Tag Archive - decline

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It would be Easier if your Church didn’t Grow

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Ministry would be a lot easier if your church didn’t grow. I know that most church leadership books, blogs, and conferences are designed to give you the inspiration, principles, training, and tools to help your church grow; but If you really knew the truth about how hard it is to actually grow a church, you probably wouldn’t want to do it. Just think about how much easier it would be if your church didn’t grow. There’s all kinds of difficult things you wouldn’t have to do.

Don’t have to Change

You wouldn’t have to have arguments about changing the style of the worship. You wouldn’t have to worry about people being upset that you’re changing the way things have always been done because you would just keep doing things the way they’ve always been done.

Don’t have to Give up Control

Things could be done exactly the way you want them to because you’d be doing them. It would be nice, and neat, and tidy. No mess. You wouldn’t have to worry about staff members or volunteers challenging your ideas as the pastor because everyone would be executing your ideas they way you want them done.

Don’t have to Ask People for Money

You wouldn’t have to deal with the pressure of talking to people about money. Just think, no building or expansion programs or worries about expanding budgets! People would be happy at your church because you’d never talk about money, they wouldn’t have to be generous and they could live totally self-absorbed lives.

Don’t have to Restructure

You’d never have to fire a staff member. You’d never have to deal with the pressure of potentially making the wrong hire. You’d never have to restructure and reposition a staff member who used to lead close to you but now the growth of the church has outgrown their capacity.

Don’t have to Disappoint People

By not doing any of the previous four items on this list you could actually keep everyone happy. You’d never have to disappoint anyone in your church ever again. And best of all, everyone would like you.

You don’t have to do any of these things if you don’t want your church to grow. But then again you don’t have to obey Jesus either I suppose.

Posted in Leadership

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[Webinar Replay] The Unstuck Church – Why Churches Grow, Thrive, Decline & Die

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Recently, The Unstuck Team had a conversation about something we are really passionate about: The Unstuck Church. Every church has the potential to go through a very similar life cycle. Over time, most start, grow, thrive, decline, and eventually end. Through this webinar, we unpacked the stages of the church life cycle and answered questions like:

  • Do all churches hit all phases?
  • Where do growing churches typically get stuck moving toward sustained health?
  • What does sustained health look like?
  • What are the early warning signs a church has entered the maintenance season and started to decline?

If you missed out on our conversation about The Unstuck Church, you can check it out here:

Looking for resources to learn more?

Take our free Unstuck Church Assessment. You can take it individually or invite your team members to participate. This online tool is designed to help you best determine where your church sits today in its life cycle and your next steps.

Order The Unstuck Church. As we mentioned on the webinar, Tony Morgan’s new book, The Unstuck Church: Equipping Churches to Experience Sustained Health, goes in-depth on all seven stages of the typical life cycle of a church.

Posted in Leadership

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My Top 10 Church Leadership Posts of All-Time

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

More than six years ago I reluctantly began blogging. I started this journey kicking and screaming. I didn’t want to start a blog. After all what would I have to say? Who would listen? Did the Christian community really need another voice in a conversation that already seemed pretty loud to me?

What started as a couple of friends strongly encouraging me (badgering me may be a better way to say it) to share some notes from some leadership training I had done with some groups of leaders has somehow turned into literally hundreds of church leadership articles over the years.

I’m about to drop a secret on you about my blog. What keeps me going week in and week out is my personal discipline to continue to grow as a leader. This site acts as an accountability tool to keep me consistently thinking about, writing about, and testing my leadership thoughts and ideas. I don’t keep doing this for a platform, I keep doing this because I want to keep growing, so in essence you, the reader, get to have a sneak peak each week into my online, public, leadership journal. Over the years some posts have been more useful than others to readers. So I thought I’d share some of the most helpful articles over the last 6+ years with you. Happy reading!

#1 10 Insider Focused Ministry Names

This has always been an important topic to me. I’m convinced that words build worlds (culture) and that nothing betrays (reveals) the true culture of our churches more than how accessible (or inaccessible) our language is to outsiders.

#2 8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at your Church

I’ve had a bit of a self-admittedly outlier view on volunteerism in the church. I don’t believe that volunteer roles are slots to be filled or jobs in the church to be completed but that volunteering is discipleship and that you can’t follow Jesus and not volunteer. It’s bothers me that most churches just don’t get this.

#3 How Many People Should Your Church Have on Staff?

When I encourage churches to staff at a 1:100 ratio most of them look at me like I’m crazy. But not only is it doable but it’s a better model (for all kinds of reasons).

#4 When is it Right to Leave a Church?

People leave churches for all kinds of reasons. I’ve had friends of mine leave churches that I’ve been on staff at…that’s tough by the way. There are a couple of good reasons to leave a church, but most reasons people give are pretty weak stuff that they end up sprinkling a little “Jesus dust” on to make themselves feel good about it.

#5 6 Indicators You’re Leading an Insider Focused Church

I mentioned that this is an important topic to me & that I’ve written on it a bunch. After all the whole reason I thought the Church existed, like the whole reason God put the Church on the planet was for people who don’t yet know Jesus. What I’ve found is that most churches wouldn’t agree with me.

#6 10 Signs your Church is Headed for Decline

80% of churches in America are either plateaued or in decline. It’s possible to see the signs ahead of time and make changes before you experience decline.

#7 When to Add Another Worship Service at your Church

Many churches are stuck in attendance simply because they haven’t maximized their current facilities and campus. Thinking about adding another worship service at your church? Here are five strategic concepts to consider before you do.

#8 6 Things I Bet You Don’t Know About Your Pastor’s Wife

Every once in a while Lisa, my wife, will let me read my blog posts to her before I post them to get her feedback. Occasionally I’ll get real lucky and she’ll give me some of her insights to add…this one was gold.

#9 5 Core Behaviors of Churches that get Unstuck

One of the most rewarding things I’ve done the last 4 years has been consulting at the Unstuck Group. These core behaviors have come from observing and working with churches across America the last few years.

#10 Why Nice People Kill Churches

This post was written in an airport in Germany a couple of years ago. I was frustrated with people choosing politeness and people’s feelings over the mission of the church…and this is what came out of that frustration.

Posted in Leadership

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10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Thank you for making May another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

How Many People should your Church have on Staff?

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

How to get Guests to Come Back to your Church

Why is it that the one organization on the planet that should care the most about people, the church, seems to get a bad rap for the way it treats people?

How to Clear Up the Vision at your Church

In my experience working with churches “vision” seems to be one of the most talked about and least understood concepts in church leadership. Most church leaders have a tendency to over-complicate or over-spiritualize vision.

Insider Focuses Ministry Names

The language we choose to use is important because it both reflects and builds culture at the same time. And one of the most obvious ways to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.”

Why Good Leaders Shut Down New Ideas

There are countless examples of organizations and churches that fall in love with past success, become risk adverse over time, and refuse to change. But did you know that the most successful organizations and churches on the planet are just as adept at shooting down new ideas? Here’s why…

How to Leave your Church

No matter what style or size of church you serve in, no matter what title you have behind your name, there is one thing that every person in ministry has in common. At some point in the near or distant future, you will leave your current ministry position.

The 4-Phase Planning Process for Church Leaders

Few churches have a great planning process. Most don’t even have a good planning process, if they have a process at all. I’m not sure why this isn’t a bigger priority. Planning is certainly biblical. I don’t find many pastors who would really take aim at that fact. You’d have to throw out a lot of Proverbs, if you decided to.

Why some churches Win but most Lose

There are a lot of reasons why 80% of churches in America aren’t winning and there’s no “silver bullet” fix. But there are a couple of things that winning churches consistently do that losing churches don’t.

is your church Over-Thinking Discipleship?

At the Unstuck Group we’ve discovered an alarming trend in churches across America. When we lead a church through our strategic planning process we help them discover several “core issues” that that are holding them back from being the church that God has called them to be. In a study that we conducted more than any other issue churches identified creating a solid discipleship strategy as the most pressing issue they are facing.

10 Signs your church is Headed for Decline

What if there were early warning signs (flashing lights on the dashboard) that helped indicate that trouble was ahead? In my experience Coaching Church Leaders and Consulting with Churches across the country I’ve seen the following 10 indicators of an impending decline over and over again.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

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Is your Church like Walmart?

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Walmart, with all of it’s success as a company, has continued to come under public criticism in recent years. A quick Google Search will provide a litany of articles about the company devaluing employees in order to pad bottom lines and the big box store “gobbling up” smaller local retailers when they move into a new community. It seems like every town in America has a Walmart. But with all of their expansion and financial success is Walmart headed in the right direction?

I recently read an article in Forbes that suggested despite all of their success the future looks bleak for Walmart. Past wins don’t necessitate future success. Here are a few highlights that made me think about churches that have experienced success in the past but are on the verge of of painful future. Most of them, like Walmart, will never see it coming. Will you?

1. Poor Staff Culture

The church naturally takes on and reflects the culture of the staff. If your church has a hard time keeping Staff, if Staff are viewed more as a commodity to be spent or allocated to get to the vision instead of people to be developed your staff culture will erode. Eventually eroding the culture of your church.

2. Majoring on the Minors

If your tendency is to micromanage when things don’t go according to plan instead of taking ownership and rethinking strategy, your church may very well be headed for decline.

3. More interested in Growth instead of following Jesus

Don’t misunderstand me, I am firmly in the camp that if you’re following Jesus your church will grow. Because Jesus wants His Church to grow. He’d rather more people know Him than less. But if you’re more fixated on growth than obedience to calling and following Jesus then you’re already drifting towards decline…it just hasn’t shown up yet.

4. Refusing to Change

It’s difficult and often painful to navigate change in a church setting. But what’s even more painful for everyone is to have Sr. Leaders refuse to change and doggedly remain steadfast in direction when all the signs point to a needed change in strategy.

5. Lack of Sober-mindedness

When you’ve accumulated a winning track record it’s possible to begin to believe your press clippings. Be careful though. All of those accolades can assist you in losing touch with reality and fuel an undisciplined pursuit of more. Be mindful that you remain courageous enough to listen to the truth and act accordingly.

Has your church become like Walmart? Is what used to work not working anymore? Are you in a growth stall? The Unstuck Group can help you define reality by using a proven method to assess the health of your church and build a new strategy for the future.

 

Posted in Leadership
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