The Church – A Numbers Game

I’ve been involved with churches that were big, and involved with churches that were small. The first church I worked for averaged about 180 members on Sunday morning for their worship service. Compare that to the church I attended when I graduated from high school, and where my father currently serves as a minister, which now has about 700 members.

One of my best friends and fellow minister, Jason, works for a congregation in Alabama that has well over 2000 members. The church I attended for the longest time from about 1st grade till around 10th grade only had around 35 in attendance.

Seemingly, according to Mac Lynn’s 2006 book “Churches of Christ in the United States”, it seems as if the majority of the congregations in the United States have anywhere from 50 to 199 members. If you were to take an average, the churches of Christ average about 97-100 members per congregation.

I have to be honest, I hate numbers. I’ve hated numbers for a long time. It started with Algebra 1 in 9th grade. I had a horrible teacher who cared more about flirting with the athletes in the class instead of teaching us math. Ever since then, I gave up on numbers.

When I was in youth ministry, there was always a double standard for numbers. I needed to grow the amount of people in the youth group, but it was okay for the church to stay the same size. If we weren’t bringing in more teenagers to the youth group class, then I must be a lousy minister. That equation, sadly, is the equation that so many ministers must live up to.

Now I work for a church that is hovering with an average attendance of 160 or so. Of course, according to the studies of the church, this is an average, or better than average size for a congregation. Since I have moved here, I finally seem to have figured something out. No matter how large the church is in numbers, if you don’t have love, it means nothing.

Sure, 2000 members singing in harmony together during a worship service sounds wonderful, but so do 75 members.

You may have the best and most educated ministers in the few 1000+ member congregations, but the churches of 200 members have ministers who put a whole lot of time into their work as well.

Most importantly, I feel as if when we pressure people to become members, they run. And if they run, more than likely they are just running away completely, and not to another congregation. When we throw a membership card in their face as they walk in the door, they’re naturally going to think that we’re just like every other venue in their lives.

Get to know them. Talk with them. If they want to give you their contact info, they will based upon desire to get to know your church better.

Have cards for them to take that have contact info for your church, service times, activities, etc. If they give you permission to call them or email them, great! If not, let them make the next move.

If you have done all you can as a church, they will want to come back. If the church was not friendly, clean, inviting, prepared, organized, welcome…no amount of cards, visiting or free gifts will get them back into the church.

We don’t want the church to sound needy. When a church sounds needy by saying things such as “We really need you to be a member” or “Our church sure could use another servant”, it comes across as needy. Instead, offer to do something for them, instead of trying to sign them up for the Benevolence Committee on their first visit. See what you can do for them, or if they have any questions.

The truth of the matter is, God did wonders throughout the world with Jesus and his 12 disciples. If I’m doing the math correct, 12 < the average number of members in the Church today.

I hate numbers. I always have, and I always will. The only number that matters is that there is ONE God, ONE Savior, and ONE Hope. Let’s just do our best to show everyone who comes through that door, or everyone we come in contact with, or everyone we see on a daily basis, that Jesus Christ loves them and died for them.

Most importantly, we need to show each other love.  Do I exemplify that love all the time?  Not even close, but I’m trying, and I hope you will too.

Wanted: Evangelism. Any Takers?

There has been a large gap of time that has passed since I last posted. Let’s just say that I’ve been overwhelmed, under-motivated, and lacking the desire to write. For the three or four readers that may remain, I should be getting back in the groove soon.

I have been guilty of something as a minister, that I believe many ministers struggle with – not always practicing what I preach.

How many times have I encouraged people to reach out to others? To invite others to church? To teach them the Gospel? The times are too numerous to count, yet I can count the few times I recall where I actually, on my own, did evangelism like I encourage others to do.

Jesus told his followers to preach the Gospel to people all over the world. I am a follower of Christ. Therefore, in order to obey Jesus, I need to be doing the same. I’m afraid, however, that I’m guilty of expecting the evangelism to come to me, instead of me going to do the evangelism. I get caught up with work at the building, the office, with the people who are already a part of the church. Why do we do this?

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, – 1 Peter 3:15

Am I always prepared? Are you? Is the reason I’m lacking in my evangelism because I’m not showing this “hope” Peter says we should have? Am I alone in this?

I think there was a time in the US when you could approach just about anyone, and talk to them about God, and not be fearful of how people would respond. Now, it seem we all walk on eggshells about our faith, not wanting to offend, and possibly even just wanting to keep it to ourselves.

So here’s some things I try to do to evangelize outside of my office bubble:

1. I always try to say God bless to anyone who offers me some sort of service. I drive through a drive through, and I say God bless to the person taking my money, and the person handing me my food.

2. I try to be aware that the rest of the world is being pretty negative. If I can share a smile, be polite and cordial to everyone, and just do things that used to be considered “good manners”, I think it makes an impact.

3. I bring up my occupation when appropriate, not to brag, but to remind me of who I am and what I do. This makes it surprisingly easier to be an evangelist, because its almost expected to be brought up. Case in point, two weeks ago I ran into Dillards late on Saturday to buy a tie to go with a new sports coat I had bought. The lady who was helping me match my coat to a new tie seemed a bit flustered, due to all the Black Friday sales. I brought up that I needed a new tie to go with my coat because I was preaching in the morning. Immediately her spirit changed, not because she was trying to “act better” in front of a minister, but because I reminded her of what was coming. She told me that she was going to have a better night now, remember that the Lord’s Day was the next day. I don’t know where she went, or what religion she was, but she was reminded of God’s comfort.

Those are just a few things, but I want to know how the rest of you follow God’s command to make disciples. What have you found that works? I’ve seen many blogs and posts on the fact that evangelism is commanded, but not many people talk about what they’re doing, but rather about the fact that its supposed to happen.

How long should the Sunday morning sermon last?

Our Senior minister and I just had a long discussion about sermon length.

Some thoughts from the meeting:

1.  Some of the larger denominational churches that are rapidly growing often have ministers/pastors that speak for upwards of 40-45 minutes.

2.  The human mind doesn’t comprehend much past 20-25 minutes in one time frame.

3.  In order to get deep into the word, you sometimes have to preach a lot longer.

4.  People who get distracted/fall asleep/etc. are going to do that in a 10 minute sermon or a 50 minute sermon.

Please take a moment to vote in the poll, and leave a comment if you’d like about why you chose that, or add something new.  Thanks!

Rediscovering Our Focus

Few stories in the Bible pull at the heart strings like the one found in Luke 15, the story of the Prodigal Son.  Every time I read it, hear it, listen to a sermon on it, or even think about it, I can put myself into all three of the main character’s shoes.  This story has power, meaning, and truth buried in so many pockets that it seems as though one is always able to pull a fresh idea out of it, or at least revamp an idea that one has heard.

As I was preparing for the sermon I preached yesterday, I could not help but go directly to this story.  You see, we’re going to have a theme for the year in 2010 here at the West University Church of Christ.  It is simply “Rediscovering Our Focus”.  Who did a better job of rediscovering their focus in the Bible than the Prodigal, Lost Son?

This young man went from rags to riches in no time, but immediately went back to rags as he squandered his wealth on wild living.  I wonder sometimes if the church isn’t in a similar predicament.  According to the Christian Chronicle, since 2003 there are 526 fewer churches and 78,436 fewer people in the pews.  Now, granted, this number does reflect one church with 5000+ members in Richland Hills being “dis-fellowshipped” by the Mac Lynn Churches of Christ book, but that only accounts for a few of the near 79,000.  Could it be that in the years when the Church of Christ was growing, we didn’t realize how great it was until it was too late?  Did churches get to a point where they stopped evangelizing and just expected people to come to be with them?  Did we waste away the good ripe years of planting seeds because we were enjoying the harvest?

I think the best part about the story of the prodigal son is found in verse 17, where it says “He came to his senses”.  At one point, he looked up from the pigs he was feeding, and had to realize that enough was enough.  Going from being the one everyone respected and wanted to be with because of his wealth and lifestyle to living with the pigs must have been hard, but that’s what happened.  He could have continued to wallow in self-pity, but he did not.  Verse 17 simply states that he came to his senses.  He realized there could be more to his life.

John Reuben, a contemporary Christian artist, sings a song entitled “Nuisance”.  The words go:

So here we are in this same old spot
Knowing something needs to happen but our mouths are locked
Tongue tied closed tight sealed shut
I tried hard but it just wouldn’t come up
It’s on the tip of my tongue it’s in the front of my mind
Yet the words were still so hard to find
Finally the reality of things to come pushed me to the edge
I jumped off the cliff into the abyss as I said

chorus
I’m not trying to be a nuisance
I just think we can do better than this
that was simply my two cents
you can take it or leave it

Let’s think about this path that we’re taking
Let’s think about this future we’re creating
Let’s think about this life that is fading
Think about it, come on think about it now
Let’s think about this time that we’re spending
Investing in monetary things that are ending
Let’s think about it and let’s think together
And let’s think about what we can do to make it better

What can we do to make things better?  I think we can again look to the prodigal son to find our answer.  After he came to his senses, he did the most logical thing any of us can do — he came up with a plan.  His plan was to simply go to his father and ask if he could work as a servant.  His only goal was to get out of the mess he was in, not to seek out his place as a son, but simply to be a servant.  Of course, we read on the chapter to discover that he was given so much more than just a job.  All of that happened because he had a plan.

If we don’t have a plan, what kind of hope to we have?  God blesses those who have a plan.  Our plan here at the West University Church of Christ is to simply rediscover our focus.  We’re going to look at all sorts of things that we need to rediscover a focus on – leadership, love, worship, emotion, giving, evangelism, grace, baptism, and family…just to name a few.  We’ll start next week with Rediscovering our Focus on Leadership, and we will begin the process of appointing new deacons.  We have to let go of the things that have entangled us in the past, and rediscover our focus.  We need to embrace our plan, and work together.  Forget petty differences, forget legalistic arguments, forget about selfish ambitions, and focus on the fact that there are lost souls in this community.

Let us all rediscover our focus in 2010.

Sure-fire Ways to Help Your Congregation Grow (whether you’re a minister there or not!)

10.  Be involved in at least one thing/ministry outside of normal scheduled worship/class times.

9.  Talk about your congregation in a positive way to your friends, co-workers, family, and anyone else who may not be a part of the congregation

8.  Pray for the Shepherd’s, the Ministry Staff, the administrative staff, the Deacons, and anyone else who serves in a leadership position.

7.  Stop being concerned about the actual numbers who are not there, but focus more energy on loving and serving those who are there.  It will be contagious.

6.  Live the Christian life wherever you go.  You never know when someone may notice and want to talk about it.

5.  Encourage as many members as you can to participate in a Small Group (if you have them), or form a discussion/small group outside of service times where you can meet together away from the building.

4.  Don’t reject any idea the first time you hear it, unless it is truly unscriptural.

3.  Be positive, no matter what.  If someone is negative to you, return the attitude with positivity

2.  Support as many mission efforts as possible.  These can be foreign or local.  Put God’s money to work.  Don’t be the 1 talent church.

1.  Get out of the way, and let God work.

Churches “Clinging to a Bad Location”

I know many churches that have been blessed with a wonderful location.  Churches that are in a good location are easy to get to, easy to see, and have an aesthetic appeal to them.  People may drive by them and think “there’s a church I’d like to visit” just because they see it in a good location.

However, some churches are in a terrible spot.  When you have to make 7 left turns and one right turn by the log that looks like a spatula right past the “holler”, you’re in a bad spot.

I think about our church right now in West University.  Theoretically, we’re in a wonderful location.  We’re literally a stone’s throw away from one of the largest churches in the world, Joel Osteen Ministries Lakewood Church.  Tens of thousands of people gather to worship there each Sunday.  However, he also meets in a former NBA arena, and it is a high profile spot.

Our church sits along a busy Bissonnet Street almost in the heart of Houston, TX.  Hundreds of cars pass by our place each and every day.  However, we are located in a spot of town that at the heart of rush hour, people avoid like the plague.  We are near the Highway 59/Interstate 610 loop interchange.  We’re also near the Galleria.  While these may be places that a lot of people are located, they are very transient areas.  These are areas that people are going away from, not an area people are coming to.

So on Wednesday nights, our 6:30 service is very low in attendance.  Its not because people don’t want to come, but after people leave work at 6, they want to be able to go home.  If they wanted to come back to service, they would have to get back out in the terrible traffic, that sometimes can add up to an hour on your commute home, and they would be right in the thick of it.  We’ve had teachers that have called and said they can’t make it due to traffic, that by the time they got here, the service would only have 15 minutes left.

But, on Sunday mornings, there is no traffic.  You can breeze in on any interstate or major highway, 288, I-45, 59, 610, 10…you name it, no traffic.  It actually takes you less time to come from a long distance on the interstate than from 5 miles away in the city, due to all the redlights.

So at times, we have a good location, and at times we don’t.

But at some point, a church has to realize that they may be in a bad location.  Sure you want to minister to everyone around, but you have to understand that if you building is located in a less than desirable area, people may not come, no matter how positive the message is.

If your church is located next to a prison area, it may scare people off.  If you church is in a high crime area, people will be reluctant to park their cars there.  If the building is hard to get to, then people won’t come.  There are many reasons why you church may be in a “bad location”.  If you’re in a bigger city, and you haven’t experienced much growth in a while, you may need to consider that you’re no longer in a fertile area.  This chapter dealt heavily on these things.

 

10 Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing — Chapter 1 — Trying To Do It All

As we begin this review, we start with the first chapter entitled “Trying To Do It All”.   I think the funny thing about this chapter is the inevitable fact that all ministers in churches that are small understand exactly what this means.  Let’s just look at it from the example of the church I work for now.  My title is Associate and Worship.  However, I am in charge of Life Groups, finding teachers for our Teen group, preparing all the slides for our worship service, running and maintaining the website (www.westuchurch.com), working with our families, occasional bulletin editor, in house technical guru, class teacher, and many other things.

Our minister is the same way.  Not only is he the preaching minister, but he’s the office manager, bulletin editor, class teacher, sounding board for disgruntled members, and many more things as well.  When you work with a small church, you have this dilemma because there are much fewer workers in the church.

The author Geoff Surratt makes 4 points about “How to Give Away Your Job in 4 Simple Steps”.  His ideas are:

1.  Connect the Dots -

“Your people want to be part of a big mission.  Simply teaching a class, sweeping a floor, or printing a bulletin is not a big mission.  people will grudgingly do theses types of menial tasks until they can find a way out.  On the other hand, when they can see theses tasks connected to a bigger vision of changing their family, their community, and their world, they will arrange their lives around making sure the work is done.”

2.  Make the Big Ask -

“Don’t expect the right people to come forward on their own accord.  Often the people who step up initially are the least qualified for the task.”

3.  Show Them the Ropes -

“The biggest mistake we make as pastors in this area is that we don’t had off ministry; we abandon ship.  Once we find a willing volunteer, we hand her the teacher’s guide adn the class roster and run like heck before she changes her mind.”

4.  Quit -

“Realize that you are currently doing some tasks that you should pass on to someone else, while you are doing other tasks that nobody should be doing.  Pastors who are overwhelmed by ministry often pastor churches with too much ministry.”

I think the hardest part of this is the idea of asking, because many ministers have the attitude of “If I want it done right I’ll just have to do it myself”.  Even if we do realize that its okay to give up something, we too often do exactly what is step #3.  We rush it, and then the ministry fails completely because the person we’ve handed it over to has no clue what they’re doing, and it dies a slow death.

I like the last part of the quote in the 4th step of quitting is amazing, and hard to swallow.  “Pastors who are overwhelmed by ministry often pastor church with too much ministry.”  With churches that are smaller, we really do overwhelm ourselves with too much.  Maybe, the idea of this chapter could not just be pointed towards the leadership, but towards the whole church.

We have 150 members at our congregation.  We’re lucky to have about 40-60 for class on Sunday mornings.  Out of those, about 20 are involved with Sunday School for children.  We then have a Ladies Class, an Auditorium Class, and usually one other adult class.  For the fall quarter, we tried to add a fourth Sunday School class, and it was met with tough times.  We’re not ready for a fourth adult class, and we have realized it.  We are going back to only three in the Winter quarter.

What things are you doing at your church that you are overwhelmed by?  Quit trying to do things that only a larger church can do.  Make sure you are not overwhelming your staff, your elders, your ministers, or your members.  When we burn out on something, its hard to regain passion for it again.

Chapter 2 to come tomorrow.

Book Review: 10 Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing by Geoff Surratt

To be honest, I saw this book in a catalog from Group, and thought it was a humorous title, and picked it up thinking it may be more of a comical book than serious.  While the book tends to bring a gentle sense of humor with it,  the 10 chapters of this book are spot on.

Over the next few days, I think I would like to review each particular chapter in this book, and add my thoughts to the author’s thoughts.  This book was written from the perspective of a Pastor in a multi-site congregation in Charleston, South Carolina.  What I really liked about it was that it was not just from his perspective, but at the end of each chapter he asked a different Pastor/Minister to give his thoughts about that particular point.

Pastor’s contributing include Craig Groeschel, Pastor of LifeChurch.tv, Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington D.C., and Perry Noble of New Spring Church in South Carolina, who you can link to on the right.  There are 7 others in the book as well, a different one for each chapter.

I’ll start the reviews of each chapter next week, but I thought I’d go ahead and give the chapter names so you could be thinking about them.  In order, they are:

1.  Trying to Do It All
2.  Establishing the Wrong Role for the Pastor’s Family
3.  Providing a Second-Rate Worship Experience
4.  Settling for Low Quality in Children’s Ministry
5.  Promoting Talent over Integrity
6.  Clinging to a Bad Location
7.  Copying Another Successful Church
8.  Favoring Discipline over Reconciliation
9.  Mixing Ministry and Business
10.  Letting Committees Steer the Ship

I’ll try to begin this review Sunday afternoon or Monday.  Till then, Roll Tide.