The New Role for Western Missionaries - Leadership Network

11 for 11: Ideas That Work

The New Role for Western Missionaries by Eric Swanson


The New Role for Western Missionaries by Eric Swanson The Cambridge Seven were students from Cambridge University who in 1885 decided to become missionaries to China. Perhaps the best known of the seven was C.T. Studd.

One afternoon I strolled down the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, CO, stopping at Art Source International— a purveyor of antique maps. As I was browsing through some documents under the title “Rare Maps,” I found a document taken from an 1886 world atlas titled The Distribution of Christian Religions Throughout the World. Using various sized circles, it depicted the number of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox believers in different countries and regions of the world. Here are a few of my findings: In 1886, Christianity was most prominently dispersed in the northern and western hemispheres, with 54 million Orthodox in Russia, 35 million Catholics in France, and 30 million Protestants in the U.S. By contrast, the continent of Africa had only 709,000 Protestants compared to Polynesia’s million; India had a mere 300,000 Protestants; Arabia, Turkey, Persia and China together had a paltry 89,000 Protestants; and 800,000 Catholics were in the countries of China and Japan combined. Since then we have seen a global shift in the distribution of Christianity. Today, Christianity is growing and spreading in almost every place except the United States.

Metrics • Today, the U.S. represents only 12% of global Christianity. • Today, the world’s 50 largest churches are all outside the U.S. Some of the shifts trace back to 1886 when God began to wake up the church in the West to the needs of the world. In 1885, the famous Cambridge Seven packed their bags for China. In 1886, the Student Volunteer Movement launched as 100 students at D.L. Moody’s conference grounds in Mount Hermon, MA, signed the Princeton Pledge which says: “I purpose, God willing, to become a foreign missionary.” By 1887, those hundred students were serving around the globe. In 1888, Jonathan Goforth sailed for China

Leadership Network • The New Role For Western Missionaries

and John R. Mott was appointed as chairman of the Student Volunteer Movement. The movement’s motto: “The evangelization of the world in this generation.” In 1890, Central American Mission was founded by C.I. Scofield. In the same year Methodist Charles Gabriel wrote the missionary song “Send the Light” and John Livingston Nevius of China launched a ministry in Korea. In 1891, Samuel Zwemer went to Arabia while Helen Chapman sailed for the Congo. And in 1895, Africa Inland Mission was formed, the Japan Bible Society was established, and missionary Amy Carmichael arrived in India.1 The Western missionaries had started the work for their generation. Looking at the spread and vibrancy of Christianity today, one can only 1

conclude that the Western missionaries of the past generations—despite their flaws, ethnocentrism, bad wardrobe and culture bungling— actually did their job! Look at the evidence comparing global missionary conferences: “One hundred years ago, at the famous Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, delegates from the U.S., Canada, and Britain represented 85% of the delegates. At Lausanne 2010 [which invited delegates according to the percentage of world Christianity their country represented] less than 12% of the delegates came from these countries.”2 John Mbiti, a Kenyan scholar, notes that “the centers of the church’s universality [are] no longer in Geneva, Rome, Athens, Paris, London, New York, but Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa and Manila.”3 The largest churches in the world are not in Southern California or in Texas. In fact, “none of the fifty largest churches in the world are found in North America.”4 This history teaches us that the last century’s Western missionaries did their job in their generation.

Trends The question we face as a result of these changes: How will we, as a missional people, approach our task in our generation? Three trends will influence how we answer:

• Globalization: The world is flattening. This relatively new word refers to the interconnectedness of people, goods and services. The smart phone you carry in your pocket (which you are perhaps using to read this document) was most likely designed in the U.S. and manufactured in China, using components from Malaysia, Brazil and Thailand. For service you probably connect to a phone bank in India. Apart from the 1.5 million American Christians who go on short-term global missions each year, millions of Western Christians travel regularly outside the West on both business and pleasure. Passports and plane trips are a way of life. In short, Christians are already regularly

going to all parts of our connected world.

• Urbanization: People are moving to the cities. As of May 2007 more people live in cities than in rural areas. Urbanization is the largest migration in human history. Every major U.S. and Canadian urban area has a burgeoning immigrant urban population. In the past ten years more than one million foreign-born people, speaking 239 different languages (one-third from African countries) have settled in the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex. In 32% of the area’s residences, English is not the spoken language in the home. Christians are not only going to the world, the world is coming to America. This fact should inform our strategy.

• The rise of technology opens new doors to evangelism. Technology is the usage of tools, techniques, inventions or systems to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of exerted effort. What does technology do better today in global missions that we could not do previously? A generation ago, thousands of missionaries lugged portable projectors and bed sheets to remote villages to show the remarkable film, JESUS, in villages that had never had a film in their own language. Since 1979, the JESUS film, which has been viewed by billions all across the globe, has resulted in more than 225 million new followers of Jesus Christ. What is the technological dynamic equivalent of the JESUS film today?

Questions

PDA with Bible Leadership Network • The New Role For Western Missionaries

Alan Roxburgh writes about liminal times in history—those periods when the tectonic plates of history are shifting; where what used to work, no longer works and where what will 2

work has not yet been fully discovered. In this era of liminality, there are two questions coming up over and again, which no one has figured out:

• With the gospel growing largely outside the US, what is the new role of the American missionary? • How do North Americans transfer their passion for world evangelization to a younger generation?

Predictions • Perhaps more answers lie not with the United States, but in other nations of the world. Maybe we need the followers of Jesus in places outside of North America to help define and clarify the role of Western Christians. Perhaps, just as the centers of Protestant Christianity in decades past (U.S., England and Canada) were primary sending centers of missionaries, the new centers of Christianity like Korea, China, Kenya or Brazil will take on the unfinished slack of the Great Commission. In short, we predict other nations like Nigeria, China, Korea and Brazil will pick up the slack that the Western world has not. Amidst a wash of missional uncertainty, there are some bright spots worth exploring. Austin Stone Church in Austin, TX (www. austinstone.org) is less than a decade old and has more than 6,000 who call “the Stone” their home. The average age of attendees in this college town is a mere 27 years old. Fired up by the fact that more than one billion people in the world have no church, Bible study or Christian witness, Global Pastor Joey Shaw and his team have challenged 100 people to go to an unreached people group for at least two years. So far, 90 people have stepped up to this missional calling. “In a couple of years we will ask God for another hundred,” says Joey. What if every church sent a dozen or so

Volunteers from the Austin Stone Church at the Makarios School in the Dominican Republic people to the unreached peoples of the world?

• Technology will greatly enhance the impact of global missions and make it possible for average people with oversized hearts to impact the world from their homes. Global Media Outreach (GMO) (www. globalmediaoutreach.com) has created 100 websites in all the major languages in a way that allows people who are searching for God or for answers to life’s big questions to connect with an opportunity to know Jesus Christ. Up to two million people each day search for God on the Internet and upwards of 45,000 indicate decisions for Christ with 5,000 a day requesting follow-up contact from a Christian. Former Apple executive and GMO founder Walt Wilson says, “We are the first generation in all of human history to hold in our hands the technology to reach every man,


woman, and child on earth…. This is not a distant dream. It is a current reality. Market forces in technology are driving us forward.”5 Technology creates a world without borders with many seekers and followers coming from what are normally considered “closed countries.” To see a live website of people inquiring about God or making decisions to follow Christ go to www. greatcommission2020.com. What if every church had a team of “online missionaries” that was regularly leading people to Christ and making disciples of the nations? The world will continue to change. Churches can respond by trying a little more of what they did last year, or they can take advantage of the way God is shaping today’s world of globalization, urbanization and technology. Yesterday’s missionaries from the West did their jobs. How will we and the rising generation do ours?

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About Leadership Network

About the Authors Eric Swanson, D.Min., currently works as Leadership Community Director for Externally Focused Churches, Missional Renaissance and Global Connection Churches. He is the co‑author of The Externally Focused Church, The Externally Focused Life, The Externally Focused Quest, To Transform a City and numerous articles on churches that are transforming their communities. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/ ericswanson

Leadership Network’s mission is to accelerate the impact of 100X leaders. These high-capacity leaders are like the hundredfold crop that comes from seed planted in good soil as Jesus described in Matthew 13:8. Leadership Network is a division of OneHundredX, a global ministry with initiatives around the world.

Warren Bird, Ph.D., who is overseeing the 11 for 11 initiative, directs the research division of Leadership Network, bringing a background of pastoral ministry and seminary teaching. He has co-authored 23 books on various issues of church vitality and health. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/ warrenbird

To learn more about Leadership Network go to www.leadnet.org

About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Rapid Growth Churches, Executive Pastors and Key Implementers, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Next Generation Pastors, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Leadership Development, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons.

Endnotes 1. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Christian_missions. Accessed December 16, 2010. 2. Christianity Today, December 2010 p. 35. 3. Jenkins, Philip, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press (2002), page 2. 4. Livermore, David A. Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence. Baker Books 2006, Kindle edition, Locations 277-80. 5. Briscoe, Pete with Todd Hillard. The Surge: Churches Catching the Wave of Christ’s Love for the Nations. Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan (2010) p.61

Resources

The New Role for Western Missionaries is also available in these formats.

• Briscoe, Pete, and Todd Hillard, The Surge: Churches Catching the Wave of Christ’s Love for the Nations (Zondervan, 2010). • Corbett, Steve, and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor — and Yourself (Moody, 2009). • Kling, Fritz, The Meeting of the Waters: Seven Global Currents that Will Propel the Future Church (David C. Cook, 2010).

Contact Contact Eric Swanson at [email protected] if you’re interested in being part of a Global Connections Leadership Community. These gatherings focus on breakthrough ideas of increasing missional effectiveness on both the going and receiving sides of missions, with the ultimate goal and outcome of accelerating the learning, knowledge and application of innovative approaches to global missions.


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Rapid Growth Pastors on a Wild Ride by Jim Kuykendall


Rapid Growth Pastors on a Wild Ride by Jim Kuykendall If you’ve ever strapped in to ride one of those breakneck, runaway roller coasters, you know the feeling: too scared to look as the car lurches to its highest heights, heart in your throat on that longest free fall, pure joy around unrestrained curves and more anticipation as you approach the top of the next loop. Leaders of some of America’s fastestgrowing churches can relate, as they experience the joy of seeing hundreds of people coming to Christ and growing in their faith—all while navigating the challenges of being short on staff and resources and with evershifting systems and structures. I’ve seen it with many of today’s fastest-growing churches and their leaders. When they step into this world of explosive growth, they don’t know what they’re in for. It’s like standing in line for that big roller coaster: you’re watching everybody else experience it, and it looks like fun. Then you get on the ride and it blows your mind, and you want to ride every roller coaster in the park.

There’s a weight to it all, when you get to the point of growing so fast you’re not sure what to do next; but there is a thrill you can’t describe until you’ve experienced it.

Metrics • Some churches are growing off the

charts. That’s the way it is with rapid growth church leaders. They’re on similar wild rides. They’re scared to death about what’s around the next corner, and whether they can maneuver future challenges with their leaders. But they’re having the time of their life.

The overall church in America may not be experiencing overall numerical growth, but a small minority of churches are increasing at a rapid growth level—10% or more in attendance per year for at least three

Leadership Network • Rapid Growth Pastors on a Wild Ride

consecutive years. These churches are not unique to any particular demographic or area. They seem to have found ways to continually remove barriers that inhibit growth and let God do the rest.

• Their desire is serious discipleship. The majority of rapid-growth churches are evangelical in culture, emphasizing people who are baptized or make the decision to give their lives to Christ. It is constantly a challenge for these churches to keep up with the process of growing these new believers into maturing followers of Christ but 1

most are working hard to answer the question of “what’s next” after a person surrenders to Christ.

Trends • Rapid growth churches are led by pastors who understand the value of team leadership. Rapid-growth leaders don’t try to carry all the weight themselves. They know their strengths—and focus on them—while they surround themselves with staff and volunteers who have the skills to fill in the gaps. One such leader I’ve worked with, Craig Groeschel of Oklahoma-based Lifechurch (www.lifechurch.tv), has a directional leadership team of four others that has not grown beyond that number—even as the church has grown from 2 campuses to 14 campuses and over 25,000 attenders. Craig tries to stay focused on vision casting, evangelism and communication—his strengths—and lets the directional leadership team handle areas such as Technology/Operations, Campus Development and Leader Development, spreadsheets, org charts, small group structure. Management of those areas

doesn’t give Craig life. He’s aware enough of what’s going on in those areas to give leadership when needed, but he stays out of the details. Rapid growth leaders are always on the lookout for gifted leaders to share the load, and they don’t care who gets applause for the impact of the church on the community. They are interested in results and effectiveness over who gets the credit. Rather than everything rising to the top, they’re willing to acknowledge, “I’m best at these few things, but we couldn’t accomplish this without many gifted leaders who are better at the things I’m not.”

• Rapid growth leaders are okay with

a continual mess and the constant need to restructure and revise. This is part of the roller coaster: rapid growth church leaders don’t usually know what’s around the next curve, and they have to continually adapt. These leaders don’t talk in terms of five-year plans because things change too fast. I see it regularly in our Leadership Community process, where like-minded leaders come together to process

through six-month plans and get input from the other leaders in the group. These are gifted leaders whose churches are doing very well, or they wouldn’t be part of this group; so they come with solid plans in place. But they leave after three days with a better plan: a 6-month battle plan. The amazing thing is, when they come back in six months, they will probably blow it up again because the church has grown so fast and things have changed. I have seen very few leaders who are successful in growing rapidly who aren’t willing to totally revise their plan on a consistent basis. One such leader is Micah Davidson of Real Life Fellowship based in Corpus Christi, TX. Micah and his leadership team took a 100-year-old church, changed most everything—including the church’s name—and set the church on a path of rapid growth in a multisite model. In one year alone, the church opened three new campuses— including one in another state—moved its original site to a newly renovated facility and launched the Real Life Online global community. The church has grown from 800 people to more than 3,000 in less than five years— including one campus that launched with 380 people—and has opened its online doors to people in 37 states and 20 countries.

Questions • How do you find a healthy balance between width and depth? Leaders continually struggle with being pulled in two directions: one side wants to keep accommodating more numerical growth, and another wants to facilitate deeper spiritual discipleship among those already present. This is perhaps the biggest question that no one has figured out.

Members of a recent Leadership Network Rapid Growth Leadership Community Leadership Network • Rapid Growth Pastors on a Wild Ride

One answer is most certainly an increase in leadership development from within. Seacoast Church based in South Carolina has a strategic model to help leaders move from one level to 2

Jim Kuykendall leading a discussion at a Rapid Growth Leadership Community in Dallas. the next. New church staff often comes from within, so the church is seeing multitudes of people come to Christ and focusing on developing those new believers into spiritual leaders that will further the church’s mission.

• Does church size matter to God? I’m not sure anybody can answer that one. Some churches ride the wave of a true Pentecost experience: The Gospel is preached, the Holy Spirit moves and literally hundreds respond. But is that God’s plan for every church? How big should a church be in God’s eyes? There may be circumstances hampering growth that are out of a leader’s control. God may raise up a new leader in a situation where growth wasn’t happening. Or He may open the door for a leader to come into a community with a fresh approach and experience new growth. One common denominator I’ve seen among rapid growth leaders is true humility to know that ultimately, God causes any true increase.

Predictions • Churches will continue to grow bigger by getting smaller.

They will figure out how to break down the congregation into smaller pieces, making it more intimate, typically by small groups, apprenticeships, and serving in the community—all supported by use of social media. Other expressions of getting bigger by going smaller will be increased church planting networks (Association of Related Churches and Acts 29 are good examples), and a growing move to multisite strategies. Fewer churches are building sanctuaries that seat 5,000 or more, and fewer than five U.S. megachurches have built or plan to construct sanctuaries that seat 10,000 or more.

• Fast-growing churches will focus on collaborating and building the greater Kingdom of God by sharing best practices and resources. Lifechurch.tv shares many of its graphic resources for free. Seacoast Church in South Carolina makes its leadership development material available to other churches. This will become the norm as rapid growth churches increasingly share ideas and resources for the greater purpose of building God’s kingdom, rather than building their own congregation. Churches that are working to expand


the kingdom of God rather than their own kingdom will appeal widely to today’s culture, and increase all the more. Rapid growth church leaders are experiencing the ride of their ministry lives—with their churches bucking stagnant growth trends around the country and growing so fast that a six-month plan often can’t outlast the growth. But they know they’re not in it alone. They value team leadership— looking for leaders at every turn to fill in the gaps of their leadership mix. And, they know that deep discipleship is the ultimate leadership development strategy, as hundreds come to Christ in their churches and grow to take on significant ministry assignments. Mostly, rapid growth leaders have the maturity and humility to know that God is conducting this ride. The growth and change they are experiencing is more than they ever imagined or thought. And they strive to make their response one of gratitude and extending God’s grace by collaborating on a wide scale and sharing any resource they have to expand God’s kingdom.

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About the Authors Warren Bird, Ph.D., who is overseeing the 11 for 11 initiative, directs the research division of Leadership Network, bringing a background of pastoral ministry and seminary teaching. He has co-authored 23 books on various issues of church vitality and health. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/warrenbird


Jim Kuykendall serves as the Director of Leadership Communities for Rapid Growth Churches and leads the Jump Start Innovation Labs for Generous Churches and Dream Center Churches. Jim also serves on the staff at Cross Timbers Community Church in Argyle Texas as the Lead Pastor of Operations. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/ jimkuykendall


About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Executive Pastors and Key Implementers, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Next Generation Pastors, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Leadership Development, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons.

Contact Us Contact Jim Kuykendall at [email protected] if you are interested in joining a Rapid Growth Leadership Community. The focus of these gatherings is to help Rapid Growing Churches to set bold goals for future growth and assist them in developing solutions for the inherent challenges and opportunities that come with this growth.

Additional Resources podcast

video

Rapid Growth Pastors on a Wild Ride is also available in these formats.

Diverse DNA: Varying Factors in Churches Cultures Lead to Rapid Growth by Andy Williams. (January 3, 2011) BOOKS Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code by Sam Chand (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2010) The Multi-Site Church Revolution: Being One Church in Many Locations by Greg Ligon, Geoff Surratt, and Warren Bird (Zondervan, 2006) A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip: Exploring the New Normal by Greg Ligon, Geoff Surratt, and Warren Bird (Zondervan, 2009) Leadership Network Advance E-newsletter: our free, indispensable, twice-monthly email newsletter featuring the best in innovative church strategies, including news of upcoming Leadership Network events. Sign up at http://leadnet.org/ resources/page/subscribe or scan the QR code to the right on your smart phone. (To download a free QR Reader, just search for “QR Reader” in

your app store.)


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Team Collaboration: Broadening the Church Leadership Platform by Sherry Surratt and Wayne Smith


Team Collaboration: Broadening the Church Leadership Platform by Sherry Surratt and Wayne Smith

Seacoast Church in Charleston, SC (www.seacoast.org) is experiencing an emerging trend in North American church leadership: the structure is changing from a single leader calling all the shots to flattenedhierarchy leadership teams that share crucial strategic and directional responsibilities. Similar to many new churches, Seacoast was started by a single senior pastor (Greg Surratt) who grew the ministry, and soon found that he needed more leadership muscle to handle the growth. Enter brother Geoff Surratt (full disclosure: one of this article’s authors is happily married to Geoff), who eventually moved into the role of executive pastor. Geoff’s move illustrates the first iteration of today’s leadership shift in growing churches: the addition of an executive pastor or other key implementer. This person typically manages day-to-day operations such as staff relations, finances, facilities and leadership development. The addition of a second major player is usually followed by additional steps to broaden the leadership platform even more. The net result is a leadership team with multiple strategic and directional leaders who not only use their gifts, abilities and varied backgrounds to oversee

important facets of decision making and execution; they also share the load for visioning, strategic direction and communication. Seacoast has moved that direction with a three-pronged executive team. For Seacoast, the three prongs are Executive Administrator, Pastor of Ministries and Director of Operations. Many other churches are developing their own models, each of which looks far less like a one-person base that makes all key decisions and announces God’s direction, and more like collaborative leadership groups with blended visions and shared viewpoints.

Metrics • Church planting increasingly happens by teams rather than by solo leaders. Church planting organizations, such as the Acts 29 network (www. acts29network.org), the Association of Related Churches (www.arcchurches. com) and Saddleback’s new church planting network (www.saddleback. com), acknowledge that today’s church planter can’t and shouldn’t go it alone. That’s why those church-starting groups no longer send a single pastoral family to start a new congregation.

Leadership Network • Team Collaboration: Broadening the Church Leadership Platform

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It’s a support team—usually 3 or 4 leaders and their families to oversee operations, worship, small groups, etc. They are riding the wisdom of Scripture that a chord with many strands is not easily broken (Eccles. 4:12). Nobody should do it alone; it’s too difficult. • An increasing number of key implementers and team leaders are coming from business vs. ministry backgrounds. Church leaders are looking for help from a variety of fields. While church life is highly spiritual in nature, seminary training and ordination don’t address every leadership need in burgeoning ministries. Followers of Christ with training and experience from the business world also bring value to the equation. As a result, an increasing number of key implementers and team leaders in churches are coming from people with business backgrounds, including the educational world.

Trends • Less formal ministry training; more Ala carte, on-the-job development. As churches employ strategic leaders who come out of varied backgrounds, those staff members are relying less on formal seminary and Bible school training and more on as-they-need-it development for the tasks at hand. Fellowship Bible Church in Dallas, TX (www.fellowshipdallas.org) has former lawyer, Tommy Shelton, as its executive pastor as well as educator and technology leader, Reinhard Ziegler, as its chief navigator. Neither one received formal ministry training, but each has learned on the go from places like executive pastor conferences, where they surround themselves with more experienced leaders. When Geoff Surratt became pastor of ministries with responsibility over multisite development, he read every multisite report he could find

and studied leading multisite churches around the country. When his position changed from just launching campuses to a more strategic directional and visionary role, he started a whole new library and met with leadership mentors around the country. Jenni Catron, executive director at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN (www.crosspoint.tv) came out of the music industry with no formal ministry training, but aligns herself with mentors and business people who shore up weaknesses and give strategic input. Mary Carroll, executive pastor of Hosanna Lutheran in Lakeville, MN (www.hosannalc.org), came from a legal background to develop her ministry knowledge on the job. Numerous other executive pastors and key implementers around the country have followed similar paths. • More fluid roles, more organic titles. The days are fading fast of writing a job description for a church staff position, hiring the ideal ministrytrained candidate for the position, and locking that individual into the duties and responsibilities that experience little change over the long haul. Church leaders are seeing the scope and direction of their duties–along

with their titles–shift with the tides of their congregation’s growth and development. One prominent U.S. lead pastor recently announced that several staff members would be changing titles and roles, in an intentional effort to jump-start stagnant ministries and realign staff according to their skill sets. Another church is moving a staff member with a background in communications leadership from a long-held staff position to one that oversees all of the church’s communications. The message from churches to staff members around the country: stay nimble and adaptable, and don’t get too comfortable. Things are changing rapidly. • More skills-based placement on leadership teams. Seacoast’s Bill Hahn has a banking background, which suits him for the church’s role of People Resource Director over human resources and finances. Jack Hoey, the church’s Chief Financial Officer, has run his own wholesale glass franchise. Others on the team have practical ministry experience, so they oversee the Campus Pastors and ministry areas. While some executive team placements do come through a traditional ministry track, value is also placed on the skills someone brings. Doing so elevates

A senior staff meeting at Fellowship Bible Church in Dallas where more team members are coming from business backgrounds.


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committed people of God with marketplace training as invaluable to take a church to new heights of growth and development. As a result, churches are flattening layers of hierarchy in organizational structures and putting the best people in the best spots—regardless of where they got their training.

Questions • How will team leadership affect the role and position of the senior pastor in the future? Churches have operated for decades with a singular view of the senior pastor office and role: lead pastors get a vision from God, set direction, and call the shots with a staff that carries out the vision and direction. If a shared, team leadership model takes hold in the next 10-15 years, how will the senior pastor be perceived by congregants and staff members? And what roles and responsibilities will truly be shared, with others still reserved for the top spot? This is a question no one seems to have answered yet. • How do we groom young leaders for future leadership in the church, and then how can their work ethic and learning approach be meshed with that of current leaders? It’s becoming increasingly clear that the rising generation of leaders learn, work and lead differently than their older, established counterparts. Leaders from the boomer generation— those born 1946-1964—tend to take a linear approach to learning and work: they sit through a training class or read a book, apply learning’s to the task at hand, live to work (sometimes too hard and too long), and often do it with a strong Lone Ranger mentality. By contrast, emerging-generation leaders apply as-needed learning that is usually web- and multi-mediabased, work to live (and often see life

A group of women executive pastors praying during a recent meeting at Leadership Network. as more important than work), and highly value collaborative insight, decision making, communication and implementation. Their view and definition of leadership is much less hierarchical, and is going to significantly impact future church leadership structures. The blending of those two styles—and passing of the leadership baton from one group to the next—will be fascinating to observe and track over the coming decades.

Predictions • Team leadership and emerging leaders will impact all types of churches. Traditional mainline churches, independent, non-denominational congregations, ethnic and others will all be changed—eventually—by this development of this broadened leadership platform. The younger the church, the more likely it is to become an early adaptor of a more fluid and collaborative model—and the less cultural pain that church will experience. Over time, more established and more traditional churches will be required to move toward collaborative leadership. A degree of pain will surface as deeply imbedded leadership models, structures, roles and personalities give

way to what’s next. The very nature of leadership—in the church and beyond—is changing. Top-down, hierarchical leadership is giving way to flatter structures where leadership is collaborative and shared. In the new world of leadership, more is often better, with more people being empowered to get a vision, set direction and strategy, make shared decisions and move forward together. As this leadership platform widens, making room for more types of leaders, it also is changing the overall face and feel of church leadership. With increasing frequency, church leaders are no longer expected to get on the preset track and climb the ministry ladder—Bible college followed by seminary, low-level staff position and one day becoming a senior leader who calls the shots. More and more, church leaders in development are coming out of diverse backgrounds, with skills honed in the marketplace, and with significant ministry posts being carved out to exercise those skills. And, no longer are those key strategic and directional leaders made up of a predominant race, gender and age. Ethnic leaders, women and next-generation leaders are moving into significant church leadership roles and setting the direction for the future of the Kingdom.


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Sherry Surratt serves as the Director for the RadicalFuture Innovation Labs. She joined Leadership Network in 2008 with an extensive background in ministry, most recently serving as Central Support Pastor for Seacoast Church in Mt. Pleasant, SC. Prior to church ministry, Sherry was a teacher and administrator in the Houston Public School District. Her bio is at www.leadnet.org/sherrysurratt


About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growing Churches, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Next Generation Pastors, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Leadership Development, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons. Team Collaboration: Broadening the Church Leadership Platform is also available in these formats.

podcast

video

Leadership Network Advance E-newsletter: Our free, indispensable, twice-monthly email newsletter featuring the best in innovative church strategies, including news of upcoming Leadership Network events. Sign up at http://leadnet.org/resources/page/ subscribe or scan the QR code below on your smart phone. (To download a free QR Reader, just search for “QR Reader” in your app store.)

Wayne Smith currently serves as the Leadership Community Director for Senior Pastor 2 and Senior Pastor Next Chapter. Wayne served as an Executive Pastor for several years, but the majority of his career was with Young Life. Wayne is a graduate of Texas Christian University (B.A.) and Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.M) and is also an ordained minister. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/waynesmith

Contact Us Contact Wayne Smith at [email protected] if you are interested in joining a Life Stage Leadership Community. Life Stage 2 (Senior Pastors 2) is for senior pastors age 41-50, leading a church of 2500+ attendance and experience serving in the lead pastor role for at least 10+ years. Life Stage 3 (Next Chapter) is for senior pastors age 50+, leading a church of 3000+ attendance and experience serving in the lead pastor role for at least 20+ years. Contact Sherry Surratt at [email protected] if you are interested in joining a RadicalFuture Innovation Lab. The RadicalFuture Innovation Lab for Campus Pastor Development is designed to help multisite church teams form a strategic process for developing and identifying future and existing Campus Pastors.

Suggested Reading Leading from the Second Chair by Mike Bonem (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2005) Reverse Mentoring by Earl Creps (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2008) Halftime by Bob Buford (Zondervan; Rev Upd edition, 2008) Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman (Bantam; 10th Anniversary edition, 2006) Relational Intelligence by Steve Saccone Creps (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2009) Leadership Is an Art by Max DePree (Crown Business, 2004)


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The Changing Role of Large Church Senior Pastors: Trends and Developments by Dave Travis


The Changing Role of Large Church Senior Pastors: Trends and Developments by Dave Travis I’m amazed at the changes in the role of large church senior pastors that have occurred over the last 16 years. That’s the length of time I’ve been associated with Leadership Network and have been involved in forums, events, leadership communities, innovation labs and individual conversations with the leadership teams of North America’s largest churches.

Metrics • The average age of megachurch pastors has stayed relatively constant. While that doesn’t really sound like news, it is. Until recent years, it seemed that everyone expected megachurch pastors to age out and their congregations to decline. Some prominent ones have. But in reality we have seen an explosion of new churches begin that have grown very large and even to megachurch status (2,000 or more in weekly attendance) in a very short period of time. When we do the numbers, the average age of the senior pastors has stayed relatively constant – 50 or 51 (lower than the national average for all pastors). This means that several more younger churches are emerging into large church status.

Photos from some of Leadership Network’s Senior Pastors leadership communities.

11 for 11: Ideas That Work • The Changing Role of Large Church Senior Pastors: Trends and Developments

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• The number of large churches has mushroomed, and continues to grow. Shortly after Leadership Network was born 27 years ago, founder Bob Buford created a networking event for U.S. pastors with 1,000 or more in weekly attendance. After a lot of digging, he came up with just over 100 for his invitation list. Today we believe some 4,000 such pastors exist – roughly 1,500 with weekly attendance of 2,000 or more, and another 2,500 with attendances of 1,000-1,999. Many question if this will continue, but recent releases from the 2010 U.S. Census show ongoing support of the trends that have contributed to the development of very large churches. In my opinion, as long as the majority of students are socialized by large high schools and universities, larger churches will still seem normal even expected.

Trends • Younger churches become bigger faster. Clearly there is now are some very common understandings of how to start and grow to a large church size. In part, a new leadership team concept has helped these churches overcome growth barriers. Starting as a team instead of a solo founder has encouraged more networked connections and stronger launches. They don’t expect to stay at 100 people very long, and they staff to that end. This is certainly not to say that all newly planted churches will grow to a large size. But we do see many more large churches less than 15 years old than we did in a previous generation. • Almost all younger leaders of rapidly growing churches think “multisite” from day one. While the multisite movement has been a driving development across most

Founder, Bob Buford, third from the left, praying with a group of pastors. of the megachurch movement, many younger leaders think multisite almost from the pre-launch phase. This leads to less emphasis than large church pastors from earlier eras on large tracks of land and huge buildings. Of course the multisite movement was barely on the scene a decade ago and at first it was led by established megachurch leaders. But now, most founders and planters are thinking that this is the route for the churches they lead.

the role of this primary leader from administrative leader to leader of a team or tribe. • Pastors are moving toward more network involvement, and less denominational involvement Over the past 15 years the large church senior/lead pastor role has included

• Leaders are gradually shifting away from “senior pastor” as their title. I can remember in the early days when about half of these leaders used a simple title as “pastor.” Then the term “senior pastor” took over. While this is still the predominant title, we see a rise in the term “directional leader” or “lead pastor,” especially by younger pastors. Some of this reflects the increasingly team nature of ministry as we highlighted last month in Team Collaboration: Broadening the Church Leadership Platform by Wayne Smith and Sherry Surratt. These language changes also reflect a subtle shift of


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a rise in the involvements in “extra local” activities. These involvements may include church planting networks, international missions networks and endeavors, and/or mentoring groups of pastors outside their area. In the early days of the large church movement many of these pastors were very involved in the leadership of their denomination as far as extra activity beyond their church. Now we find it hard to find many involved in their denomination at all. Some of this is driven by the continued rise of independent and non-denominational churches or more accurately, loosely affiliated congregations. Even so, according to the research we published in the book Beyond Megachurch Myths, two-thirds of megachurches belong to a formal national denomination. • The rising generation of pastors are developing multiethnic churches more easily. While the previous generation talked a lot about wanting to be multiethnic and worked very hard to get there, the current generation seems to just do it and consider it to be a natural way of doing church. Much of this desegregation is probably driven by ever-changing demographics and the fact that younger generations have grown up in much more diverse environments than the previous generation. • Almost all megachurches and especially younger churches have turned dramatically outward and externally focused. I can remember in the early days that many churches were proud of either (a) the amount of activity inside their church – from sports to youth to kids to women’s ministry and all manner of activity that drove involvement or (b) a simple structure that emphasized only

Many young seniors pastors are starting new churches, rather than serving as associate or youth pastors. “teaching” and “worship.” Now we see that most define discipleship” with a service component as well that emphasizes ministry to the poor and disadvantaged of their community in a pronounced way. • The system for developing future youth/student pastors is changing. While the search for good youth/ student pastors has been somewhat a constant over my tenure with Leadership Network, the level of concern about it by today’s senior/ lead pastors is now reaching alarm bell levels. The feeling is that many leaders in the past started in a student ministry role and would often “move up” to become a senior pastor or church planter. In fact in my first five years at Leadership Network, the majority of new senior pastors we met with had formerly been the youth minister at that church. That is much rarer these days and many of the senior/lead pastors have

bypassed the old routes. Instead, after schooling and internships they have jumped straight into the role of church planters. There is a common feeling that many of the best and brightest are not interested in student ministry as a starting point. Fortunately we have found many in youth/student ministry that are high quality, committed leaders to this area but it will be interesting to see if this remains a vital path for future leaders.

Questions • What does healthy succession look like? While there are actually some great stories and examples in abundance of successfully passing the mantle from one pastor to the next in the large church world, there are no universally agreed upon patterns. In my view there are four primary cultural systems of large churches, and succession looks different in each one of them.


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Discussions about succession are no longer waiting until the senior pastor hits 70 or even 60. Even middle-aged and young leaders have begun to think about these questions, all much earlier than the previous generation. I get a call every week from a pastor, board chair or staff member inquiring about succession planning.

as their churches are very young. In addition, the previously mentioned team ministry pattern has helped these leaders.

• More models of team leadership will emerge and take center stage.

As models of team leadership move more to center stage, some who could have been larger church lead pastors will find great contentment in “second chair” roles. We won’t see the old • A rise in the number of “teaching collegial models grow, and instead pastors” who become the successor for we will see great teams emerge that • How does one balance the work/life/ the lead pastor upon retirement. combine teaching, preaching, leadership family/inner life tensions? and administrative gifts in new ways. I can’t recall a recent week without a This will play out as prominent lead This question has not failed to come up phone call from a large church seeking a pastors will join other teams in their in every Leadership Network gathering “number two” teaching pastor or similar, churches, but not in the primary leader of lead pastors over my 16 years here. It at least for those that currently lack a role. is a constant. teaching team. Most of these are from older, established churches. Some of these New teaming models will also happen Younger pastors tend to be in better through potential mergers or coalitions calls were triggered by the senior pastor physical shape and lead saner lives than thinking of a potential successor. of churches in the same region. The the previous generation. They have new combinations of churches will observed certain unhealthy patterns have strong teams with up to five or six We have seen that this can work but of their mentors and designed changes leaders, any of whom could be prime we have also seen these leaders be very accordingly. candidates for other large church lead disappointed as well. While we think pastor roles. But those pastors will be it is a positive trend that could lead to It is not that they have perfected their robust and healthy church leadership and more comfortable being on a strong answers but there is greater recognition succession, it is not the way forward for team rather than have the full weight of that has resulted in new patterns even the lead pastor role. all.

Predictions


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Dave Travis is the Managing Director of Leadership Network. In his current role he leads a large field team that works with innovative churches and ministries. Under Dave’s leadership, the Leadership Network initiative has helped to nurture the megachurch and other movements in American Christianity. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/ davetravis


About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growth Churches, Executive Pastors and Key Implementators, Missional Renaissance, Next Generation Pastors, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Leadership Development, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons. The Changing Role of Large Church Senior Pastors: Trends and Developments is also available in these formats.

Contact Us Contact Dave Travis at [email protected], twitter@davetravis and his website at www.davetravis.com Copyright © 2011 by Leadership Network We encourage you to use and share this material freely—but please don’t charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information. You can find the original version of this resource at leadnet.org/resources

Additional Resources Books Beyond Megachurch Myths by Scott Thumma and Dave Travis (John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2007)

podcast

video


Elephant in the Boardroom: Speaking the Unspoken about Pastoral Transitions by Carolyn Weese and J. Russell Crabtree (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2004) Papers Teacher First: Leadership Network’s 2009 Large Church Senior Pastor Survey by Warren Bird. (July 14, 2009)


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Fast Forwarding Your Church’s Community Engagement by Reggie McNeal


Fast Forwarding Your Church’s Community Engagement by Reggie McNeal

The Austin Stone Community Church, Austin, TX (www.austinstone.org), bought a defunct building in an underresourced part of its city, established a counseling center and other social services in the building—and over 50 church members moved into the declining neighborhood. Peninsula Covenant Church, Redwood City, CA (www.peninsulacovenant. com), one of the largest Protestant churches in the Palo Alto area, is blending its upper-end neighborhood with a poor community just across the street. The church has become so involved in the community with its Serve the Peninsula Collaboration of government and city leaders that pastor John Siebert was elected to the City Council. A Methodist church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, moved its Vacation Bible School to a public school that it has been serving—with the full blessing of the school system. Church leaders told the parents of church kids, “Our VBS is at the school this year—in the poorest part of town.” These churches and others like them are pioneering a shift in leaders who are truly engaging their communities in mission. These churches are not

A group from a Missional Renaissance Leadership Community praying.

only deploying their own members for service; they are engaging with people who aren’t part of their church, but who are attracted to rolling up their sleeves to bless the community. These on-mission churches look not only to their own resources and ideas for the community; they are strategically engaging with other churches and non-church organizations. These churches are moving from ministry for the community and in the community, to ministry with the community. We know how to do ministry for the community: we’re doing this for

you. The missional conversation the past few years has moved church leaders more into ministry in the community—outside our church walls. This new movement is a rise in churches that are working shoulderto-shoulder in partnership with the community—across multiple domains of business, education, health care, social service and government—to transform a city.

Metrics • More Americans are pursuing spirituality outside of traditional, organized contexts.

11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Fast Forwarding Your Church’s Community Engagement

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More than one in five Americans who say they are absolutely sure about believing in God virtually never attend church, according to the massive research Robert Putnam published in his recent book, American Grace (page 473).1 Further, Gallup polls see near record high in the percentage of people who say that religion is losing its influence in America.2 Also notice the dramatic rise in recent years of the “nones”3 – the now 14% of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation, yet half of whom believe in God and the Bible. To me, studies like this affirm why missional engagement beyond the walls of traditional church real estate and programming is the path to the future. We’ve got to figure out how to help people “be church” who cannot or will not go to church as it exists now. • Participation in service is increasing.

of Joy, Richland, WA (www.cojchurch. com), to market beyond church insiders for their community and global engagement efforts, and their youth pastor backed me up with a great story. He had just met his neighbor, who was sort of intrigued that he was a youth pastor. But when the pastor talked about an upcoming church trip to Central America to dig water wells, the neighbor really perked up: “That sounds like something I’d like to do. Can I go?” Little did the youth pastor know, the guy volunteering for this Christian mission trip is an Egyptian Muslim. Wouldn’t it be just like God to hijack an Egyptian Muslim with a tender heart, and throw him in with a bunch of Christians for 10 days? The neighbor came back later and said, “I just called my sister in Chicago and she’d like to go on that trip, too.” He is already an evangelist.

While we’re losing ground when it comes to attracting people to our worship services, what I call an altruism economy is attracting our friends to works of service. Just look around. American Idol can raise millions for a good cause in one night. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are giving away billions and encouraging their mega-rich colleagues to do the same. Charitable giving in the U.S. now tops $300 billion a year.

Helping people have abundant lives motivates people. I tell church leaders to think beyond their members for their service corps. Every one of your folks who participates in that weekend of service could easily bring three neighbors or co-workers and get them engaged in the community; they’re often wide open to this. • Missional churches are increasingly working in cross-domain collaboration.

housing, job assistance, and health care to needy families.

So invite your neighbors or co-workers to church, and they may say “no”—no matter how sexy your sax player or how cool your smoke machine. But invite them to serve alongside you at the local school next Saturday, and they’re more likely to say “yes,” and to ask if the whole family can come too!

Churches on the move in their communities realize that true city transformation is too big for one church, or even a conglomerate of churches, to tackle. Real change around deep problems takes partnership and collaboration across multiple domains: churches and other ministries, social services, businesses, schools, hospitals, and governments.

Fellowship Church, Dallas, TX (www.fellowshipdallas.org), provides a Refugee Empowerment Pathway for dozens of refugees living nearby the church—including helping them enroll in college and paying for their first semester. 3e, McKinney, TX (www.3emckinney.com), is a group of 30 churches that delivers food every weekend to more than 800 elementary school children.

Trends • Missional churches are engaging non-believers as part of their labor force. I was encouraging the staff at Cathedral

Crossroads Community Church, Cincinnati, OH (www.crossroads.net), is leading four other churches and five non-profit agencies to build a one-stop social service mall called CityLink (www.citylinkcenter.org) that will offer

A group of volunteers from Crossroads Church working with other community organizations on “Go Cincinnati” a oneday, service project designed to impact the city.

WoodsEdge Church, Houston, TX (www.woodsedge.org), partners with a secular organization that runs an apartment complex for women with HIV/AIDS. Momentum


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Church, Cincinnati, OH (www. momentumchurch.com), has chosen a local elementary school to serve— which, by the way, is one of the most impactful and fail-proof ways for any church to get engaged in the community. • Church leaders are gaining a better understanding of community development. Political opponents made fun of President Obama for his background as a community developer. But I’m telling pastors they need to become community developers if they want their church to make the difference it should. The church is already deployed across all the domains I mentioned earlier. We already have people in politics and education and health care and in business. The church is deployed across all domains, and is in a unique position to call a party for the city to focus on healing itself. No one else is positioned like that. Christ Church United Methodist, Birmingham, AL (www. christchurchtv.org), identified the poorest part of the city and made a 25-year commitment to serve that part of their community. That’s real community development, not just a drive-by event. When you commit to 25 years of efforts in a needy part of town, you can develop some metrics that measure long-term impact. You can commit to raising graduation rates and reducing hunger. Titus County Cares (www.tituscountycares. org), which distributes more than 1,000 backpacks of food to kids every weekend, reports that school attendance is up and visits to the school nurse are down. They believe that will eventually lead to higher graduation rates and less prison time.

Questions • What will the new scorecard look like?

Volunteering in schools and community centers is one of the most impactful and failproof ways for any church to get engaged in its community.

Missional ministry requires a different scorecard than churches have used in the past. This scorecard goes beyond the traditional benchmarks of buildings, budgets and butts in the seats. In this new missional world, there are dynamic metrics that can measure a church’s effectiveness in the community. Measures might include: - How many backpacks were delivered for a weekend supply of food? - How much money is the church giving away? - How many life coaches are deployed outside the church? - How many volunteer hours are church members logging outside the walls? - How many cross-domain collaborations is the church engaged with? A revamped scorecard also means resource reallocation—our prayer, time, people, money, facilities and technology. How would prayer, and money and time be redirected for community development? And once you change the scorecard, you change

the game. What gets rewarded gets done. Once you change what you’re celebrating, you get more of that. • How do we learn to collaborate across domains? Unfortunately, churches have a spotty history of true collaboration across multiple domains in a community. We’re not very good at collaboration, because we want to be the show. If we want to drive the ideas and staff it with our people and invite people into the presence we’ve created, we may be missing cross-domain collaboration in the process. Real collaboration goes beyond selling a great idea to the city, and getting them to give us resources. We need to figure out how to convene and create cross-domain partners, not just targets or functional users. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, or put our efforts solely under our own label. Whatever needs to get done in a community, there are probably community agencies already there. Why aren’t we figuring out how to get behind the Salvation


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Army, for instance, to care for the homeless? That’s the collaborative mentality.

Predictions • We will see the rise of city churches. If churches get serious about truly engaging their communities, thinking outside their own membership for their work force, collaborating across multiple domains and banding together to get the job done, we will see the rise of city churches—churches of all shapes and sizes networking together for city transformation.

Christ Together (www.christtogether. com) is an emerging network of churches in the Chicago area that initially came together to pray for the city. Currently, there are leaders from more than 180 Chicagoland churches that are interested in working together, rather than view each other as competitors. Scott Chapman, the leader that helped spark this movement in Chicago, says he has invitations from leaders in 16 cities to explore similar city church efforts. I believe this is a movement of the Spirit, like scales falling from people’s eyes. God seems to be having a different conversation with the church

about its role in the world. There is a rise of Kingdom consciousness vs. mychurch-only awareness. Church leaders are developing a non-church-centric view of God’s Kingdom—where we understand that Kingdom is about street life and bringing abundant life where people are. We are becoming more willing to pitch our fortune and future with the community. This movement will convene the church around service—not around politics or around being a moral watchdog for the community—but around loving your neighbor. The spirit is calling us out to be church better, not do church better.

Endnotes:

About the Authors

1. Putnam, Robert. and David Campbell American Grace. Simon & Schuster, 2010. p. 473.

Warren Bird, Ph.D., who is overseeing the 11 for 11 initiative, directs the research division of Leadership Network, bringing a background of pastoral ministry and seminary teaching. He has co-authored 23 books on various issues of church vitality and health. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/warrenbird

2. Newport, Frank. “Near-Record High See Religion Losing Influence in America.” Dec 29, 2010. http://www. gallup.com/poll/145409/near-recordhigh-religion-losing-influence-america. aspx date accessed 4/19/2011 3. American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population, American Religious Identification Survey 2008. http://www.americanreligionsurveyaris.org/american_nones_the_profile_ of_the_no_religion_population.html date accessed 4/19/2011

Reggie McNeal, Ph.D., serves as the Missional Leadership Specialist for Leadership Network of Dallas, TX. Reggie’s past experience involves over a decade as a denominational executive and leadership development coach. Reggie has contributed to numerous denominational publications and church leadership journals as well as being the author of multiple books on spiritual leadership. His bio is at www. leadnet.org/reggiemcneal


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About Leadership Network Leadership Network’s mission is to accelerate the impact of 100X leaders. These high-capacity leaders are like the hundredfold crop that comes from seed planted in good soil as Jesus described in Matthew 13:8. Leadership Network is a division of OneHundredX, a global ministry with initiatives around the world. To learn more about Leadership Network go to www.leadnet.org

Contact Us Contact Reggie McNeal at [email protected] if you are interested in joining a Missional Renaissance Leadership Community. The Missional Renaissance Leadership Community combines church leaders with key influencers from the private, public and social sectors of their cities—such as business executives, school superintendents and nonprofit leaders—to tackle huge societal issues like poverty, hunger, disease and mal-education. Copyright © 2011 by Leadership Network We encourage you to use and share this material freely—but please don’t charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information. You can find the original version of this resource at leadnet.org/resources

About 11 for 11

Additional Resources

The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growth Churches, Executive Pastors and Key Implementers, Large Church Senior Pastors, Next Generation Pastors, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Leadership Development, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons.

The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2003)

Fast Forwarding Your Church’s Community Engagement is also available in these formats.

Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church by Reggie McNeal (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2009) To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City by Eric Swanson and Sam Williams (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2010) Leadership Network Advance E-newsletter: Our free, indispensable, twicemonthly email newsletter featuring the best in innovative church strategies, including news of upcoming Leadership Network events. Sign up at http:// leadnet.org/resources/page/subscribe or scan the QR code below on your smart phone. (To download a free QR Reader, just search for “QR Reader” in your app store.)


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Externally Focused Churches Becoming the New Norm by Eric Swanson


Externally Focused Churches Becoming the New Norm by Eric Swanson

I remember back in the 1970s reading Frank Tillapaugh’s Church Unleashed—which at the time was a groundbreaking book about externally focused ministry. And I remember thinking, “God bless Frank. He’s sort of a male Mother Teresa.” But I wasn’t interested in ministry outside the church walls—and neither were my peers. Several years later, after being exposed to some missional pioneers such as Steve Sjogren, Erwin McManus and a few others, I wrote an article about the winds of change we were seeing in U.S. churches. It was 2002, and a few leading churches were beginning to mobilize people to engage their communities in ministry. But it was still mostly early adopters with many skeptics.

A Leadership Network group prays to be internally strong (above) and then turns outward (below) to ask for God’s help in becoming externally focused.

Now, less than 10 years later, what we’re experiencing is nothing less than a spiritual movement. Many have observed that it’s easier to catch a wave than to cause a wave. This is clearly God’s wave, and we’re seeing it around the U.S. and all over the world. God is clearly at work to make the church missional, putting some of its best talent and most impactful ideas outside the walls to bless the community. In the U.S., multiple churches and thousands of people in communities 11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Externally Focused Churches Becoming the New Norm

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are linking arms for one-day community service blitzes, such as “ShareFest” (www.gjsharefest.com) (originating in Little Rock, AR) in Grand Junction, CO, “Step Out and Serve”(www.stepoutomaha.com) in Omaha, NE, and “The Church Has Left the Building” (www. thechurchhasleftthebuilding.org) found in dozens of churches across the continent. As a television news report in Grand Junction put it: “Need help with your to-do list? A massive crew of Christians is ready to assist.” The wave of community engagement is infiltrating churches much deeper than with one-day, en-masse service opportunities. People in the seats are moving out with innovation and spiritual energy to bless the community in Jesus’ name. Whether it’s every small group at Chase Oaks Church, Dallas, TX (www.chaseoaks.org) operating with a service component, or 60,000 Christians in Denver practically loving their neighbor, or a focus at Perimeter Church, Atlanta, GA (www.perimeter. org) on equipping people to minister where they “live, work and play,” external focus is catching on. People in our congregations are dying to do something with their faith that will help them catch the wave and change the world.

Metrics • Regular churchgoers are more than twice as likely to volunteer to help the needy, compared to demographically matched Americans who rarely or never attend church.1 • In particular, weekly churchgoers are more likely to help the poor or elderly (40% vs. 15%), to volunteer in school or youth programs (36% vs. 15%), and to volunteer for neighborhood or civic groups (26% vs. 13%).2 In short, church attendance is a significant predictor for most types of volunteering, according to Harvard’s

Robert Putnam in American Grace.3 By many different measures, religiously observant Americans are better neighbors and better citizens than secular Americans. They are more generous with their time and money than demographically similar secular Americans, especially in helping the needy and the elderly, and they are more active in community life. Rather than choosing between religious and nonreligious causes, they volunteer and give more generously to both.4

American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America.

Trends • External focus is being operationalized in churches through small groups. If you’re part of a small group at Chase Oaks Church, you also serve the community, as service is part of the package and part of the schedule. Every 4-6 weeks, instead of meeting for coffee and dessert, prayer and Bible study, the church’s group members are in the community—serving the homeless, building a Habitat for Humanity house, helping a single mom and her kids, mentoring students—something that moves them out of the living room and into the street. Small groups commit

11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Externally Focused Churches Becoming the New Norm

for one year to serve an existing, local non-profit agency that already has the connections and structure to link small group members with service opportunities. Chase Oaks is living proof that good friends (authentic, small group relationships) help turn good intentions (“we should serve our community”) into good deeds. When I am speaking in churches around the country, I often ask, “How many of you have taken a spiritual gifts test, and after discovering your gifts, you went out on your own and found your place of service?” I have asked that question thousands of times, and I’ve only had one person raise their hand—and she was just stretching! We’ve all been there. We hear a great message about serving, and we think, “yeah, that’s right. I ought to be doing that.” But there is too much inertia to overcome, and very few people do anything on their own. Robert Putnam’s book referenced earlier confirms that religious Americans are more generous with their time and treasure, even for secular causes. But it has less to do with their faith and more to do with hanging out with people they like who share their value for service. • Community engagement is becoming part of the regular “rhythm” of church. The classic Four Spiritual Laws is a great example of the old paradigm of the “rhythm” of church life (full disclosure here—I love this little resource, and have used it countless times to share the Gospel). The Four Spiritual Laws strongly encourages new Christians to find a Bible-believing church where they can grow in their new-found faith. It implies we are to believe the right things first, and then we have the right to belong. For decades, that was the rhythm of church. Then the Baby Busters (those born 1965 and later) came along and said, “That’s not how we see it. In our community,

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you can belong first.” In the process of connecting to the church through friendships, non-Christians may wind up believing—or not. But they still belong.

points of engagement for people outside your church.

In the new wave of external focus represented by the emerging Millennial generation, the rhythm can be illustrated by a version of the Celtic knot of faith. A few years ago a member of one of our learning communities used the three watchwords—believe, belong and bless. Tying those words to the Celtic knot gives us three distinct loops to represent the vital Christian rhythms of believe, belong and bless. This adds the vital faith element of “blessing” the community. It’s the regular rhythm of going deeper with Christ, deeper with one another and deeper in service.

Leaders at Atlanta’s Perimeter Church encourage people to serve in an unusual place first: outside the walls of the church. Rather than making the perpetual pitch for ushers, greeters and kids’ ministry workers, staff member Drew Warner says that church leaders want Perimeter’s members to live out their faith most in the “domains” where they live, work and play.

Some churches use a version of the Celtic knot with three distinct loops to represent the vital Christian rhythms of believe, belong and bless.

The interesting thing is people are now coming to Christ through all three of these doors. You not only ask your neighbors to visit church with you; they get involved in the church’s food drive and take steps forward on their spiritual journey. They may have no interest in the famous evangelist coming to town; but invite them to stuff 200,000 food packs to go to Africa, and the whole family is now interacting with the “bless” function of your church. All three elements become

• Churches are beginning to mobilize people to serve in their life “domains.”

Most pastors are hesitant to operate this way. They have lived with the 80-20 principle (80% of work in the church gets done by 20% of the people), and they’re afraid to release people to external engagement. They’re afraid the church work won’t get done. But what if that’s the way God set it up to work? What if God only needs 20% to run the inner machine of the church? And he wants the other 80% to employ their passions and gifts outside the walls? If someone has time and a passion for mentoring kids and that’s their passion, encourage them to do it instead of imploring them to work in the nursery. The old way of thinking is to take the most talented people out of the community and put them to work inside the church. So the business guy leads the finance or building committee. The award-winning fourth grade teacher gets recruited to teach Sunday school. What would happen if we released these people to be transforming agents where they live, work, play and learn?

Questions • How do we engage everyone in some type of external ministry, beyond family and friends? How do we create an atmosphere where every person in our churches has

an opportunity to change the world? It’s not an insurmountable problem, but we’re still waiting for the first church to crack the code. It will involve devising a simple structure where everybody has a story to tell, and they are given some freedom and help to do it. The great thing is, you won’t have to talk people into doing it, because they’re already motivated. You’re taking advantage of the momentum that’s already by the wave God has already started. • How do we move beyond “episodes of mercy” to where community engagement is part of the DNA of Christians and the church? Even if I’ve never been to your church, I know this: There has probably never been a Sunday that someone hasn’t opened the Word of God and spoken truth. There has never been a Sunday that you skipped prayer or didn’t worship in song. You haven’t gone many Sundays without celebrating Holy Communion. Baptism is probably a regular activity. Those things are part of your church’s DNA, and they currently define what church is. When and if external focus becomes the new norm, it would be just as abnormal if people aren’t living a life of faith and mercy outside the church. How do we make that part of the DNA of what church is and does, rather than it being an annual day of service of sporadic episodes of care?

Predictions • If churches don’t grasp external focus as a kingdom effort vs. a church growth strategy, it will fail. Attendance and budget are typically our primary success measures. Ministries become tactical ways to move those numbers up and to the right, or they’re eventually dropped. Community engagement will require a different measure of success. External


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focus is a kingdom-building effort that may or may not tip the balance sheet in your church. Authentic ministry outside the walls and in the community will ultimately be done because we are Christian, not to convert you and count you. External focus can never be a commodity—a transaction we engage in to get something in return—or the best efforts will fail.

became the place where people are regularly given a chance to do just that? And one of your primary success criteria as a church could be that everybody has a story to tell of how they did that.

Endnotes:

Bibliography and Suggested Reading:

Imagine if we could ask everyone in the church to give a one-minute story from this past year about how they sensed something was broken in the world, how they felt led into that area, what I’ve started asking one question they did about it and the difference wherever I speak or work with churches: it made. Imagine having a thousand “How many people here want to change stories like that on your website. And the world?” Inevitably, everybody will when people ask you about your church, raise their hand. What if the church you tell them, “We’re a church that

Putnam, Robert D., and David E. Campbell, American Grace. Simon and Shuster, 2010. pp. 445-446, 627-628.

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Putnam, American Grace, 446-447, 628-629.

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http://100x.christianbook.com/american-religion-reshaping-civic-politicallives/robert-putnam/9781416566717/ pd/566777?item_code=WW&netp_id= 804809&event=ESRCN&view=details

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Putnam, American Grace, 453, 461.

will help you change the world.” And you have hundreds of stories from the life, work and play domains all over your city about how average people are teaching a third grader to read, leading people to Christ and discipling them, or packing 1,000 backpacks of food for hungry kids every weekend. If we can help people have a story to tell, you can invite people to come to your church because you’ll help them change the world. Nobody else is giving them that opportunity. That’s the leadership challenge—making community engagement the new norm.

Putnam, Robert D. and Dave E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2010 Rizzo, Dino, Servolution: Starting a Church Revolution through Serving. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Leadership Network Series, 2009 Rusaw, Rick and Eric Swanson, The Externally Focused Church. Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2004 Swanson, Eric and Rick Rusaw, The Externally Focused Quest: Becoming the Best Church for the Community. San Francisco, CO: Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2010


Swanson, Eric, “Ten Paradigm Shifts Towards Community Transformation: How Churches are Impacting Their Communities with Good Deeds and Good News of the Gospel,” Leadership Network Advance, accessed April 29, 2011, http://leadnet.org/ resources/download/ten_paradigm_ shifts_how_churches_impacting_their_ communities_good_deeds/. Swanson, Eric and Sam Williams, To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010 “The Four Spiritual Laws”, Bright Media Foundation and Campus Crusade for Christ, accessed April, 19, 2011, http://www.campuscrusade.com/fourlawseng.htm. Tillapaugh, Frank R. The Church Unleashed. Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1982

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Eric Swanson currently works as Leadership Community Director for Externally Focused Jumpstart Lab, Missional Renaissance and Global Connection Churches. He is the co-author of The Externally Focused Church, The Externally Focused Life, The Externally Focused Quest, To Transform a City and numerous articles on churches that are transforming their communities. His bio is at www. leadnet.org/ericswanson


About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011.The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growth Churches, Trends in Collaborative Leadership, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Next Generation Pastors, Multisite Churches, Leadership Development, GenerousChurches, and Next Horizons.

Contact Eric Swanson at [email protected] if you’re interested in being part of an Externally Focused Groups Jumpstart Innovation Lab. This lab is for churches ready to move beyond a traditional small group model to making a difference in their community.

Externally Focused Churches Becoming the New Norm: is also available in these formats.

We encourage you to use and share this material freely—but please don’t charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information. You can find the original version of this resource at leadnet.org/resources

Contact Us

Copyright © 2011 by Leadership Network


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Leadership Network Advance E-newsletter: Our free, indispensable, twicemonthly email newsletter featuring the best in innovative church strategies, including news of upcoming Leadership Network events. Sign up at http:// leadnet.org/resources/page/subscribe or scan the QR code below on your smart phone. (To download a free QR Reader, just search for “QR Reader” in your app store.)


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Multisite Movement Gaining New Momentum in New Places by Greg Ligon


Multisite Movement Gaining New Momentum in New Places by Greg Ligon

Church of the Resurrection, Leawood, KA (www.cor.org), is proving that a multisite approach can breathe new life into dead places. The large congregation in the suburbs of Kansas City established a third campus at Grand Avenue Temple, a United Methodist church that had been at the same downtown location since 1866. In recent years, the Methodist church had ceased to be self-supporting and the facility was turned over to a ministry for the area’s homeless.

is getting fresh legs in new places. While a wide range of churches still utilize a multisite approach to address space issues, expand into new areas and reach more people by adding multiple venues, some mainline denominations and other churches are also using multisite to revitalize struggling congregations and tackle leadership

deficits. Church planters are using multisite to launch multiple locations from day one. Denominations are discovering how a multisite strategy can allow several smaller churches to combine forces for maximum impact in neighboring communities. Multisite churches are

Today, thanks to an infusion of capital funds, new energy and a multisite approach, a new congregation— Resurrection Downtown—is averaging 240 attenders weekly, and is developing vital evangelism, music and small group miniswqtries. Six couples from the Leawood campus even sold their homes Photos from Leadership Network and moved downtown to be part of it. “It’s cool to be part of the downtown revitalization, spiritually as well as physically,” said David Sisney, a lifelong suburb dweller and one of the people who made the move. “I think Resurrection Downtown will have a great impact.”

Leadership Communities and InnovationLab gatherings.

Church of the Resurrection’s move illustrates how the multisite movement

11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Multisite Movement Gaining New Momentum in New Places

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also engaging in community service, and adding online venues at a more rapid pace. Some people may have wondered, “Is multisite a short-lived fad?” or “Will multisite hit a ceiling in the number of churches that find it usable?” The answer is no on both counts. The multisite movement shows stronger momentum than ever thanks to its ongoing expansion into new territory.

Metrics • There are now more multisite churches in the U.S. than megachurches. The United States has roughly 1,500 Protestant churches with weekly worship attendances of 2,000 and higher. These are frequently called megachurches. By contrast, there are at least 3,000 churches that consider themselves “one church in two or more locations,” more commonly know as multisite congregations. • Multisite churches report a 90% “success rate” of sustainability. Only 10% of multisite churches in a 2010 Leadership Network survey report that they have closed a campus. But even among those churches that have closed a multisite campus, most of those churches still employ a multisite strategy. They simply had one that didn’t make it—usually because they had the wrong leader, wrong timing or wrong location, they say. A church planter who has been called to launch a new congregation is often the wrong leader for a venue that does not plan to branch off to become a church on its own. Sometimes a problem with meeting location, such as needing to move several times, prevents a new multisite location from having enough runway to become healthy.

Trends

minister to groups such as online gamers or social network fans.

• Multisite churches are expanding online.

• Multisite churches are engaging the community—and the community is noticing.

Northland Church, Longwood, FL (www.northlandchurch.net) is blending its multisite, house church model with the internet to help people transform their homes and other unusual places into ministry outposts. Using a streaming internet application Northland multisite house church participants gather for a meal and fellowship, then turn on the TV, settle in and experience Northland’s worship service together. In taking their ministries to the web, multisite churches are replicating what’s happening at the in-person, live worship experience at the originating campus. So you can sit in your living room or a hotel room and worship in song, participate in a message, give financially, observe someone being baptized—you name it. And some multisite churches are moving beyond the typical weekend experience, and are re-creating other types of church experiences online. For example, Northland also conducts ministry online to three correctional facilities where volunteer teams are discipling 150 inmates weekly and preparing them for life after prison. In a different type of online experience, Cross Timbers Church, Argyle, TX (www.crosstimberschurch.org), is making it possible for teenagers to experience its youth group activities by logging on and connecting with other teens. Perhaps the most interesting development in this online phenomenon is that multisite churches are beginning to explore how they can be the church on the internet—not just create a replica of their main campus. Churches are asking how they can connect to a demographic that’s observable on the internet—a “neighborhood”—and

Even though Healing Place Church, Baton Rouge, LA (www.healingplacechurch. org) had a reputation as “the church that gives stuff away,” no one could have predicted this unusual gift would become an outreach tool and help launch a new site for the congregation. Senior Pastor Dino Rizzo tells the story about a truckload of rat bait being offered to Healing Place Church. Never being one to turn down potential giveaways, Healing Place took the bait— literally—and decided to distribute it in the lower-rent area of Baton Rouge. “In that area of our city, they need rat bait,” Dino says. “We were meeting a need.” Over time, Healing Place began to form a community of people that had been served by the church. In essence, Healing Place was being the church, and the community responded. “People in that community said, ‘you’re already here, why don’t we have a worship experience,’ ” Dino says. What became for several years an additional Healing Place campus site was born out of being missional and serving. We’re seeing this type of external, community engagement focus develop more and more through multisite churches. In some cases, churches are using a multisite strategy to extend into a new neighborhood. But for some, such as Healing Place, it’s working in reverse. They’re externally focused, they are already doing ministry in the community, so the natural step is to turn that community being built through service into a multisite location. • Multisite churches are extending internationally. On trips to the bush of Africa, Dave Browning and other leaders from Christ the King Community Church,


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Place Church moved its taking-it-tothe-streets approach to Mozambique, where the church has engaged in nationbuilding development activities and launched a multisite location. These are but three of many examples.

Questions • How do growing multisite churches secure qualified campus pastors at the pace they need?

Maps of Christ the King Community Church locations point to the trend of more multisite churches expanding not just across state lines, but to overseas locations as well.

Multisite leaders are asking many similar questions when it comes to leader development: where do we find the right ones? and how do we develop them? The largest percentage of multisite leaders come from within and most churches are trying to figure out how to develop the pipeline, or “greenhouse” as multisite pioneer Seacoast Church, Mount Pleasant, SC (www.seacoast.org), calls it, to grow leaders quicker and meet some of their leadership demands.

I often see growing multisite ministries make the mistake of deploying as a campus pastor someone with more church planter-type gifts, or looking for a glorified emcee. Neither one will get the job done. The most successful multisite campus pastors are more of a “developer.” These developers contribute to shaping the vision, but they don’t have to be the sole creator of it. They are usually energized and passionate about figuring out how to make the senior pastor’s vision a Maps of Washington-based Christ the King Community Church locations point to the reality in the context of their campus. trend of more multisite churches expanding not just across state lines, but overseas as well. They have shepherding gifts, and they are good at developing a team. Bellingham, WA (www.ctkbellingham. internationally, and points to a trend in They aren’t the hard-charging “mega” com) kept hearing cell phones ring. multisite ministry: multisite churches pastor type, but they are definitely But it wasn’t their own phones. When are increasingly expanding their models leaders—not just someone to introduce they learned that African leaders in to overseas locations. the speaker. their network of churches were three Christ the King’s multisites often don’t times as likely to have cell phones use Dave Browning’s sermons, topics • The DNA Question: What has to than internet connections, Dave or outlines. But those congregations translate from campus to campus and and his leaders repackaged leader do embody the DNA of Christ the what level of autonomy is acceptable in training resources into text-sized King. Likewise Living Hope Church, shaping a new location? messages to send to the other side of Vancouver, WA (www.livinghopechurch. the world. Christ the King’s innovation com), utilizes pastor John Bishop’s videos Multisite churches regularly wrestle was born out of their multisite work for services around the world. Healing with what’s really core to their 11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Multisite Movement Gaining New Momentum in New Places

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ministries and multisite locations. What must be present in all locales? And where are the gray areas where campus pastors have the freedom and responsibility to shape what happens on their campus based on the demographic of who is showing up? How do you develop that autonomy and still be one church?

1 in 3 Multisites Added a Campus through a Merger

Predictions • More multisite churches will engage in mergers, acquisitions and adoptions. We’re seeing this already in some mainline denominations, and in some regional country models. For instance, First United Methodist Church of Sedalia, MO (www.firstsayyes.com) —a county seat church—merged with some smaller churches in its county to strengthen the smaller, struggling churches and maximize resources. Megachurch Ginghamsburg Church, Tipp City, OH (www.ginghamsburg. org), came to the rescue and absorbed two declining Methodist churches into its ministry as multisite venues. Both are now thriving, each with several hundred in attendance. New Life Community Church, Chicago, IL (www.newlifechicago.org), is building a ministry out of restarting struggling churches as new multisite

The 2010 Leadership Network multisite survey found a rising popularity in mergers. A surprising 33% said they had added a campus through a merger or acquisition with an existing or recently closed congregation.

venues. With the success these and other churches are having in turning churches around by infusing vital DNA, teaching resources and an effective campus pastor model, we envision more churches in need or revitalization turning over their facilities and their people to this kingdom-building strategy. Ten years ago, multisite was a phenomenon a few church large-church leaders were talking about and even fewer were pursuing. Now it’s a part of pretty much every conversation

overhead at conference settings. The main driver behind the new momentum is the simple fact that multisite works. Churches are reaching into new communities and leveraging already established resources. Multisite gives evangelism a boost with conversion rates higher at secondary campuses as a Leadership Network 2010 research report, Multisite Is Multiplying, (see additional resources on page 6) demonstrated. Multisite is working, and more leaders in new places are taking notice and getting in on the action.


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Greg Ligon serves Leadership Network as Vice President and Publisher. In this role, he serves several Leadership Community Directors and oversees the organizations publishing partnerships. During his time at LN, he has also directed the Multi-Site Churches Leadership Community, Leadership Training Network and spearheaded strategic services for the organization. Greg is also one of the authors of The Multi-site Church Revolution and A Multi-site Church Road Trip. His bio is at www.leadnet. org/gregligon


About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growth Churches, Trends in Collaborative Leadership, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Next Generation Pastors, Externally Focused Churches, Leadership Development, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons. Multisite Movement Gaining New Momentum in New Places: is also available in these formats.

Contact Us Contact Greg Ligon at [email protected] or at twitter.com/gregligon. Copyright © 2011 by Leadership Network We encourage you to use and share this material freely—but please don’t charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information. You can find the original version of this resource at leadnet.org/resources

Additional Resources Want to find more resources like this one? For the most current listing of free and purchasable resources, including books, papers, videos, and podcasts, go to leadnet.org/resources. The Multi-Site Church Revolution: Being One Church in Many Locations by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird. (Zondervan, 2006)

podcast

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A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip: Exploring the New Normal by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird. (Zondervan, 2009) Multisite is Multiplying: Survey Identifies Leading Practices and Confirms New Developments in the Movement’s Expansion by Warren Bird and Kristin Walters. (September 2, 2010) Leading Multi-site—building leaders for multi-site churches (www.leading multisite.ning.com) InnovationLabs for multisite churches (www.innovationlab.leadnet.org)


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Who–and What–Is Shaping Next Generation Pastors? by Linda Stanley


Who–and What–Is Shaping Next Generation Pastors? by Linda Stanley

“Next generation” pastors–those under age 40–are a new breed that are breaking new ministry ground, especially those heading very large churches. More often than not, these next generation pastors are leading their churches full-force into multisite ministry, community service, global impact and church planting–not as a phased strategy, but as a multifaceted approach that places equal weight and significance on each. They are less interested in dominating the stage–content to share weekend teaching with a team–as they focus on overall vision, direction and staff development. While these young leaders downplay buildings and money, they still realize both are critical for advancing their rapidly growing ministries. Many young leaders of America’s fastest-growing congregations want their churches to look much different than those of previous generations, but they intently pursue older mentors and soak up everything they can from those who have gone before them. Next generation pastors are also leaning heavily on each other–not only for support and encouragement, but also for tough questions that are

Linda Stanley (bottom center) with a group of next generation pastors.

impacting their churches and helping keep their personal and professional lives in balance.

Metrics • Most churches led by next generation pastors are multisite. You’re definitely in the minority of large-church next generation pastors if you’re not pursuing multisite ministry. For many of them, multisite is a viable expansion strategy that doesn’t require the large, institutional presence that next generation churches–and their members–want to avoid.

11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Who–and What–Is Shaping Next Generation Pastors?

A multisite approach is also a way for these rapid-growth–but normally capital-poor–churches to continue expansion without the finances required to build or purchase new facilities. Many next generation churches that have chosen to locate in more urban areas also find multisite to be their best option when it’s hard to find open land to build on or existing buildings that could house central gatherings. • Most next generation churches grow at a faster rate than did previous generations of churches. Whether it’s New Direction Christian Church, Memphis, TN (www.

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n2newdirection.org) passing the 3,000 attendance mark in its first five years, or The Summit, Durham, NC (www. summitrdu.com) growing from 2,800 to 3,800 in one year, next generation churches are experiencing more rapid growth, faster than churches established in previous generations. Drivers for the amped-up growth are numerous, but among them observers point to a multisite focus, a better understanding of rapid growth strategy and structure, and new staffing models. These pastors also stand on the shoulders of their predecessors. “Clearly this current generation has learned from previous generations the key values and leadership needed to grow a large church,” says Dave Travis, managing director of Leadership Network. Next generation pastors find creative ways to balance their professional and private lives.

Trends • Next generation pastors are more proactive in balancing professional and private life. “Find a real hobby other than golf… Do a 100-mile bike ride…Hire a nanny for my wife…Fast once a month… Get a life outside of ministry…Have a weekend away with each of my kids… Memorize a book of the Bible...Have the UFC fighter in my church teach me how to roundhouse kick Chuck Norris so I take over as the baddest pastor on the planet…” Next generation leaders aren’t shy about their personal goals that often carry as much passion–and often more angst– than their professional and ministry goals. Young leaders face a common struggle of keeping their lives in proper balance. Many are young parents who are as committed to nurturing their growing families as they are to growing their churches. Maintaining spiritual and family health even as they fulfill their ministry responsibilities is an ongoing battle–and one they don’t plan to back away from fighting.

One next generation pastor describes his pursuit of a balanced personal/ professional life, and the impact of one of his peers on that pursuit: “I heard a fellow pastor talk about the value of one-on-one time with his kids,” the pastor says. “I had always made sure we had ‘family time,’ but I was deeply challenged by the idea of one-onone time. God used that in my life to sharpen me as a Dad. This year has been extremely rewarding as I have attempted to establish this time with my four kids.” • Next generation pastors are seeking older mentors, peer networks and peer mentors. When Darrin Patrick, lead pastor of The Journey, St. Louis, MO (www. journeyon.net), was called out publicly by an older, nationally known and respected church leader for some comments in his recent book on church planting, Darrin didn’t have trouble accepting the comments graciously. “For those of you who have been quick to be critical of [the pastor], please remember that we all need to be


corrected from time to time,” Darrin wrote. “Also, all of us who are younger need to give a careful listen to the concerns of seasoned pastors, many of whom have forgotten more than we might ever know.” That response mirrors how Darrin sought direction a few years ago from respected Pastor Robert Lewis from Fellowship Church, Little Rock, AR (www.fellowshiponline.com). Robert flew to St. Louis to spend an entire day with Darrin and his wife Amie. “He listened and asked a ton of questions,” Darrin wrote, “Then he made several suggestions that have absolutely changed our lives. His wisdom about marriage and parenting was better than anything we had ever read. Probably saved our family.” Darrin certainly isn’t alone among his next generation brethren in his pursuit of mentors, peer networks and peers. Younger pastors are getting valuable feedback from mentors such as Robert, and from North Coast pastor Larry Osborne in Vista, CA (www. northcoastchurch.com), Saddleback’s

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Geoff Surratt (www.saddleback.com), Redeemer Presbyterian’s Tim Keller, New York, NY (www.redeemer.com), and pastor and author John Piper on topics such as staff leadership, preaching and teaching and ministry philosophy. They don’t necessarily want their churches to look like those of the older generation–suburban, mostly white, and built primarily on attraction models–but they know they can call on the generation before them for helpful advice. Next generation pastors are also tapping into their collective wisdom and are leaning on each other to stay on track. For many next generation pastors, regional and denomination networks are being supplemented by church planting networks such as Acts 29 (www.acts29network.org) and the Association of Related Churches (www.arcchurches.com). As one next generation pastor put it: “I think I have become a better pastor by learning from peers and from mentors. That has been exponentially more helpful than going to conferences.” • Next generation pastors use more teaching teams and preach fewer weekends. Brad Bell, senior pastor of The Well, Fresno, CA (www.thewellcommunity. org) is a firm believer in preaching through Scripture “chunk by chunk”– sometimes taking a year or more to work through a large book of the Bible–and not afraid to address the hard topics as they come up. But he doesn’t do it alone. The Well has four teachers who rotate between the church’s six locations. “The gospel does not need sugar coating; it needs to be authentically communicated by people who understand we are all part of a fallen race,” according to the church’s website.

Next Generation Leadership Communities focus on a variety of topics such as leadership development, multisite and church planting.

approach to teaching. Paul McDill, lead pastor at Community Life Church, Forney, TX (www.clifec.com), has a three person teaching team. Lead Pastor Mark Henry likewise has a multiple person teaching team at Fellowship Church. Scott Ridout and Chad Moore co-teach at Sun Valley Community Church, Gilbert, AZ (www.sunvalleycc.com). With each new generation of larger churches, the trend seems to be moving quickly to team teaching with the “lead” pastor being one of the team rather than reliance on a sole vision caster and teacher.

Brad Bell is not alone in his team 11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Who–and What–Is Shaping Next Generation Pastors?

Questions • How do you handle the challenge of ministry and money? Many people who are drawn to next generation churches have rejected churches that ask for money often. But you can’t have a rapidly expanding ministry and meet community and global needs without it. • What to do about buildings? Next generation pastors and their churches desire to be more missional and community focused, simple, and

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portable vs. needing to spend time, energy and money on locations for central gatherings. They’re continually wrestling with the question: Do you spend more on ministry or buildings, or is there a way to satisfy the needs of both?

Predictions • Next generation pastors and their churches will work strategically with more groups for increased local and global impact. Vance Pitman was clear from day one that the influence of Hope Baptist Church (www.hopebaptistchurch.com), which he started in Las Vegas in 2002, would go far beyond Sin City. “It’s not about growing our church, it’s about expanding God’s Kingdom,” Vance says. “When God birthed our church, he had the nations on his heart.” For that reason, Vance and Hope Baptist have set the standard in what

we predict will become the norm in next generation churches in the future: increased strategic partnerships with other churches, organizations and even businesses for local community and global impact. Because of Hope Baptist’s partnership approach to local ministry, church planting and global engagement, the church has seen impact on multiple fronts in nine years through its “Hope for the World” initiatives. On the local front, Hope’s Break Thru Prison Ministries reaches young people who are incarcerated in Nevada, Highway to Hope meets the tangible needs of disadvantaged people, Hope for the City takes volunteers to local parks to hand out invitation cards and gifts, and Broken Chains serves homeless people through a weekly gathering in a city park. Globally, Hope has teamed up with organizations such as Training Pastors International (www.trainpastors. com) in Central and South America, Multi Ministries in South Africa


(www.multiministries.co.za), and Operation Mobilization in Zambia (www.om.org). The church also has a staff family leading Hope for Egypt in that country. All the while, Hope has partnered with various groups to start nine churches. Certainly Vance’s church is not an isolated example. Many other churches led by next generation pastors are marked by partnerships with groups. Examples include Summit Church, Raleigh, NC (www.summitrdu.com), where J.D. Greear is pastor; The Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, TX (www.austinstone.org), where Matt Carter is pastor; and The Village Church, Highland Village, TX (www. thevillagechurch.net), where Matt Chandler is pastor. Next generation churches are moving full-steam ahead to meet needs locally and globally, simultaneously, but they are discovering it takes partnerships with other churches and organizations to get the job done.

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About the Authors Warren Bird, Ph.D., who is overseeing the 11 for 11 initiative, directs the research division of Leadership Network, bringing a background of pastoral ministry and seminary teaching. He has co-authored 23 books on various issues of church vitality and health. His bio is at www. leadnet.org/warrenbird.


Linda Stanley serves as a Team Leader and Leadership Community Director. Linda joined Leadership Network in 1995 and has served various networks of ministry leaders since that time. Linda holds a business management degree from Dallas Baptist University and lives in Denton, Texas. Her bio is at www.leadnet.org/lindastanley.


About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growth Churches,Trends in Collaborative Leadership, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Leadership Development, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons. Who–And What–Is Shaping Next Generation Pastors? is also available in these formats:

Contact Us Contact Linda Stanley at [email protected] if you are interested in joining a Next Generation Leadership Community. Next Generation Leadership Communities are designed to create relational peer networks for senior pastors who share similar ministry challenges. Next Generation is for Senior Pastors age 25-40 years old with 3 plus years of lead pastor experience, and church weekend worship attendance of 800 plus. Copyright © 2011 by Leadership Network We encourage you to use and share this material freely–but please don’t charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information. You can find the original version of this resource at leadnet.org/resources


video


Want to find more resources like this one? For the most current listings of free and purchasable resources, including books, papers, videos, and podcasts, go to leadnet.org/resources. Sticky Teams by Larry Osborne (Zondervan, 2010) Sticky Church by Larry Osborne (Zondervan, 2008) Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples by Thom Rainer and Eric Gieger (B&H Books, 2006) Your Life in Rhythm by Bruce Miller (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2009) For the City: Proclaiming and Living Out the Gospel by Darrin Patrick and Matt Carter (Zondervan, 2011)


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Leadership Development: An Age-Old Challenge with a Modern-Day Twist by Brent Dolfo


Leadership Development: An Age-Old Challenge with a Modern-Day Twist by Brent Dolfo Mars Hill Church, Seattle, WA (www. marshillchurch.org), where Mark Driscoll is the preaching pastor, has experienced a growth explosion in the past few years to more than 10,000 people in nine locations. But the senior staff there voice the same lament that pastors at every other size raise about their church’s lack of ready-to-deploy, high-level leaders. “We have so many opportunities,” says Dave Bruskas, who oversees all Mars Hills campuses, “but we haven’t developed enough campus pastors.” As I talk with some of the most visible large church leaders in the U.S., their vision statements are usually closely followed by this realization: They’ve looked down the bench for trusted leaders that are battle-tested and trained for significant assignments, and they don’t have enough people in the pipeline. Many of them are struggling to figure out how to best to create the tracks that are needed. Ask church leaders in any decade their greatest need, and most of them through the years would point to leadership development issues. In the old days, they might have been replacing a team leader for the ushers, an elder, and maybe a small group leader or Sunday school superintendent. Today the mushrooming of the multisite

movement, church planting and rapid church growth has stripped many churches of the top lieutenants needed to move the ministry to the next level. Now, as church leaders look for multisite campus pastors, church planting entrepreneurs and highgrowth managers, in many cases the top choices have already been tapped

on the shoulder. Some churches, such as Mars Hill, have also focused on discipling their burgeoning numbers of new believers, but–they feel–they haven’t prioritized getting the next generation of leaders ready to deploy in the church’s multisite strategy. Other churches, such

11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Leadership Development: An Age-Old Challenge with a Modern-Day Twist

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as Perimeter Presbyterian, Duluth, GA (www.perimeter.org), have fostered a value for one-on-one discipleship and spiritual formation, and they are seeing the need to swing back the pendulum to focus on leadership development that specifically furthers their vision. All are wrestling with reshaping leadership development and deployment fits into theological and spiritual training. There is clearly a new pressure in today’s church on leadership development.

Metrics • An average of 4,000 new churches are started in the U.S. annually—one source of the leadership drain in existing American churches.1 • Perhaps 5,000 U.S. churches have employed a multisite strategy. If only 5% start a new campus each year, that’s a minimum of 250 new campus pastors needed to be developed every twelve months.2

Trends • Leadership development is now customized in most churches. The days are long gone of a pre-

packaged curriculum that will provide church leaders with the “12 Things You Gotta Do to Develop Leaders.” Churches are customizing their leadership development philosophy, content and process to fit their church’s vision, values and DNA. As they shape their own systems, leaders also use elements they like from other churches for some of the lower-level, baseline development needs. For instance, leaders may find a spiritual gifts assessment they like and latch onto it. But the outcome still has to match their vision for leadership development. And while they are customizing, leadership development is much more of a means to end (“we need to develop leaders for this specific ministry”), rather than just a stand-alone value for value’s sake (“we should develop leaders in general”). • Few churches have a complete leadership pipeline, but more are moving that way. Multisite church leaders and church planters are probably ahead of the pack, but I hear few church leaders today that are building their leadership development structures and strategies with the end-game in mind. Churches are starting to use the language of a “leadership pipeline” (or sometimes a less mechanistic term). They are thinking less in silos and more in how

they flow leader development through similar phases or steps in each ministry. And there is more thought given to moving high-capacity people through the process—rather than involving them in disparate initiatives that don’t necessarily connect. Community Christian Church, Naperville, IL (www. communitychristian.org), and senior pastor Dave Ferguson are trying to work the pipeline concept. Dave says if you want to create a leadership culture in your church, people need to know the leadership “career path” and you should be able to sketch the pipeline on a napkin over lunch. His church’s 5-step “career path” is simple and welldefined: 1. Apprentice Leader (leader in training) 2. Leader (of ten people) 3. Coach (leader of up to five leaders) 4. Staff (leader of up to ten coaches) 5. Campus Pastor / Church Planter (leader of staff) “I see this as the way leaders prove their faithfulness and expand their influence,” Dave says. Multisite ministry research tells us that churches with a campus pastor development track experience average annual growth of 25%. That same study shows that the biggest mistake multisite churches make is “failure of attention to leadership development.” • Churches are working through the tension of organic-organized leader development.

Brent Dolfo leading a discussion at a Leadership Development Leadership Community in Dallas.

There has always been a tension in leadership development between an organized structure and organic, grass-roots mechanisms in a church that produces leaders. How do you build an organic, from-the-ground-up leader development process so that leaders emerge in the ministry? But at the same time, a structured approach is vital in a large church. With the leadership development pressure we


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have described, churches face the need to identify and develop leaders anytime, anywhere—and they have to get content and deploy them for onthe-job training. Two models seem to be meshing—or crashing together in some cases. A classroom-oriented model in the style of the 101, 201, 301 classes is shifting to include ministry pre-requisites. If you want to advance to another level of learning, you have to show you’re a proven leader and you’re doing something to get the content on the next shelf. Jeff and Beth Jones at Valley Family Church, Kalamazoo, Michigan (www.kvfc.org), are remaking their classroom-oriented model (it went all Dave Ferguson addresses a Leadership Development Ledership Community via the way to Bible College level) to include Skype while Keith Young scribes. Below is the white board from Dave’s “Rapid practical ministry along with classroom Reproduction of Leaders” speech. knowledge. They had assumed that if leaders completed the class, it would lead to ministry. But that wasn’t the case. Oak Ridge Baptist Church, Salisbury, MD (www.orbc.net), has grown from 35 people to 1,500 in 10 years in a rural setting. They just redesigned their 301 class to include a leadership pre-requisite. You have to be leading a ministry to get in at that level of learning. Learning and doing are blending to make a more potent, directed leadership development model. Another model that’s developing has more of an on-the-move slant to it, as leaders look for an apprentice or mentor at every ministry level. New Hope Christian Church, Honolulu, HI (www. enewhope.org), and the Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, IL, (www.willowcreek.org) pioneered this concept, with everyone from guitar players to spotlight operators developing a ministry apprentice. Churches such as Seacoast Church, Charleston, SC (www.seacoast.org) and Community Christian are two modern torch-bearers of this concept as they mentors and apprentices work through structured content at their own pace in the midst of a ministry assignment. Every church seems to fall somewhere on the spectrum of those three platforms. The

class-structured leaders are seeing the need for more application, while the organic proponents see the need for more knowledge.

Questions • What’s the silver bullet curriculum

that produces the kind of leaders we want? There is no dominant, end-to-end curriculum for leadership development in U.S. churches at this point. I see pieces of Saddleback’s baseball diamond curriculum; but for the most part, churches are developing their


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own customized development track that emphasizes their own unique church DNA, and learning how to make it part of their culture. In addition, leadership learners today are looking for something more relational, and people want to go at their own pace and with their own interest. Leading churches are experimenting with online, selfpaced tools, but even the ones that are dabbling in it are not yet satisfied with what they’re doing. • Is there a fail-safe philosophy and process for developing leaders? Unfortunately, the answer to that right now is also “not yet.” There are lots of new comprehensive processes being developed by various churches. Currently, one good option is Community Christian’s Exponential (see “Resources” below) because they address philosophy and process. But that’s what everybody is looking for, or developing on their own. That would be

Predictions

development. University United Methodist Church, San Antonio, TX (www.uchurch.tv), recently changed the title and role of its senior leader to chief development officer. He wants the position of leadership development to be primary and sees it as his job.

Kevin Peck knows the surest way to get fired at Austin Stone Community Church, Austin, TX (www.austinstone. org): Don’t develop leaders. “We’re not hiring you to do the ministry,” Kevin says, “we’re hiring you to develop leaders to do the ministry.” Kevin’s official title is lead pastor, but he doesn’t carry primary teaching and visioncasting duties. That’s Matt Carter’s job. Kevin embodies an emerging senior staff role I’m seeing in churches around the country—a role that is focused on leadership development. It’s more than overseeing an internship program, although Austin Stone has one of the most robust in the U.S., with upwards of 30 interns who do real ministry

In churches that take leader development seriously, that role is also no longer a subpart of an executive pastor’s role. Someone on the senior leadership team is driving leadership development in these churches. It might be the senior pastor or it could be a key staff leader. They’ve recognized that if someone on the executive team isn’t driving this, they’re in serious trouble. Who’s pounding the table at the senior level to make sure we’re going to deliver the mail on this initiative? I’m seeing more and more that a high-level staff person is holistically developing the hardware and software and values and philosophy and integration so that leadership development permeates the church.

a hot book—overviewing the leadership development processes of leading churches. Church leaders would eat that up.

Stetzer, Ed and Bird, Warren, Viral Churches: Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010, page 1. 1

Bird, Warren and Walters, Kristin, “Multisite Is Multiplying: New Developments in the Movement’s Expansion,” Leadership Network, page 2, updating the figures for 2011. If only 5% start a new campus each year, that’s a minimum of 250 new campus pastors needed to be developed every twelve months.

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Brent Dolfo serves as the Leadership Community Director for the Leadership Development. Brent has more than 25 years of experience in senior ministry leadership and has consulted worldwide with churches in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Brent served with Campus Crusade for Christ of Canada as the Chief Operating Officer. He has lead the European Church Planting Network and also serves as a Facilitator to various Leadership Network events and Leadership Communities. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/ brentdolfo


About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growth Churches, Trends in Collaborative Leadership, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Next Generation Pastors, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons. Leadership Development: An Age-Old Challenge With a Modern-Day Twist is also available in these formats.

Contact Us Contact Brent Dolfo at [email protected] if you are interested in joining a Leadership Development Leadership Community. Leadership Development is the #1 issue leaders mention when we ask them to list their most urgent ministry challenges. Ministry leaders, together with the Leadership Network team of facilitators and coaches, explore the various elements of leadership development while working toward achieving bold, new goals in leader development. Copyright © 2011 by Leadership Network We encourage you to use and share this material freely—but please don’t charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information. You can find the original version of this resource at leadnet.org/resources


video


Want to find more resources like this one? For the most current listing of free and purchasable resources, including books, papers, videos, and podcasts, go to leadnet.org/resources. Exponential: How You and Your Friends Can Start a Missional Church Movement by Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson. (Zondervan, 2010)

Suggested Reading The Leadership Engine by Noel Tichy. (First Harper Business, 2002) Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman. (Family Christian Press, 2001)


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Generosity Becoming a Fundamental Spiritual Discipline for Churches by Chris Willard


Generosity Becoming a Fundamental Spiritual Discipline for Churches by Chris Willard

“My name is Brian and I am an addict—to stuff like nice Toyota trucks and flat screen TVs. I cannot get over the power that money and stuff has over me. Dealing with it is a lifelong process for me.” These words were not spoken in a support group, but in a sermon by Pastor Brian Tome as he launched a series on living in a culture of consumerism. Brian had been confronted with the reality that many people attending Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, OH (www.crossroads.net) were overwhelmed with stuff. As just one indicator, the amount of space occupied by self-storage containers in America is the equivalent of more than three times the size of Manhattan Island! In his message, Brian wanted to show that he too was not immune. But even more, he wanted to lead the congregation on a pathway toward true generosity. Brian’s message series was called “Consumed”1 and week after week he challenged his church to stop being driven by the “kingdom of thingdom.” People took the challenge and identified their various addictions to things. Many actually took the challenge to fast from activities like buying new clothes. In turn, Crossroads shared all of their resources—sermons, media support

Senior Pastor, Brian Tome preaching at Crossroads Church.

and small group curriculum—for free, and dozens of Cincinnati churches walked through the journey with them. “We realized we’re not here just to fund our local church ministry,” Brian says. “We’re part of a revolution God initiated to change the world. The revolution starts with every person at our church being a blessing to people around them.” Crossroads is becoming a dynamic example of a new wave sweeping through some leading U.S. churches, a wave that is changing the trajectory of

their ministries and impacting God’s kingdom in new ways. Churches that are leading the charge in becoming generous congregations are taking their giving to a whole new level. Many have seen the Navigator wheel of discipleship2 that was popular in the 70s and 80s. It depicted four “spokes” as essential elements of a growing disciple—prayer, Bible study, fellowship and ministry. Today’s churches like Crossroads would identify a fifth spiritual discipline for the Christian life—generosity. They

11 for 11: Ideas That Work • Generosity Becoming a Fundamental Spiritual Discipline for Churches

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are modeling the generous life at every level of leadership, and leaders are mapping out comprehensive strategies that are transforming their ministry direction and changing the hearts of their people.

Metrics • The average Christian in America gives 3% of their income to the church. At least one out of five American Christians gives literally nothing to church, parachurch, or nonreligious charities, according to several national studies reported in the book Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money by Christian Smith and Michael Emerson. The rest average about 3% of pre-tax household income as annual donations to all religious and charitable causes (and by comparison, nonreligious Americans give less than 1% of their income on average). The more frequently a person attends church, the higher the income percentage given to charity, including one’s church. But despite a massive growth of real per capita income over the twentieth century, the average percentage share of income given by American Christians not only did not grow in proportion but actually

Research from the book Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money, found that American Christian groups typically give away very small percentages of their income.

declined slightly during this period.3 The 3% statistic may actually be good news because it means that churches that cast vision and inspire giving can see that percentage increase significantly. • The typical megachurch gives 14% of its budget to outside ministries or organizations, such as foreign missions or doing good in their community. This is also an encouraging idea and contradicts the notion that very large churches raise money only to fund bigger buildings and higher salaries.4

Trends • Generous churches are teaching differently about money. In the churches many of us grew up in, it seemed like pastors were always talking about money. Seeker churches reacted against that, and intentionally shied away from talking about finances—until leaders discovered they had to somehow fund their fast-growing ministries. So money became a utilitarian topic. It often felt like there was a pretext for the reason we talked about money: We’re behind on the budget, or we need to raise money for a new building, so let’s “give until it feels good.” Now pioneering generous churches are taking a different approach with a much deeper reason behind the focus on finances. Church leaders are having this conversation with their people now because, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I’m your pastor. I’m concerned about your heart. So we’re talking about money.” Leaders are making the connection that a generous Christian with a generous heart is a mature believer. Church leaders just can’t ignore this topic, or make it a practical exercise to meet the needs of the church. This goes way beyond tithing and giving to the church to a different heart.

Andy Stanley, lead pastor of North Point Church, Alpharetta, GA (www. northpoint.org), has popularized a statement that sums it up: “We talk about money, not because of what we want from you, but because of what we want for you.” This is something a teacher can’t fake. Leaders are having a personal experience in their own heart with generosity, they’re teaching it to their congregations in a way that deeply impacts their hearers’ souls, and they are figuring out strategies to help support many forms of generosity among their membership. • Generous churches are taking modeling to a new level. Cross Timbers Church, Argyle, TX (www.crosstimberschurch.org), did the last thing you would expect from a church in the middle of a capital campaign: The congregation gave away its $240,000 Easter offering to four ministries outside of the church. They didn’t know what was going to happen that day. Somebody might have dropped a $1 million check in the offering; but they were committed in advance to every bit of it leaving the building. Community Christian Church, Naperville, IL (www.communitychristian.org), has taken the principle one step further by forecasting the church’s budget on 51 weeks of offerings—with intentional plans to give away their biggest offering of the year. Leaders of generous churches are going to great lengths to model generosity on a corporate often massive–scale. And generous churches are also turning these types of giving events into celebration events. They are applauding, cheering, and raving about how great it is they get to share with other organizations and ministries. They point out and celebrate acts of generosity in the church, community and world. Celebrating engages hearts in a way that’s different than instruction and exhortation. People are enthusiastic about giving to their


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More churches like Gateway Church in Southlake, TX, are partnering with other outreach organizations to do everything from handing out Thanksgiving food boxes at local missions, providing “goody” bags for the prison ministry, to assembling new bikes for local children. church when they realize that the church is serious about being generous in the community and the world.

and the Bible. Authentic generosity becomes magnetic to those who don’t yet believe in Christ.

• Generosity is the new evangelism.

Questions

Along with celebrating their church’s generosity and its impact, members of generous churches are inviting their non-Christian friends to these services. A church sharing with others becomes magnetic both to believers and nonbelievers. On another week, Cross Timbers announced ahead of time that everything that came in would be going to a school in Africa that might cost $75,000 to build. People wanted to bring their friends to see what would happen in the offering that day! Sacrificial giving to those in need is often amazing and impressive to those inside the church—and outside. Generous behavior by Christians validates what we believe about God

• When seeking to inspire generosity, how does effective communication differ between women and men? Too often, the conversation about generosity and stewardship in the church has been a “man-to-man” conversation. In fundraising circles, pastors or ministry leaders typically talk to men who work or men who have significant resources. What they often forget is there might be a wife or another significant money earner in that conversation who views things differently. Men often emphasize a Return on Investment when talking about giving, but in some cases

transformation stories are going to be more motivating to a female audience. We might want to rethink how we talk about money and giving. Are we communicating in a language that speaks to the unique needs and wants of a woman, and not just of a man? Photo collage: Merry Christmas Gateway, mission metroplex, spokes for hope, warm the winter- captionMore churches like Gateway Church in Southlake, TX are partnering with other outreach organizations to do everything from, handing out Thanksgiving food boxes at local missions, providing “goody” bags for the prison ministry, to assembling new bikes for local children.

Predictions • The best is yet to come, because the next generation of Christian leaders


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will advance the idea and practice of generosity even further. I had a revolutionary experience at the Exponential church planting conference in 2011, where none of the speakers talked about raising money to get these new churches off the ground. From time immemorial, church planting conferences have included content on fundraising—if you’re going to get a church off the ground, you have to generate dough. But that’s not what this group of entrepreneurs wanted to talk about. These folks are figuring out even before they get started that they want to understand the heart of generosity. And they want to build a generous church— not just a church that’s well-funded. Like the churches I’ve worked with in the Generous Churches Leadership

Communities, they are creating a common language and identifying models of generous churches that are becoming the new normal.

least once, and he’s given away more cars than he can count.

Like Robert, leaders of generous churches are having a profound personal More and more, churches are catching experience with generosity, and they are the heart of a leader and heart of a teaching it, modeling it and planning for congregation such as Gateway Church, it as an important spiritual discipline. Southlake, TX (www.gatewaypeople. When it reaches this level, generosity com), and it’s Senior Pastor Robert can’t be relegated to only one staff Morris. For Robert, generosity is his life person to think about, or something that comes up only when you need to message, and he has pumped massive raise money. It becomes a spiritual law resources—$1 million when his church was only five years old—into developing that permeates everything a church Gateway’s people in the area of financial does—you must live a generous life as much as you must read your Bible and stewardship, giving and generosity. As pray. When a church gets to the point Robert puts it, “Jesus is the subject of where generosity is that essential, its the Bible, He’s the noun. Giving is the leaders start building it into every aspect verb.” And for Robert, talk isn’t cheap. of the church. And that’s when things He’s given away everything he owns— take off. house, bank accounts, everything—at

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http://www.crossroads.net/my/media/messages.php?page=4

2

http://www.navigators.org/us/resources/illustrations/items/the_wheel

Smith, Christian, Michael Emerson, and Snell, Patricia. Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money. Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 24, 29, 48. See also Warren Bird, 2010 Large Church Finances and Staffing Report, Leadership Network, free download at www.leadnet.org/salary.

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Warren Bird and Dave Travis. 2008 Leadership Network Salary and Economic Outlook Report, p. 8. Available for free download at www.leadnet.org/salary. Percentage confirmed for 2010 through internal research by Leadership Network.

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Chris Willard currently serves as the Director of Generosity Development for Leadership Network. Chris has also served as a Leadership Community Director focusing on key topics including generosity and rapid growth. With nearly 25 years of experience in ministry leadership Chris served as the Executive Pastor of Discovery Church in Orlando, FL, before he joined Leadership Network. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/chriswillard


About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growth Churches, Trends in Collaborative Leadership, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Next Generation Pastors, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons. Generosity Becoming a Fundamental Spiritual Discipline for Churches is also available in these formats.

Contact Us Contact Chris Willard at [email protected] or twitter@chris_willard. Copyright © 2011 by Leadership Network We encourage you to use and share this material freely—but please don’t charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information. You can find the original version of this resource at leadnet.org/resources

Additional Resources Want to find more resources like this one? For the most current listing of free and purchasable resources, including books, papers, videos, and podcasts, go to leadnet.org/resources.

podcast

video


Contagious Generosity: Creating a Culture Of Giving In Your Church by Chris Willard and Jim Sheppard. (Zondervan, available April 2012). Secrets of Generous Churches: Creating a Culture in Which Serious Stewardship is Normal by Liz Swanson. (August 28, 2006)

Suggested Reading A Revolution in Generosity: Transforming Stewards to be Rich Toward God by Wesley Willmer. (Moody, 2008) Generosity: Moving Toward Life That Is Truly Life by Gordon MacDonald and Patrick Johnson. (National Christian Foundation, 2008)


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The Heartbeat of Rising Influence Churches by Warren Bird


The Heartbeat of Rising Influence Churches by Warren Bird

A strange thing happens at Mountain Christian Church, Joppa, MD (www.mountainchristian.org) every time they raise the bar on what it means to be an obedient follower of Christ: More people buy in, and the congregation grows. “The more effort we put into growing up disciples, the more we grow,” says pastor Ben Cachiaras. “Our biggest numerical growth happens whenever we’ve put the greatest effort in growing our people into maturity. “We keep thinking it’s going to be one of those times where Jesus said, ‘This is a hard saying,’ and people will walk away. But this generation is hungry for it. They’re ready for something hard. They say, ‘If that’s what it means to follow Jesus, I’m in!’ ” Ben’s church mirrors what’s happening across a wave of what we’re calling “rising influence” churches—North American congregations identified by Leadership Network staff that are showing repeated innovation in ministry, and high impact both in their local communities and among pastoral peers. Along with a heartbeat to challenge their people to radical obedience, these churches are marked by an intense desire to reach the lost and serve the

Senior Pastor Ben Cachiaras at Mountain Christian Church is one of many “rising influence” churches identified by Leadership Network.

marginalized in their communities. Their ministries are similar in passion to those in churches of the previous seeker-targeted generation, but today’s version often differs in approach. Multisite ministry is almost a given in these rising influence congregations. The larger the church’s attendance, the more likely it is to be multisite – whether urban, suburban or rural. And most are wrestling with the dilemma of being a thriving church

11 for 11: Ideas That Work • The Heartbeat of Rising Influence Churches

that requires growing budgets and facilities—but with a desire to shed as much debt and overhead as possible so that more of their finances can be deployed into local and global ministry. As the Leadership Network Advance profile of Greg Nettle at RiverTree Christian Church, Massillon, OH (www. rivertreechristian.com) highlighted, churches often take creative and sometimes radical steps designed to reduce staff and facility costs as the major portion of their church budget. 2

One constant among these churches that are blazing the trail for the next generation: God is continuing to build His church in fresh and innovative ways, especially in how they are reaching young adults. I’m in awe at what God is doing. I walked away from almost every interview with one these rising influence leaders thinking, “If my wife and I lived in your town, we would want to be part of your church!”

What Characterizes High Influence Church Pastors? Compared to other churches, these innovative leaders tend to: 1. Be better read and better networked with other entrepreneurs both in and out of the church 2. Spot new opportunities, start new things, develop fresh ideas – and experiment continually with them 3. Have a highly effective senior leadership team, supportive board, and high morale congregation 4. Excel in connecting with the younger generation – children, youth, and young adults 5. Have a contemporary worship style for one or more of their services 6. Demonstrate a clear vision, alignment, and sense of divine calling 7. Focus on making disciples of Jesus Christ – seeing people come to faith, grow in their faith, mature in their faith, and reproduce themselves in others

“Rising Influence” churches strive to be innovative in ministry and make a significant impact in their local communities. Clockwise from the top left: Worship services at Sagebrush Community Church, Pastor Todd Cook baptizing a church member, youth concert at Mountain Christian Church, volunteers at Water of Life Church participate in a skid row outreach program.

Metrics • Spiritual responsiveness can be found in every corner of the country. My travels took me to on-site interviews with more than 50 pastors in over 20 states (plus I did a number of additional interviews by Skype or phone). From New England to Florida, from California up to Washington, and numerous points in between, I learned about churches that were making a huge difference for Christ. The sharpest geographic contrast happened one day in Ohio as I went from rural to urban. In the morning I interviewed a pastor in the heartland of the state. They had bought farmland for their growing congregation, and kept the silo which they painted with their church name. Later that day I interviewed a pastor in downtown Cleveland. Both reported a great responsiveness to the gospel


in their communities through their churches. • Likewise spiritual responsiveness is not limited by race or economic level. In my complete interview group the average senior pastor age was 39 and the average attendance was 4,346 and growing. Churches ranged from two years old to over 200. I spoke with leaders whose churches were predominantly white, black, Asian and Hispanic, as well as those leading multiethnic churches. The parking lots of some churches were full of tricked out SUVs and luxury cars, while at other places my subcompact rental car was one of the nicer vehicles in the area. Across many races and at every economic level, pastors were finding new opportunities to win a hearing for Jesus Christ. 3

Trends • Rising influence pastors are deeply concerned about connecting with, reaching and serving lost people. Many rising influence pastors answer my “what keeps you up at night?” question the same as Todd Cook, pastor of Sagebrush Community Church, Albuquerque, NM (www. sagebrushcommunity.com). But Todd may be even more intense than most in what disturbs his sleep. “It upsets me to no end, even infuriates me that my state and town don’t have a relationship with Christ,” Todd told me. “For whatever reason, the church hasn’t communicated the incredible love story of the Gospel in a way that compels people toward it.”

Members of Water of Life Community Church participate in Wow Jam Outreach in Detroit ministering to thousands of people.

church has the potential to impact. And they desperately want to have a profound impact on the lostness of their communities.

When I talk with rising influence leaders about discipleship, I often hear words like “radical,” “extreme,” and “culture-challenging.” Many leaders, such as Ben Cachiaras highlighted above, even carry a bias against becoming a large church if it goes a mile wide with newcomers, but it keeps them an inch deep in their faith. “We want to prove that we can become a genuine community, a missional movement of Christ followers, more than the show – and a place where somehow you can monitor our spiritual vitality,” Ben says of his 4,200-attendance church that was founded in 1824.

Their dad’s church was likely more geared toward attracting those lost souls. They cared deeply about connecting with them and inviting

Ben says Mountain Christian Church is making strides in deepseated discipleship by “taking seriously” both halves of the Great Commission—both the evangelism of “making disciples,” and the next step of “teaching them to obey.” He adds: “We’re very relationally based, and every relationship is a context for discipleship. We’re tapping into the longings about the church’s effectiveness to make disciples.”

Pastor Todd Cook preaching at Sagebrush Community Church.

“Worse, too many people think we’re not even relevant—like driving by McDonald’s looking for hamburgers, but not thinking McDonald’s will have a hamburger.” Todd makes a strong case for churches that are paving the way in evangelism. These church leaders may all voice it in different terms, but they’re all concerned about the people their

them to come and see. Today’s church pastor strategizes more about how they can go to where lost people are, minister the love of Christ and relationally invite people to be a part of Christian community. • These pastors continually raise the bar of discipleship, though each church differs in how the specific challenge looks.


• Service to the local community is standard practice, and it continues to increase. Outreach is the heartbeat of Water of Life Community Church, Fontana, CA 4

(www.wateroflifecc.org). They strive to touch people where they need it most so they will feel Christ’s love in a manner they will best understand. Giving people a basket of groceries when their cabinets and stomachs are empty demonstrates the church’s relevance, creates a desire in them to know why the church would do this, and sometimes opens the door for people to accept Jesus into their lives. As the church blesses others it grows both the congregation’s heart and the kingdom of God.

relationships in Nigeria, Kenya, Cambodia and Haiti. “I’m always trying to figure out ways to expand what we’re doing,” says Pastor Dan Carroll. “We’re always training our people to do outreach. No one does outreach quite like we do, so we’re gearing up to start a conference to train others in how we do it.” Water of Life isn’t alone. Motivated by the view that caring for the poor and

halfway houses are becoming new multisite venues. Church leaders such as Pastor Bob Merritt of Eagle Brook Church, Centerville, MN (www. eaglebrookchurch.com) are utilizing a multisite strategy to envision reaching an entire metropolitan area, in his case, Minneapolis-St Paul. In other words, multisite has more traction than ever and it is becoming almost a given strategy and constant door opener for high-influence churches.

In any given month Water of Life might raise money through a blood drive for orphans in Cambodia and Thailand, raise funds for Goodwill, including truckloads of donations, feed over a thousand people weekly at a downtown food warehouse, sponsor adopt-a-block outreaches where several thousand

Pastor Ben Cachiaras (in blue shirt) talking to church members about the “Cannonball” initiative, a series designed to inspire a culture of generosity at Mountain Christian Church.

sharing the gospel are both essential, rising influence churches are striving to transform their neighborhoods and the people in them. “Service is the best evangelism you could do,” Ben Cachiaras says. “When ‘evangelism’ becomes more than a program and instead a whole way of life centered in service, then the light of the gospel goes everywhere in the community, wherever we are. We teach our people to see needs and get after it. That’s where evangelism is happening and that’s magnetic.” Photos from some of the groups in Cambodia and Thailand sponsored by Water of Life Church, where outreach is considered essential.

people are served, host a “God’s Party” where money is given away for those in financial need, and feed hundreds of children fed all over the world, especially through the church’s

“We need to keep our donors excited, keep the vision hot for them, and keep the early morning service,” Bob says of Eagle Brook Church, which has grown in attendance from 350 to 15,000 during his 20 years as senior pastor there.

• Multisite continues to open new doors of ministry and growth, becoming almost as normal as having multiple services. Multisite is working for church plants in New England because it fits the largely Catholic region’s “parish” mentality. Elsewhere prisons and


Senior Pastor Bob Merritt teaching during weekend service at Eagle Brook Church.

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The church opened its fifth campus this fall with a four-service launch in a high school. What’s next? A sixth campus, of course, as part of a dream to “circle” the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St Paul. “It’s a big circle,” Bob says. In churches like Eagle Brook, multisite is becoming as common as starting an early morning service. The audience at each location may be different. The service and venue may look somewhat unique at every stop. But in the end, it’s still one church, and rising influence churches are very proficient at launching new locations.

Questions • How can we rethink church finances? Rising influence leaders want to know how do they “feed the monster” of a growing, thriving church and also accomplish all their goals in serving their community and beyond? While this question is not new, it is perhaps more intense than the interest of their predecessors because of their enlarged focus on externally focused ministry, especially to those who are more economically disadvantaged. Likewise global missions have become far more than sending and supporting missionaries. Churches today are likely to send short-term missions teams to serve in a two-way partnership, a development that also has serious financial implications. The nature of these booming congregations seem to demand modern, attractive—and expensive—facilities and budgets that only swell year over year. But at the same time, pastors of these churches deeply desire to give away as much as possible. “I lay in bed thinking about all the ways I would like

to liberate money to help in overseas missions, but we don’t know what to do to,” Dan Carroll says. Like other leaders, Dan wants to be less bound by buildings and debt, yet the church depends on facilities and finances to get the job done • How do we best structure for the future? On all my interviews I asked pastors to describe the structure of their senior team. The reply for the vast majority began with, “Well it’s changing next week” or “we’re in transition right now” or some other statement that reflects fluidity. While they all have a highly effective senior leadership team (see sidebar, “What Characterizes High Influence Church Pastors?”), they all seem to be making up their structure as they go along, always trying to improve their existing approach to better fit current growth and future opportunities.

Predictions Many of the rising influence churches I interviewed are looking for new, meaningful, biblically based ways to describe and measure spirituality. Some are exploring new ways to engage the arts in pathways of spiritual growth. Others are setting benchmarks for their community becoming a better place as their people “become Christ” in the marketplace and nearby neighborhoods. Still others are trying to define organic models of how people can reproduce themselves in others as a measure of their maturity in Christ. This discontent seems healthy, and God just might use it to produce the greatest generation of Christians–and churches– that our era has known.


Looking Toward More “New Horizon Trends” in 2012 During 2012 Leadership Network will feature a number of special reports, video interviews and podcasts designed to highlight and explore the roughly 100 interviews I conducted with high influence senior pastors across 2011. They will likely include: • First impressions: overview of the kinds of churches I visited and pastors I met • What keeps high-influence pastors awake at night • How the senior pastor’s role changing in large churches • What pastors say “must” happen in the next few years in their churches • Where front-line pastors find new ideas • Wild and crazy things pastors are doing, especially younger pastors • Megachurch senior pastor succession Each new release will be highlighted in Leadership Network Advance (Sign up: www.leadnet.org/update) and also announced via Twitter (both @leadnet and @warrenbird).

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About Leadership Network Leadership Network’s mission is to accelerate the impact of 100X leaders. These high-capacity leaders are like the hundredfold crop that comes from seed planted in good soil as Jesus described in Matthew 13:8. Leadership Network is a division of OneHundredX, a global ministry with initiatives around the world. To learn more about Leadership Network go to www.leadnet.org

About 11 for 11 The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile eleven specific ministry innovations (one per month) during 2011. The total series will also include Global Connections Churches, Rapid Growth Churches, Trends in Collaborative Leadership, Large Church Senior Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Externally Focused Churches, Multisite Churches, Next Generation Pastors, Generous Churches, and Next Horizons. The Heartbeat of Rising Influence Churches is also available in these formats.

podcast

video

About the Author Warren Bird, Ph.D., who is overseeing the 11 for 11 initiative, directs the research division of Leadership Network, bringing a background of pastoral ministry and seminary teaching. He has co-authored 24 books on various issues of church vitality and health. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/warrenbird

Contact Us Contact Warren Bird at [email protected] or Twitter @warrenbird. Copyright © 2011 by Leadership Network We encourage you to use and share this material freely—but please don’t charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information. You can find the original version of this resource at leadnet.org/resources

Additional Resources Want to find more resources like this one? For the most current listing of free and purchasable resources, including books, papers, videos, and podcasts, go to leadnet.org/resources. Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration by Sam Chand (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2010) The Other 80 Percent: Turning Your Church’s Spectators into Active Participants by Scott Thumma and Warren Bird (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2011) Viral Churches: Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers by Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series, 2010) Leadership Network Advance E-newsletter: Our free, indispensable, twicemonthly email newsletter featuring the best in innovative church strategies, including news of upcoming Leadership Network events. Sign up at http:// leadnet.org/resources/page/subscribe or scan the QR code below on your smart phone. (To download a free QR Reader, just search for “QR Reader” in your app store.)

Suggested Reading Church Morph: How Megatrends Are Reshaping Christian Communities by Eddie Gibbs (Baker Academic, 2009)


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