Synod is here, and it dominates – in time and thought – and so even though I have outstanding debts regarding population policy, I’m shifting to Synod business.
On Wednesday, we deal with an initiative in church planting. And I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with it.
It’s too nice.
I was at the Anglican Church League dinner. Al Stewart, who leads the soon-to-be-renamed ‘New Churches’ organization, gave the keynote address. His topic was church planting, and he made it clear why it was so necessary.
It’s because so many of our churches are decrepit.
The image he used was of a person getting old. When you get old you start losing your vision, your flexibility, your urgency, your creativity etc. You start to value order, comfort, predictability, you become risk averse and slow. The point of course – many of our churches are old churches, they are not doing the job (the reading was from Matt 25, and the challenge was put whether Jesus would say to us, ‘well done good and faithful servants’). And so we need to plant churches that will.
This may be true. But what is really clear is that it is the inadequacy of existing churches that is being used as the basis for church planting in a Diocese where we have plenty of space in our existing churches.
So here’s the point. The main problem with the church planting strategy is that it’s still too nice.
If inadequate churches are the problem, then we should have the courage to name them. To speak the unspeakable and instead of speaking in safe generalities, and name names. The issues that Al mentioned were reasonably objective, and although it may well be painful, it shouldn’t be too hard to defend this labelling. It’s just too easy to speak in general terms.
But with the labeling comes responsibility. Namely, the responsibility to help those churches turn around. Getting labeled should initiate a sequence of events. Along with a ‘New Churches’ ministry, we need a ‘Renewing Churches’ ministry. Its task would be to work with all labeled churches – Rector and members – for, say, 3 years. If at the end of the 3 years, there was no turn around, then the parish should be handed over to New Churches to do an effective church plant. Mission areas will never be able to do this job effectively – it takes more time, and more specific training, than mission areas can provide. It needs a structure in its own right, upon which mission area can call.
Of course, no one can coerce an Anglican church / Rector to do anything, so if a labeled church refused to participate, then New Churches would be free to proceed.
So here’s the challenge. Is anyone prepared to name names, and label 20 churches. (The label of course would be ‘Turnaround Prospect’).Better still would be to self-label.
The time has come to stop pretending, and letting the culture of niceness stop effective gospel ministry. There are a lot of sick, declining churches out there. But just plonking a plant in their parish is not the answer. We need to be more honoring than that. We need to be more accountable than that. And the accountability goes both ways – the Diocese should be accountable for providing a Renewing Churches ministry; and churches should be accountable if they are failing.
At the moment, we have half a strategy, and like a row boat with one oar in the water, the danger is that we just go round and round in circles.
The question is – do we have the courage to create a system that will do both halves of the job. I understand that in New York, the education system was turned around by a rigorous approach to failure – every year, they close down the worst performing 10% of schools. At the same time, they open new schools with new leadership and new DNA.
Of course, simply shutting down churches is too brutal, and frankly not necessary. St Matthias’ Centennial Park was fewer than 20 people before it was turned around in the late 70’s, and there are plenty of similar stories. It’s possible, it happens quite often. And it needs to happen more. And where it’s not happening, a New Church should be planted.
Thanks Andrew.
This recognizes that the reason some churches are ailing is a lack of resources and support. It isn’t simply a matter of strategy and DNA. Unless we figure out the real reason they are sick, we may end up repeating the mistakes with our church plants. The only difference will be new sick churches instead of old sick churches.
Could I throw in a measure of the local church is not simply how it is going in it’s own area but how many people it is sending out, and especially how many it is sending out to tough areas and weak churches? Some of our small old churches punch way above their weight in this regard
I’ve realised in the last few years that as well as the ‘evangelical and liberal’ polarity, we have another one which is basically ‘competent and incompetent’.
There’s a real risk that we assume doctrinal purity = ministry competence, but it simply ain’t so. Of course I’m not saying that people who aren’t especially competent in leadership ministries are in any way less valuable in God’s estimation, etc, etc – but I am wondering if perhaps they shouldn’t be leading churches.
Having said that, I find myself in a diocese that doesn’t even seem to have enough incompetent ministers to fill our empty parishes…
Hi Andrew,
Good thoughts.
In his talk Al Stewart said something like ‘a big youth group doesn’t mean a young church’. I’m wondering how you would determine which churches need renewing?
I’m guessing the under-performing schools in NYC were identified using common test scores &/or league tables.
Two thoughts from me:
1) I liked Al’s analogy … but want to push it further. Our diocese, then, is a congregation of churches (ok, a conglomeration, but go with me). And it would be a serious problem if all the churches were ‘old’. But at the other end of the spectrum…would it not be a serious problem if all the churches were ‘young’? Sure, perhaps a lesser problem, but if we’re all stretched tight as a drum, that might not be healthy, and certainly would prevent…
2) For all our local church ecclesiology, it’s worth also remembering that the NT is pretty solid on the idea of local churches helping each other out. Perhaps the ‘older’ churches, being more established, could be reinvigorated by helping their ‘younger’ cousins…
Strange – my sermon on Eph 6:19-24 last Sunday drew this conclusion: that concern for and love of other churches is how _we_ stand firm.
And, just to show I really read the post, a post script:
I think I’m leaning towards recognising that there are ‘old’ churches, and there are ‘senile’ ones. With the latter being perfect candidates for your suggestion, while the former might be more like mission area leaderchurches.
Fancy a church valuing order! (1 Cor 14 comes to mind…)
how about this approach:
1) The diocese identifies top 10 under performing churches.
2) The bishops meet with the Rectors to discuss being a “Turnaround prospect”
3) The diocese organises a team to do an analysis of the parish.
4) They meet with the Rector to provide a strategy AND mentoring to assist in the implementation.
5) If the Rector refuses, then bring in the new church.
I think that church planters provide bravado, rectors provide stability. Many Rectors need wisdom and courage (and age does make you risk adverse).
I think the diocese can help parishes by encouraging partnerships where strategy is given and bold steps are encouraged.
I hate it when you blog on a topic both faster and smarter.
Jack Welsh CEO of General Electric famously called this “rank and yank”. The bottom twenty per cent of executives were pushed out each year. Do we really need to go there?
Perhaps a different approach would simply be to allow churches to be planted anywhere. Christians in the Media Sunday meetings started in Glebe, which did not imply any judgement on the churches there. Later they became an Anglican Church, and took on a parish that needed help.
i’ve been part of a number of church planting networks, and while some of the training is church PLANTING specific, most of it is really just theologically and pragmatically thinking through church GROWING.
much of the content is really good, but i feel that it needs to be shared with a broader audience than just young punks wanting to plant new churches.
whats fascinating about both Al’s strategy and your response is the ecclesiological questions both raise… I am just old enough to remember being firmly taught that the local church alone is church in the strictly theological sense, it can’t and shouldn’t ever be subordinated to any other ecclesial authority…
Despite some clever footwork in naming the plants ‘fellowships’ and being answerable to a ‘board’ I suspect that on the ground these new plants will live and act as a local church… with oversight by board – not exactly sure how this fits theologically… maybe as an elder/bishop-by-committee / presbytery??
While I am sympathetic to the trajectory of your suggestion, it marks a clear departure from not only being ‘too nice’ but also our long-held theological sense of the local church, no?
I think your analysis is too nice Andrew.
You could argue the state of existing churches & their need for reform is a much more pressing need than New Churches could possibly address.
Not that I’m against New Churches being planted – we need more churches. But why wait to plant in areas we think aren’t being effectively reached now – does anyone believe that is realistic? Much better to ask the hard questions you do, and come up with a plan to reform and renew now.
We need the Gospel courage and confidence to have people stick their hands up & say we need help. We also need to be sending some keen young guns not just to plant but to take on the places with turnaround potential.
Mike,
that’s the first time that anyone has called me too nice!
And of course you are right – a plan to reform and renew is precisely what we need.
Actually, I am trying to do exactly this. Over the last 2 years, Rob Forsyth and I have developed and trialled a method for helping churches turn around.
Called Sauerkraut (don’t say anything, it was Forsyth’s idea), it is a year long program that meets for 10 9am-3pm sessions, roughly once a month. Two groups of about 8 Senior Ministers have been through the program, and the feedback has been extremely positive.
I think the reason it works is that it is prescriptive – but not about the answers, about the questions that have to be asked. And then each Senior Minister gets a chance to present their answers to those questions, and interact with a bunch of sharp guys.
So far we have been working only with guys in the South Sydney region. But next year, we will be opening it up to Senior ministers in other regions.
If anyone’s interested, get in touch.
What are the Sauerkraut questions? A series on the questions would be great!
The other thing to consider is who is sent/goes to these “old” churches – especially if all the “young, vibrant, go-getters” are out planting churches.
This seemed to be a concern of Mark Dever when he was out recenlty and told a ministers training conference that “church planting is for wimps” (and recommended the book of the same title).
I’m wondering how you can say some churches need to be closed? If Christ is truly the head of the church, aren’t you sitting in judgement over what Christ is doing in, through and over that particular community?
Historically all churches have times of increase and decrease. Communities and societies change. What evidence is there to say that a new church plant in the same area where another church is struggling will succeed?
Within the context of the Anglican communion will it help it or hinder it as a collective community? Certainly I speak as one who is no longer part of the Anglican fellowship for various reasons.
But I look back on my 10 years fellowship with a lot of fondness. We strived, we struggled, we put a lot of work into the church and community for it to grow with little results.
Since that time other pastors have come and gone, with little change in results. The question to ask is, where they success’s or failures… my hunch is they ……..
@Craig
Do you think churches should have a right to continue regardless of what happens inside?
I dont think we should be flippant about closing churches, but being prepared to do so maybe be a helpful way of shaking things up if they need to.
If for example there are two well resourced churches (in terms of property, facilities and even staff) in adjacent suburbs, or even the same suburb with very few people going to them, instead of taking handouts from other congregations/the dioceses, perhaps they should consider merging and sharing resources, with a view of consolidating, growing and splitting in the future.
Absolutely it’s Christ’s church and we should pray to him always. But if we are one body, maybe we can share parts a bit more often.
Mike; it depends on what you mean by “What is happening inside” It also depends on what you mean by “Shaking things up”
I was part of synod when they did the property assessment and it was found that in actuality there was little property that was readily convertible as cash…
So if you close one church building down within a suburb…what happens with that building and property…does it go to decay… or does it get sold?
Also research has proven that more churches equal more salvations and that new church plants equal even more…instead of closing and consolidating; wouldn’t it be better to see how each of those parishes can reinvent themselves with extra ministry / church plant….if both of those churches did that… then there would in effect be 4 congregations and not one.
Hi Andrew, just wondering if you’re still doing the blogging thing – specifically if you’re thinking about this issue.
I found that Michael Kellahan’s recent article on sydneyanglicans.net was tackling a similar issue (http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/ministry/marketing/fixing_our_broken_bikes/)
I posted a reply to Michael which I have also put on my blog. It suggests some specific things which I have observed. I was wondering if you wanted to respond? It’s here: http://richardblight.blogspot.com/2011/03/observations-on-revitalising-struggling.html
@Craig I did use vague terms there.
By “what’s happening inside” I mean if there is a church that has born little fruit, seen few people come to christ, seen people not mature in their faith, there should be some sort of accountability.
By “shaking things up”, I mean shaking the dust off your feet and trying a new approach.
Suppose these two churches have a really small youth group, or are both trying to ressurect/start a youth group. Or have a decaying morning or evening service. It would make sense to consider thinking about how they can partner.
If there is a cross the board decay, then it would be worth considering a complete “merger” or “acquisition.” Then if you have property that is not being used, perhaps you can rent it out. I understand property has long term value, but why is it so taboo to consider selling and reinvesting those financial resources to somehwere where they would be more valuable.
If we are going to adopt worldly wisdom in one area ( and say that property has value let’s keep it), why not adopt it in another area (allocate resources to where they can be used more efficiently to create long term growth)?
If you sold a building for say $1m you could use that many to pay for more staff for a few years, training and equiping of lay people to serve the community, marketing, and of course be radically generous to the poor. Then hopefully under God’s hand the church can grow and in a few years you could consider replanting back into that suburb.
Also isnt the best way of reaching out and converting is by starting up more groups, not necessarily by keeping on to old ones that aren’t working?
I think part of the problem is some churches are looking through parish or congregational lenses rather than kingdom lenses.