FRUITFUL CONGREGATIONS - FIVE PRACTICES

This post was written by Robert Schnase and is an excellent checklist of DNA of fruitful congregations. -steve

The purpose of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. But how do we do that? The most visible way God knits people into the community of Christ and draws people into the relationship with God is through congregations that fulfill the ministry of Christ in the world. Fruitful congregations repeat and improve on these five basic practices: Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-Taking Mission and Service and Extravagant  Generosity.

The practices are basic and fundamental. But it’s the adjectives that make these words come alive, because they stretch us and cause us to ask ourselves, “How are we doing in practicing these qualities of ministry in our congregation? How might we do better?”

These are practices—they're not qualities that some churches have and some don’t. They’re not phases that, once we get them done, we can move on to something else. These are practices that we have to learn and improve upon constantly. These are the activities that are so critical to the mission of the church that failure to perform them in an exemplary way leads to congregational decline and deterioration.
Here’s a look at the five practices used in fruitful congregations.

Radical Hospitality
(Romans 12:9-21)

Congregations offer the invitation and embrace of Jesus Christ, the gracious welcome that creates genuine belonging that brings people together in the Christian community. Churches characterized by Radical Hospitality are not just friendly and courteous. Instead, they exhibit restlessness because they realize so many people do not have a relationship to a faith community. They sense a calling and responsibility to pray and work to invite others and to help them feel welcome and supported in their faith journeys. Congregations surprise newcomers with a glimpse of the unmerited gracious love of God that they see in Christ. Our Radical Hospitality goes to the extremes, and we do it joyfully, not superficially, because we know our invitation is the invitation of Christ.

Passionate Worship
(John 4:21-24)

In Passionate Worship, people are honest before God and one another, and they are open to God’s presence and will for their lives. People so eagerly desire such worship that they will reorder their lives to attend. Passionate worship motivates pastors not only to improve their preaching but also to learn continually how to enhance content and technique for effective worship. Worship is something alive that requires continuing care, cultivation, and effort to keep it fresh. Pastors should willingly review and evaluate their own work and invite feedback. The motivation for enhancing the quality of worship is not only about deepening our own faith but also about allowing God to use us and our congregations to offer hope, life, and love to others. Worship is God’s gift and task, a sacred trust that requires our utmost and highest.

Intentional Faith Development
(1 Corinthians 9:19-24)

Transformation comes through learning in community. Congregational leaders that practice Intentional Faith Development carefully consider the full life cycle of members and look for ways the church forms faith at every age. They look for gaps, opportunities, and unmet needs to round out their ministries and ask how they can do better. They train laypeople to lead small groups, teach Bible studies, and coordinate support groups. They realize the power of special topics and interests to attract unchurched people, and they advertise and invite beyond the walls of the church. They form affiliation groups such as grief or divorce recovery, substance abuse, parenting, and more. They explore new ways of forming learning communities–blogs, chat rooms, e-mail Bible studies, and downloadable materials. These pastors also participate in forms of community with other pastors or laypersons to help deepen their own relationship with God.

Risk-Taking Mission and Service
(Matthew 25:14-30)

This involves work that stretches people, causing them to do something for the good of others that they would never have considered doing if it were not for their relationship with Christ and their desire to serve Him. These churches not only solicit and encourage ordinary service to support the work of the congregation, but they also consciously seek to motivate people to more extraordinary service. They lift examples in preaching and teaching. Risk-Taking Missions and Service is also part of the formation of children and youth. All youth and children ministries include teaching and experiential components that stretch compassion outward beyond the walls of the church. Faith mapped in childhood provides pathways that shape lifelong commitments. These churches collaborate with other churches, other denominations, civic organizations, social agencies, and non-profit groups. They actively invite and welcome newcomers, visitors, and the unchurched to help them in making a difference in the lives of others. As congregations move beyond their comfort zones and follow Christ into more adventurous encounters with people, God’s Spirit changes them, changes others, and changes churches.
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5 WAYS TO OVERCOME CHURCH BOREDOM

©iStockphoto.com/earleliason

Brad Powell: “If our spiritual walk isn’t fresh and exciting, our ministry won’t be either.”
Question: I think I understand why our church isn’t reaching new people or creating any kind of noticeable impact: It’s boring. To be honest, I’m the pastor and even I’m bored. Obviously, the solution is to fix it, but I’m not sure how. Suggestions?

BY BRAD POWELL

 Know this: You’re not alone. This is a huge problem for all pastors and churches over time. Boredom is the natural byproduct of redundancy. And let’s be honest, church ministry is redundant by nature. Without intentional interference, churches will have no new people come on Sunday, and everyone will park in the same place, enter the same way, greet the same people, sit in the same seat, sing the same kind of songs, listen to the same person teach, and then do it all again next Sunday—and again and again. Makes me yawn just writing about it.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, there are some unavoidable areas of redundancy. Generally, people should come to the same place each week, gather in the same auditorium and listen to the same pastor/teacher. But church doesn’t have to be boring.

Think about it. Life is filled with unavoidable redundancies. Breathe in and breathe out. Go to sleep and wake up. Eat three or more times every day. Go to work and come home. Celebrate the weekend, then say goodbye to it. And on and on it goes. But life doesn’t have to be boring.

What makes the difference? Changing it up. Though you have to eat three times a day, you don’t have to eat the same thing. In fact, you don’t even have to eat the same way. Where is it written that certain kinds of food are for certain times of the day? In our family, my wife, Roxann, messed with this concept all the time. She initiated reverse night, which always began with dessert. Of course, it usually resulted in no one eating the salad. But who cares? It was a lot of fun. Our kids still talk about it to this day. By changing it up, she created lifelong memories.

We can apply the same lesson to our churches and ministries. Sadly, many leaders seek to overcome boredom by switching churches instead of making the investment to change up their present church. But changing locations usually leads to the same result. Over time, the new church will become boring as well. We need to learn to create new and fresh experiences in the midst of the unavoidable redundancies of our present circumstances. We need to learn to “change it up” where we are.

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SPIRITUALLY HEALTHY CHURCHES - PART 1

by Stephen L Dunn 

Often overlooked in the move to become an outward focused church serving the community as the Spirit leads is the matter of the church's spiritual health. Sometimes our intensive ministries neglect the cultivation of a spiritually healthy congregation. Like our physical health, it is important to intentionally and consistently do the work needed to promote and maintain that health. When a church is not spiritually healthy it creates an environment where the people under its care and influence develop patterns, values, actions, and attitudes that undermine the intention of Jesus in John 10:10, “to have life to the full.” The church’s witness and attractiveness are undermined because people outside who know they are unhealthy are reluctant to connect to a church that is not healthy. Or worse, they connect to a church believing that our weaknesses and problems are the norm, and therefore, do not become maturing disciples in Jesus Christ. Unhealthy churches ultimately die. Spiritually healthy churches multiply because they are helping the individual members of the church mature in Christ (who then in turn help others to do so). Spiritually healthy churches reproduce in creating new members of the Kingdom of God.

An important resource for this is The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazarro with Warren Bird.  In their book, they note these characteristics of such churches.

Ten Characteristics of a Healthy Church

1. God's Empowering Presence                

2. God-Exalting Worship              

3. Spiritual Disciplines    

4. Learning and Growing in Community

5. A Commitment to Loving and Caring Relationships

6. Servant-Leadership Development      

7. An Outward Focus     

8. Wise Administration and Accountability           

9. Networking with the Body of Christ   

10. Stewardship and Generosity   

We attend to a lot of matters in the church, but do we have strategies for being sure that these things are true about the congregations that we serve?

More to come ....

(C) 2012 by Stephen L Dunn           

10 FROM JOHN BURKE

JOHN BURKE
10 Lessons, from John

Creating something out of nothing is challenging, but this is the only way we can really see the culture become the church. I want to see people grow and be unified as a church, but I always want to start with those who are not the church, with the culture around us, relationally connecting life-by-life.

These 10 lessons I’ve learned have been how God has change lives, that in turn impacted a neighborhood, and now influence a city and the world:

1. People Matter Enough to be Reminded
Realize that it’s not about you – it’s about a world that’s on a slide going south away from God. If you forget that, you’ll take things personally. Remember that good things don’t just naturally happen. People left alone don’t tend to seek God. People left alone don’t tend to stretch themselves to grow in faith or stretch to give money and time to those less-fortunate. It takes energy. As a leader, part of that energy is to remind people.

2. Never Waste a Gathering
No matter what the gathering is for – serve kids, have a party, small group, bike ride, or building houses – pay attention to not wasting it. Have fun first. Create life and people will want to come back. Cast vision and orient people to what they can expect. Always give next-steps. Every gathering is about connecting to community, but people need steps along the way.

3. Tell Stories to Shape Values
A story tells everybody “this is who we are and this is what matters.”

4. Connect Others Constantly
Give people enough time, and they’ll want to hang with their group and forget new people. Watch for people who might be feeling left out at every gathering. People feel valued and loved as people take interest in them.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Have a Big “Ask”
Challenge people to grow spiritually. Many times God’s spirit prompts us but we “do the person a favor” by saying “no” for them. We’re potentially closing someone off from a life with God. That’s not a favor. You have to overcome that fear and make big asks.

6. Serve Well Together
Getting people serving creates ownership. When you serve together serve well.

7. Be Generous with Praise and Encouragement
You can’t hire enough people to do all the work. You need volunteers. Generous praise and encouragement is how you pay them.

8. Ask “Who’s Next, What’s Next?”
You’re only as strong as your next new leader, so always be looking for the “relative” leaders – the ones giving a little bit more. Sometimes their lives are messy. Think about how to help them take next steps of growth.

9. If Your Unchurched Friends and Neighbors are not Becoming the Church, You’re Ineffective
This is one of my most significant lessons. If people are not becoming the church — and LEADING the church – within 3 to 5 years, you’re not being effective. When you start to see this happen, when you the church being raised up out of culture, just as it happened in Corinth, Athens, Rome. That’s exciting!

10. Don’t Do This Without God (It’s His mission, your adventure)
This is really the first one. This is His mission and your adventure. You can’t do this without God.

A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION FOR CHURCH PLANTERS

The planting conversation today is generally one-sided. We read books and the author speaks to us, we watch webinars and see them teach, we go to conferences and hear them share, but what about our questions? How does what they say work in our context?

LAUNCH'’s goal is to break down those walls that cause the discussion to be one-sided. LAUNCH and the speakers are committed to providing you with time for questions in a smaller context. We want to offer opportunities to continue the dialogue outside the conference sessions and even past the conference itself, so that planters and pastors are strengthened in the mission that God has called them to.

What if you had the opportunity to spend 3 to 5 days with the conference speakers you thought could help you the most? We want to provide those opportunities for you. Our goal is to not be just a conference, but an environment of mentoring, teaching, conversation, push back, and growing from some of the greatest minds in the planting world.

LAUNCH is also partnering with Winebrenner Seminary to launch a new Seminary program that will partner with many of our speakers to provide, what we believe, will be the best church planting program in the U.S. Programs offered will be: Church Planting Diploma Graduate Certificate in Church Planting Master of Arts in Church Development M.Div with a planting emphasis Our Faculty includes: Dr. Reggie McNeal Dr. Linda Bergquist  Dr. Phillip Nation Neil Cole Vince Antinoucci Lizzette Beard Glenn Smith Justin Meier

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT LAUNCH GO TO THE LINK

THOM RAINER ON 12 TRENDS FOR 2012 - 7-12

More from Thom Rainer.  I'd be interested in your feedback.

In my article yesterday, I noted that the beginning of a new year inevitably brings a plethora of predictions, resolutions, and trends. I chose to follow that same pattern. I am thus providing twelve trends for 2012 in the healthiest churches we have observed.

Remember the three caveats I noted. First, the trends are for healthy churches. They are not inclusive of all 400,000 American churches, much less the millions of churches around the world. Second, the trends are based on both detailed empirical research and anecdotal observations. In other words, I can point to some outstanding research projects for my conclusions in some cases. In other cases, I am simply expressing what I hope is an informed opinion. Third, the trends are not ranked in order of any priority.

I thus conclude these two articles with trends seven to twelve. Please feel free to comment, agree, or disagree.

7. These healthy churches have pastors who love the members.
   That love is obvious in their words, their actions, and their pastoral concern. It does not mean that a pastor is present for every need of a member of a church member; that is physically impossible. It does mean that the church has a ministry in place that cares for all the members. Above all, though, you can sense intuitively when you walk into these churches that the pastor deeply loves the members, even those who may often oppose him.
8. The churches allow their pastors to spend time in sermon preparation.
   Our research has confirmed over the years that pastors in healthier churches spend more time in sermon preparation than those in other churches. For that to take place, the congregation must understand the primacy of preaching, and they must be willing for their pastor to forego some areas of activity and ministry so he can spend many hours in the Word.
9. There is clarity of the process of disciple making.
   Such was the theme of the book, Simple Church, written by Eric Geiger and me. For the healthy churches, the ministries and activities are not just busy work; instead they have a clear purpose toward moving the members to greater levels of commitment toward Christ.
10. These churches do less better.
    They realize that they can't be all things to all people; and they shouldn’t have such a flurry of activities that they hurt rather than help families. So the leaders of these congregations focus on doing fewer ministries, but doing those few better than they could with an overabundance of activities.
11. The process of discipleship moves members into ongoing small groups.
    A member is almost guaranteed to leave the church or become inactive in the church if he or she does not get involved in an ongoing small group. These groups have a variety of names: Sunday school; small groups; home groups; life groups; cell groups; and others. The name is not the issue. The issue is getting members connected to ongoing groups.
12. Corporate prayer is intentional and prioritized.
    Prayer is not incidental in these churches. The leadership regularly emphasizes the importance and priority of prayer. The congregation is led regularly in times of corporate prayer.

As I indicated in my article yesterday, I realize that many churches, particularly Western churches, are struggling. But I almost keenly aware that God is doing a great work in many congregations. Though my “12 in 12” list is neither inerrant nor comprehensive, just noting these trends gives me great hope. God is not yet done with our churches.

THOM RAINER ON 12 TRENDS FOR 2012 - 1-6

One of the voices we are blessed by is  Thom Rainer

Here are some excellent insights to help your evaluation and strategic planning.  - STEVE

The beginning of a new year inevitably brings a plethora of predictions, resolutions, and trends. I see no need to alter that course in this article. My assignment is simple; but my conclusions are debatable. I am providing twelve trends for 2012 in the healthiest churches we have observed.

A few caveats are necessary. First, the trends are for healthy churches. They are not inclusive of all 400,000 American churches, much less the millions of churches around the world. Second, the trends are based on both detailed empirical research and anecdotal observations. In other words, I can point to some outstanding research projects for my conclusions in some cases. In other cases, I am simply expressing what I hope is an informed opinion. Third, the trends are not ranked in order of any priority.

Today I will share with you the first six of the trends. The final six will be in my article tomorrow.

1. The churches have a high view of Scripture. A number of research projects over the past four decades point to this trend. Healthy churches have leaders and members who believe the totality of the Bible, often expressed as a view called inerrancy. 
2. A large number of church members read the Bible daily. The simplicity of this trend often surprises church leaders. But we can no longer assume that all of the congregants read their Bibles every day. That is a practice that must be encouraged and monitored. In our research on spiritual health of Christian, we found that the highest correlative factor in practicing other healthy spiritual discipline was reading the Bible every day.
3. The churches have a priority and focus on the nations. This priority is manifest in short-term mission trips, in care and adoption of the orphaned, in giving to mission causes, and in the number of congregants who commit their lives to reaching the nations with the gospel.
4. The churches have a missional community presence. The leadership and members do not look at their community as a pool for prospects. Rather, they love their community. They serve their community. The live in their community. They have deep relationships in their community.
5. The congregations have membership that matters. These healthy churches are high expectation churches. Membership is much more than completing a card or walking an aisle. These churches have entry point classes that set the expectations of membership. Church members are expected to serve, to give, to be in small groups, and to be accountable to others. Church discipline is practiced in most of these congregations. Because membership is meaningful, the assimilation rate in these churches is very high.
6. The members are evangelistically intentional. The gospel is central in these healthy churches. As a consequence, the sharing of the good news is natural and consequential. But leaders in these churches do not simply assume that evangelism is taking place. There are constant reminders of the priority of evangelism. There is inherent in many of these churches some type of accountability for ongoing evangelism in a number of contexts.

There is a lot of bad news in the world today. Indeed there is a lot of bad news in many of our churches today. I am not the metaphorical ostrich with my head in the sand. 

But I am convinced that there are many reasons to be encouraged about God’s work in our churches. These six trends for 2012 exemplify some of those reasons for encouragement. In tomorrow’s article, I will add another six trends. And I think, as a consequence, you may have 12 reasons in 2012 to be encouraged.