Bill Easums Observations

Two of the metaphores I use alot are National Park for the 20th century and Jungle for the 21st Century. You can let you imagination run wild or you can click on one of them to see the comparisons.

 The journey from the National Park into the jungle will change most things from now on. Having a firm grasp on the key leverage pieces to the future is incredibly important. So here goes.

Assuming you have your DNA and spiritual life underway in your church, there are three things that must occur in the 21st century jungle to cause a church to flourish. Here they are

First, We all know the first one is indigenous worship. But just what does that mean in the jungle. It sure doesn’t mean Praise music anymore. Indigenous worship must be in the language, technology, and culture of the people you are trying to reach. So, if we are truly in the jungle then the following applies.

1.If it isn’t hard rock it probably won’t feed people much past the next five years.
2.If it doesn’t wow people it probably won’t have much retention.
3.If it isn’t loud it probably won’t motivate and if the teaching isn’t basic and down to earth, it probably won’t grow people. (I know the emergent folks don’t always feel this way, but remember I don’t think they will be a major player in the new world, at least not for the next 30-50 years. For now they will be only one nitch among many.)

4.These services will not be as linear as in the past and they will be different from week to week which means the need for stage props and setup and tear down teams.
5.Teaching and music are no longer THE important elements; now you have to add ambiance, fun, and the unusual. The more kids play video games the harder it will be to provide them a worship setting where they can experience faith.

Second, a children’s ministry that is designed first: to provide atmosphere, second to provide fun, and third to help children grow in their relationship with Jesus rather than God or Christ. This means the classroom and printed curriculum are out and the large venue and video is in. It also means fewer teachers and a need for some degree of competent acting on the part of the leaders of the children’s ministry.  So instead of Sunday School it is children’s worship designed for children both to worship and to learn. You can see some of these examples on our website . The more kids play video games the harder it will be to disciple them at church without embracing their culture.

Third, intimate settings/groupings will be essential for the 21st century person to find their true destiny. This could mean small groups, ministry teams, coffee house environments, missionary journeys, market place ministries, you name it.  I think it will be far more eclectic in ten years than it is right now. It would be more eclectic today if small groups weren’t working so well that churches don’t feel like experimenting beyond what they know is working.

Folks, one of the things that surprises me about people is how hard it is for most folks to concentrate on leverage. I know prayer is important and that should be a given in anything we do.  I know spiritual development is important and should be part of anything we do. But what I constantly see people do is to focus on these things and never get around to the one thing that has to happen if growth is to take place- indigenous worship. Prayer is essential but it is never the kind of leverage I talk about in my book Unfreezing Moves.  Spiritual development is essential but it is never leverage. You can pray all day and all night and no one will be transformed in irrelevant worship. you can grow people spiritually until the cows come home and it wont grow a church. want to know why? Ill tell you a story.

There once was a pastor who took his people deeper and deeper into the faith. Night and day he prayed for their spiritual development. every Sunday he preached his heart out while praying that aunt susie didn’t die while playing the organ oh so sloooooooow.

One day he went to church and found that half of the congregation was missing. when he began calling those who werent there he found that they had tried another church that morning. when he asked why, they said, “because our worship no longer feeds us. it doesn’t address our issues; it bores to tears the friends we bring with us who need God. We love you and we thank you for taking us deeper in our faith, but we need a place of worship where people can experience God.”

You see, if you take people deep into their faith they will always begin to think about the spiritual condition of others- that is always the result of biblical faith- those who  dont feel that way havent yet discovered the depth of God’s heart. So when you take people deep, they have to worship, not just sit in a  pew and soak, but experience a moving moment with God. that is why worship is the leverage.

So this pastor prayed hard and developed spiritual giants and lost his congregation. Give it some thought.

Keep this post in context.  worship is the main  leverage piece. Leverage means the one thing that makes everything else rise or fall. Sure small groups are important. but here’s the kicker. Willow didn’t have a small group emphasis until they had several thousand in worship. In the early years they focused on having the most relevant worship they could possibly have.  the church I go to now and then, bay area, didn’t focus on small groups until they had 3000 in worship.

The primary reason most pastors dont grow churches is they cant get their heads around this one simple point- if worship doesn’t shine, nothing else matters.  it that plain and simple. if worship doesn’t shine, it doesn’t matter what you do with small groups, Sunday school, single ministries, period. If you want to grow a church this is what you must do.

Here is where the water hits the wheel - pastors who  dont get this dont see the desperate need for a full time worship leader. so they hire a youth director, or childrens director and the church doesn’t grow. both youth and children are important but they aren’t the primary leverage- eveything is a support to worship, everything. that doesn’t mean they arent important. it just means they arent the primary leverage.

Friends,

The “penny dropped” for many pastors and lay leaders during my workshop this weekend as we talked about the synergy of church growth. This is the flow of thriving church life from life-shaping worship, to adult spiritual disciplines, to mission team action, and back again to life-shaping worship.

For some, the “aha” came from benchmarking this flow. 80% of the members attend worship regularly; 60% of the worshippers are found in mid-week small groups, mentoring relationships, or accountable spiritual disciplines; 40% of the people in mid-week spiritual disciplines are also doing hands-on mission that is built in and around their lifestyles. 30% of the newcomers in worship are there as a direct result of experiencing the mission-service of the members.

For example … in a congregation with 250 adult resident members, 200 would regularly show up in worship; 120 would be involved in serious adult spiritual growth. Of the 120 in spiritual growth disciplines like small groups, 48 would be intentionally involved in hands-on mission outreach in which they simultaneously did good stuff and shared their faith. Average total worship attendance would be about 260 (i.e. 200 members plus 60 seekers who were invited or inspired to come out of the mission field).

Now we all know that these are ambitious benchmarks, and it may take some years before an established declining or plateaued church could do it. And we also know that there are many contextual issues that might lower or raise these benchmarks. But these benchmarks provide a standard for evaluating your current congregational situation.

For example, many churches claim 500 adult resident members, but only expect 150 to worship at any given time (only 30%). Of these, perhaps only 10 are involved in an accountable spiritual discipline (.07%); and of these only 2 or 3 are actually involved in mission embedded in their lifestyles. Not surprisingly, nobody at all shows up in worship as a direct result of mission.

The very idea of benchmarking this synergy of growth seems startling to many church leaders. They have been so busy developing and protecting program silos that they have not paid attention to the “connectivity” of church growth. Every piece leads to something else in overall personal and missional growth. Worship is useless unless it leads to spiritual discipline … which is useless unless it leads to mission action … which is useless unless it leads to worship.

What we are really measuring in the synergy of growth is not the numbers within any given worship service or program, but rather the percentages of people who move on to the next step. Inevitably, this causes church leaders to ponder how they foster this “connectivity”. And inevitably, they suddenly realize that you have to deploy staff explicitly to do this, and train volunteer leaders specifically to do this. Leaders now become interventionists and mentors, who “move people along”, rather than administrators and managers who (“keep people doing tasks”).

Tom Bandy