False beliefs of the American church

There are a number of beliefs, whether spoken or not, which characterize much of the American church that need to be reexamined. These beliefs are culturally based but not Biblically based. 

Bigger is better
Why? Healthy churches are better but why is a bigger church better? In God's economy every size church has a place, has its strengths and if it is seeing lives transformed is living out it's call. Defining success by church size (which in our competitive American space is popular) is a sad commentary on how we view the Bride. It also diminishes those who serve and happily attend smaller fellowships. Why did Jesus say "When two or more are gathered in my name?"

Success is numbers
By that definition any number of liberal or even cult groups are successful. Spiritual fruit in changes lives is success but not necessarily numbers as most church growth is simply a reshuffling of God's people. Counting buts, bucks and programs is not a biblical definition of success. The Book of Ephesians is pretty clear on what a successful church looks like: transformed lives with everyone using their gifts for Jesus in the places He has put them.

People need to be entertained
That is what television, rock concerts or whatever it is that entertains one is for. We come to worship the almighty, everlasting, all holy, omnipotent, creator of everything that is, redeemer of our very lives and the one before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Entertainment? Just the opposite: it is the worship of Him with all the attention going to Him and the focus is on Him. Entertainment is about making us happy. Worship is about making Him the center of all that we are.

Deep theology is passe
When Paul wrote to the Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Thessalonians and the others he was not writing to the cream of society, the most educated or the sophisticated. He was writing to cobblers, slaves, the poor, the uneducated in many instances and plain ordinary people. And what did he do? He wrote to them about the great theological truths of the faith and even used big words like redemption, justification, gospel, incarnation, transformation and then made it all practical. Not only did he not shy away from theology (the study of God) but he put it front and center because he knew that if people didn't understand the basics of God that they could not follow Him as they should. 

When we dumb down the message to make it more simple, palatable, self focused or easy to accept we do an injustice to the text and to those we preach to. Remember it is not our truth but God's truth and some of it is not politically correct or easy to accept. But it is His message to us and even the most unsophisticated are able to understand that message.

God blesses his people with health, prosperity and success
If that is true Jesus, Paul, and the Apostles somehow missed the memo. Jesus blesses us with an abundant life by His definition not by the world's definition. I am always amazed when Christians are surprised that they suffer or suffer setbacks, or see a loved one die, or face other reversals. We live in a fallen world and the impact of that fallen world impacts us as it does others. What we have in the midst of all of that is the faithfulness of Jesus (Romans 8). Nothing can separate us from His love but a lot of things can separate us from health, prosperity and success.

Come to Jesus and all will be well
We don't come to Jesus to fix our failing marriage, health, solve the bankruptcy or home foreclosure or whatever our issues are. We come to Him to fix our broken and sinful hearts, to cleanse our sin, and to give us a new transformed nature. May that have an influence on the rest of our lives? Absolutely. But it does not mean that all will be well or our problems solved. Therefore we should not promise that to people. What we should promise is that God wants to transform us, make us family, change our hearts and give us His Holy Spirit to live in our hearts. 

In ministry, money is the key
If we had more money we could hire more staff, build that addition, renovate our worship facilities, get more ministry done and the list goes on. All of those may be good things but God is not dependent on our money in order to see His kingdom advance. It is a part of the equation but only a part. What God wants more than larger church budgets is the personal involvement of His people in living out their faith in their circles of influence at work, at play, and at home. In ministry God's people, filled with His Spirit and joining Him with His work is the real key.

What other false beliefs do you see in the American church? It is worth thinking about because we get so wrapped up in our culture that we don't realize that some of what we believe or take to be true may in fact be false. 

Signs of spiritual abuse

There are church leaders who engage in spiritual abuse to keep people in line with their culture, ethos and expectations. It is wrong, violates Biblical teaching and is deeply dysfunctional. This behavior has a cult like feel to it because it elevates spiritual leaders as those who we need to listen to and obey on issues of personal preference, conscience or decision making.

 Here are some signs of spiritual abuse to be sensitive to.

1. When there is a personal disagreement and church leadership ask for repentance on the part of the individual who disagreed. Repentance is called for when we have wronged another or committed an offense against another. Disagreeing with someone else does not constitute sin. It is simply exercising our right to be self defined and a healthy individual. When one is pressured to repent over a disagreement, beware.

2. When you feel pressured to take an action because a church leader or someone else is is telling you should do so based on what "God told them." If God wants to talk to us he is perfectly able to do so. It is fair for others to talk to us about issues they might be concerned about but it is not OK for them to pressure us to take action they think we should take. Using the God card to force others to take action violates individual freedom to listen to their conscience and be sensitive to God themselves.

3. When you are told you are likely in sin because you made a decision that others disagree with. Unless that sin is obvious and clearly in violation of Biblical principles, this is blatent manipulation but of a powerful kind when it comes from a church leader. The mantra is, "I fear you have some deep hidden sin in your life because of the decisions you are making." Don't fall for it.

4. When a church leader tells you what you should do with your life. No one can tell us what to do with our lives except for God and our own desire to follow Him. Many people have a plan for our lives but only we can discern what God wants for our lives.

5. When there is an inordinate focus on "church unity" as a theme that stifles dissenting voices or the ability to speak one's opinion freely. Church unity should never be used to stifle discussions, dialogue or opinions that might differ from those of a church leader or pastor. 

The priesthood of all believers means that the Holy Spirit and truth are not the exclusive purview of church leadership. Of course, we need to be respectful and loving when sharing our views but in the absence of truly causing division or heretical teaching, we should be able to do so without recrimination. 

Independent thought is a threat in dysfunctional churches because it encourages others to think for themselves. When one takes an alternate view from leaders or the common line, it is a threat to the control of those leaders and is often resisted.

6. When church discipline is threatened for non ongoing egregiousness sin - beware!  Church discipline should be a rare event, and the last in a series of steps where there is heresy, division or ongoing egregiousness sin.  It should never be threatened or used to bring people into line.

7. When you are pressured to remain in the church if you start to pull away and desire a different fellowship. Cult like organizations like to control and they don't like it when people leave. It is a threat to them because they fear others will take note and consider the same thing. They will do everything they can to bring one back into the fold and may use both woo and threat in the process.

Here is the bottom line. If you feel that your leaders seek to control, to stifle honest dialogue, to manipulate with the God card or make you agree with their point of view, beware. Spiritual abuse is subtle but it is real. Just as abused spouses are duped into thinking the abuser is right so are those abused by those in church leadership positions. The book of Galatians is a good one to read if you feel others are trying to force you into their mold and to live by their rules. There are cults inside the church as well as outside the church.

When success can be an enemy

It may sound counter intuitive but ministry success can be an enemy in at least two ways.

First, when a ministry has seen a great period of success in its past, it often spends the next decades either thinking they are still living in that glorious past when they are not. Or, they are trying to recreate that past when they cannot. This is often true of local churches who saw a "heyday" that people remember. That past success keeps them from making the needed changes to move into a different future since "it worked in the past and so should work in the future." 

Of course it rarely does and the ministry usually does not move on until it can bless the past as the past and embrace a new vision for the future. What got you to here got you to here: it will not get you to there. 

Success can also be a blinder in the present. Success does not mean that a ministry is healthy. It just means that for some reason it is seeing greater momentum than it has in the past. I watched one church move to a new location and quickly triple in size. Yet there were many issues internally that needed to be resolved. However, because of the rapid growth (from a move) it was assumed by some leaders that all was well (it was not). 

Momentum should not keep us from asking hard questions about the health of an organization for two reasons. First, because there may be other reasons for that momentum. Second, because momentum does not last forever and the most important issue is the internal health of staff, leadership and long term viability and fruitfulness. Momentum and "success" can mask issues for a time but not forever. Eventually they surface!

The moral is that past success is not the key to future success and present success is not a reason to let our guard down and assume all is well. That success, past or present can bring with it both arrogance and carelessness, each of which are an enemy.

Independence is a killer of organizational excellence

Organizational excellence - in any ministry or organization requires leaders to work in cooperation toward common goals. Too often, however, leaders want independence rather than interdependence, leaving the organization with multiple directions and a significant lack of alignment. 

In recent conversations with a large church staff, one of the staff members made the comment that what had been rewarded on their staff was the development of successful ministries rather than cooperative efforts - leaving the church with ministry silos without a common direction. There was no incentive to work together.

Here is an irony: Leaders insist that those on their team play ball together and follow their direction. In many cases, those very leaders are unwilling to to play ball with other leaders or to make themselves accountable for their own alignment and cooperation. They insist on alignment below them but do not submit or work toward alignment above them.

The independence of ministry leaders - doing their own thing - hampers many churches from experiencing greater impact and other ministry organizations the same. 

The sad thing is that they are modelling the antithesis of what they tell their own teams. And it does not go unnoticed. The sadder thing is that lack of interdependence, the humility to get on the same page with others and intentional cooperative efforts keeps the organization from experiencing the impact it could otherwise have.

It raises an interesting question. Why do those who lead so often find it hard to follow? And if I cannot follow (if I am part of an organization) do I have the moral authority to lead?  Our fierce independent streak is remarkably close to how Isaiah describes our sinfulness - "each of us has turned to our own way (Isaiah 53:6)." 

Organizational ministry is not an individual sport like golf. It is, rather a team sport like football, basketball or soccer where unless everyone knows their position and cooperates with the rest of the team and executes plays together there will not be a winning team. Often ministries who could be a winning team are leaving great spiritual influence on the table because they are in a team sport but their leaders are doing an individual thing and ignoring their coach. 

Before I am a leader, I am a follower. Even when I am a leader I am a follower. Leaders lead - and they follow, if part of an organization. When they don't, they lose their moral authority to lead. 

The General Motors Syndrome. Why good people in good organizations resist needed change in the face of incontrovertible evidence that it is needed

As an organizational leader and consultant I see the General Motors Syndrome played out in churches, ministry organizations, missions and denominations: Those inside the organization cannot see the need for change while those outside look in and wonder why in the world good people don't see what they see - the world has changed but they have not. 

Why, for instance, did the organizational structure and culture of General Motors not change until bankruptcy when Toyota, and others where light years ahead of them in efficiency and quality? Why do even large churches resist changing antiquated structures that hinder them and no longer work for them? Why do mission organizations who have seen their entire context change but continue to operate as if they were in the pre globalized world? Why do denominations struggle with changing structures that served them 50 or 100 years ago but no longer?

The why question is even more powerful when one realizes that there is almost always demonstrable evidence that change is needed. Even in the face of that evidence, change can be hard to come by and is met by resistance. So why do good people in good organizations resist needed changes in the face of incontrovertible evidence that it is needed?

Let me suggest three key reasons.

One, organizations like families are systems that resist any changes to the status quo. It is why missional is often subverted by institutional. Institutional is comfortable while missional is a threat to the status quo of the system (organizational). In families, if one individual tries to pull away from the family system, the rest of the family applies pressure to bring them back in. That is why it is called a family "system." A perceived threat to the status quo can be met with fierce resistance that to others makes no sense but within the "system" it makes all the sense in the world. 

When I proposed major change in the mission I lead, the "system" worked to try to pressure the system back to where it had been previously which was known and comfortable. The organizational family system was threatened and wanted equilibrium again. This is why organizations find change so hard. The existing family system resists even change that outsiders think is a no brainer. 

Two: organizations, like individuals have an EQ quotient. A major part of individual EQ is the ability to know oneself, our strengths and weaknesses and how we are perceived by others. All of us have met people who lack that quality. Others see what they cannot see and to a certain extend that is true even for an individual of healthy EQ. 

Organizations are no different. What did the executives of GM think sitting up in their executive dining room surrounded by luxury as the world around them changed radically? Their corporate EQ was severely lacking. 

I once consulted with a church that had gone from 500 to 50 in a 2 million dollar facility and when I told them they were not healthy they asked what the evidence was! That is a corporate EQ issue. It is also why organizations need outside counsel when looking at significant change. Others can see what they no longer see. We become so entrenched in the system that we no longer see ourselves with any degree of objectivity. We have become the system! We no longer see objectively. 

Three, and this is less neutral than the first two. When Patrick Lencioni published his book Silos, Politics and Turf Wars they flew off the shelf, were avidly read, people saw themselves in the mirror and many of their organizations saw no change. Why? Because the politics, silos and turf wars were too strong to allow change. People do not easily give up their turf, even for good reasons. Turf and autonomy are power and they don't easily yield power. This is a spiritual issue while the first two issues are organizational system and EQ issues. 

Fifteen years ago, the team I served on, the senior team of the EFCA made a decision to give up a measure of our individual and departmental autonomy in order to get on the same page and serve the whole with greater effectiveness. There was blood on the floor in some of our initial meetings. We were tearing down silos, addressing the politics and declaring there was no more turf. Responsibility for our areas - yes. Turf - no. And our mission and the accomplishment of that mission had to take precedence over our "individual rights" and sometimes preferences.

It was a hard necessary change. So let me put it candidly. Without the humility to give something up for the sake of the whole, no organization goes to the next level. This applies to church boards where a member is guarding their sacred ministries or organizational structure, to team leaders who are more concerned about their ministry than the whole ministry, staff who are guarding their ministry portfolio or in the case of missions, individuals who want to be independent contractors rather than members of an organization and in alignment with the whole. 

This one is a heart issue. And it keeps many Christian organizations from moving forward in ways that would be far more effective and results driven.

Why do good people in good organizations resist change even in the face of incontrovertible evidence it is needed? Their organizational family system resists it, the corporate EQ of the organization may not be healthy enough to see it and people are unwilling to give up the politics, silos and turf wars. 

What does it take to see real change in change unfriendly environments. First, the family system must champion honest, candid, truthful dialogue without seeking to pressure people back into the fold. It takes courage to speak up and be a change agent when there is significant resistance to resist that change. And there will usually be loud voices in opposition.

Second it takes the willingness to face the "brutal facts" as they are, look in the mirror, listen to outside voices who do not have a vested interest and who can see with greater objectivity and be willing to count the cost of the status quo. If one waits until the organization has plateaued and gone into decline it is often too late to resurrect what could have been. Now is usually the time to face the facts rather than later. 

Third, it takes the humility to give up the parts of our autonomous nature that keep the organization from being all that it can be. It is pride and power and guard silos and turf. It is humility and missional commitment that break them down. Does it matter? It will on the day we give an account to the Lord of the church. Ironically, it often matters more to those we serve than to us who lead. They often see what we cannot see and when they do not see their leaders act, they often decide to invest their lives elsewhere. 

Three transgressions of local church staff that hurt ministry effectiveness

I call them transgressions because they have spiritual impact and leave a great deal of spiritual opportunity on the table. These three transgressions include one transgression of omission and two of commission  Bear with me.

Transgression One: Lack of significant clarity in the local church as to what the church is about, where it is headed, what its non-negotiables are and what it is committed to achieving. 

I work with many churches who cannot define ministry clarity. It is a sin of omission that significantly impacts the spiritual effectiveness of the congregation. In the absence of maximum clarity every leader and team define their own clarity which is a recipe for confusion and competition. Eventually that lack of clarity creates silos, competing directions, and the proliferation of ministries which may or may not be effective. In the absence of clarity one does not know what is truly effective or whether or not we have achieved what we need to achieve. Lack of clarity is a sin of omission and it is endemic in the church.

Transgression Two: Lack of alignment around clarity. Church staff members can often be an independent lot who drive their own agendas and build their teams and ministries around their agendas. Don't get me wrong. It does not mean that they are not after good things. What I am saying is that many staff leaders are not committed to a common clarity and vision of the church but rather their own. This is a sin of commission.

No organization can maximize its impact unless its leaders are willing to get on the same page and work toward common goals. This means that we give up a certain amount of autonomy for the sake of a common strategic direction, mutual cooperation and a deep concern for the whole rather than a concern for our slice of the pie. Not committing ourselves to alignment with the whole is a sin of commission. It is a choice we make that hurts the whole and therefore our missional effectiveness. Thus it matters - a lot.

Transgression Three: Lack of accountability for results based on the missional clarity. Unless we can clearly show that our ministries are achieving results based on the ministry clarity of the church, we have no way of knowing whether we are being successful or not - which is why ministries are rarely ever cancelled but drift on and on whether they are delivering on the promise or not. 

Too many churches look like the Winchester House in San Jose, CA (Google it) with ministry built upon ministry with no common blueprint and no common direction. And, with each leader defending their piece of the turf and their section of the pie. It is why Patrick Lencioni's book, Silos, Politics and Turfwars has sold so many copies both in the ministry and secular world. In the ministry world it is a sad commentary on our lack of common vision, purpose and direction.

If you are on the staff of a church, I would encourage you to ask the question as to whether these three transgressions apply to your staff. If they do, put the issue on the table because none of us want to waste our lives or leave spiritual opportunity on the table.  I know that Jesus does not want us to leave opportunity on the table. 

If you need help in these areas, the book, Leading from the Sandbox can be a practical and valuable resource. Whatever you do, don't settle.

The journey from individual producer to leading through team

Many pastors and Christian organizational leaders did not sign up for ministry to lead others. They heard the call of God, wanted to make a difference for His Kingdom and entered ministry. It was a shock for some to wake up one day and realize "I am a leader and I've got to lead a staff, and I don't really like doing it."

I remember when I was an independent producer. I was a staff of one with an assistant. It was convenient: one person to oversee, my schedule was my own, I could focus on things I wanted to focus on and, while my work affected others, I was not personally responsible for them.

Today, the picture is different. I have a staff of over 550 with 10 senior leaders who directly or indirectly report to me. What I do, how I spend my time, and what my priorities are all directly affect others - and my ability to lead them well. 

The transition from independent producer to the leader of a staff of various sizes was not without its bumps and its lessons because the two kinds of responsibilities are very different.

Life for an independent producer is fairly simple. Life for a leader who leads staff or a team is much more complex. A leader of others must make critical transitions in how they think and act. They must transition:

From thinking about "How I drive ministry myself" to "how I facilitate ministry through other good people." It is no longer about me as much as it is about us.

From "how I would do things" to "empowering other good people to do things as they would do them" - in line with their gifting and skills.

From "I can do life as I like to arrange it" to "I need to take into account all those on my team and how I can best serve them and help them become the best they can be."

From player to coach. The larger my staff (volunteer or paid), the more I must transition from player to coach. It is not possible for me to ignore my team. If I do, they go south attitudinally or we develop silos without alignment.

From "hands on: in the details to helping define the "big rocks" and allow others to figure out the details.

From "I can determine the plan and strategy" to "we need to determine and own a common strategy."

From "I have a meeting to go to" to "I have a meeting that I need to carefully prepare for and lead."

From "my opinion is the one that counts" to "I need to be collaborative in my thinking, and decision making." And, "I need to encourage robust dialogue around issues and take a non-defensive posture when others disagree with me."

These are not easy transitions and there is significant leadership pain and even attrition when leaders go from being solo producers to team leaders and don't understand the need to do life differently. It is not uncommon for pastors who suddenly find themselves saddled with reports and a team who have not made the transitions above to face considerable unhappiness or conflict with staff. Often they are not aware of why the conflict is occurring.


If you lead others, have you made the transition?