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regional body

The Church and Its Elusive Goals

disruptiveGood Enough Can Be Great

Let’s look at the second principle of Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work.

 Noting that “good enough” can be great.

Many innovators seek to leapfrog over existing solutions, essentially hoping to win by playing the innovation game better. Disruptors win by playing the innovation game differently. [emphasis in original] Disruptions are all about trade-offs. Disruptions typically do offer lower performance along dimensions that historically mattered to mainstream customers. They aren’t bad along these dimensions; they are good enough. But they more than make up for that — in the eyes of their customers — by offering better performance along different dimensions.

This is very applicable to church life. Congregations are bombarded with demands to transform. We are competing to reach a standard that no one has measured. The drama sets congregation against congregation as they vie for attention from their regional body in access to professional services and standing. Transform becomes conform.

Concentrating on growing can be frustrating. It can discourage people who never joined church to work to reach other people’s goals. New members need time to settle and mature.

Sometimes churches are exactly the right size. They can afford their pastor. They can maintain their building. People know each other and are sensitive to one another and their community. They work well together and are confident enough in their sense of mission to welcome new people.

So why can’t we accept congregations the way they are? Is the push to grow important to the mission of the church or is it important to maintaining the three budgets each congregation is expected to support (their own, and those of the regional body and national entity)?

Churches will grow if they are growing for the right reasons. Their way of achieving their mission may not suit church professionals, but it may be good enough—at the moment. It may be great.

Redeemer was good enough. Redeemer was great at what it was doing in mission work — which no one else was doing quite the same way. We were not replicating a model foisted on us from above but we were innovating in ways from which others could learn and which we could afford and had the talent to support.

We don’t know what would have made the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America happy.

  • We had grown five-fold since Bishop Almquist’s interference in our ministry in the late 1990s. SEPA didn’t know that because SEPA ignored us for a decade. When faced with the facts, they simply refused to count the new members. “White Redeemer must be allowed to die. Black Redeemer — we can put them anywhere.” (Bishop Burkat)
  • We had achieved diversity, a stated goal of SEPA.
  • Our members spanned the age ranges and was no longer top heavy with older Christians.
  • We had several pastors interested in working with us.
  • We had some money in reserve.
  • We had lay leaders with diverse talents that complemented those of professional leaders.
  • We had a ministry plan that had the potential to create ongoing revenue.

We were and are good enough. We might even be great.

But recognizing Redeemer’s unique ministry didn’t meet SEPA’s agenda. They needed us to fail so they could justify taking our property (which their Articles of Incorporation forbid, but who cares).

So they quickly, in a blink of an eye, acknowledged our success but followed it with criticism for not achieving it under their direction. (They were AWOL.)

Since they kicked us out of the ELCA, we’ve visited 52 congregations. We know our ministry is just as active and effective as those who sat in judgement over us. And it is unique. We don’t have a food pantry. We don’t sign up for every charity run. Our kids don’t go to Synod youth events. But we do support ministries in other countries. All our kids and families had an opportunity to attend church camp. We have developed a social media ministry which reaches 1500 people a month. We’ve made a project of connecting with other Lutheran congregations. We have fought to maintain congregational polity, which will someday benefit every other SEPA congregation. We continue to meet for worship and ministry weekly.

If we had tried to be like bigger churches we would not have been able to accomplish the things we did. We did our own thing with our own resources and remained true to our mission. If we had concentrated on emulating bigger congregations we would have failed. All of our resources would have been spent keeping up with the St. Joneses. We found areas of ministry in which we could excel and make a difference.

We were good enough, we like to think, to be welcome in God’s house.

We were not good enough, we know, to be welcome in the ELCA.

How Size Affects A Congregation’s Relationship with Community

In the previous post, we discussed how size affects a congregation’s relationship with its regional body.

It affects relationships in community, too, but in different ways.

Congregations rely on regional bodies for professional support. They rely on communities for financial support.

Your branding must take both “audiences” into account. This is an unusual position. Businesses (unless they are regulated) don’t have to look over their shoulders in forming their plans for outreach. Congregations are sandwiched between two audiences.

Here are some things to consider for each size church as you work on your community branding or write your mission and vision statements.

Family churches are intimate. Everyone knows one another. Many may be related. Worship is an extension of the holiday dinner table.

CHALLENGES: This size church must find a way to be inclusive of community members who come to them with a new pedigree. They must often do this with limited professional support.

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Pastoral churches, the most common size church, rely a great deal on their relationship with their pastor. The need to foster this relationship can distract from ministry.

CHALLENGES: Complacency resulting from good relationships with a pastor can be comforting for a while, but it can easily become the focus of ministry and a mission challenge. A difficult relationship with a pastor can be devastating within the church and with the regional body. The reality of today’s world is that growing, or even maintaining, this size congregation can be beyond the skill set of a single pastor. These congregations must develop networks among members to identify, nurture, or recruit the skills they need to serve their communities. At the same time, they must continue to serve the current congregation.

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Program churches are seen as stable financially because they can support a full-time pastor and additional staff with special skills.

CHALLENGES: The program church’s challenge is to support their staff and provide ministry for programs as well. When the community comes to you specifically for children/youth ministries, senior ministries, immigrant ministries, etc., they come to you with expectations. Like consumers, they want their needs to be met. Those needs change. Congregations must nurture member involvement to grow individual faith beyond the personal needs to lives of service. This is a huge undertaking! Program churches will have to reevaluate programming regularly and be able to switch gears. Program churches face significant expenses in doing this. Programs aren’t cheap!

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Corporate churches face challenges that result from success! They may have outgrown their ability to know their own membership in a way they can serve without being asked. Corporate churches’ positions in their communities may be seen as solid, but today’s statistics show that these churches are just as challenged in reaching their communities as small churches. The decline is a bit less noticeable because of the size, but the rate of decline is similar and may actually be more severe. Their size can be an obstacle to the intimacy many people crave when seeking a church.

CHALLENGES: Corporate churches face the challenge of maintenance. They must nurture relationships among diverse populations. They must maintain their prestige. If they continue to be successful, they will be serving people who are less able to financially support their budget.

Each of these sets of challenges must be addressed in your congregational branding. You want people to know who you are and who you can become. Know your strengths, your challenges and your goals. Search for leadership that can help you reach your goals — not just serve you the way you are before you successfully transform!