Can you Change your Church DNA?

In the last 48 hours I heard another report of a pastor forced to resign his church. As far as I know it was not a moral, ethical or doctrinal issue. Why then was this Bible-believing, Bible preaching pastor forced to resign after just four years?

He tried to change the DNA of a 100 year old, county seat First Baptist Church. Now anybody that knows me knows I am not against change. I believe in the maxim: 'Innovate, reinvigorate or stagnate.' But I also believe you can't change the DNA of your church. We all have DNA that is unique to us....it's how God made us. I love to golf but as hard as I try I'll never be Tiger. He has his DNA and I have mine. Some of the best advice I ever recieved was as a pastor in a rural middle Tennessee church and went to an early 'Purpose-Driven Church' conference. At the end of the conference Rick Warren said, "If you pastor an established church: Don't try this at home!"

It was and still is great advice. Most of us aren't innovators anyway. Be a reinvigorator. Reinvigorate your Sunday School (especially if your church is over 100) instead of focusing on small groups. You need to focus on one or the other but your church DNA ultimately makes the decision.

Some choices we make. Some are made for us. If we break it, we own it.

MGT

Death of a Prayer Warrior

On Friday, October 9, 2009 Winnie Norwood walked through the 'Gates of Splendor.' I first met Winnie Norwood in the summer of 1987 when I became her pastor. She was a school teacher who went back to work when she became a widow. She was a strong supporter and encourager to her young and inexperienced pastor. She was gracious and forgiving.

But the best thing Winnie ever did for me was pray for me everyday for over twenty years. That was spiritual heavy lifting! During the five years I was her pastor she prayed for me every morning at 5:00 a.m. as she started her day with the Lord.

Winnie soon joined my wife and I every Sunday for lunch. It was just Cheryl, Winnie and myself. I cherish those time of fun and fellowship. When God led my family and I to a new ministry challenge she supported our decision and continued to pray for us daily.

Through the years and several other moves to other parts ofthe country she continued to be my Prayer Warrior. We would see her every few years and talked to her on the phone regularly. I want to close this tribute to her the same way I would end our phone conversations:

'Love you Winnie. I thank God for you. Talk to you again soon.'

And so I will.

MGT

Conflict in the Church

I was reminded last week that celebrity worship in the church is not a new thing. Paul had to deal with it in the church at Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 1:12-13 Paul writes:

'What I am saying is this: each of you says: 'I'm with Paul,' or I'm with Apollos, or I'm with Cephas, or I'm with Christ.' Is Christ divided? Was it Paul who was crucified for you? Or were you baptized in Paul's name?'

What do we know about the conflict in Corinth?

It wasn't about doctrine. It rarely is.

Paul, Apollos and Peter didn't encourage them.

The Corinthian Christians did place too much stock in high profile leaders.

Human prestige and power was at the heart of the issue.

Social friction contributed to the conflict (rich/poor; Greek/Jew).

How does Paul handle it" Three simple questions:

Is Christ divided? Of course not! But what Paul reminds them is that Jesus is not one among many. Paul shows the lunacy of elevating one leader (or methodology, or strategy) over another when we have been called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ.

Was Paul crucified for you? No human leader is the source of our salvation. Jesus alone is our source because He alone was crucified for us. Paul affirms that only Christ can atone for sin.

Were you baptized into the name of Paul? Paul knows how absurd this question is. Once again he reminds them and us, that our allegiance can only be to Christ.

In his message at THE NINES conference by Leadership Network Rick Warren challenged us to address the spiritual immaturity of the church. Maturity is essential for unity, mission and purpose. Let's get on with it.

How the Mighty Fall & the SBC part 2

This is the second part of our review of Jim Collins book, How the Mighty Fall and we will examine the second stage he discovered in his research: 'The Undisciplined Pursuit of More.' Does his analysis match reality with the Southern Baptist Convention. I believe it does. One of Collins's markers for this stage is "unsustainable quest for growth, confusing big with great.'

The Second World War was the impetus for a great population migration. People moved to find jobs to support the war effort. They moved from the farm to the city, they moved from the south to the north, from the east to the west wherever the war took them. This led to an enormous increase in the number of Southern Baptist churches. New churches sprang up where Southern Baptist had never be before: California, Ohio, and other states in the mideast and midwest. This was a good thing. However many of those churches were the mirror image of their home churches in south. Most of the members were displaced southerners. It meant these churches would and some still do struggle. I remember when I graduated from seminary I got a letter from a church in Toledo, Ohio that began this way, "We noticed your wife is a nurse...." In other words come to our church and serve for free. I know there are people in Toledo who need Jesus but starting dozens of churches that will constantly struggle and always do so is not the answer. The sheer quest for more led to bad strategic decisions.

To support the postwar expansion the SBC created three new seminaries in the 1950s: Golden Gate in northern California; Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City and Southeastern in North Carolina. That was an expensive decision that committed millions of bucks to buildings and infrastructure. It was also an attempt to replicate a church culture that worked fine in the south but not elsewhere. Perhaps a better strategy would have been to negotiate and establish a 'House of Southern Baptist Studies at Gordon-Conwell (Boston); Conservative Bapt Seminary (Denver) and Western Seminary (Portland). This would have speeded up the process of raising up indigenous leadership. NAMB's Strategic Focus Cities is a step in the right direction. Wish it had happened fifty years ago.

Finally, our unquenchable thirst for more led to some faulty evangelism training. In the last 30 years we used EE, then CWT which we ripped off from James Kennedy, and lately FAITH. If there's a letter in the alphabet related to evangelsim training I've had it. That's good but it's only good when it becomes our story. The main problem with our evangelism in the last thirty years is that its focus has been on the decision side rather than the disciple-making side. Conversion is not the end, it just the beginning. It should be reflected in how we share the good news.

Johnny Hunt is right: a Great Commission Resurgence must be personal; it must begin with us. Then we can make smart, strategic decisions as a denomination and fulfill the Great Commission.

How the Mighty Fall & the SBC part 1

It's been nearly two weeks since I've posted a new blog. Sorry about that but my life has been going at warp speed. In the last ten days I taught leaders at The Church at the Cross in Grapevine, Texas and Oakland Heights Baptist Church in Longview, Texas. The subject was adult Bible study. Great time with leaders & learning. Yesterday, our family helped our oldest son David move into Brooks Residential College on the campus of Baylor University in Waco. We're proud of him and excited to see God at work in his life. Finally, I just completed a new resource for the churches we serve: a Children Ministry Assessment for First Baptist Church, Lewisville, Texas.

As I wrote in a previous post I'm beginning today with a five part discussion of Jim Collins book, How the Mighty Fall and if there is application between his findings and the health of the Southern Baptist Convention and its churches, agencies and institutions. To briefly review, Collins has identified five stages of decline in businesses and organizations:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success

Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More

Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril

Stage 4:Grasping for Salvation

Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance and Death

Today, we begin our discussion of stage 1: Hubris Born of Success. Nobody questions our success. In the years following the Second World War Southern Baptist became the biggest denomination in America, expanded our reach outside the south and southwest, saw record enrollments in our seminaries and supported a growing numbers of missionaries in the world. I am grateful to God for His blessings and for those who have gone before us and provided leadership during those times. Godly men and women like Baker James and Eloise Cauthen, Gaines S. Dobbins, Harry Piland and pastors like R. G. Lee and W. A. Criswell. This is not a criticism of that generation. But we must ask the question, "What happened?" Is our stagnant state the result of external or internal factors, spiritual or institutional?"

Collins and his research team discovered four markers that characterized each of the first four stages:

• Success entitlement, arrogance. This happens when people begin to believe that success or growth will continue no matter what the organization does. If it is true that nothing succeeds like success it is equally true that success can and often gives birth to pride. Many Baptist at all levels thought and acted like our growth was "automatic, and would continue on and on unabated into the future." I once heard a denominational leader brag that in one new work state in the midwest we had a church in every county. It wasn't true and he should have known it. It was a terrible strategy! That kind of church planting was blind to the millions of people in that state were living in the urban areas within that state. Pride blinds us and will lead us down the wrong road.
• Neglect of a primary flywheel. When this happens leaders neglect the "growth engine" in our case church planting and evangelism. A church planting strategy that refuses to focus limited resources to critical areas dissapated time, energy and resources. Evangelism training became programs. In so many ways our lay people were miles ahead of us. In the past 30 years I have had evangelism training through Evangelism Explosion (E.E.), Continuous Witness Training (C.W.T.); an EE Baptist rip-off, Romans Road and FAITH----if it's a part of the alphabet I've had evangelism training using it. It was great. It was helpful but unless it is personalized and becomes our story it can sound like an Amway presentation. To rebuild our growth engine we should do two things: start less churches with more committed resources in strategic places and our evangelism should be conversational and personalized.
• "What" replaces "why." Collins says what happens is that the rhetoric of success replaces understanding and insight. Denominational leaders for the most part missed the mega-church phenomena. Many believed Sunday School could grow on autopilot refusing to acknowledge the societal changes impacting our churches, i.e. a growing number of women in the workforce and increasing mobility, just to name two. Ed Stetzer is right:"facts are our friends.
• Decline in learning orientation. In too many areas we kept our heads in the sand, refusing to listen to our own people. Some were concerned about a lurch to the left in some of our seminaries and were simply laughed off. Insolation in our churches, agencies and seminaries led to institutions with short memories. That always leads to trouble.
• Discounting the role of luck, (since I don't believe in luck, I'll call it discounting God's sovereignty and blessing). We (I'm including myself) not only took our eyes off the ball, we took our eyes off God, thinking that we had built the denomination's success not not God Himself.

Pride eventually marginalizes businesses, ministries, churches and denominations. Repentance for our pride and institutional arrogance must occur before the renewal begins. I pray it so.

Let the conversation begin!

Back in a few days with more. See ya then.

How the Mighty Fall....Does it Apply to the SBC?

In recent months there has been alot of discussion about the state of the Southern Baptist Convention. The recent action to approve the Great Commission Resurgence demonstrates the concern many of us have for the health of our denomination. Concerned Southern Baptists at all levels are sharing their views and opinions on the subject. Last week on his blog Sam Rainer tipped me off to a new book by business writer and researcher Jim Collins that could shed some light on this topic. Collins the author of the best-selling book, Good to Great has just published How the Mighty Have Fallen looking at some of the same companies that were going great guns just a few years ago. Collins believes his research has identified five stages of decline that businesses, institutions, organizations, churches and denominations can experience. According to Collins the five stages of decline are:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success

Stage 2: Undisciplines Pursuit of More

Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril

Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation

Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

Over the next ten days I'll examine each stage with a post. I encourage you to give me your feedback. Let the discussion begin!

Until next time......

Our Iceberg is Melting

John Kotter and Holger Rathberg have written a great book for leaders: Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Suceeding Under Any Conditions. Nothing may be more important for leaders today than the ability to lead change. The book is a parable in the genre like Who Moved My Cheese? The authors illustrate eight steps to lead the change. The principles apply to those who lead in the church today:

1. Reduce complacency and increase urgency. Leaders who lead change cannot be content with the status quo and spread a contagious case of holy restlessness.

2. Pull together a team to lead the change. To bring the change necessary is to understand you can't do it alone. Who should be on your team? When working with churches I use the "mission to Mars model." Who would best represent your church on a mission to Mars? That's your team.

3. Create a vision of a new future. Begin with the end in mind and preach it, teach, share it and model it everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

4. Communicate the vision all the time. No I didn't jump the gun with #3! My point is you can't overcommunicate the vision.

5. Make everyone feel empowered. That's the best way to win allies for change and get people on board. Want change? Let people be the change.

6. Create short-term wins and celebrate. One of my mentors Ron Lewis use to remind us, "process always preceeds product." Celebrate those small victories along the process. It creates momentum.

7. Don't let up. Keep going. I served once with a minister of music from Mississippi who often said, "I ain't never been licked! just set back a time or to!" Be unconquerable. Never! never! never give up!

8. Ensure the change will not be overcome by hard-to-die traditions. Protect the change by making it part of the new culture in your church. This will take time and diligence but it's worth it!

Be the change. Lead the change!

Until next time....