In times of lean staffs, your church can become volunteer-centered

Five steps in making your church a more effective volunteer-led congregation.

By James Higginbotham

With the recent economic downturn, some churches are closing their doors due to lack of money. Many are choosing to downsize their facilities or abandon their multi-million dollar buildings in an effort to stay open. Churches are often forced to lay off staff members, some of whom were recently hired. Now, churches are trying to find out if it is possible to keep the 
church running smoothly while running with lean staff.

One church that has been running with a lean staff for many years is Calvary Austin [ www.calvaryaustin.com ]. They currently have five staff with about 1,000 members. During their early years, the church existed in a low income neighborhood, generating lower-than-average offerings from its membership. Running with a lean staff was essential to cope with their increased growth.

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From volunteer baristas for their onsite coffee bar to volunteer-based building maintenance, they learned that not all church activities had to be performed by the staff. When volunteer resources were not available due to time or lack of specific skills, they contract to local businesses. This not only extended their skill set beyond the membership, it offered opportunities to get to know local businesses and invite them to weekend services.

Volunteers reduced labor cost

As they began to outgrow their current building, they started a building campaign to raise funds for a new location. The cost of the new building, renovations and materials were beyond their means, so they again turned to their volunteers for help. They purchased a building previously occupied by a grocery store and converted it into their new church building using their volunteers to reduce the cost of labor.

Utilizing more than 200 volunteers, they converted one-third of the building into their new church location in just six months. Tasks the volunteers performed included project and volunteer coordination, financial tracking and reporting, preparing meals and babysitting for work crews, landscaping, painting, demolition, stage setup, media setup and cleanup.

While they have experienced additional growth during this time, they still utilize a lean staff and depend heavily on volunteers to accomplish much of their church operations.

Using volunteers well

How did they do it? Let’s examine five steps you can take to become a volunteer-centered church.

1.) Have a well-defined vision. A volunteer centered church requires that your volunteers know and understand the vision of your church. Volunteers are often occupied with a career and family, so having a focused vision will help them to know if the work they are doing for the church is contributing to this vision.

Create a short, memorable vision that helps focus your volunteers. The more complicated or wordy the vision, the more likely they will forget it. Make sure the vision is easily visible and permeates throughout your printed materials, sermons and signage.

Volunteers have short memories. Be sure to communicate it often, as volunteers are busy and need to be reminded on a routine basis. It will also help them to make better decisions during their day-to-day volunteer work, as they will use your vision to guide them.

2.) Limit your programs. The natural desire for a church is to attempt to address every opportunity that comes its way. The result is a drive to add more ministry teams and staff to tackle these opportunities. The problem with this approach is that it isn’t a scalable solution. There are always more opportunities than you can handle and never enough money or people to go around.

Limiting programs allows your volunteers to select from a limited list of serving options. While it may seem that more programs mean more opportunity for volunteers to signup, marketing research indicates that more choice can paralyze rather than encourage decision making. Restricting your programs makes it easier for volunteers to find a way to use their skills while still providing plenty of opportunities to serve their church.

3.) Invest time with your volunteers. Staff members are often inside the same building and are able to spend time together on a personal level, creating camaraderie. While volunteers should be focused on the tasks at hand, they desire the same fellowship and personal growth as your staff. Your job as staff is to create this kind of environment not only for yourself, but for your volunteers as well.

Encourage your leaders to create quarterly team meetings that are casual, allowing volunteers to share in recent successes and discuss upcoming projects. Have them spend one-on-one time with volunteers over coffee outside the normal work time. Reward your volunteers often with praise and small gifts from the church, such as a gift card to their favorite restaurant or handwritten thank you note.

4.) Provide guidance and opportunities for growth. Volunteers need guidance from their staff and leaders during difficult times, but they also need room to grow. Every volunteer brings a unique mix of personal experience and talent to the church. Find the balance between micro-managing your volunteers and failing to give them the support they need.

A great way to create this kind of balance is to break larger tasks or projects into smaller milestones. Each milestone should have a small list of tasks to accomplish toward the larger goal. At the end of each milestone, review the tasks accomplished, provide some feedback, and discuss the next milestone. These smaller milestones can provide great teaching and discipleship moments, help the church improve their volunteer process and ensures that volunteers are on the right track.

5.) Constantly develop and train volunteer leaders. Raising volunteer leaders is essential for churches with a lean staff. These leaders will be directly involved with their team’s day-to-day effort and will know the volunteers that are excelling or require special ministry needs. They can also identify candidates for future leadership positions within the church.

The most effective way of developing volunteer leaders is through consistent training. Finding or developing a core set of training materials will provide the foundation they need during difficult leadership situations. It also demonstrates the staff’s desire to invest and support their leaders.

Servanthood focused

Finally, remember that a lean staff must learn to be servants of its volunteers. Don’t let your staff perform all of the big projects and leaving the leftovers to the volunteers. Instead, let the volunteers own the projects.

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This may require more time, training and course correction, but it will create a more creative and independent volunteer base as time goes by. Plus, it will reduce the burnout of your lean staff.

James Higginbotham is the editor of www.VolunteerCentered.com, a website focused on helping churches with volunteer management, leadership and recruiting.

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Learning from lean staffs during lean times

With many congregations facing tighter budgets as they weather the worst economic recession in decades, a survey earlier this year of U.S. church leaders by Christianity Today International and Leadership Network shows that a small percentage of churches are able 
to continue doing ministry while keeping staffing costs — the single-biggest expense for nearly every church — well below national averages. Lean Staffing survey of 735 leaders 
of Protestant and evangelical churches shows that one in seven spends less than 35 percent of its annual budget on staffing costs.

Responses included churches of all sizes, from attendances of 50 to 20,000. Among 
findings:

• Lean staff churches do a better job with volunteers and lay leadership development.
• Lean staff churches invest a noticeably higher percentage of their budget beyond the
• walls of their church.
• Growing churches spend a smaller percentage of their budget on staffing costs, so
• they’re “leaner” than plateaued or declining churches.
• Staff costs become leaner with size — as overall weekend worship attendance increases, but not dramatically so.

Historically, churches in recent years spend, on average, about 45 percent of their total budgets on staffing costs — and sometimes more. The Lean Staffing study separated 539 respondents to generate the “lean staffing” comparison: 15 percent of that group spends less than 35 percent on staff, while the rest spend between 35 percent and 65 percent. The study used 35 percent or less as a benchmark since it represents a sizable decrease from national averages and helps with statistical comparisons. A 46-page report on the survey results is available for free at store.churchlawtodaystore.com/lestsure.html.  — RK

__________________________________________________________

Knowing more about volunteercentered.com

VolunteerCentered.com is a website that provides in-depth articles on volunteer leadership, management and recruiting. They also offer a variety of resources, including a free eBook on volunteer recruiting.

In addition, they offer consulting to churches that desire to improve their administration, church building campaigns, technology and volunteer management processes.

Full-time staff members and church volunteers will find a number of resources to help make a positive impact with volunteers and community.
— JH

Case study suggests a systematic methodology that takes time and effort, but will produce a more reliable conclusion.

By Mark Simmons

The Case Statement: “Attendance was up, now it’s down.  How can we find the root cause?”

Dan is the executive pastor of a six-year-old church that has experienced rapid growth — until recently. Dan writes: “We are a church that grew fairly rapidly from 2003 through 2008. Most recently, we grew 8 percent in 2007 and then saw growth slow to 2 percent in 2008. We saw a plateau-to-slight-decline of -1 percent in the spring of 2009 and then a significant drop over the summer when our senior pastor was on sabbatical. We have not bounced back this fall, with attendance now running 5 percent YTD below last year.

“My question: How would you approach this issue to get to the root cause? What questions would you ask? What data would you gather? Who would you talk with?”

Church Executive asked Mark Simmons, business manager at Christ Community Church, Milpitas, CA to suggest a response to this church’s situation. 

—   Editor

The Case Solution: Implement best practices to find the root cause(s)

First of all, you are to be congratulated for not jumping to a conclusion. In my experience most churches (and public companies too) tend to rush to conclusions without proper analysis. In part, this happens because of our methodology. We get a bunch of leaders together in a room, give them the top level attendance trend data and then ask for opinions on why this happened.

To illustrate this point, we exposed your brief description of the situation to several church leaders, and they were asked to respond. Predictably, several started trying to answer the “why” question based on the scant data offered. Some thought the senior pastor’s sabbatical was the cause, even though the reversal in your growth trends started a year and a half before his sabbatical. It’s not a good methodology and since that is what you really asked for, let’s launch into how to approach your problem. Clearly you are in need of some analysis.

Potential causes identified

Before you can with any confidence answer the question of what caused this to happen, you have to first identify what changed, specifically around the times when you saw a significant change in your attendance. It looks from your statements that you had at least two, possibly more, times when your attendance trends changed significantly:  1. Sometime late in 2007 to 2008; 2. The beginning of summer 2009; and 3. You implied you may have experienced a bounce back in the fall that didn’t occur this year. There may be others yet to be uncovered.

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The reason I say around those times is sometimes there is a time lag between the cause and the effect. Make sure you look at external as well as internal factors too. For example, one church I was a part of experienced an attendance change due to people moving from our relatively high cost area to a lower cost area that was experiencing lots of job growth. That is an example of an external change.

Note too that the changes are not the causes, but rather are a list of potential causes (and there may be others you uncover elsewhere). Again, it’s important not to jump to conclusions.

Some things to look at statistically

•  Changes in the influx of visitors around those times.

•  Changes in attendance patterns (Did people start coming less often, leave the

church, or what?)

Was there a shift in demographics at the church? For example, if the people leaving are predominantly young married couples that may give you a clue as to focus your efforts. You’d focus on understanding changes that affected the young married couples (both internal and external factors).

Then comes the filtering

Now you can start to eliminate (whittle down) the list of potential causes by taking the available facts and see what doesn’t fit.

Hopefully by this time you have a handful of possible causes. At this point it is probably appropriate to collect some data from the people who actually left. Unfortunately, you can’t just ask people: why did you leave?

The vast majority of people will not give you a direct answer for a variety of reasons: You don’t want to be confrontational, think you’ll try to convince them to come back, at some level they may know it’s not really a “good” reason, or they may not even know.

You need to ask open-ended questions. “What’s most important to you when choosing a church?” If they left for another church: “Before you decided to join [NEW] church, what was most important to you in deciding what church to attend?” “What were you looking for?” Often the answer to those last two questions will correlate to the thing they found lacking at your church. “What did you like about [OLD] church?” “If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about [OLD] church what would it be?” And peppered between each of these questions you encourage them to talk more by saying things like: “Tell me more?” “Anything else?” “How so?”

As far as methodology is concerned, notice that these are not true/false, multiple guess, or yes/no type of questions. The question requires a more elaborate response. Also these are not written surveys, online polls or anything of the sort. These are face-to-face or at least live phone-to-phone conversations. If you have a skilled interviewer among your leadership or who is a trusted member of your congregation — use them. The interviewer really makes a huge difference.

That’s how I’d approach it. Yes, it is a fair amount of work. But isn’t turning around your attendance trend a big deal?  Isn’t it worth some effort to get it right?

GOOGLE GROUP SOLUTIONS

An issue could be that your church is just bumping up against a natural growth barrier. I love Ken Hemphill’s book, The Bonsai Theory of Church Growth.  Bonsai trees are kept small on purpose. They are trimmed back to prevent growth. The roots are trimmed back. They are kept in small containers. In churches there are leadership containers, educational containers, worship space containers, parking space containers.

— Kelly

When I was taking ski lessons years ago, the instructor said, “If you’re not falling every now and then, you’re not trying hard enough.” I think that’s probably true for churches, too. Those that don’t experience attendance decreases now and then may not be challenging people enough — intentionally or unintentionally. Jesus certainly had times when the crowds grew and times when they thinned.

Attend to the essentials and “do it heartily as unto the Lord” and if numbers fall, at least you know my ski instructor would say you haven’t settled for just performing within your comfort level.

— Marshall

By Ronald E. Keener

Kent Hunter leads Church Doctor Ministries from Corunna, IN, and has become known as The Church Doctor for his 35 years of consulting with churches and training consultants throughout the U.S.

“Our depth, with more than two dozen services, is possible because of our analysts, support team, and use of technology,” Dr. Hunter says. “In North America, we have worked with about 1,500 churches of 65 different denominations as well as an increasing number of independent, non-denominational and emerging churches. The approach to this ministry is based on our Mission Statement that leads to the transformational change of the local church for the effective implementation of the Great Commission.”

Hunter has a couple of books in the works; his greatest focus right now has the working title Growing Quality People: Leading by Relationship. “Many leaders graduate from well-known universities, become corporate presidents or financial tycoons on Wall Street, but do not have character, values, integrity, quality, honesty and authenticity. It is my premise that while institutions can train people with knowledge, one-on-one mentoring—what Jesus called discipling—is the key to formation: developing values and habits that result in quality lives and quality work. Our world desperately needs this.”

Hunter is leading a team of pastors and church leaders to an emergent experience of the Emergent Church Movement taking place in England in June 2010. Hunter is an advisor for this movement and has worked with this group in England over the last eight years. He has come to the conclusion that a revival is coming to America and will be visible to most Christians by the year 2019.

He believes that the most important task for every pastor in the United States is to prepare their church for the coming revival. This emersion experience is based on his perception that a movement is “caught not taught.” He believes that if a church is going to be ready for what God is going to do, pastors have a window of two or three years to start the process of preparing their churches.

Church Executive posed some questions to him about his work with churches and what he has learned over the past 35 years:

What common issues do churches most seem to have that you encounter in your consultations?

1. Identifying methods and strategies to deliver the Gospel effectively in the 21st century mission field that America has become.

2. Communicating to postmodern young adults, eager for spirituality, but turned off to the institutional church.

3. How to activate members for ministry in the backdrop of soaring costs for staff.

4. The best practices that provide a model for staffing today.

5. How to change direction from getting people to church to getting the church to people.

Is there a certain point when churches call for help, recognizing their problem is too difficult for them to handle alone?

Most churches calling for a consultant have leaders that view problems as challenges. Frequently, there will be a cluster of issues matched by a desire to be more effective. This is coupled with an awareness that, in the complexities of today’s world, requires a team effort, which includes an outside, objective expert. The Proverb says, “A wise man has many counselors.” Our Church Doctors are blessed to work with wise church leaders who want to learn, improve, grow and impact their communities.

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What particular skills or helps do you bring in these consultations?

An outside “expert” brings leverage, support, encouragement, and empowerment to the staff and leadership. Our analytical tools, used prior to visiting, identify issues behind the issues, the causative elements, including the culture and ethos of the church. This is the beginning of a path toward positive transformational change. Follow-up and guidance to help the church develop Action Plans to our recommendations changes our report from a blueprint to a three-to-five- year plan of action. We develop a lasting relationship with these churches.

Has the current economic downturn made a difference in the nature of the consultations you have had in the past eight months?

There is no question that the economic issues of our day have impacted every part of life. For many congregations, it has sharpened their values and increased their desire to be more effective in making disciples and impacting their communities. It is not difficult for churches with strong, vision-casting leaders to raise money to provide a consultation. In fact, in a somewhat paradoxical way, the recession has heightened the willingness of believers to give and support a good cause that has tangible results. Meanwhile, in these challenging times, those who are not yet believers are more receptive — it’s harvest time.

You have spoken of “pain-free church government.” Is there such a thing for churches; what do you mean by that?

The church government in 99 percent of churches in the Western world today has been inherited by an over reaction from the State churches of Europe, particularly in the Protestant and non-denominational sectors. Our analytical tool to help churches develop a biblical form of church government demonstrates that most church leaders, and many of the members, already understand the biblical principles of how we should make decisions and interact with one another.

The Scriptures show a form of decision-making that focuses on God’s will above everything else. Most churches operate from a high control/ low accountability model. The model of the New Testament is low control (the priesthood of all believers) and high accountability (speak the truth in a spirit of love).

What advice do you give churches about reaching postmodern young adults?

Postmodern young adults will be reached on their turf, not the church’s. Relationships are the platform of the future church, not the institution. Post-moderns (of all ages) want to hear how God has made a difference in your life. That experiential connection, authentic and unrehearsed, is the entry point for sharing the faith, not bringing someone to the institutional church to hear a sermon. Postmoderns are network-oriented.

This sets the stage for the first worldwide revival, which I perceive is coming to North America in the next 10 years. The greatest roadblock that could hinder that movement is the local church that ignores the realities of our postmodern world. The most important task for every church leader during the next two years is to prepare his or her church for this next major movement of God.

There are other ministries doing consulting with churches. How does Church Doctor differ or what does it bring that is unique in its approach?

We have been studied several times by experts, including some Fortune 500 consultants who have scrutinized our ministry. The results show Church Doctor Ministries is unique and effective because of the holistic, diagnostic effort we put into analyzing a congregation.

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Since we look at a church as a living organism (the Body of Christ), we follow the same approach as medical doctors: diagnosis, prognosis, prescription.

Our commitment to follow through and follow up is surprisingly unusual among consultants. About 90 percent of the churches with whom we work implement 90 percent of the recommendations we make, and many of those churches call us again, as they face new opportunities and challenges.

Hunter is the author of numerous books including The Jesus Enterprise: Engaging Culture to Reach the Unchurched; Discover Your Windows: Lining Up With God’s Vision; and Move Your Church to Action. [www.churchdoctor.org ]

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WHAT CONSULTATIONS HAVE REVEALED

Church leaders often seek substantive changes but use programs and activities that are applied to the symptoms. Causative issues include values, worldviews, and presuppositions. Many leaders guide their churches to become more mission-oriented but fail to recognize they are superimposing another culture upon the present culture of most maintenance-oriented churches. The end result is conflict. We have designed our consultations to measure the cultural and worldview issues and provide practical and tangible recommendations.

I don’t see many churches practicing the discipleship equipping (Ephesians 4) of their members. There is a lot of teaching, many classes — head knowledge, which is good. But there isn’t much on-the- job, one-on-one mentoring — what Jesus called discipling.

Pastors are generally not well trained for the challenges they face.

Many are frustrated and stressed. Many should be more willing to seek outside consultancy help.

Finances are a frequent challenge. The causative issue is usually lack of biblical stewardship issues; not fund raising but biblical principles.

Most churches have a Mission Statement, but no clear philosophy of ministry (describing the unique “personality” of the church), and few have a clear Vision Statement describing “this is what we believe our church will look like in 5 to10 years.”

Most churches have inherited a form of church government that is unbiblical and detrimental. — K.H.

By Sam S. Rainer III

In 1988 General Motors started an aggressive advertising campaign aimed at lowering the average age of Oldsmobile buyers. The ad theme, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile,” did not work. The slogan not only alienated loyalists, it did not attract the next generation. The brand that represented respectable middle-class achievement in the 1960s and 1970s lost to the “cool factor” of the 1980s and 1990s.

Ultimately, it became a victim of its own brand. The attempt to distance the Oldsmobile from everything it once stood for failed. The brand was phased out totally in 2004.

There is a new U.S. demography on the horizon. The demographics in several key areas are shifting in the early 21st century. They aren’t your father’s population trends, and the church must be positioned to better serve the changing culture.

There is much to be learned from the spiritual successes of previous decades, but there are also new challenges in society today. No church body desires to phase out because they didn’t attract new people. How local churches address these macro changes in demography, however, will either help or hinder their part in God’s Gospel mission.

The Brookings Institution, one of Washington’s oldest think tanks, awhile back released a report on the latest population trends re-shaping the nation’s largest 100 metropolitan areas. These metro areas account for two-thirds of the U.S. population and they represent the driving force of cultural shifts in our nation. The researchers pulled data from a variety of U.S. Census Bureau sources and examined several population trends currently reshaping Metropolitan America.

Let’s look at some highlights of a new metro demography:

Staying put — for now. Within the industrialized world, the United States has the highest rate of internal migration. In other words, Americans move a lot. Domestic migration across state lines and to other metro areas, however, has slowed substantially in the last two years. In fact, across state movement has been sliced by more than 40 percent since the beginning of the millennium. Places that were once attracting new people are not seeing as large of influxes.

For instance, Florida saw a net decrease in domestic migrants last year, the first time in its history. Additionally, cities that were losing people are seeing slower declines. In the Midwest, 30 of the 44 large metro areas either gained more people or lost fewer people.

Much of this pattern can be attributed to the slower economy, specifically the housing market. Once markets rebound, migration will likely pick up. What is not known is where people will flock, to what degree, and how soon. This trend may not last in the long-term, but it will still be influential in the next five years.

Diversity spreads out and gets younger. Both the source and destination of the foreign-born U.S. population has undergone major shifts in the last several decades. In 1970, only 30 percent of the foreign-born population came from Latin America and Asia. Today that number is 80 percent. In fact, half of the nation’s growth since 2000 is attributable to the Hispanic population.

Previously, immigrants of all backgrounds clustered in urban cores of traditionally diverse cities. The new geography of immigration now includes metro areas that are not accustomed to this diversity. Additionally, the U.S. population is predicted to turn minority white by 2042, but the preschool population will cross this point in 2021. Diversity is spreading geographically and it is becoming younger.

Riding the aging boomer wave. The first of the boomers will hit 65 in less than two years. As a result of this wave, the senior population will grow 36 percent from 2010-2020. Boomers are the first true “suburban generation,” a large segment of them living the majority of their lives in the suburbs. It is likely that many of them will remain in suburban areas, and these areas will “gray” faster than urban areas.

The massive growth of aging boomers will occur in areas unaccustomed to housing older people, specifically in the suburbs of metro areas. The metro areas that are expected to gray the fastest are in the intermountain West, the Southeast and Texas. The senior population will expand by as much as 70 percent in some of these places.

The new metropolitan demography calls for new approaches from the church. Not every change will affect individual churches or communities, but almost every church and community will be influenced by at least one of these newer trends. How might some ministries change in response to these cultural shifts?

1.) An outreach ministry less dependent on new residents. Due to decreased domestic migration, some churches will need to become less dependent on new resident outreach. There are churches that have depended entirely on new residents for their outreach focus. Understandably, someone had to reach out to new people in the community. Unfortunately, these opportunities are not as great in many areas now.

Local congregations should not intentionally neglect ministering to any one segment of people, but there will be many communities that experience substantial drops in new residents. This stoppage may be temporary. During the migration halt, however, these churches would do well to refocus their outreach strategy on existing lost residents. Once migration resumes, they will be well positioned to minister to new and existing people.

2.) A fundamentally different senior adult ministry. With waves of boomers rushing towards the senior adult life stage, churches will need to adjust how they minister to the first suburban generation. Many churches are already experiencing the “I’m not part of that group” mentality with existing senior ministries trying to get older Boomers to join. In short, there is a generational divide.

Boomers are less likely to take fellowship trips or go to group entertainment events. Boomers are more likely to have experienced divorce and have differing family dynamics. Boomer women are more likely to have occupied professional and managerial positions in the workplace compared with previous generations. Boomers are more educated than previous retirees. These reasons plus many others mean that churches will have to rethink how they minister to Boomers as they enter the retirement life stage.

3.) A fundamentally different children’s ministry. Not only will older adult ministries change, but also children’s ministries as well. As diversity spreads out geographically, and as preschools become more diverse, churches must prepare for a different type of ministry to children. Specifically within predominantly white churches, ministry leaders should begin to think about how to accommodate for an influx of children from differing ethnic backgrounds.

While the year 2021 is over a decade away, many metro communities are already beginning to see these types of changes in the preschools and grade schools. Now is the time to begin preparing how your church will respond to the unique make up of your community.

4.) An attitude shift from homogeneous to heterogeneous. As the younger generation ages, they will not recognize the homogeneous unit principal that was championed in the early years of the church growth movement. Basically, this principal states that people desire to worship and serve in church with other similar people, and the best way to reach people is with others who are similar.

The younger generation, as an ethnically diverse group, will not know homogeneity in the same way as previous generations. Many of the younger generation are third culture worlders. Third culture is a sociological term used to describe a person who has spent significant time in another culture, thus incorporating their birth culture with a second culture and creating a third culture. (See Rainer’s article on this in the November 2009 Church Executive.)

The term is typically attached to children who spend large portions of their developmental years outside of their parents’ home culture. Churches should be at the forefront of breaking barriers associated with differing races and ethnicities. It is these churches that the new, more diverse generation will see as normative and culturally relevant.

A new U.S. demography is coming. In many ways, these changes are upon us. There is much to take with us from previous decades and generations. But there is also much we must do in order to reach a changing culture for Christ.

Sam S. Rainer III is president of Rainer Research, and recently became senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Murray, KY. [www.rainerresearch.com, www.fbcmurray.org]

“Get Paid to Go to Church.” This headline appears in classified ads all over Missouri, and it’s catching the attention of unchurched individuals everywhere. It’s not a gimmick or a scam. It’s a mystery visitor program designed to provide feedback to church leaders on how their worship services are experienced by first-time visitors.

The program is similar to mystery shopping which businesses have used for a long time to enhance their customer experience. Churches are now using the same theory to create a more inviting experience for their visitors.

Ron Watts, senior pastor of La Croix Church in Cape Girardeau, MO, which has 2,000-plus in weekly attendance, is one of 25 churches in the state to engage a consulting firm to help guide church growth. He explains: “I know why someone attends a worship service and decides to stay because I get to ask them. What I don’t know is why someone attends a service once and never comes back.”

Watts admits that when the concept of utilizing mystery visitors was first introduced to him, he was interested but also cautious. “We knew that we might not like some of the things we learned about our church in this process, but if we are to do a better job of reaching those outside the church, we need to know.”

Faring better and worse

After receiving the church’s first report, Watts confirmed that it was a good investment. Some categories were better than expected and some fared worse, but all of the feedback was helpful. La Croix is currently implementing changes and are anxious to see how those changes are perceived by the next round of visitors.

Watts was so encouraged by the idea of hiring mystery visitors that he introduced the concept to Bob Farr, director of Congregational Excellence with the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church. Farr is charged with a revitalization mission called the “Healthy Church Initiative.” The Healthy Church Initiative helps many congregations identify and overcome obstacles to vitality.

“Before we started using secret shopper reports, there was a missing piece to the puzzle: We didn’t know what was happening on Sunday morning. Now we are armed with more information and can help the churches fully address their needs,” Farr says.

Farr’s team generally write five prescriptions for each church to help in the revitalization effort. Since employing the mystery visitor program, Farr has found the consultants are able to write one or two of the prescriptions based on the data found in the 12-visit report. “It just adds a whole new dimension in our quest to better understand why the church is declining in membership and how we can help get them back on the path to growth,” he reports.

Never same visitor

The firm sends a different unchurched individual to attend client churches each week and aggregates the written and numerical responses into quarterly reports. This feedback is instrumental in identifying changes that should result in increased attendance and membership.

Common themes that have developed from the shoppers include:

• While congregations may be friendly, they really mean they are friendly to each other. The mystery visitor can feel lost and excluded.
• Some churches have greeters at the beginning of the service, but neglect to offer support and guidance for new-comers after the service is concluded.
• Signage in the larger church is an issue. If there are multiple entrances, visitors don’t know where to enter or where to go once they’re inside.
• Often the language on the sign is “internal speak.”

Mystery visitor programs, focus groups, community surveys and congregation surveys are tools that help churches of all denominations reach people in a more effective way. Remember, it’s not about the “headline,” it’s what you do with the knowledge gained.

Jennifer S. Hendrickson is president of Hendrickson Business Forms, Cape Girardeau, MO. [www.faithperceptions.com]

By Ward Tanneberg

You’ve heard of the 10/40 Window, an area of the world with great poverty and the largest population of non-Christians, extending 10 to 40 degrees from the equator across North Africa to China. But there is another window opening on the world, one that many in the church have grown so accustomed to, we don’t even think of its being there. It’s the 40/50 Window.

It is part of our daily lives, highlighting the fact that nationally 40 percent of Americans are 50+ in age. What is true in this country is happening elsewhere in the world as well. And this percentage is growing every day. Longevity’s gentle revolution has come home to the church.

The American Religious Identity Survey of 2008 reveals that Catholics are closest to this age balance. Baptists, Jews and Pentecostal/Charismatics have the highest proportions of adherents more than 50 years of age. But regardless of where we fit in the grand scheme of Christendom, aging in the church is a topic that is no longer a leader’s option — the truth is that no one expected so many to live so long.

Wisdom being ignored

It is a reality that has been pushed to the background by many as irrelevant and inconsequential to church growth or something to be ignored altogether. For ministry leaders to continue to do so, however, will be akin to acting like Rehoboam of old who ignored the wisdom of his father Solomon’s counselors in favor of his peers, with disastrous consequences.

Understanding the aging of America and its subsequent implications is essential to every church’s health and mission. Empowering 50+ men and women to answer the call and share the values of Jesus with the generations at home and around the world is one of our most pivotal tasks as church leaders.

Inspiring second half Christians to lead in transformational discipleship is vital. Preparing second half Christians for successful and meaningful aging is a critical responsibility. It is time to tackle the questions, test the assumptions, offer practical tools, provide stimulating interaction and leadership insights and take a fresh look at the 40/50 Window.

The simple fact is that an American turns 50 every eight seconds — more than 10,000 people every day. By 2015, those aged 50 and older will represent 45 percent of the U.S. population. If pastors and church leaders place adult ministry on the bottom tier of importance it signals wrong thinking.

Social impact of seniors

Today, men and women aged 50-plus represent one-third of the Internet users in the U.S. They control 67 percent of the nation’s wealth. If that fact alone doesn’t awaken every senior pastor to this powerful reality, I don’t know what will.

But there is more. This age group also represents a large segment of Americans who are currently leaving churches, not because of a loss of faith, but precisely because they want more of God in their life and feel they cannot get what they need from their local church.

The revitalized engagement of men and women aged 50-plus in the church is critical. These “new elders” are looking for attention, inclusion and expression. They are more interested in being the church than in going to church. Meaning and purpose is at the head of their list. This longest living generation is seeking answers to the questions, “Who am I?” “Who is God?” “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

The focus of the church remains primarily on young families, singles, youth and children as it should; but to turn away from addressing the needs and callings of men and women at midlife and beyond is foolhardy leadership.

Many at this point in their journey do not have an understanding of the calling of God as it relates to them personally. This is our job as pastors and teachers. There is a hunger at midlife and beyond for fresh meaning and purpose, for a holy adventure. This hunger is God given and often fulfilled on the way through value-added moments of everyday life. We are surprised by our own story, by the core of who we’ve become so far, by our gifts and skills and by what moves us deeply. Older adults seek spiritual guidance. They still have something of high value to give away. In numbers, they are at least 40 percent of the body of Christ. They are important.

Core factors in reaching seniors

How might we go about reaching, retaining, recharging, reinventing, restoring, reinvesting and releasing this powerful demographic in our churches, our land and our world? Remember, whatever your age as a pastor or ministry leader, the 40/50 Window is a window you will have to look through and deal with every day of the rest of your life. Here are some core factors:

Reach. Take initiative. Show your interest. Listen. Ask questions of your second half constituents about where they are at this stage in their life journey. Keep listening. Encourage them to tell you their story—their whole story. Listen some more. Encourage them in their discovery of fresh Kingdom meaning, purpose and calling. Show that you believe in them. Reaching this age group is often more about listening than telling.

Refuse. Say no to marginalizing older adults. Repel ageism in your church. Cultivate a sense of belonging and respect and nurture deeper intergenerational relationships. Seek ways to inter-generate. Jonathan Alexander, senior pastor at Northshore Baptist Church, Bothell, WA, has a goal of having “gray hair” visible in every department and ministry of the church. In other words, he is promoting among staff and congregation the fruitfulness of intergenerational ministry.

Retain. Study issues that surround the second half of life. Investigate. Read. Consider the online CASA Academy, an exciting new educational component of CASA’s 26 -year ministry, beginning in September 2009, with a focus on Second Half Adult Ministry. (See sidebar.)

Recharge. Fuel spiritual life among second half adults in your church and community. Help them overcome spiritual or emotional malaise and apathy. Lead by word and example. Inspire fresh thinking about the present and future of their lives. Bring your best and brightest together to explore the possibilities that they see among themselves. These can be their greatest, most productive and most joy-filled years.

Reinvent. Brainstorm new “legacy ideas.” How can each individual make an effective and useful contribution of God-given gifts, acquired skills and accumulated resources? What passions are in their hearts? Do they see themselves nearing the end of life or ready for a new beginning? Often it is up to the pastor/leader to inspire fresh thinking, to encourage second half adults to dream again. Involve them in strategic planning for ministry among their peers and the generations. For those with a passion for world missions, FinishersProject.org is an ideal way to connect.

Restore. Give attention to special discipling opportunities with those entering their 40s, 50s and 60s. Will this take time? Of course. Is the igniting of fresh passion in hearts of less importance than tending the politics and administration of the church? Midlife is a period in which significant life change is taking place. It is a season in which “office” should give way to “influence,” when relationships are increasingly important and a renewed sense of divine calling is vital. If you want to invite someone to participate in a ministry, start at the top of what you think is needed for that project and what they might give, not at the bottom. People want to be challenged, not coddled.

Reinvest. Give and receive affirmation and respect. Invest in others. As you show genuine interest in them, it inspires them to pass that interest on to others you will never touch. Demonstrate the sense of personal worth and value. Being valued is something often missing in the lives of older adults, even in today’s church. In a culture focused on youth, beauty and productivity, older Christians often feel left out of the picture even though this season in their lives could be the most beautiful and productive of all.

Release. “Let my people go!” When you show interest and confidence and a willingness to discover what God is saying to them (as opposed to simply filling holes in something you’ve already planned), you can almost feel the fresh wind of the Spirit blowing. Sometimes their dreams and vision will augment that of your church’s mission. Often it may exceed what you yourself have imagined. Your job may simply be to help clarify realistic objectives, strategies and action steps and let them go. Will it be messy at times? Of course. Will it be a holy adventure? Absolutely!

There has been a great deal of conversation about today’s “emerging church.” Looking through the 40/50 Window, I see another emerging church, one that blends tradition with daring and experience with the unknown. It is an emerging church with great power and potential and more than a little gray hair. If you lead well within it, you will be abundantly blessed as will every generation that is coming after.

Dr. Ward Tanneberg is executive director of CASA — Christian Association Serving Adult Ministries. [www.goCASA.org]

• Designed for pastors and leaders in second half ministry
• Unique approach to online education
• Academic excellence, accessible world-wide
• Complete each course at your own pace
• Network with faculty and other students
• Biblically based and creatively presented

For more information and registration for the Academy visit www.goCASA.org or call 888-200-8552. CASA Academy is a division of Christian Association Serving Adult Ministries, 2880 Vision Court, Aurora, IL 60506-8886.

By Charles Arn

Healthy organisms grow. Healthy people grow, healthy animals grow, healthy trees grow, healthy plants grow and healthy churches grow. It is a characteristic that God supernaturally breathed into all living things. And the body of Christ — the local church — is a living thing.

So, when a church is not growing, it is an important question to ask why.

A good doctor will not prescribe an antidote until he or she first identifies the problem. The same is true for an intervention in a non-growing church. The first matter is to identify the problem. Just as there can be many reasons for a stomach ache, there can be many reasons for non-growth. Like a stomach ache, non-growth is a symptom, not the problem. If the reasons for non-growth are identified and eliminated, many churches experience new outreach and new people coming to Christ.

So what keeps churches from growing? Here are five general “growth-restricting obstacles.” I don’t intend to solve each problem here, but rather to sensitize us to the categories which will give a better ability to diagnose a situation. When the diagnosis is accurate, the prescription will be both easier and most effective.

Growth-restricting obstacle #1: THE PASTOR. There are three different situations in which the pastor can inhibit the growth of a church.

The pastor does not have a priority for outreach. Some pastors simply don’t want to spend the time and energy to lead a growing church. Leading a growing church takes more work than leading a declining one. Perhaps the pastor has never been convicted that reaching lost people is a priority for his or her church. Possibly the pastor is unwilling to risk making the changes in budget or programs or worship service that would be necessary to reach unchurched people. A church led by a pastor with a low priority for reaching new people is not likely to grow.

The pastor does not have a vision for growth. Growing churches have pastors who believe God wants their church to grow. Solomon said, “Without a vision, the people perish.” That is also true for a church. A lack of vision is just as much a barrier to outreach as a lack of priority. A pastor desiring a growing church must have a vision of what God wants that church to become and then communicate that vision to the people.

The pastor does not have the knowledge of how churches grow. There are many pastors who are wonderful spiritual leaders. But they have never learned the principles of how churches grow. Working harder is not the secret to church growth. The secret is working smarter. Unfortunately, little is taught in seminaries or Bible schools about why people come to church, why they leave, and what can be done to increase church growth. If more pastors knew and then applied these principles, more churches would grow.

Growth-restricting obstacle #2: THE CHURCH MEMBERS. While the pastor may be the obstacle to growth in some churches, there are many competent clergy ministering in non-growing churches where the reason for non-growth is in the pews. Church members can keep a church from growing when:

Members have no personal priority for reaching the lost. Some members of non-growing churches believe that the benefit they will receive from participating in church outreach activities is simply not worth the cost. “Sure, our church should reach people,” they say. “But me? I’ve got three kids, a job, membership at the health club, and a lawn to mow. Someone else with more time should certainly feel compelled.”

Members have a self-serving attitude about church. While evangelism is a nice thing to do, some members believe, the real priority of the pastor should be to feed the sheep. Such a conviction sees the pastor’s most important jobs as preaching to members, teaching members, counseling members and calling on members.

Members fear that church growth will destroy their fellowship. Some members unknowingly frustrate church growth because they fear that growth brings loss of community and sense of family. So they act in a manner that says to newcomers, “We like our church the way it is and newcomers like you are not important.”

Beyond the pastor and members, there are other growth-restricting obstacles that keep churches from growing.

Growth restricting obstacle #3: PERCEIVED IRRELEVANCE. One difference between growing and non-growing churches is how the church is perceived by the people in its community. Growing churches are making the Gospel relevant to the concerns and needs of people in the 21st century. Arnell ArnTessoni, former church planting director with the American Baptist Churches, observed: “It’s not so much the Gospel that is the secret to reaching people but the clothes in which we dress our Lord …” Growing churches start with the issues and concerns of the people they are trying to reach.

Growth restricting obstacle #4: USING THE WRONG 
METHODS. Peter Wagner, an early church growth authority, 
spoke about effective evangelism more than 30 years ago and said, “You can’t go into a ripe field of wheat and expect to bring in the harvest — if you are using a corn picker.” Many churches are well intentioned, but simply misdirected in their outreach strategies; they are using the wrong methods for to bring in the harvest.

Perhaps the outdated method is passing out gospel literature in an urban neighborhood; having evangelistic tent meetings; trying to grow a youth ministry when most people in the community are senior adults. None of these methods are wrong. It’s just that they are inappropriate for the “harvest field” in which the church is placed. Using inappropriate methods is a growth-restricting obstacle.

Growth restricting obstacle #5: NO PLAN FOR 
ASSIMILATION. There was a sad story in the Los Angeles Times of a young, unwed mother who gave birth to her baby in the women’s restroom of a department store, and left it there for anyone who might stumble upon it. I believe some churches do a similar thing to their new baby Christians.

They leave them on their own to survive, rather than having a plan to assimilate them into a caring, loving, nurturing Christian church. New Christians do not automatically become active church members. It takes a priority, time and nurturing meaningful relationships to see new members get past that 
critical first year.

There are many reasons why churches don’t grow. But there are no good reasons. Healthy churches grow. God wants your church to grow. He created it to grow. Sometimes it’s just a matter of finding out why it’s not growing, and removing those obstacles.

Charles Arn is executive director of Church Growth Inc., Monrovia, CA [churchgrowth.net]