In Search of a Better Vacuum Cleaner In Search of a Better Church
Gotta love those vacuum cleaner commercials.
The spokesmen are usually just that—men. I can’t speak for the whole world, but in my little corner, it’s the woman who mans the vacuum.
This woman has a long, mostly “hate affair” with vacuum cleaners. I wanted one desperately when I was five years old. It seemed to be my calling.
I got a pretty pink one for Christmas. My toy vacuum cleaner actually worked just like those silent ones used in restaurants. But as I came of age, I came to realize that real vacuum cleaners are fraught with design flaws—maybe because they are designed by men. The fancier they got, the more problems.
One brand makes sure you know that their namesake patented the technology. He’ll benefit from every sale for a few decades. His vacuums cost twice what other vacuums cost.
Designer engineers may test the suction technology, but do they use their vacuums every day? Do they know that the power of the suction isn’t everything? Do they lug them up and down stairs? Do they spend most of their vacuuming time knocking into furniture and wrestling with the power cord?
Come to think, what happened to the power cord?
Have you noticed the vacuum cleaners being pushed around by men in those TV commercials don’t have any power cords? Look! They swivel. They roll. What fun! They have no power cords. I want one of those!
Power cords create half the work.
Cords too long get in the way and get sucked into the machine. They wrap themselves around table legs and threaten to topple floor lamps. You try to get the cord off the floor and swing it across your shoulder. Now it is knocking things off tables.
Cords too short and they are a pain. Just when you think you’re nearly done, the power cord reaches its limit. You must stop and search for a new power source.
Canister vacuums are hard to find these days. Never a good idea. Push with one hand. Pull with the other. The original “pushmepullyou.”
I’m waiting for the day when a vacuum cleaner is designed by the people who actually use them. When that day comes, they will be wireless (just like power tools sold to men). They will not require the user to take them apart and clean the filters after each use. Whose idea is that, anyway? They will be low to the ground for reaching the dustiest place in the house. Do you guys know where that is? (Under the beds.) They will have settings that don’t require you to hoist the cleaner to the kitchen counter to read them. The hose will not fall out every three minutes. The attachments will be easy to use and won’t store where they add to the weight of using the cleaner.
And what does this have to do with church?
Church is an attractive concept that has gone awry in the hands of those with “patent” interests. Some day the church will be designed by the people who actually worship and volunteer their services. We’ll stop pretending power cords don’t exist in the perfect world we imagine. And then those power cords will be replaced with internal power sources that actually accomplish something!
2×2’s most popular post is a list of Bible verses to help churches drafting mission statements. This post is now available in the form of a Powerpoint presentation for use with congregational groups.
Creating Some Extraordinary Time During Ordinary Time
A few years ago, when Redeemer still had a building and a pastor to call our own, I commented at a worship meeting that Pentecost was way too long and Advent was way too short.
Advent, especially among Lutherans, is the sacred cow. Christmas and Easter customs will change with the times more easily than Advent. This is when we pull out all the do’s and don’ts of Christianity.
Knowing that—and being accustomed to being ignored by clergy, the guardians of all things liturgical—I expected absolutely nothing to result from my comment.
I was surprised when our pastor enthusiastically agreed.
Energized, the worship committee added a couple of weeks to Advent. Pentecost didn’t even notice.
This gave us more time to teach the important things that belong only to Advent and get lost in the hustle and bustle of Christmas.
For the first time, we could actually learn some of the beautiful but eerily unique tunes that go with the pre-Christmas season and are never sung during any other season. They get short-changed in modern society when many Christians will only be attending worship once or twice during the four weeks of Advent. They tend to be known only by people who sing in choirs. Now the whole church could be the Advent Choir.
We were also able to add some of the cross-over Christmas hymns (heaven forbid) before Christmas, when all the world (except Christians) are singing our songs.
It gave us an opportunity to delve into the rich and poetic texts of the prophets as opposed to concentrating on the Gospel.
We got to visit with all the personalities of the Advent story, giving more attention to Elizabeth and Zacharias, Joseph, Isaiah, Hosea and all the prophets—some of whom are silent in certain lectionary years. John the Baptist and Mary might feel a little jealous, but they’ll get over it.
This custom, somewhat unique to Redeemer, led us to begin offering our Adult Object Lessons for Advent last week, nearly a month in advance. Two were offered last week. Look for two more this week.
There’s plenty to talk about. Now we have more time!
It doesn’t hurt to be prepared for the season of preparation!
The question goes back to brothers James and John as they fought for status by Jesus’ side in heaven.
It’s still a pretty good question.
We may find the answer by asking another question. What are we trying to accomplish?
The standard answer for churches is to spend a few weeks debating the wording of a mission statement (all of which are pretty much the same). Then what?
Mission statements rarely provide a road map. The statement validates us as a community. Often, we don’t have a clue how to achieve our mission. Often, we do little to try. We expect to keep doing things the same way, hoping the age-old mission strategies will miraculously reconnect with new generations and our churches will return to the 1950s with sanctuaries filled with happy offering-givers.
Things are done a bit differently in business. Business cannot afford to live on delusions.
When companies roll out a new product or service they look at every step required to achieve their goal. Usually the goal is to sell widgets or to create a demand for specialized services.
The path towards that goal may be complex. It starts with a concept. The concept must be designed and tested. Patents or licenses may be required. An interest must be created. Public Relations and Marketing go to work. As the plans and ideas take shape the product needs to be manufactured. Distributing channels must be opened. Warehousing must be arranged. Customer service must be available from day one. And then comes the wider advertising blitz (all of which was planned long before).
Some of these processes can happen concurrently. Others are more linear—process B cannot happen until process A is completed. Some very important tasks must be accomplished by people who are fairly low on the corporate ladder. But when their skills are needed, they become the focus of the project.
What is the mission goal? Not the lofty pie-in-the-sky goal but the practical, measurable goal—the goal upon which the congregation’s survival depends.
What must happen before that goal can be met? When do we hope to reach our goal?
Who is going to monitor the various entities? Who plays the most critical roles at which times?
This is where the Church may be failing.
Church has an established hierarchy. The more important—the fancier the robe!
Lutherans went against this thinking 500 years ago. Lutherans believe that all church people, whether clergy or laity, play equally important roles.
Modern Lutherans are forgetting our roots.
Perhaps we should revisit this belief. It could make the difference the modern Church so craves.
Seth’s post makes an interesting point. Some people are more critical to the success of the journey on the critical path at different times. The most important people may not be the ones wearing the robes! Seth writes about his experience monitoring one company’s critical path.
I went out and got some buttons—green and red. The deal was simple: If you were on the critical path, you wore a green button. Everyone else wore red. When a red button meets a green button, the simple question is asked, “How can I help?” The president will get coffee for the illustrator if it saves the illustrator three minutes. In other words, the red button people never (ever) get to pull rank or interrupt a green button person. Not if you care about critical path . . . .
The problem with the general failure of church structure is that age-old structure is assumed to be the proper structure of importance. So even though Lutheranism left this thinking behind, we are tempted to return to the old ways.
A presiding bishop is most important. New World Lutherans had purposely called leaders Presidents—not Bishops. 27 years ago we returned to the old ways. It hasn’t helped.
The presiding bishop may play no practical role whatsoever in the critical path of an individual congregation’s mission. Many who are busy fulfilling a congregation’s mission may not even know the name of the current presiding bishop and are only vaguely aware that they exist. Presiding bishops have visibility, an office, staff and probably the highest salary—but they may not be the most important player in any congregation’s mission strategy.
Then come regional bishops. They, too, may have no role in congregational mission. They, too, used to be called Presidents. Their major constitutional role is overseeing professional leadership. Often this becomes the focus of all mission. Congregations are expected to support at least one minister—whether or not that minister can provide the necessary skills for that congregation’s mission. When they rarely meet with lay leaders they forget to ask, “How can I help?”
Then come clergy. Now we’re getting closer to the work of the church, but they, too, may have far less role in the success of a congregation’s mission than others. Some may! Others may be biding time.
Then come staff. Closer still to the critical path.
So far, everyone on the list is paid.
But none of these people can create successful mission without the next two groups of people—laity and seekers. These are the people who can effectively accomplish mission. Often they get no help—no training, no guidance, no resources, no status, and no consideration of compensation. (Think “disciples.”) This is where James and John found themselves the day they came to Jesus with their question.
Youth leaders may be the people who can reach the families. The communications team may be the ones who can coordinate outreach. The social ministry people may know the problems of the community better than anyone. The young people may be the best evangelists to young people. That church festival is not going to happen without the cooks! All need encouragement and help. But often they are seen as the funders or the foot soldiers who are there to do what the church leaders think needs to be done. If foot soldiers are successful, the paid staff may get a raise!
Frankly, the workers are taken for granted. No wonder the pews are empty!
What if every congregation tracked a plan to achieve its mission? What if it handed out green and red buttons? Note. The colors in no way depict rank. They indicate who, for the moment, is playing the role most critical to the success of the mission. The job of facilitating is equally important.
Lutherans should be good at this! We Lutherans were so modern in our thinking centuries ago!
The green buttons would be worn by the people who have to complete a certain task on the critical path before the next group of people can successfully start the next task. The red button people must facilitate their work if the mission is to be successful. (Think “shepherd.”) The red and green buttons can be swapped as we move down the critical path’s checklist.
Red button church leaders must serve the green button church leaders regardless of either one’s rank or pay grade. It’s all in the interest of expediting Church mission.
Unfortunately, it’s not the way we think.
Instead, we seem to have accepted failure to achieve mission as the norm. This changes the Church’s mission to funding and perpetuating a structure that is ineffective. We keep doling out dollars to support structure until the money runs out.
Most churches work very hard at this. Generally, they are on the fast track to failure.
The laity will pay the fare.
Who will be rewarded in the after life? Next week’s Gospel reports that Jesus didn’t have much tie for such questions! Luke 20:28-37.
2x2virtualchurch doesn’t get a lot of online engagement. But people do contact us. We get direct emails and sometimes even phone calls about our posts. When I encourage readers to comment on site, they say it’s too hard from their mobile phones—which tells us something about how the world gets their information today! Easier to use that phone to autodial us!
Friday’s post drew a phone call that raised an interesting question. It is a question that no one has probably thought about, because there was little need.
The sermon, always central to Lutheran worship, is very ineffective for the purpose of spreading the Good News. Yet it is a focus of our expectations and budgets.
Most churches say something in their mission statements about reaching beyond that limited audience. Yet finding a way to do that has been a challenge, despite the tools in our modern hands.
Sermons—even great sermons—aren’t going to do it! Our post began exploring ways to maximize a congregation’s investment in providing a weekly sermon to a shrinking, limited and static audience of people who are predisposed toward the message. Our reader raises this question:
Who owns the rights to the sermon?
The caller is well-versed in both the corporate and church publishing worlds, especially the higher end of the Protestant Church. She commented that in the corporate world, if the corporation subsidizes the creation of content, the corporation owns the content. We are guessing the church world will argue that the pastor is self-employed and therefore owns his or her words.
I am self-employed but I know from experience that my clients consider my work to be their property. I often know that I have legal rights to the work product, but usually decide to not argue with clients. I value the relationship and the next job above the value of past work and insistence on accepted professional rights.
All this thinking may belong to the past—when publishing was the business of publishers. Today every evangelist or entrepreneur must publish if they hope to succeed. Hair dressers, chefs, dog trainers, roofers, lawyers, doctors—everyone will publish.
What roadblocks will congregations encounter when they try to get more mileage from their considerable investment in spreading the Good News? They will have to get content for their evangelism efforts. Can they rely on the cooperation of clergy? Will everyone be stepping on toes? Will congregations seeking to call pastors insist their candidates understand modern publishing? They should.
The question probably enters no one’s mind now. As it is, very few pastors publish. Those that do are likely claiming all royalties without anyone questioning who subsidized the time they took in writing the book.
Will pastors value relationship over work product? Will they argue that Jonathan Edwards published his sermons for his own benefit and therefore they have the same rights? I don’t know the answer, but it is something to think about as congregations — like everyone in the modern world — realize that they have the power and need to publish. Publish or perish, for real!
These will be refreshing legal battles after the church has wasted so much of its resources in arguing about physical property, land, and monetary assets. Maybe church leaders will at last realize that their message is a major asset!
This is a game changer. It can be the salvation of the small church. If we make it a contest, all will lose. Congregations should think about this now before their regional bodies start to tweak their constitutions to favor them and the clergy. Clergy are a pretty big voting bloc in that regard.
Congregations must become involved in any upcoming debate. They may have to spark the debate or watch decisions made for them — and not in their favor!
This has happened before. The Lutheran Church in America (the predecessor body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) forbade congregations from publishing. It was seen as competition with the national church publishing houses. Now there is no way to stop congregations from publishing.
Denominational leaders will be shooting their mission in the foot if they start to legislate these rights in their favor, but they’ve been doing this in their lust for land for years.
Congregations, think about this now! If your next pastor is uncomfortable with publishing and uncomfortable with others in the church becoming involved in publishing, they will be unprepared to bring your congregation into the future.
Think about what goes into the staging and delivery of the weekly sermon.
Divide your pastoral salaries by 52 and then divide by five. That’s what you paid your professional leaders for the week’s sermon.
Then add the costs of maintaining a building.
Add heat and air conditioning costs.
Now add the costs of the other professionals who help set the stage for delivery of the service—the sexton, organist, and choir director.
Add the cost of the church secretary and the cost of printing the bulletin.
We won’t add the costs of the many volunteers, but they added to the experience, too.
These costs and efforts are repeated every week. The beneficiaries—the people in the pew—are likely to be the same people every week. They number between 15 at the low end and 700 or so at the high end. The median congregation is probably less than 75 per church.
Advertisers call this calculation the cost per impression. Church costs per impression are very high indeed.
Oddly, this is never seen as squandering resources. Why not?
Because it defines Church. This is what churches have done for 2000 years.
We are well into the 21st century. The internet has been around for about a quarter century. It gets more powerful every day. It also gets easier to use. We are capable of so much more than monks with their parchment and pen.
The same message delivered in your church on Sunday can and should be preached beyond the back pew. This does not mean printing the sermon on the web site. This will attract practically no readers—except perhaps other preachers looking for ideas!
Put the Same Information Into Different Formats
Reach Far More People
There are ways that a sermon delivered to very few (even in well-attended churches) can reach into the neighborhood. Done consistently it is likely to attract people to your ministry.
We could take any sermon as an illustration. We’ll take for example the sermon that our Ambassadors heard last week at Trinity, Norristown. It’s fresh in our experience. Like most people, we don’t remember sermons very long.
The source scripture for the day was the story of the Apostle Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch. The eunuch was sitting in his chariot, minding his own business, trying to make sense of the book of Isaiah. Along comes Philip, who might have passed up the opportunity to share, except that he was following orders from God. Soon the two were chatting about Jesus.
The sermon was delivered by one of Trinity’s three pastors, the Rev. Dr. Asha George-Guiser.
The gist of the sermon was the “blasting of barriers.” She pointed out that Philip and the eunuch could not have been more different, yet both were able to come together and talk about scripture.
Dr. George-Guiser focused her entire sermon on just one illustration—her marriage. She is of Indian descent, tracing her Christian roots to the evangelistic efforts of the Apostle Thomas, father of the church in India. Her husband of many years is also a pastor of Trinity. He comes from a non-religious Pennsylvania farm family and is racially White.
Dr. George-Guiser talked about how difficult it was for her family to accept her marriage. Their many differences were barriers that took years to blast away. Blasting away at the barriers led to a long and happy union.
Great illustration. It probably resonated with the congregation of about 70, many of whom probably know both pastors very well.
The service was at 11 am. By noon, the sanctuary was empty. The message and sermon were already on their way to oblivion to await the message of next Sunday. The shelf life of a sermon is very short.
How could the same sermon be repurposed to reach many who were not present in church last Sunday?
What if earlier in the week, the congregation had been invited on a church blog or Facebook to identify barriers in their lives? Anyone taking part in that conversation would be more invested in the worship service.
What if illustrations of barriers in the community had been identified and addressed on the blog? People who might never set foot in a sanctuary but who discovered the blog because of their community interest would see a church in action. The church web site would find more and more readers.
What if photos of barriers in the neighborhood had been posted on Pinterest with a link back to a discussion on the church blog? The congregation would have even more exposure in the community.
What if a few memorable snippets from the sermon were recorded as a podcast? Commuters might listen during the week as they drove to work.
What if a Powerpont with key sermon ideas had been posted on SlideShare? Other churches might share it.
What if the same Powerpoint were used in worship to illustrate the sermon? They were using projection for every other part of the service. It might extend the short life of the average sermon.
What if a children’s version had been posted on a kid’s corner on the web site?
The possibilities are many.
It’s more work to be sure, but suddenly that $1000 investment in a weekly sermon is going much farther.
Your church can go from talking about “blasting barriers” to actually lighting a fuse!
Do you see why having a communications expert is just as important to today’s church as an organist or a choir director? They can help maximize your investment spreading the Good News. It changes everyone’s job description a bit, but if transformation is to occur, something’s got to give!
Warning! The effectiveness of a church communications plan fashioned to reach beyond the pew is a marathon. If you want to give it a try, plan to dedicate a year minimum to begin to see results. By year three it should be reaping benefits you’d never imagine going without!
Today, we can learn from Jewish neighbors and colleagues.
A problem with religion in general is that we all live in our own worlds. We approach problems as if they are unique, threatening only to what we in our self-imposed isolation are doing.
In fact, most churches, denominations, and faiths face the same challenges.
We just don’t identify the challenges correctly.
We all live in the same world with the same changing demographics, the same societal changes, the same economic dilemmas.
Churches die before they can adapt. They die because they are chasing the transformational dream. They die because they are encouraged to change while lacking the tools or structure that will foster change.
It is time to admit that the emphasis of the of last 20 years has been wrong. Churches do not need to transform. We don’t need to change who we are or our message. We DO need to adapt to the world we all live in if we hope to reach the world we live in.
What we need to pursue is adaptive ministry.
The Church’s two-decade old quest for transformation has failed because we all have been looking at each other, waiting for someone else to do the transforming. We isolate the few successes—without really analyzing why they were successful or waiting to see if the success is sustainable. We try to copy one trendy methodology after another.
The last thing we would think to change is the structure of the Church. Heaven forbid!
This approach blinds the church to truly adaptive ministry.
Rabbi Hayim Herring addresses this in his blog today. He talks about many of the things 2×2 discusses—the need to reach people where they are in ways they can actually relate—and sustain.
He calls it “building a platform.” Platforms are structures!
What is an organizational platform (and I can highlight only a few dimensions in this space)? A platform is an enabling space for people to interact and act upon issues. An organization that becomes a platform enables individuals to self direct their Jewish choices and express their Jewish values within the organization’s mission. That is a radical shift from organizational leaders directing people how, when, where, why and with whom to be Jewish—in other words, the dominant paradigm of more established Jewish organizations and synagogues!
Becoming a platform is also a mindset. It means embracing the desire of individuals to co-create their experiences, opt in and opt out of Jewish life, do new things and old things in new ways-of course, within the organization’s mission. This mindset operates within the building, outside of the building, on the website, and anywhere else. It also requires a much more creative and intentional use of technologies to tell individual stories and organizational stories and a redefinition of professional and volunteer leaders’ roles, new governance models and even new professional and volunteer positions.
There is little need for traditional church structure in today’s world. People know this. Church leaders don’t. That’s why churches, large and small, are failing. That’s why the population in the sanctuary is quickly aging.
This failure of the Church to adapt its structure will continue to strangle the breath from the Church. If we can adapt structure, we can avoid a sure and certain death.
Redeemer was leading the way in this regard—still is. We didn’t really know that we were building a platform—but we were!
Redeemer was doing many things in ministry right. We hadn’t gotten there without stumbling a few times, but we had learned a lot in facing problems. We had identified a niche ministry that was growing quickly. We had faced the economic challenges of small church ministry head on. We came to realize that associating with just one pastor was impeding ministry—limiting us to one vision while sapping our resources. We had found pastors willing to work within the new paradigm that was needed for success, while our regional body had only one position: there were no leaders willing to serve us.
The ELCA, while stumping for transformation, couldn’t deal with transformation when it bit them on their Achilles heel. Ouch! What was that?
Regional bodies have serious problems of their own and they have only one way out—getting fewer lay people to give more. If that doesn’t work, take it.
That’s what they did in East Falls. They took what did not belong to them, attempting to destroy ministry to salvage structure. It hasn’t worked very well.
Redeemer’s transformation continues. Our online ministry teaches and involves people who would never bother with Sunday School or religious education. We are discovering our own world view—not waiting for a national church to point out needs and remedies to select problems. We continue to pursue the economic challenges of all neighborhood ministries and we think we have some answers. There is no reason to lock the members of Redeemer out of Church life—except the desire for our assets.
We have built a platform. We work at it every day. We work at it with no help from the structured church. We have learned a lot about ministry in today’s world.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for the most part, is not listening. They are worried about their retirement years. Their ears are growing old, their eyesight is growing dim. But we, their faithful children, still love them.
Is the weekly Sunday sermon reaching anyone anymore?
When my son was little, he created a little ritual. He’d pick out a stack of storybooks for bedtime reading. Ten or so was the usual number and we usually went through all of them. But I did not dare start a story without saying certain words.
“Say it, Mom. You have to say the words.”
The first time he demanded this, I had no idea what he was expecting.
He patiently prompted me.
And so I took orders from my tot.
I opened the book to the title page and said. “And now it is time for our featured presentation.”
He was, obviously, influenced by his video and movie experience. A story just wasn’t a story without this little bit of fanfare.
Beyond “Once Upon A Time”
Modern culture does influence us. It affects our point of view, our attention span, and are ability to process information that we hear. When we set about listening, we have different expectations than our ancestors may have had. We recognized this when we moved from the two-hour sermon to the one-hour sermon to today’s 20-minute expectation. But today, things are still changing.
I have written many times about the futility of paying a pastor a salary with one of the primary objectives having a 20-minute sermon written for just fifty people once a week.
That’s a lot of resources invested in something that half of the listeners are likely day-dreaming through. At the end of the service, we never really know whether or not we have reached anyone with the Word. But we keep at it because that’s the way the Word was delivered for hundreds of years—since farmers and tradespeople took a break from the isolation of their fields and shops and gathered with the whole village to spend the day.
I know that I may be beating a dying horse with my arguments. Dying is probably the right word. Just look at the statistics. We are watching the steady decline in attendance in most mainline churches. If you think the 30 to 50% drop of the last 15 years is alarming, be prepared. The biggest decline is in people under 40. The next 20 years are going to be really bad for a lot of congregations. There is no one to fill the roles of today’s 50-, 60-, and 70-year olds. It is unlikely that the younger generations will ever adapt to the traditional delivery of a sermon.
Understand I’m not against preaching. It’s been our family business for generations. I’m questioning whether the ritual format of worship, including the sermon as the weekly featured presentation, is achieving its purpose—any purpose.
Consider the Lowly Podcast
Podcasts are voice only online presentations. They can be easily promoted on a blog or web site and delivered to listeners through itunes. One of their major benefits is longevity. They can be accessed long, long after they are posted and certainly long after the Sunday morning church service ends. They can be shared. Your audience can grow!
Podcasts are the fastest growing platform for social media.
Why?
People can listen to them when and where they want. It doesn’t have to be at 10:20 on Sunday morning in the sanctuary on Main Street in every zip code. They can listen while they ride the bus, do the dishes, or mow the yard. They can return to a section they liked or questioned. They can listen to their favorite podcaster (preacher) or follow any links he or she might give to other inspirational or insightful resources.
They fit into our modern way of life as Christians and seekers.
At Redeemer, without a sanctuary for our people to attend and since our pastors headed for the hills long ago, I connected our members to an online teacher. (We are determined to stay true to our mission despite our unjust expulsion from the ELCA.)
Every day our members receive a short email Bible lesson. Only recently have I started to get feedback. They like it. At our last Redeemer gathering they started talking about the week’s lesson, which happened to be the book of Philippians — the foundational scripture for 2×2’s publication, Undercover Bishop.
My next experiment may be to expand this feature and develop podcast commentaries. Or maybe we can record chapters of Undercover Bishop!
It may begin as early as this week. Watch for it!
Podcasts may be the wave of the future for preaching. Who knows? We don’t have to give up the Sunday morning sermon, but after a while, we may want to!
The Church is looking for innovation.
Or so they say.
Innovation is usually the result of a very few innovators.
The Church tends to be unkind to innovators. Judgmental.
Result: little innovation.
Every few centuries, an innovator makes a difference. It really doesn’t happen very often. Some of them become “official” saints. Some of them just go down in history—like Martin Luther. Often their bold thinking was sparked by the times, like Martin Luther King, Jr.
Or did Dr. King spark the times?
More often, innovators go unrecognized.
In the day-to-day life of the Church, innovation has a different definition. It doesn’t mean change in a significant way. It means finding a way to stay the same, to keep the same statistics up and the bills paid as the odds grow against that kind of success.
Look at the congregations that are viewed as most successful. Their success is often in doing ministry the same way a bit longer than other churches. Worship Sunday morning. Sunday School. Same staff positions and the same list of committees. Same set of service projects. They are successful. No need to innovate!
Innovation will come from smaller churches.
True innovation is rarely pretty at first. It takes experimentation and a willingness to take significant risks. It can be life-threatening. Ask either Martin!
Church leaders encourage innovation, but they are also waiting in the wings to assess your failures. This might be OK, if their judgment resulted in collaboration and help. However, it often results in property and asset grabs and a demoralizing treatment of church leaders and members.
Have you visited a church that was scheduled to close before the grand closing rally? Have you seen the pain of the people? Have you sensed their feeling of despair, isolation and worthlessness. This will be camouflaged when you bring in the big guns for that all-important closing service, designed to make everything seem all right — when it’s not.
Innovation doesn’t happen very often. It’s just too scary. Innovation requires resources. Those resources are needed to keep doing things the same way.
Innovation is not moving the worship time forward or backward by one hour.
Innovation is not offering Holy Communion every week.
That’s just rearranging the same things that have been part of Church in one form or other since Stephen was stoned.
Innovation is doing things differently. Listening to different people. Looking for different sources of funding. Serving a different need in a different way. Structuring your government differently. Emphasizing a different passage from scripture.
What was Martin Luther’s biggest innovation? Telling the gospel story in the native language of the people. Unheard of at the time. An abomination.
Really, not such a big deal.
What was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s innovation? Believing that all races could live together in peace and equality. This was not only unheard of at the time—it was against the law in many places.
Really, not terrible. Kind of nice. Why didn’t we try this sooner?
What sacred cows are we keeping in our pastures that need a bit of freedom? (I’m not going to use the faddy “resurrection” simile. It’s, frankly, offensive and has led to abusive behavior by church leaders. Churches don’t have to die to be reborn.)
Maybe you have an innovator in your community. Are you giving him or her half a chance?
Be aware: innovation often comes from unlikely places. If you think that by calling a certain pastor, you’ll achieve innovation, you are likely to be disappointed. Your innovators might be sitting in the back row. They might be coming only once every few weeks. They might be 80 years old. They might be 10. They may be “lifers.” They may not have joined—yet.
We need leaders who can imagine, who can think outside the sanctuary, who can ask the “what if” question and rally energy and resources to test new strategies and create new alliances.
What If?
Asking “What if?” is the rabbit’s foot of every creative person. Writers use it. Musicians, Visual artists. All creatives in every field.
What if we create a band without brass—just guitars and a drummer? The Beatles.
What if break up what we see into dots and strokes of various colors? Impressionism.
What if we hold a progressive talent contest that lasts 15 weeks instead of just a one-shot deal? What if we let the people vote? American Idol, a host of copycats and the rise of dozens of young artists.
What if we try a different kind of filament? The light bulb.
Host a quarterly What If? Party, where members can dream and brainstorm. Process the ideas presented. Make no decisions for two weeks, at least. Use that fallow time to let people talk, gripe, advocate, hone an idea. . . whatever they need to do.
Create opportunities for those in opposition to work together. When people work together, they talk. When people talk, amazing things can result.
A What If? Party should have some kind of ice-breaker activities or exercises. Mix people up. Make it fun.
At Redeemer, we once divided people by birthdays. Four groups. One for each season. We had a small bowl on the table for each group. The bowl held slips of paper with a few ideas for a group activity—like tell some jokes, or write a skit about _____, or sing a song. Hey, it’s work to get a group of people to agree on the same song! In this case, the people had to agree on an activity and then take a few minutes to pull it off.
Then we’d have an impromptu talent show. Fun!
This was our ice breaker. There is power in this silliness. People break out of their comfort zones and work side by side with people they see every Sunday but don’t really know.
We’d follow the icebreaker with discussion on various topics.
This created an environment that influenced our ministry every week when we’d sit down together after worship for coffee and soup—at one big table—the “roundtable” (even though it had corners) where we were all equal.
What if we ran our own school in our own building?
What if we started a web site that reached out?
What if we encouraged our African members to invite their friends?
What if we found a pastor that spoke Swahili to facilitate this effort?
What if we used Swahili in our services?
What if we put the outreach in the hands of the African members?
What if a youth led the children’s sermon?
What if we used some of the equity in our property to expand our ministry?
Of course, getting the results takes time and hard work and you can’t always foresee the obstacles but it’s better than gathering dust or locking doors.
Try a What If? Party and see what happens.
Be prepared for failure. Failure is necessary for well-rooted success.
There is a rhythm to congregational life. Those who are well-rooted in the Church understand and appreciate it. Church people like to start the week with an expected liturgy, a comforting quality of music, a familiar voice in the pulpit, the arm of a loved one around their shoulder.
All of this is good.
The problem is it is not remarkable. In other words, people won’t talk much about it, the Word will not spread beyond those already part of the fold.
Congregations need to create this discipline, but they also need to create experiences that will be remarkable.
Remember the days when the revival came to town. That was remarkable. People went out of their way to attend. They may still be talking about it years later.
Such events are rare today. The great revivalists are all on TV.
But congregations need the kind of energy that an unusual event creates now and then. It energizes the membership and creates buzz (evangelism) in the community.
A successful event builds the congregation’s confidence. It helps members become invitational.
It will soon be time to plan the 2014 calendar. Be intentional about planning some special events—at least one a quarter.
Special events give members something to work on together thereby strengthening community. It creates a sense of accomplishment and builds congregational self-esteem.
Holding special events forces everyone out of a rut. You’ll have something to publicize. You’ll have an excuse to ask for help from unusual sources, broadening your network.
Here are some ideas. (Add your own.)
Sponsor a local hands-on service project
Perform a play or cantata
Create a pulpit exchange
Get involved in church camping
Host a Vacation Bible School
Invite local school groups to sing
Have a sing off with other church choirs
Have dinner parties with a theme
Hold prayer meetings
Piggyback a neighborhood event (flea market or picnic)
Schedule events at times that will attract visitors and community engagement.
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
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Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
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On Isaiah 30:15b
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther
In Search of a Better Vacuum Cleaner
