1 of 4
 Planting Without ReapingThree experts offer help for a church that has worked hard without harvest.
1 of 4
It may be the most common frustration among pastors today: "I'm doing everything I know, but I don't see the church growing. What's wrong?" Here a pastor explains his situation, then three respected observers offer their analysis. I was a former pastor working a secular job when my wife and I sensed God's call back into pastoral work. We moved to Faith Baptist (names have been changed), a traditional Southern Baptist church in Michigan, in a town of 40,000. Two decades before we arrived, a band of pioneering members from a church on the other side of town started a mission, meeting in a tent on what would become the front lawn of our property. With evangelistic preaching and lots of follow-up visits to guests, the growing group graduated to a rented "trailer church" until the first building was constructed five years later. The church's culture was strongly influenced by the southern "chicken and grits" subculture of transplanted autoworkers who had moved north for the relatively high paying, blue-collar jobs. Year 1: Sensing the SicknessOur small church culture was seasoned by rural America, complete with a strong-willed patriarchal deacon and a "we've always done it this way" mentality. After a year of heartfelt preaching and a couple hundred home visits, I concluded the church's culture was largely responsible for inhibiting growth beyond the 80 regular attenders. I listened, learned, loved the people, and increasingly sensed that loving confrontation would be necessary for some who were standing in the way of progress. My saying to newcomers, "You're welcome here," wasn't convincing when some families looked offended if a newcomer sat in their pew. A major conflict arose just after our first anniversary when the senior deacon, an outspoken auto worker approaching his retirement, decided it was time for another pastor. I would have been number five in a line of pastors who had come and gone. As the deacon said, "There are plenty of other churches with that modern music and namby-pamby preaching. All these new people can go there if that's what they want." My wife and I chose to surround ourselves with mature Christians, hunker down to pray in our living room, and hold on for dear life. A few months later when the smoke had cleared, only two families had left the church, the leading deacon's family and one other. We were left with 70 shaky saints to heal the wounds and write a kinder and gentler chapter in the congregation's history. Shortly afterward, groups in our church began studying Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, by Henry Blackaby and Claude King. That changed the way we do church. Rather than dreaming huge dreams for God, we started listening for him to tell us what we were supposed to do. Instead of expecting every member to make evangelistic visits, we started looking for those who felt God was leading them to make those visits. God raised up three men with a heart for evangelism and the willingness to visit. Not everyone appreciated the changes. They didn't like giving up their favorite hymn in "the red book" or putting up with noisy children in church, as God was bringing in new young families. Our church had begun a radical transformation, however, and with a new mindset, we felt the anchor lifted. We sailed with the wind of the Spirit. Newcomers felt more welcomed, the services felt less harsh, more celebrative, and people smiled more. Year 2: Agree on VisionOne Sunday evening an older member described how God was working through two of our members in the prison ministry. Wanting more people to hear stories of God at work, we turned several Sunday nights into "town meetings"—to hear what people sensed God wanted for our church. After teaching on the subject of hearing from God, we held a leadership retreat, where we listed and prioritized all that we felt God was leading us to do. Our honest and prayerful evaluation of our program was like a dental check-up. Some programs appeared as decay. They weren't terribly painful to our church, but they were sapping energy from those who could serve more effectively elsewhere. Wednesday night missions classes fell in that category, yet for two years we ignored the cavity. I felt this program occupied key leaders who could've invested in evangelism or home Bible studies. But they seemed committed to missions, so I didn't push change. We struggled along with a traditional Sunday night program, reaching a dozen adults, with a half-dozen children. I felt we had too many programs that fed the faithful flock and not enough that reached out to lost sheep. |             |
share this page
