and passion for growth and multiplication, than to load them with guilt that they are not growing their church into a large church.
  1. Small churches are easier to manage and lead. And if most pastors don’t have the capacity to lead large churches, it is best to accept our God-given abilities and work with small churches. Some people think that pastoring a mega church has built-in advantages because it has mega resources. But as I once heard Daniel Ho (former Senior Pastor of DUMC) say, “…we also have mega problems!” And not every (read, “most”) pastors (or lay leaders) are able to handle mega challenges.
  1. Some people don’t want to go to a large church. They prefer the I-know-everyone-in-the-church kind of atmosphere and where the pastor is everyone’s personal shepherd. Should the church grow too big for them, they move out to a smaller church.

Small churches are here to stay—and for good reasons. The thing is, we need to ensure that our church is small for the right reasons, and never at the expense of fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.

The Organised Church (Part 2): Critical Components of Church Organisation

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In Part 1 I wrote about the need for pastors and church leaders to seriously look into the organisational aspect of the church. It is my observation that churches that fail to organise themselves well, despite the fact that they may be solidly founded on sound theology and/or pray a lot, disadvantage themselves,

The New Testament-mention of the spiritual gift of administration (1 Cor 12:28) underscores the importance for good organisation in the church. What’s the point of the gift if the Lord did not think that effective administration (organisation) of the church is necessary and important? The meaning of the root word in Greek for the gift of administration is connected to the work of a shipmaster or captain. The job then, of the person with this gift is to help steer or lead the church (or a ministry). If he is not the leader of the church, then his job is to assist the leader to develop strategies, organise the people and implement the process.

Broadly speaking, there are three critical components in the organisation of a church: structures, systems and processes.

  1. Structures

These refer to the organisational structures of the church, such as the leadership, departments, ministries, small groups and communications. (This list is not meant to be exhaustive. Similarly for the lists in “Systems” and “Processes” below.)

Let me flesh out a couple of examples to help you understand what I mean.

The leadership structure concerns matters like the lines of authority and communication; which is often presented in the form of an organisational chart. It also asks questions like: Who leads the leadership team? What is the role of the pastor and the chairman respectively? How is the pastor accountable to the church board? Is the church effectively led by one person or by a team?

In the broader context of the church it asks: What is the role of the congregation in making decisions? What kind of decisions does the congregation make?

With regards to the small groups structure: How is the ministry structured? Are the group leaders accountable to the pastor or to a small group ministry head? If there are a large number of small groups does the church divide them into areas (or zones)? Within each small group, are mature Christians assigned to care for younger believers?

  1. Systems

These refer to the working systems of the church, such as the financial, leadership, small group, worship service and assimilation of new people .

The first thing you probably noticed is that I have included leadership and small group here, even though I had already mentioned them under “structures”. That is because they (and others) are systems in the body of the church that must be properly structured.

Under “systems”, however, we ask a different set of questions. For the small group ministry the focus here is on the workings of the system. We want to know: What level of importance does the church place on the small group ministry? (Is everyone expected to be part of a small group? Is participation in a small group a pre-requisite for membership in the church?) Is the nature, purpose and programme of the small groups standardised or does each group have autonomy? Is attendance monitored? Are small group leaders expected to send in monthly or quarterly reports? Are small groups expected to multiply within a certain period? What is the church’s philosophy of small group ministry?

With regards to finances we are concerned about the efficient and effective collection of the members’ tithes and offering, proper recording of the collection, accounting of income and expenditure, and not just the proper use of church funds but their purposeful use to advance the Kingdom.

We ask the questions: How is the money apportioned? Does the church have a budget? What’s the financial and accounting policy of the church? How is the money collected (physically at worship services and/or bank transfers and/or credit card payments)? What is the procedure to count and record the collection?  Who can authorise a payment and what is the quantum? What policies are in place to ensure the purposeful use of church funds?

  1. Processes

These refer to the steps taken to accomplish an objective, such as the assimilation of new people, discipleship, and ministry and leadership development.

For example, pastors tell me that they want to make disciples, but when I ask them how they are making disciples, they cannot articulate it—either they don’t have a process in place or it’s so vague they cannot tell you. Every church needs to have a discipleship process. If you don’t have one you may start with Rick Warren’s “baseball diamond” found in his book, The Purpose Driven Church.

Disciple making, leadership development (read, raising up next generation leaders for succession planning) cannot be left ad hoc! Neither can we leave the assimilation of new people to chance. That’s the reason many would-be-additions to the church fall through the cracks. Every church needs well thought-out and workable processes for things like these.

Every church needs to be well organised. This will happen when pastors and church leaders do what is necessary to ensure that their church’s structures, systems and processes are efficient and effective. There is no one size-fits all because of the differences in the make-up of our churches. Start with the Bible. Study your own church. Learn from other churches. Get the leadership team to read and discuss one or more relevant books on the matter, and implement what is helpful. This is the road to the administrative health of your church.

The Misunderstood Ephesians 4:11-12 (Part 2)

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In Part 1 I wrote about how the church has continually misunderstood the role of God’s gifted-persons such as the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (or, pastor-teachers). The wrong understanding is: Since they are gifted by the Lord then they should be the ones to do ministry, while the rest of the church just sit back and soak. Ephesians 4:11-12, however, teaches to the contrary. The right understanding is: The primary job of the gifted-persons is to empower; it is the job of all in the church, who have been thus empowered, to do ministry. In this way the body of Christ is built up.

Alright, so we now know what the gifted-persons are to empower God’s people for. The follow-up question is: What is the former to empower the latter with? A misunderstanding of the former usually leads to a misunderstanding of the latter.

It’s apparent that we can only empower another person in the area that we ourselves have the ability or talent. A non-musician can’t teach someone to play the piano. A drummer can’t teach someone to play the saxophone. To state the obvious, only a bassist can teach a guitarist how to play the bass.

As it is in the natural; so it is with the spiritual. We can only empower others to do what we ourselves have been gifted to do. The apostle, among other things, pioneers ministries. Correspondingly, when raising up leaders in the body of Christ, his job is to empower others, for example, to plant churches or to start new Christian ventures.

As for the prophet, he is to train believers to hear and to speak a now word from the Lord. The evangelist is to raise up the people in the church to effectively share the Gospel with unbelievers. The pastor is to train the members in the body to provide pastoral and spiritual care for one another (and also for those outside the church). And the teacher is to teach others how to teach the Word of God.

It doesn’t mean that these gifted-persons don’t do ministry with their giftings. If they had not, they would not have gotten to know their gifts and ministry, and to develop them to the extent that they are now able to pass them on to others.

In fact, they rightly never stop exercising their gifts. The evangelist still evangelises the lost and the pastor still nurtures people in the faith. They still have to walk their talk; and not just talk about how they used to walk! More than what they had done, it is what they are doing that gives them credibility as they train others. It is from their current experiences of ministry that they can best illustrate and inspire others to do what they are doing.

I like what John Maxwell says in his Leadership Bible. I think it might be appropriately called “Multiplication Maxims”. They are stated in the first line of each point, and I follow-up with a bit of my own commentary.

  1. It takes one to know one. We tend to see what we possess ourselves.

It is not that we can never see what others have if we don’t have it ourselves. But it would be true to say that we can more easily recognise something in someone because we know what it looks like in us. Furthermore, we are able to evaluate the degree of the gifting and its potential for development.

  1. It takes one to show one. We cannot model for someone what we haven’t done.

I am stating the obvious: Nobody can teach what he doesn’t know. He won’t be able to explain it nor show how something is done when he has never done it himself. We can only model for others how to operate in a certain spiritual gift or ministry when we have experience in doing it ourselves. Besides the issue of ability it is also about credibility.

  1. It takes one to grow one. We cannot train someone until we’ve done it ourselves.

This kind-of-follows Maxim No. 2 about modelling. This is about training. And the more we have developed the gift and ministry the more we will be able to grow others in these areas.

Clearly, when a church puts into practise Ephesians 4:11-12 it will have many more people with an apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and teaching giftings and ministry (though, in varying degrees). Imagine how more effective the church would be when that happens.

The Misunderstood Ephesians 4:11-12 (Part 1)

Soon-Hock Lim 3 Comments

Ephesians 4:11-12 is about one of the most misunderstood Scripture. Misunderstanding and misapplying it do not muddy-up our doctrinal beliefs but they certainly impede our effectiveness in building the church.

“11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of  service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

Whether there are four or five gifted-persons (I am being gender-sensitive) is not the concern of this post. Whatever your interpretation, you still have God’s gifted servants functioning as pastors and teachers; as a combo or separately.

The first misunderstanding I want to raise concerns their role. What do they do? What are they supposed to be doing according to this Scripture?

Many would say, the job of the apostle is to plant, organise and oversee churches. It includes laying a Biblical-strong foundation for these churches, and also to raise, train and appoint leaders who will eventually take leadership of these churches.

As for the prophet, his (or her) job is to bring a now word of the Lord to the church and to the world. The evangelist is to preach the Gospel and win the lost to Christ. And the pastor-teacher, is to provide spiritual nurture to the converted, which includes teaching them the Word of God.

It is simply logical to expect a particular spiritual gift to naturally lend itself to a corresponding ministry. However, to say that the above descriptions are then their jobs is to miss the point of Ephesians 4:11-12. If we asked the second question, “What are they supposed to be doing according to this Scripture?”, we will get a totally different answer.

Verse 12 states that the job of these gifted-persons are “to prepare God’s people”. To put it succinctly, in the context of your local church: The job of the pastor-teacher is to equip and empower the members. Does the pastor provide spiritual nurture and teach the Word of God? Of course, he does. But that is not his primary role. His primary role is to equip and empower the members.

To what end? “…for works of service.” The gifted-person’s primary job (or ministry) is not to do ministry but to prepare God’s people to do ministry. Unfortunately in too many churches they expect the pastor or the hired-hand to do all the work! From preaching, counselling and visitation to driving the van, printing the bulletin and being the key-man (literally).

If that is the culture of a church then what we have is just one man serving the rest of the body. Or, a bunch of paid staff serving the church. This is certainly not the body-ministry envisaged by the New Testament, where all the members of body builds up the whole body. Furthermore, 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others also”, is not going to happen. Multiplication is not going to take place.

Now, part of the problem is the gifted-persons themselves. Unfortunately, many among them also have a misunderstanding of their own role. They believe, like so many others in the church, that they are the ones to do the ministry. “That’s my job!” “I’m the one with the spiritual gift; so, I’m to do the ministry!” In fact, for many, their identity is so tied up with their ministry that they cannot give it away—by empowering others to do “their ministry”.  They can’t see themselves doing “less” by empowering others to do “more”.

The awesome truth is that the body of Christ, the church, is only going to be built up when every member does ministry. It’s the kind of ministry ethos that says, ministry is not to be left to just the specially gifted-persons, but to be expected of all. The former is to focus on empowering the members—so that the latter can do ministry. In turn, the gifted-person is freed up to from having to do a lot of hands-on service and give more time to equipping, guiding and mentoring their mentees. Hence, effectively, multiplying themselves. That’s the import and genius of Ephesians 4:11-12 which both the pastor and members must heed if we are ever to see the church built up.

We now know what these gifted-persons are to empower God’s people for. But what are they to empower them with? The answer will surprise you. That’s the other misunderstood item about Ephesians 4:11-12. Click here for Part 2. 

Discovering Your Church’s Purpose (Part 2)

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(This is Part 2 of a 2-Part series. Go to this link for Part 1.)

Three Commands that Provides the Framework for Your Church’s Purpose

You may be wondering if this “strategy” is just as applicable to a secular organisation. Yes, it can be. Any organisation (whether religious, business or non-profit) can apply this strategy, except that we need to note a couple of very critical points.

We must never forget that discovering and fulfilling a church’s purpose is about doing God’s will. Hence, the first step must always be prayer; to seek the Lord for His leading. This was something Nehemiah did when he first heard the bad report about Jerusalem. The revelation and understanding about what he was to do came from his time of prayer. It is expected that pastors and church leaders are to do this first, and right through the whole process of determining the specific purpose of the church. (If a leader of a business or a non-profit organisation is a Christian, he or she should do the same. God did not intend that there be a dichotomy between the secular and the religious; everything is spiritual.)

Secondly, the church’s purpose must be etched out from a Biblical framework. The church’s purpose is not about making money; it’s bottom-line is not about profits. Or, even about growing bigger and faster, and having a nicer building than the other churches in town. The framework of a church’s purpose is shaped by the three Biblical commands: 1. The Great Commission, 2. The Great Commandment, and 3. The Great Mandate.

The Great Commission (Mt 28:19-20) is about making disciples. If we fail to do this, even if we might be pursuing some other noble cause and succeed at it, we have failed as the Church of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of the Kingdom is about saving lost people and transforming them into Christlikeness, and then engaging them in the mission of the Kingdom of God. Everything we do must begin and end with the Great Commission as our primary objective. That must shape a church’s purpose.

The second piece of the framework is the Great Commandment. Jesus said, “The most important one [commandment] is this: ‘…Love the Lord your God with all  your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’….” (Mk 12:29-31). The church is called to love God and people. If our purpose does not lead us to love God and people then there must be something amiss with our purpose. It cannot be God’s purpose. If making disciples is the church’s primary objective; love is the church’s primary motive in all that we do.

The third piece of the framework is the Great Mandate (or, Creation Mandate), which the Lord gave to the first man and woman. “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’” (Gen 1:28). The Lord’s mandate to mankind: To take charge of His world; has not been revoked. He made us His stewards, and as stewards we are to care for the world; not just consume its resources. It is also about how we manage (govern) our society, champion in matters of social justice and care for the marginalised. How a church carries out its purpose must not violate the Great Mandate; rather it must ensure that its purpose fulfils it.

A couple of examples of what a church can do includes cleaning up the streets and side-walks, and planting trees around the community. Not only does this fulfil the Great Mandate, the concern and care for the environment is a powerful witness to people around the church about the values of the Kingdom of God.  On a larger scale, we have the efforts of a number of Singaporean churches working in concert to carry out sustainable development in every province in the nation of Timor Leste. This is an incredible testimony to the Church of Jesus Christ which in turn gives it credibility and opportunity to witness to a whole nation.

When a church thinks about its purpose it needs to ask:

  1. Does our purpose fulfil the Great Commission?
  2. Does our purpose express the Great Commandment?
  3. Does our purpose honour the Great Mandate?
  4. How is our purpose guided by these three parts of the Biblical framework?

The church is not to do something simply because the need is there or because it feels like doing it. Neither does it just do anything simply because it has the resources to do it. Why the church is doing whatever it is doing must be guided by the above Biblical framework.

Conclusion

Putting the three components and the three commandments together is one of the best ways to help your church determine a clear Biblical purpose that is specific to it. But don’t do this by simply putting on your thinking cap. Do this with much prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit to show you the heart of the Father.

For Your Church Leaders’ Group Discussion

  1. What needs do we see in the community where our church is located?*
  2. What are we passionate about?
  3. What abilities and resources do we have?
  4. Where do the needs, our passion and our abilities align?
  5. How might we express in a statement what we believe may be the Lord’s specific purpose for our church?
  6. Does our purpose fulfil the Great Commission?
  7. Does our purpose express the Great Commandment?
  8. Does our purpose honour the Great Mandate?
  9. How is our purpose guided by these three parts of the Biblical framework?
  10. Does the purpose statement we wrote earlier need changing or refining in light of the Biblical framework? How might we express it better?

* This process may be used to determine your church’s purpose beyond your immediate community. But it’s good to begin here.