Lessons from the Outside: "Open Door"

It has been over 15 years since I have been “outside” the church. I don’t mean outside Christianity, I mean outside the workings of a local body. I began leading worship for my youth group when I was about 16, and then in May of this year God called me to step out of my church and into a new calling of coaching and consulting.

During these last two months my wife and I have taken the opportunity to visit many local churches, meeting pastors and staff when we can. It has been a great experience as we worship and learn from so many expressions of God’s body.

It has also revealed a few things that have caused me to look back on my time on staff and ask a couple of questions. The first question I asked is, “Was I as approachable as I thought I was?”

Pastors are busy people. I knew that when I was one, but I see it even more clearly from the outside. One of the things I wanted to do when I arrived in Austin, TX was to meet with local pastors to hear about what God is doing in the city and share the vision He has put on my heart.

I envisioned days filled with meetings. Morning coffee, lunch, perhaps an afternoon frappuccino or two. I have had many of those meetings, and they have been just as meaningful as I hoped.

What struck me was that the people I was attempting to meet often had to look weeks, or even months, out to find a free hour.

That is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to these pastors meeting with me. As far as they know I could be a complete waste of their time, and time is precious as they focus on the vision God has given them.

What got my attention is that as I spend more time with the laity I am hearing similar comments from them. There is a general feeling among many lay people that “their” staff person is difficult to reach, or does not have the answers and support that they are looking for.

As an associate pastor I was responsible for communicating to the leadership of many of our teams. I needed to communicate on a weekly basis to small group leaders, guest services, and worship leaders. I felt like I had a pretty “open door” policy with my leaders, but I wonder now if they felt the same way.

I wonder because I can remember times when members of those teams were uninformed or misinformed about important details. It was all too easy for me to blame these volunteers for not “hearing correctly”. I would console myself with thoughts like, “It was in the program”, “We announced it in church,” or even worse, “It is on the pre-service announcement scroll.”

I am even more ashamed of my tendency to scold my leaders for not “telling correctly”. I would question their communication methods and frequency. I was as nice as possible on the outside, but on the inside I was often shaking my head as if to say, “this is really not that hard.”

Too seldom did I look at myself and ask the question, “What does Joe-the-greeter’s confusion reveal about my communication with my leaders?” That question led me to consider my leaders more carefully, leading to another set of questions, such as:

1. Am I answering the questions my leaders are asking?
2. Am I talking in a way that they enjoy listening?
3. Do they believe we have conversations, or just mini lectures?
4. Who is the first person they call when they have a struggle in their ministry?

I have a feeling many of their answers would reveal that my door was not quite as open as I believed, or that they needed me to walk through their door more often.

HELP Wanted!! Apply within

I have recently had the wonderful opportunity to join with several other writers to blog on Church Central. I have been in contact with Church Central and the Society for Church Consultants for several months now as I have been walking into this new calling and direction in life.

Most of what I post there will also be posted here, though not everything I post here will be able to carry over. That said, however, I would like to copy over a few of my "best" posts as I get going on this new format.

That is where you, my wonderful readers, come in. Please leave a comment or two with blogs that you have found particularly helpful or though provoking over the months. I am especially looking for those that deal with leadership or church development, but feel free to mention any that you want.

Thank you for the help!

Do you have a Culture of Service?

I was so impressed by the service I received today at Discount Tire here in Austin, TX. Let me begin by saying I hate car repair. It is something I cannot do myself, and moreover I barely even understand what other people are doing when they help me. As a result I often struggle with trusting the people who are helping me fix my car in time of need.

That is one reason today was so refreshing. Last weekend we had the wonderful experience of getting a flat tire while in the "fast lane" on Hwy 183. At first my wife pulled off to the side of the road... the left side.

It only took me a few seconds to realize that attempting to change a tire with my back sticking out into the highway was not a great idea. I do know that much about car repair.

Next we got to go from zero to 60 and cross three lanes of traffic to get to the other median... that was fun! Oh, and my two kids were in the backseat this whole time, thankfully oblivious to the true nature of what was going on and the fact that an unobservant driver could smash into the back of us at any time.

I did manage to get the tire changed without any serious bodily injury. I say serious because there was some minor injury when I attempted to lift the car so that my wife could place the jack onto the prescribed spot on the car's frame... but that is another story.

In light of our recent experience I figured it was not a good idea to leave the tire flat, so I set off to get it fixed. I saw a large hole in the tread and figured that was a good thing; at least it was not in the sidewall. After doing a bit of research I set off for Discount Tire to get a quick tire fix.

As I pulled into the store this morning the first thing I noticed was that they were slammed. The parking lot was packed and there were sales people and customers everywhere, even in the parking lot.

The next thing I noticed was David walking over to me to see if he could help. With a handshake he asked my name and offered to assist. I showed him the tire and he lifted it out of my trunk and said he would fix it if he could... for Free. Sadly that was not to be for this tire. Apparently driving at 60 across three lanes of traffic on a flat tire does bad things to it, and there were many more splits than I had seen; this tire was dead.

You might be thinking, "Of course David was helpful; he wanted to sell you something." I agree that David's vision includes selling tires. But, the fact is he was willing to serve me today for no charge at all, not knowing if I would join in with his vision in the future or not.

During our time together he was able to tell me more about his vision of tires, how he wanted to offer the best tire at the best price with the best service. He told me that if this had been one of his tires that he would have replaced it for $15 instead of the $150 I was about to pay. I won't say I was happy to buy a new tire today, but I did not feel like I was getting robbed and tossed, bleeding, onto the side of the highway either.

I walked out today thinking of how it would be to have guys like David permeating the culture of our church. What would it be like if we freely served the world, and un-apologetically shared God's vision with them during the process; not ashamed to tell them of the cost because we are so convinced that the reward is greater by far.

Passion and Integrity

This is the answer to the Final Jeopardy question, "What is necessary to have a meaningful worship service?" It applies to all parts of the service from the music to the welcome to the message. I am honestly convicted and ashamed of some of my previous preaching and worship leading efforts because I was missing one or both of these qualities. The question now becomes, "What do we mean by Passion and Integrity?"

Passion. This occurs when I communicate not just what you could know, but what you should know. In fact true passion is unleashed when I am convinced that in order to live in God's will this is something that you must know. This also applies to things that you should do or be. Regardless of the purpose of the message, the key is to relate it in such a way that the audience is convinced that I believe this is absolutely required for the Christian life. I am to the point now where I do not have time for "good sermons." I want to hear what is urgent, what is necessary, what is required for life and fulfillment. The passage and points may not change, but the delivery will.

Integrity. Lest you think I am just looking for a good showman who can drum up the necessary delivery to make an exciting sermon, let us now look at Integrity. Quite simply, integrity is displayed when you show me that you do believe as much as you are telling my I need to believe. Integrity occurs when God has already been teaching you what you are attempting to teach me. It is highlighted by personal testimony, not just catchy quotes and cute stories. Integrity brings the spirited power that will cause transformation to pass from you into me. Some speakers are gifted enough to fake passion, but you cannot fake integrity; at least not for long. God is never fooled, and no worship time will accomplish His full work while the messengers are lying. And, that is exactly what we do when we demand passion from others that we have not already lived out ourselves.

What will bring us together?

When I first started this series it may have looked like a "Church Health vs. Church Planting" series. As with many other areas I do not often like arguing either/or when it comes to such things. I am much more likely to argue both/and. As I spent time thinking about the issues I discovered that the heart of the matter lies more with church unity than anything else. This all stems from a deep conviction that God wants us to focus on cities more than campuses. When people say, "Our church is really seeing God move and growing", at some level that should include what God is doing in their city, not just their particular body. I first learned this from one of that pastors at a church that happens to be growing quickly. I asked him how he worked to stay humble and flexible before God in the face of such growth and success. He pointed me to the fact that even as fast as their church was growing they were not even keeping up with the people moving into their city, much less the people who already lived there.

The shift from Campus-Centered thinking to City-Centered thinking may be small as it affects the actions and planning of individual churches. But, it will be huge in how it affects our prayer and partnership.

The question then becomes, "How do we work towards a City-Centered view of church?" I am convinced that until we measure together we will not work together. It is said that you cannot manage what you do not measure, and if that is true then church unity will never be a practical reality until numerical unity is achieved.

"What does that look like?", you may ask. In its simplest form it would be a monthly report sent to each church in a city that lists every church's average worship attendance and total baptisms for the month. The report would provide a total attendance and baptisms for the city. Over time it would allow several unifying factors, such as:

1. Are we growing? When "we" is not just my campus but my city I am forced to look at the bigger picture. Things like "transfer growth" within a city are neatly done away with since it will have no impact on the bottom line. It would also allow a baseline to measure against things, like city population growth, to give a true measure for how the church is doing relative to larger demographic trends.
2. Recognize the sick as well as the healthy. It is not that hard to make a list of the "5 fastest growing churches" in a city. It is much harder to come up with a list of the "5 churches in most need of help before they slide into decline". If churches would agree to let their numbers be seen (a big if I know) instead of inputting them anonymously then you could measure strength and growth over time. This leads to a huge opportunity for ministry; the type of ministry God calls us to when he says that when one part of the body suffers, all suffer with it. We have attempted to bypass that reality by ignoring those churches that are dying in our city. It is too easy to ignore sick and dying churches right now. That is not a Biblical response. Sick churches should either be healed or removed... never ignored.
3. Hopefully City-Centered measurement will lead to City-Wide _________. The goal here is the God's Church in a city to get God's Heart for a city. Each church will operate in its own unique shape, but all for the same goal. Think of the possibilities if The Church in a city banded together and just adopted all of the orphans. Not a few churches offering courses on "how to adopt", but hundreds of churches just doing it in God's love.

God speaks to the church of the city in the New Testament. Some say that is because there was only one church in the city at the time. I believe it goes deeper then that; that cities have something like their own personality. God has a vision for our city, and for yours, and it goes far beyond any one church campus.

Partnership as a Tool for Transformation

One of the ways that God's transformation works is that He will plant a vision in a person. He then allows that vision to grow from that person into a system (say a local church or community). The vision creates change, or transformation, from within the system. So, what happens when God puts a vision into the heart of a person and their first option is to start a new work? It seems that the transforming power within the church is lost if the new vision always leads to new works. I heard it many times from church members who were considering looking for another church because, "I really have a heart for X, and I want to find a church that does too."

It is true that churches need to be focused on a unique vision in order to be most effective within their community. It is also true that God uses the passions of the people He has planted in churches to reveal that vision. I often told those same people, "This is the first I have heard about your passion. You know we are always looking for more ways to serve our community, let us join together in prayer to see how God may take your passion and connect it to our vision." If that did not work, I always had a list of vision-directed churches in the area that perhaps would provide a better fit.

This very principle is one of the things that I was pressed on with my recent call to work in church health. I felt God calling me to move out of the church we were at (and even the state we were in), but not because I believe partnering with a local church is against my vision. Quite the opposite I hope to build a network of churches that I can partner with in the Austin area that will embrace a vision of church health as a mission activity. My goal is not to start a new church that is focused on creating and spreading church health... though sometimes it seems that it might be an easier road. I think that is sometimes why people are drawn to beginning a new work; it is easier than transforming the existing work. It seems easier to find a church that already has the ministry you feel called to than to work with the leadership of a current body towards transformation. Most people find that "new" and "easy" don't often go together as well as they expected. But, even if new was easy, I am not sure easier would be better in this case.

If God has a new vision He is revealing, then He most likely wants to use it to transform His church, not just a part of a single body. That is really the heart of my issue. Regardless of how we express ourselves, God still expects us to operate as a unified body; and it just is not happening. I don't care if there are 15,000 churches in a local area, none of them larger than 10-20 people. They key is Unity and Partnership, and that is a Biblical mandate just as much as any other.

I don't think we take God seriously when He speaks of His church being united. We act like unity involves verbal assent such as, "God bless you guys, hope He uses you in your calling!" God refers to us as His body. If that does not refer to an entire city full of churches, then it certainly refers at least to a community. How are we supposed to be a functioning body if each individual piece is focused on its own vision and direction? Again, I am a big proponent of local church bodies finding and fulfilling their unique purpose, but not to the extent that they fail to communicate and coordinate with one another. Some things will be unique from church to church. But, things like serving the community, caring for orphans, and reaching the lost are not unique to any one Church; and neither are the strategies used to accomplish them. We must find a way towards true unity if we want to experience the full power of God's transformation.

Before you Plant

This was originally part of my previous post... but God edited it quite generously as He attempted to work grace and life into my words instead of, well instead of what was there before His edit :). I wanted to put this out though, because I believe it could be helpful to some who are considering the strategy behind church planting. As I have stated many times I believe one of the most crucial things in a successful plant is to get a certain DNA into the planting pastor. To that end, if a pastor feels called to work with a certain people group then I have two suggestions:

1. If your church is not passionate about church planting, then join one that is and spend a year there. Church planting DNA is unique. Healthy church planting DNA is extremely rare. If you can find a church with healthy church planting DNA it would be worth year to go and soak in as much as you can; even if they don't pay you. You are going to be raising support anyway, and they year you spend investing in yourself will pay decades of dividends down the road. (Look at Hill Country Bible Church if you need a good example.)
2. Find a church in the area you feel called to and join their staff for 6-12 months. Again, you are already looking to raise support, so they should welcome a free addition to their staff. Partner with a local work, again trying to look for a healthy one, but even if not realize that you can learn from people who have been on the field... even the unhealthy ones. There are many practical benefits as well, such as a potential "office" area with all of the perks you don't have at home. Things like printers, faxes, quiet places to make phone calls, etc. are handy to have. And, you may even be able to forge a relationship with a local church that will partner with you into the future. That should be part of your long-term goal anyway, so why not get started from the beginning?

We need to be better team players in The Church. I also think it would behoove us to develop a mentality that honors and strengthens current works as well as new ones. Sometimes it will not be possible to partner with others because no other church will exist in your area or people group; or no other church will willingly partner with you. If so, then you can plant knowing that as far as it depends on you, you have walked in honor and unity.