Posted by
Ron on Friday, July 07, 2006 1:24:25 AM
I'm posting Rick Warren's toolbox. I don't always agree with Warren but
he does have some thought provoking ideas on church growth.
I hear it frequently: "My church has hit a plateau. What can I do to get it moving again?"
While
this can be a common crisis, it’s not unfixable. There are several
things you can do to help your church move beyond its growth block.
First,
though, it’s important to understand that the longer your church has
been plateaued, the longer it’s going to take to get it going again.
There is tremendous power in momentum. At NASA, most of the energy –
the jet fuel – in a rocket engine is used up in the first several
hundred yards. It takes all that fuel just to get the thing off the
launch pad. Once it's in orbit, it takes very little power to keep a
rocket going. But you still have to get the thing going, and that
initial push takes a lot of time and energy up front.
If
your church has been plateaued for six months, it might take six months
to get it going again. If it's been plateaued a year, it might take a
year. If it's been plateaued for 20 years, you've got to set in for the
duration!
I'm
saying some people are going to have to die or leave. Moses had to
wander around the desert for 40 years while God killed off a million
people before he let them go into the Promised Land. That may be
brutally blunt, but it’s true. There may be people in your church who
love God sincerely, but who will never, ever change.
I
often tell the pastors of existing churches to remember the
illustration of an oil tanker. It takes about 14 miles for an oil
tanker to make a U-turn. That's like a lot of churches.
For
a church to turn around it may take many, many minute degrees of change
and a long time to make a complete turn around. I personally believe
you have to be called to a church like that.
People
ask, "Is it easier to start new churches, or is it easier to take
existing churches and turn them around?" My answer is this: "It's
always easier to have babies than to raise the dead." However, God is
in the business of raising the dead! He's a pro at resurrections, but
it just might take some time.
So what do you do with a church that has plateaued? I believe you need to do three things:
First, as we’ve just discussed, understand that it will take time.
As pastor of an existing church that needs to be turned around, you
must pray for an extra amount of patience. People change very slowly.
They are resistant to change because they recognize that life as
they’ve known it will cease to exist. So the very nature of the primary
group is to fight change. It can take time to win them over. Read More.