Support

There is a facet of ministry that is currently lacking in our system; the personal touch. Our current model of calling, training, and supporting pastors is quite programmatic. We stand in front of thousands and give an invitation to "surrender to God's call" and then trust that God will touch those who need to move. We take those who respond and stick them with thousands of others in a homogeneous learning environment hoping God will teach them what they need to know. Then we send them into the field and tell them that they can attend this conference or that retreat (for a fee of course) to fill in the holes that inevitably arise between their education and their practical experience. Intended or not, the net result is that we have thousands of pastors moving through ministry feeling very alone and desperately looking for some model upon which they can base their calling. That is one reason why things like 40 Days of Purpose have been so successful in attracting users. In reality it is very likely that God wants to create an entirely new and unique model in our pastors, but that requires personal training and direction that they do not receive.

Much like calling and training, I believe that they way we support pastors in the field needs to be more personal. Our current method of support involves seminars, retreats, books, and many other impersonal, generic solutions. They are not bad things, they are just insufficient. They are solutions that could work well in partnership with a one-on-one discipleship and mentoring relationship. Most people explain our current support methods with words like "efficiency" and "stewardship". It is just too costly, some will say, to minister to each church or pastor individually. The problem is... that is just not true. And, even if it were true it would still not be a good enough reason to continue spending our resources on a broken strategy. If the current strategy was producing marked results, then we could argue that it is a good use of resources. Evidence suggest that the current method does not produce such results.

Contrast that with the work that the Healthy Church Group is doing in California. In the last 5 years they have done individual consultations for over 400 of the 2,000+ California Baptist churches. Of those over 40% have seen a marked increase in Sunday worship attendance, baptisms, and giving. Imagine if 40% of SBC churches began seeing growth in these three areas in the next 5 years. It would be incredible! The truly amazing thing is that the main reason the other 60% do not see the same improvement is that they do not choose to follow the recommendations of the consult. The HCG is currently making more changes to include long term 1-on-1 coaching to increase the personal and relational impact of their consults with hopes that it will increase the number of pastors and churches who follow through with change.

Even with such evidence that a personal, relational solution can provide great results, some will still argue that it is not cost-effective... that it just requires too many people to be practical. The fact is that the current SBC structure would allow this kind of individual support for every church in the convention without the need to add any additional staff. Merely using the current State and Association level staff members they could offer an individual consult for each church every 5 years or so. I personally believe this is the direction conventions will move if they want to survive in the coming decade.

The Church in America is much like a house built on a foundation of sand. The way we have been calling, training, and supporting our pastors over the last few decades has left a crumbling foundation. Our current methods are as effective as a man trying to hold up that sandy foundation. As soon as he moves to support one corner another begins to fall. He may grow efficient at moving and supporting and be able to artificially keep the thing standing for a while. But, eventually it is going to come crashing down unless the foundation is changed. In this analogy, the foundation of The Church is local body, led by the local pastor. We must change the way we build that foundation in order to reach future generations and redeem the current generation.

Training

Though I realize there are other methods of training pastors, it seems that the vast majority of them come from Seminaries. As with many institutions of higher learning, seminaries are designed with the basic premise that if pastors learn the right things then they will be successful. The training is extremely uniform though it attempts to prepare an extremely diverse group of prospective pastors. They may have many of the same basic gifts, but their personalities, stage in life, and ministry experience is generally all over the board. The pastors that leave seminary are able to correctly prepare and deliver sermons. They also seem to be lacking in disciple-making, leadership development, vision casting, and personal spiritual development (their own development). I believe all of these things and more are best learned by practice and in a live environment. I propose an alternate, system similar to the one that the medical profession uses, in which perspective doctors must do internships and residencies before they are sent out on their own. I believe a system could be developed that requires one year (20-30 hours) of class work and two years of resident work at a local church. The churches chosen would need to meet certain criteria obviously, but with some of the recent work done on healthy, growing, and comeback churches there should be a large group to begin with.

The benefits to this system as I see it are:

1. Lower barrier to entry. As it stands seminary is a rather large barrier to entry due to the cost and time involved. The value that it offers is at odds with the cost it requires. Basically, if you have the time and money to invest, you can get your paper. If you don't... then many churches will not consider working with you.


2. More personalized training. Much like a doctoral internship, ministers could experience several different res of ministry within a church before deciding upon their focus. And, the host church could provide feedback based on real-time observations of actual experience.


3. Development by doing. Christian love is best lived out in the context of a community of believers interacting with a lost world. It takes all of ten to fifteen hours to read a great book on leadership or evangelism. But it can take months or years of practice to really learn the application of those systems.


4. DNA transfer. Church is an organism. Healthy churches have a certain DNA or Culture. You cannot teach those things in classroom, they must be fused into a person through time and effort.


5. De-centralization and Exponential Growth. Limited supply and Increasing demand is a bad thing in the pastor training economy. It is true that online availability can help with some of this, but that only provides an online version of the current system... which gives even less personal feedback based off of observed practices. Assuming my system works it will lead to more healthy churches by spreading the DNA from healthy churches across the nation. That will open the door for more and more training centers.

It is easy at times to look at our failing churches and blame pastors and people for being lacking. They lack vision, they lack passion, they lack surrender and spirituality. Perhaps all of those things are true. Yet, I wonder... who ever taught them how to cast vision, how to live with passion, how to practice surrender and develop a strong spiritual relationship with God? Were those things built into them in their three years (and countless thousands of dollars) spent on seminary? If pastors are the leaders of the church, then who are the leaders of the pastors? In our current system it is the seminaries, and those people who run them. And, if our system is getting the results it was designed for (which all systems do) then we need to change the way we train people. And, I think it requires something deeper than simply looking at our curriculum choices and teaching practices.

The Call

Current statistics say that anywhere from sixty to eighty percent of churches in America are plateaued or declining. Those trends stretch back for a couple of decades. That indicates that there is a problem with our system; the way in which we call, train, and support pastors. Let me make a quick note that I do believe God is ultimately responsible for His church and I am not arguing for a business solution to a spiritual problem.

To borrow terminology from Triperspectival Leadership models we are currently calling too few Prophets and Kings. For those tempted to say, "God determines who gets called, not us!", I counsel caution. That line of thinking leads to a place where God does not give us systems to accomplish His will. you might as well say that it does not matter how we disciple because God will bring growth to whom He wants. It does not mater how we evangelize, God will save who He wants. It does not matter how we serve, God will meet the needs He wants met. The fact is God accomplishes all of these things through His body and that is us. So, one of the tasks God has for us is to train up the next generation in such way that they see his call to ministry life.

At first I was going to say that we have too many Priests in lead-pastor positions, but that is not accurate. We don't have too many priests, we just have too few Prophets and Kings. It seems that we have been somewhat reactionary in the way we call pastors. By "we" I mean the churches who pay them and follow them. Forty years ago your premier pastors were mostly Prophets. They were the model that most pastors attempted to imitate, and most congregations wanted a "strong" pastor to "preach the Word!". These pastors spoke the Word with power and led in the confidence that God was directing their steps. They were extremely confident but not very personable. Perhaps that led to our current wave of Priests as lead pastors. These pastors are meeting a very real need in their people; to connect with their spiritual leader on a personal, meaningful level.

What we are discovering is that many Priests often struggle with things like Values, Mission, and Vision. So, the call has come out for Kings to join in leadership once more! Strategy will be the salvation of The Church if you listen to some voices. This is crucial time for The Church, because purely reactionary thinking could be devastating. Prophets bring God's Word, Priests bring God's heart, and Kings bring God's plans. The danger we face is that we focus so much on the plans God reveals that we lose our dependence on His Word for our power and His Heart for our direction.

We must become proactive in our thinking about what church would look like with the right mix of Prophets, Priests, and Kings all using their gifts and talents for His glory and to build up His bride. Right now most of our Kings have landed in the secular world, a place that values their input. For many years Kings have been seen as "less spiritual" because they dare to talk about things like systems and structures and measurable goals. The fact is there are many people who are completely committed to God spiritually who also have great strategic minds. God gave them those minds, and we need them in the church today. We also need a resurgence of the Prophets; men who will speak God's Word to God's people clearly and pointedly regardless of the reception or response. We need them to talk to The Church, not necessarily to the culture.

The solution to this issue is both simple and difficult. It is simple because in truth God is the one who calls His pastors. It is difficult for at least two reasons.

1. Our secular culture pays kings handsomely, making it hard for them to hear God's call.
2. Our church culture does not include kings, adding to the barriers they face hearing God's call. Kings are seen as those "outside business people" that you bring in for special needs, like capital campaigns or master site plans.

We must work to remove the barriers that keep people from hearing God's call. That will require a church-wide call to simplicity and a surrender of the "American Dream" which is so grounded in the physical and temporal. It will also mean that we encourage our thinkers to invest themselves into God's work. When thinkers get involved change often occurs. That may yet be another reason why thinkers have been kept at arms length for so long, because current leadership rarely likes continuous change, knowing that it might mean a loss of influence and comfort.

More Churches... Healthier Churches

I love church planting. The last two churches I served at were church plants, and they were great models of what church plants can be. A quick look at the numbers in America makes it clear that we need new churches. Even if all of our current churches were operating at full capacity we would still need new churches.

The fact still remains that we also need healthier churches, and that statement applies to many of our recent church plants as well as the 100-year-old church down the street. From my experience it takes a church plant about 5-8 years to begin to look strikingly similar to older, stagnant churches. Even if the numbers are still moving up or looking more healthy than the older church, the systems within the church begin to look more and more similar to its predecessors.

This is true in natural relationships and it is true in churches. Children grow up to act like their parents... even if they swear that they never will. Without serious work and submission to God we all become our parents; it is the way God designed it after all. In fact he promises us many times in Scripture that actions and decisions last for generations.

So, if we want to be planting healthy new churches then it only makes sense that we should be focusing at least as much energy making healthy parents as we are birthing new churches. Otherwise we are just creating more work for ourselves in the future as we will be coming back to these church plants in 10-15 years and dealing with the same issues that currently face their parents.

There is much evidence that when healthy churches are involved in the planting of a new church, that church has a very high probability for success both in the short and long term. So, how do we work to build health into our churches? Better yet, how do we build health into The Church? The fact is this is not an issue that affects single churches here and there; it is something that affects the vast majority of churches across the country.

I believe a good first step is to take a clear look at the way we Call, Train, and Support pastors in America. Next Monday I will start discussing those steps, which are crucial to the System, Structure, Organization, or Organism that we call The Church in America.

Landed... now getting settled

We have officially landed in Texas (for now). Given God's history with me and my wife we may not be staying here long, but we are looking forward to laying down some roots even if they end up being temporary. One of the nice things about roots is that they can often endure location moves, especially in the Internet age.

As my physical life becomes more settled it is time for this blog to get a little more controversial. I mean what I say at the top of the page; I want to be part of a movement that changes the way we do and define church in America. That will most likely require some change... and as it is working out in my mind some big change. I do not mean change in the style of our services or the structure of our churches (necessarily). I believe there is a deep sickness in our system, the structure that we have developed to practice and propagate churches in this country. I grew up a Southern Baptist so when I say "we" I generally am referring to my group of churches. As it turns out we don't look that different from the Church in general in America these days, so I think it is safe to assume that what is affecting us is affecting most church organizations.

In the coming weeks I will begin diving into these issues. I am sure others have already discussed many of the things I will cover, and if you know of writing on the topics I would love to read it. In a nutshell I will be analysing the system by which we Call, Train, and Support pastors in America. If 80% of our churches are dead and dying (which is what most of the national research shows) then we have a System problem. This is not something that started 5 years ago or even 15. This is the expected result of a System that is broken.

The amazing thing is that the owner of our Organization is working to make change. I am constantly being reminded that God owns His Church, and He is actively working to make her healthy again. I feel honored to play any role at all in this process, and I look forward with great anticipation to see what will come in the next decades as He accomplishes His plan.

Forget Evangelism Training...

Bring on the "How to make a friend" training. I really believe that there is a large and much over-looked reality in the church today. Many people are making the assumption that because 90% of all Christians will not share their faith this next year that:

1. They don't care about lost people, or
2. They don't know how to present the gospel (insert "feel confident", etc.)

I think a much larger reason that modern day Christians do not share the gospel is that they do not have any non-Christian friends. And, even more interesting is that the modern church system is getting exactly the results that it was designed to get. I will use my parents as a prime example.

There is something that happens in a parent-child relationship as the child moves on into adulthood. I think it was shortly after my first son was born and I turned 30 that I began hearing stories about who my parents were before I was around. I did not fully believe most of those stories as they described people completely different from my CPA dad and Kindergarten teaching mom. You see, my parents came to Christ late in life. Before their conversion they were a part of a good sized social network and attended events with these people both in their own home and other homes. These events would not be sanctioned by your average baptist church. In fact, they were strongly encouraged to break off ties with their former way of life, including the people who could "drag them down" into sinful ways. So, they obediently began breaking ties with their social circle and forming a new social circle... one comprised of friends from church, who just so happened to be Christians.

Fast forward thirty years and you have me, a Christian who has been raised in the way of the church, which is a way almost exclusively filled with Christian socials, Christian retreats, Christian sports, and so on. I believe we have an entire generation, and possibly two, of Christians who have been taught how to separate themselves from non-Christians and have lost the ability to make friends with them.

What strikes me is that as I read the New Testament and the life of Jesus I imagine that He would have had a much different response to my parent's situation some 30+ years ago. Instead of asking them to remove themselves from their social circle and make a completely new one, He most likely would have asked to join them at their next party (even though it may have had the evil alcohol in attendance!). Sure some of the friends might have decided that partying with Jesus was not their thing... but others most likely would have been intrigued. Regardless my parents would have maintained the skill of being friends with people who do not think, act, and dress exactly like they do.

That is the Evangelism Class we need today... "How to make a friend with a non-Christian 101". You might say to yourself, "But they work with non-Christians, their kids go to school with non-Christians, and they have neighbors who are not Christians!" All of those things may be true, but none of those mean that they would feel comfortable asking any of those people over to dinner just to hang out on a Friday night. And, if you can't see yourself asking someone to come eat burgers on a Friday night... how exactly are you supposed to see yourself talking to them about eternity?

The Future of the SBC

I spent a long week in Sacramento, California with the Healthy Church Group from the CSBC (California Southern Baptist Convention for all those who are not down with the lingo). It was a great week of training and networking. I also believe I got a little glimpse of the future of the Southern Baptist Convention.

One word that is being tossed around quite a bit lately is "relevance". Relevance is about meeting felt needs within a particular population group. Relevance is at the root of the currently popular question, "If your church disappeared would your community notice or care?" Relevance also plays a role in the current happenings within the Southern Baptist Convention.

I have not spent much one-on-one time around Convention people, but almost every time I do they are surprised to hear that I know nothing of SBC politics and procedure. I don't know the names of the presidents of my state convention or even our national convention. (Sure I could google them, but they most certainly do not come up in daily or even monthly conversation.) I don't attend association meals or budget/planning meetings or anything else. In fact, outside of a little line item on our yearly budget I am not sure my church is very connected to the SBC at all. When they ask, "Why?" our conversation inevitably moves to the issue of Relevance.

At first glance this seems like a case of local churches asking, "What does the convention to for me?" In reality I find that most of the people I talk to are asking the question, "What is the convention doing for the Kingdom?" Let me state here that I have been quite impressed with both the intelligence and the compassion of every Convention person I have met. These are people who care deeply about the local church and the lost. They also have brilliant ideas about how to reach the former and support the latter. What I have come to realize is that there is a great divide between what goes on at the State Conventions (and NAMB for that matter) and the local church. It does not matter how much you care and how brilliant you are if the people you are trying to reach and serve do not know about it. That is where the issue of relevance comes to play.

For decades conventions have attempted to bridge the great divide with conferences, seminars, and yearly associational meetings. If there ever was a day in which those strategies worked... it is long gone. If the State and National conventions are going to bridge the gap and become relevant to the local church then it is going to take a personal touch. That is exactly what the Healthy Church Group in California has begun doing. They transformed their traditional structure which was separate divisions for each function of the church broken up by age groups. Instead of being eight people who consulted with each other on the off chance that their specializations mixed they are now an eight-person consulting group that meets with local churches and works together to present unique solutions for church health and growth to each church. In the last five years they have consulted some 400 local churches in the California area, and now they are launching the second step of their plan... training DoM's (Director of Missions) to become consultants as well.

What they are finding is that instead of spending their time calling churches and convincing them to come to yearly training and retreats they are spending their time receiving phone calls and prioritizing which churches they can and will consult. The results that churches are receiving is creating an ever-growing demand for their services... something that many state conventions would love to say I am sure.

Perhaps the end system will look somewhat different than what is happening out in California, but I have confidence that they are on the right track. I hope we will see other states making similar changes in the years to come.