CE Interview: Randy Weaver, Senior Pastor, Lone Star Cowboy Church, Montgomery, TX

“A lot of the same attitudes that horses have, people have. Some horses want to rebel, and some horses want to submit. Some horses want to learn, and some horses they won’t let anybody take care of them. They’ll try to hurt you. Some people just don’t want to serve God,” says Randy Weaver.

Randy Weaver walked into his office with a big smile and a brown bag. “I’m finishing lunch,” he announced unpretentiously. Forget about the stereotype cowboy persona: uncouth, violent, lawless. This mild-mannered cowboy pastor has a genuine way of putting people at ease – one might say a skill he honed over many years of training horses and doing rodeos.

Pastor Randy and his wife of 23 years, Darla, have traveled the rodeo circuit participating in rodeos and doing church services at the rodeos for cowboys. “They live on the road and stay on the road, so what we did was take Jesus to them,” Weaver says. The couple also ministered as racetrack chaplains at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston. Weaver says he and his wife feel responsible to people they know and understand, and that they always knew God had a place for them to land.

That place is Lone Star Cowboy Church, which Randy and Darla started in 2000 with the help of friends. Located in Montgomery city (population: 500 people) in Montgomery, Texas, the church today is a place of worship for roughly 2,000 believers in Montgomery and surrounding cities, including even those from as far as Houston and College Station.

How do you further relate horses with people?

We’re busy with people who want to seek after God. The ones who don’t want to seek Him, we’ll just let God work on them. When they’re ready, we’ll get them. I’ve trained horses all my life, and it is so applicable to people. Part of discipleship is training people to follow Christ, to be a servant. A horse with a good attitude will wait until the master comes to get him and then he’ll submit to whatever the master has for him.

Are cowboys the target group of your church?

I’m always amused at questions like this. I’ve been to a lot of ministry meetings and conferences, and they always tell you that you have to have a target group. I don’t buy into that so much. Our target group is anybody who wants to seek after God. Our mission statement is to reach, teach and disciple the wise who will seek Him. Whoever is out there, we want to reach them, we want to teach them and we want to disciple them. Just because we are a cowboy church doesn’t mean only cowboys come. We want anybody who is attracted to this type of ministry.

Why do we need a cowboy church?

We need a cowboy church because there are certain types of people who are not attracted to a conventional church. I can’t tell you how many people have come to our church that had not been in church in 10, 20, 30, or 50 years. They came and gave their hearts to the Lord. They were baptized and began to become Christ followers. If we believe that God is a God of variety, why do we try to make churches look the same or have the same programs? Ultimately what we are trying to do is to be obedient to a calling that is specific for us. I believe in innovative ways of reaching the lost. I believe excellence is non-negotiable for churches that want to be successful. But I don’t buy the idea of being culturally [relevant] like everybody thinks we ought to be.

What is different about the way you do church – music, for example?

I’m not a fan of trying to make everybody happy on the music side. I think part of worship is saying I’m going to honor the style of music that somebody else likes. We change it up, but we don’t change the songs for every service. We don’t say, “Hey, if you don’t like this style of song, stick around ‘coz the next one will be different.” We sing a lot of worship songs that you hear on Christian radio stations, but we put a country flair to these songs. We ramp up some old gospel songs. We rock the house.

In reaching the lost, you’ve got to go where they are in order to get them where they need to be in Christ. I believe churches are called to bridge gaps. Every Sunday morning, we probably give out 60 dozen donuts, free coffee and free iced tea. When we were in a tent before we built our sanctuary, we gave out about five dozens to six dozens donuts every weekend. When we moved in the new sanctuary, some people said we can’t afford to be buying all these donuts and we sure don’t need to be taking them inside with all those brand-new chairs. I said wait, wait, wait. This worked in the tent, and it will work here. Let them bring their drinks and donuts in the church. If somebody messes up a chair, we’re going to clean it. If we can’t clean it, we’re going to buy a new chair. People are more important than chairs. God gave me a word early in the ministry. He said never sacrifice people for projects.

How about your preaching style? Is there a “cowboy” flavor to it?

An advantage that I have is that I have animals. I have horses, cows and dogs. There are a lot of sermon illustrations that come from farm animals. We bring in those illustrations, as well as the illustrations of rodeos. I believe Jesus met people where they were by telling them earthly stories with a heavenly meaning, such as the parables. We really adopted that style in reaching people. We use stories about what people are going through. For example, my wife and I have tried to be transparent with our people about our own struggles in following Christ and in our marriage. I think people buy into God more when we’re honest and transparent.

We baptize new believers every last Sunday of the month. We baptize them in a horse trough. Almost every weekend, somebody gives their heart to the Lord. We invite them to come to the front. A lot of churches don’t do that anymore, and that’s fine, but it works for us.

What events and activities attract people to your church?

We have cowboy outreaches such as He Paid Your Fees, where we do roping, barrel racing and barbecue cookoffs. We give prize money, saddles and all kinds of awards at these competitions. The entry fee is they have to come to church. Other churches have softball leagues or basketball leagues. We have roping and bull rides and barrel racing – it’s different but the same.

Another major event is the Rodeo Bible Camp for our kids. We invite world-champion cowboys – people who’ve been to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nevada – to share their testimonies about what God has done for them. So many of our kids today have a lot of issues related to drugs, alcohol, illicit relationships, abuse, and abortion. These guys and gals that we’ve invited give their testimonies about how God found them where they were and brought them out of those issues.

One thing that’s different about our church is we have a rodeo arena. Nobody has an arena at their church. People in our church also open up their own arena for our camp. We haul off 40 to 70 horses a day to different places. It’s a great community affair. We also have an alternative to Halloween; we call it West Fest. We’ve seen hundreds of people give their hearts to the Lord at these outreach events.

You and Darla co-pastor the church. How did you arrive at this decision and how is it working?

The gifts that I don’t have, Darla has, and the gifts that Darla doesn’t have, I have. Many times we would rub against one another. Sometimes it’s a grind, because we don’t always agree. But I learned a long time ago that it’s not really about whether I agree with Darla or Darla agrees with me. Our biggest challenge is to agree with God. I have a tremendous confidence that my wife has the ability to hear from God. In such times, I have to submit to her and come under her authority.

Sometimes she has to submit to me because I get a word from God. Over the years we’ve learned how to submit to one another. But it’s something that we continue to work at because we’re still in the flesh. That’s part of what keeps us on our knees. We’re not ashamed to say that we need God’s intervention in our lives every moment, every day.

Did your church welcome and support this leadership model from the beginning?

Not so in the beginning. It’s hard for women to be in ministry. I believe in respect and honor, but not everybody believes that a woman should have authority as a pastor. It was a tough go at the beginning of the church. I take my hat off to my wife, because she persevered through those hard times. And she still has those challenges to a degree. But God has been faithful. He’s really blessed us, and that’s how we know we’re on track. Submitting to an individual who is called by God – whether it’s a man or a woman – is very close to the heart of God. A lot of women can hear from God better than men can – I don’t know why, but they do.

What kind of leaders are effective in a cowboy church?

They have to be authentic. If they pretend to be something that they’re not, the church is not the place for them – Hollywood is where they need to be. Whatever we do has to be real and authentic. Just because you own a hat or a pair of boots or a horse doesn’t make you a cowboy. We have pastors on staff who are not cowboys, but they don’t pretend to be cowboys. All we do is try to reach people by who we are. If Christ is in us, and we’re cowboys and that attracts people, then we use that to help them come to Christ. Let God use the background that He’s given you for the kingdom. I believe that will bring more success in any church.

This is a tale of two churches that sit opposite each other on a road near my home. On the south side of the road is a Lutheran congregation of maybe 300 people.

Their website has attractive photos of Arizona scenes, no photos of congregants or the pastor. Nothing is said about its mission or history, but much is said about being Lutheran. There’s one Sunday service.

Across that same road is a Baptist church of about 5,000 people that has been there 10 years. It merged last year with another church in another town 10 miles away, and became multi-site earlier with a venue 50 miles south in a growing community. They have a Saturday evening service and three more on Sunday. They don’t identify their denomination on the website.

We see this scenario often as we drive around our communities. One could just as easily exchange the church labels. Old, established congregations that stay the same, changing little. Others are young, new, vibrant churches that draw in new people. What makes the difference between them? The descriptors above may give hints, but don’t really explain why one church stays small in numbers and the other reaches many more families and fills more needs.

The other day I had the chance to spend valuable face time with Don Wilson, senior pastor of Christ’s Church of the Valley in Peoria, AZ, a congregation of 17,000 and opening a third venue in Scottsdale, AZ, in August. I asked him, what makes the difference?

First, growth depends on leadership, he says, noting what John Maxwell has famously been quoted on that everything rises or falls on leadership. Wilson shares the view that about 5 percent of pastors have the leadership gift.

Another thing holding back churches is their structure, he says. Independent and charismatic churches grow, but if a church has to take everything to a vote of the congregation, it is not likely to thrive. Too often, Wilson opines, the least spiritual people in that kind of church control the church and they have the view “we’ll outlast you.”

He’s not speaking of “dictator models” for successful congregations, but of servant leadership and that churches tend to grow in direct relationship to their ability to endure pain, that is, criticism.

A church is not a democracy, some say. More often than not a growing church may have members vote on receiving a new pastor and affirming the governing board, but little else. In the church of my youth the denomination went to boards of administration and eliminated the elder body (that they came to believe was meddling too much), and the denomination has been on a downward trend ever since. I was in two different ELCA churches when the denomination was revising the bylaws, and in one we eased out the senior pastor as board chairman and gave the role to a lay person. I have wondered since whether that was the smartest move for the vitality of that congregation, though other factors were involved.

There is no one biblical form of church government, but when it comes to leadership and mission and growth, some forms work better than others. This is explained well in two books: Elders and Leaders: God’s Plan for Leading the Church, by Gene A. Getz (Moody, 2003), the founder of many of the Fellowship churches in Texas and elsewhere, and 40 Questions About Elders and Deacons, by Benjamin L. Merkle (Kregel, 2008).

The Holy Spirit may have the last word in a church’s rise or fall, but sometimes he can use a little help from the pew too.

Got a question or comment? Email Ron@ChurchExecutive.com

It’s been said that the three most important rules of real estate are “location, location, location!” Likewise, managing any size church staff has a similar critical rule: “communication, communication, communication.”  Like most great leadership lessons, we learned this the hard way.

Early last year I sat in a meeting discussing the challenges of keeping a staff of high-octane people on the same page, avoiding train wrecks, easing frustration, and building trust between more than 50 teammates.

As our church reached adolescence (14 years old) we were experiencing some growing pains that accompany double-digit attendance growth each year for the last five years, including a year of 65 percent growth when we moved out of a school and into a permanent facility.

Our leadership staff knew we had to make some changes to maintain the healthy culture we had spent years cultivating. We narrowed the communication issues (which are still in process) to two general areas of focus to be immediately addressed: staff-wide communication and one-on-one communication.

Staff-wide communication
During a providential trip to a great church in Indiana for some benchmarking, I was encouraged and challenged by the intentionality with which they joined their whole staff together each week for a time of fellowship, worship, teaching and prayer. Rather than the typical all-staff business meeting, this time served to join the large staff together and pour life and encouragement into them. I quickly felt the sense of urgency and confirmation that Faithbridge needed a similar moment in our busy week.

We decided to phase in the meeting, first quarterly, then monthly, and now we have “StaffLink,” our weekly Tuesday morning all-staff meeting, for one hour. We come together for fellowship, worship, teaching, prayer and announcements.  This moment in our week has made a huge difference in the forging of relationships and trust between ministry areas and between the leadership and our staff.

We are continually revamping and retooling to make sure that the one hour is a “get-to” and not a “have-to,” discerning the overall temperature of the staff. This past December we opened our second on-site venue during the Advent season capped off by eight Christmas Eve services and we could tell that the staff was tired.

We needed a way to celebrate a great year, a completed building project, and a successful Advent season, so we converted “StaffLink” into a three-hour long “Staff Fun Day.” We asked the staff members for interesting facts about themselves, created a sheet for all to guess which fact went with which staff member, took all (now 60) team members to lunch at a local family-style Italian restaurant and just enjoyed each other’s company.

It truly was a special time and everyone came back to the church offices with big smiles and happy memories. Celebrating all God has done in our midst was definitely a landmark on the landscape of our staff culture.

One-on-one communication
There is nothing worse than doing a good job and not knowing if your supervisor even notices all the hard work and effort you put forth. The flip-side is also true; it is completely unfair to an employee to let them continue down a path that is unhelpful, unhealthy, or just plain wrong.  With that in mind, we have decided to no longer accept the minimum standards of an annual review that deals with 12-month-old information and delays praise or correction. Instead, an annual review is only part of our overall performance review process.

Currently, we have in place a three-tiered approach: monthly check-in, quarterly review, and annual review. The monthly check-in is an informal hour set aside specifically for celebrating achievements and dealing with correction. The timeliness of the celebration of an achievement is so important and helps keep momentum and energy building within the employee. Likewise, the timeliness of dealing with an employee or a situation that needs some correction is vital to maintaining health, holding short accounts, and clearly defining expectations.

The quarterly review
The quarterly review is a set of five questions that focuses on key information for discussion and future planning. We essentially do three quarterly reviews (1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarter) while the fourth-quarter review is a combination of an annual review and all three previous quarters.  The five questions we ask our staff to complete prior to each quarterly review are:

1. My greatest sense of ministry accomplishment or fulfillment the past quarter has been …
2. The ministry goals I am prioritizing highest the next three months are …
3. We will know when each of these goals has been achieved when we see the following outcomes …
4. To help lead my area of ministry to achieve these goals, I am presently taking the following steps/prioritizing the following key activities …
5. The way you (your supervisor) could best help me in my ministry right now is …

The annual/fourth-quarter review is a 20-question self-review and adds questions regarding long-term goals and dreams. The annual review rarely has any surprises since we hopefully have celebrated accomplishments and dealt with issues as they arise in the monthly check-in and quarterly review times. This three-tiered approach has served the leadership and staff well in communicating very deliberately and clearly the expectations for both supervisors and employees.

Frequent, specific and focused communication is the pulse of any healthy organization.  We are striving to communicate well on a large scale and on a personal level, pursuing what we call “Ministry Excellence,” recognizing we are not perfect but giving our best to honor God and inspire others.

Brian McGown is executive pastor at Faithbridge, a United Methodist Church, Spring, TX. www.Faithbridge.org

By Ronald E. Keener

Bill Cripe’s faith journey began in high school when he attended the First Church of Christ Scientists, and on entering the Army two barracks buddies recently converted to Christ began challenging him on his beliefs as a Christian Scientist.

“I realized I needed to learn what Christian Science actually taught, and on reading Science Health, the teachings of the church, I realized that Mary Baker Eddy, the founder, redefined virtually every tenet of biblical Christianity. So while the language was similar, it had radically different meaning,” he says.

He particularly took issue with Mrs. Eddy on page 23 where she wrote: “That God’s wrath should be vented upon his own beloved son is divinely unnatural. Such a theory is man-made.” Remembers Cripe, “In one sentence she discards the very core of salvation by grace through faith. Jesus is totally redefined in Christian Science as a normal human being who ‘demonstrated the Christ principle’ or ‘Christ truth.’”

Is there a tie between Christian Science and the prosperity gospel of today?

Not an intentional tie certainly but the process of refusing the intrusion of reality in a fallen world is pretty much the same. Through positive thinking, positive affirmation or positive confession, you change what otherwise might have been a negative outcome.

You write in your book, “The prosperity gospel is the very antithesis of the gospel of Christ.”
Jesus came to have first place in everything. Because of Jesus and the Gospel, we see what is important in life; God’s Spirit empowers us to give up right to self to the glory of God. All that we do is supposed to be for the glory of the Lord. The prosperity gospel, however, is all about ME and how God exists to grant my every wish. I am at the center of everything. Even when the prosperity preachers speak of giving they do so in self-serving terms. That is, give so that God will give YOU back even MORE!

So what is the “proper pursuit of prosperity,” the title of your book?

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and everything else will be added unto you.” There is blessing in obedience but we still live in a fallen world with old natures that war against the soul. The rain still falls on both the just and the unjust and not necessarily because of a lack of faith. If we are seeking to glorify the Lord in all that we do, not so that we can enrich our surroundings, but because he is worthy of our love regardless of what he does or doesn’t do; that is the proper pursuit.

What is your main concern for prosperity preaching? You write, “One of the hallmarks of prosperity preaching is that it focuses on the shinier parts of Scripture while selectively ignoring the not-so-lustrous ones.”

It contains many partial truths and “god talk” to sound perfectly biblical. But context is often entirely ignored or even full statements are condensed to avoid the “rest of the story.” For example, “He will give you the desires of your heart,” is a nice thought; “Trust also in him, and he will do it,” is reassuring. But the Psalm contains a rather important caveat, for the complete thought says, “Delight yourself in the LORD” and “Commit your way to the LORD.” This puts an entirely different emphasis on the real promise beyond God existing to be one’s personal wish machine. People are being duped into a “religious” understanding of who God is and why they exist, but it is a bill of goods.

What do you make of Joel Osteen’s prosperity gospel?

Osteen’s variety of it is over the top as clearly revealed in Your Best Life Now. At times it is hard to tell the difference between his recipe for prosperity and the New Age Movement’s suggestion that we can create our own reality.

You write in the book, “As far as we could tell from the pages of the Bible, the only prosperity God promised was giving us our daily bread, and even in that, we needed to exercise some responsibility.” What do you mean?

The words are foundational to the understanding of what God’s promises as provision entail. To the prosperity preachers, it assumes far more than “needs.” But the prosperity gospel feeds right into the American mindset of abundance. God’s promise for provision as you trace it through the history of God’s people right into the New Testament (Matthew 6) are for the essentials of life — shelter, clothing, and nutrition.

Even in that, God still expects human responsibility and integrity to be part of the equation. It is always curious when someone walks in off the street to our church asking for “help” with gas or food. They invariably reek of cigarette smoke and they almost always have a cell phone. Even many “poor” who claim a faith in Christ have cable or dish TV, Internet, a vehicle and many luxuries of life. (I’d love to write on the “real” poor and a biblical understanding of welfare for my next book.)

Isn’t it difficult to tell people, as you write in the book, that “The hard truth is that a tendency of suffering in this life is more normal for the Christian than the promise of perfect health and extraordinary wealth”? What is the short answer to us in accepting that statement?

Ironically, this takes little convincing since that is what most people’s reality is! The prosperity gospel is utterly contrary to what most people live and experience around them, but they want it so bad that they will grasp at nearly anything.

What do you mean when writing about “Christianized junk food”?

I like a good custard-filled Danish with a cup of coffee for breakfast, extra cheesy pizza for lunch, a mocha chip grande frappacino in the afternoon, and KFC for dinner with a night cap of two scoops of ice cream with hot fudge and whipped cream. It would be sheer reverie.

And if that was my steady diet I would be malnourished and sickly.

It all tastes great but it isn’t what my body needs to remain alive and active. The prosperity message is so narrowly focused and redundant on only the very positive aspects of the Bible and they may sound great, they may make you feel good, and they may — for a season — lift your spirit. But there is so much more in Scripture that categorically warns against our earthly existence being defined by what we have.

After all, it is all destined to perish even if it is realized here and now. The prosperity preachers I listened to or read when writing my book only ever serve pretzels, cupcakes and soda consciously omitting the other side of the walk of faith. (Hebrews 11 for example.)

Once the realities of living in a fallen world set in, faith is destroyed for the only explanation is that either I didn’t have enough faith, or God just doesn’t think as much of me as he does the “blessed” one.

I understand you have a burgeoning Muslim community developing in Portland and Lewiston that may come to your town too. How should Christians relate to Muslims?

I recently spoke on this using the book of Jonah, relating the Ninevite “problem” with the Muslim “problem.” (Audio streamed at www.fefchurch.org.) Muslims are people made in the image of God for whom Christ died. I was wayward as an adherent of Christian Science and two friends who cared about me were willing to challenge me on what I believed.

Muslims have a devout faith and sincerely want to go to heaven, but in the rubric of Islam that is impossible to know and impossible to become a reality if the Bible is right — which it is.

Muslims are more difficult to reach than some because there is tremendous fear on the followers of Islam. Exploration of other faith systems isn’t tolerated. We have a couple in one of those communities who are obtaining training in hopes of returning to the Middle East.

They reside in a Muslim community of refugees trying to get to know them and to show them the love of Christ. It seems the Lord is bringing them to us!

Reaching out to Muslims as we would any unbeliever is what we are called to do. But this doesn’t mean we – as a nation – must abandon principles of common sense and fiscal viability. There is a steep cost involved and our system of welfare is not sustainable. If we are to continue helping people who truly need it we cannot welcome a limitless number of people with a limitless bucket of benefits.

As Christian Americans we are also called to participate in the freedoms we have by virtue of our system of government which means we must be involved in the political discussions, decisions and legislative processes of our country.

The influx of Muslims into some of the communities in Maine are not without challenges, both attitudinal and practical. How should a pastor prepare his congregation for a demographic change that brings Muslims to the community, to the schools, to the churches?

Jonah hated the Ninevites and with good reason. They were a violent, relentless and merciless war machine which God had used to discipline Israel numerous times in their history prior to Jonah. The last thing Jonah wanted was for them to be spared.

For many Christians, I believe Muslims are the new Ninevites. The Bible doesn’t call on us to be naive. Obviously there are Muslims who want us dead. But Muslims are coming to America. Where some are trying to restructure our culture, we can and must resist the redefining of America to a country of Sharia Law or a country having one set of rules for them and one for us.

But not all Muslims are the enemy. I am realizing that just as we have many people who call themselves Christian, and have a very warped understanding and explanation of much that is in the Bible, Muslims are no different. They have disparate views of the teachings of the Koran and what they mean. The bottom line is, I truly have to submit to the Spirit of my Lord, not to my fleshly patriotism. At the end of it all, I exist to advance the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of America.

Your congregation’s facilities are in what is termed a “big box.” How did that come about? How is it “a beacon on the hill” for your community?

Hoyt’s Cinema divested themselves of their American theaters and the Waterville Cineplex (six theaters) went up for sale. We were in a converted duplex outside of town which had a maximum capacity of about 200 seats and we were landlocked. We scrapped our plans for building at a new location and bought the cinema.

After running into nearly unanimous opposition from our city due to the loss of potential tax revenue, the Lord gave us a way to by-pass the City Fathers and we purchased the property, retrofitting it for our purposes. Waterville is a small town and the theater is on the main drag in the heart of the business strip. For a decade leading up to this move I was a columnist for the Central Maine newspapers so my name and the church were well known before we ever moved, but we were invisible. Now it is hard not to pass the building going in or out of town. The physical visibility has been a blessing.

In what ways is the congregation engaged in its community?

From our earliest days as a small church we inserted ourselves into the community through my writing in the newspapers but also by offering a very Christ-centered community Easter and Christmas Eve service on neutral territory. For us it was in the town’s historic Opera House. Even though this bi-annual event cost our tiny church nearly $2,000 for each service, the result was “everyone” knew of us.

As a matter of course, we have sponsored events that have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to aid our community with everything from heating oil to winter clothing for families of the community. There is a beleaguered community only a mile from our church, but it is another culture. We began penetrating the community by repairing bicycles for the kids and cleaning up the neighborhood each Spring.

After a few years, we were trusted more in the community and we seized an opportunity to provide an after school program for the children that now goes through junior high. We also help with Christmas presents and other practical expressions of Christ’s love. Just this past weekend we were cited in the paper for contributing about half the cost of a 60-bed homeless shelter operated by another church in another community to our north. www.fcfchurch.org

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‘Cheap grace’ abounds in many churches

The book, The Proper Pursuit of Prosperity: Balancing the Promises of Heaven with the Experiences of Earth (Tate Publishing, 2011), highlights the most obvious abuses of the Gospel of our Lord but the concern is across the board and goes well beyond prosperous North America. Every pastor of every church wearing the name of Christ should examine the quality of his or her preaching, realizing we will be held to a stricter judgment. (James 3:1)

When the budget of the local church is already pretty tight, and the pastor’s preaching brings them to eternal punishment, or moral purity in all we do – pornography, sexual impurity, sexual perversion, addictions (which include caloric intake, caffeine, and sugar not just cocaine, heroin and marijuana and alcohol) or financial responsibility, tithing and credit card abuse — and the pastor avoids it because of the negative impact it might have on attendance, that church has just taken another step closer to the prosperity gospel.

Dietrich Bonhoffer’s “cheap grace” abounds today in many of our churches. What we are producing are pseudo-Christians who will run at the first sign of their faith costing them something.  — WEC

The most overused word in an election year is probably “projected,” as in Wolf Blitzer saying, “CNN now projects the winner will be…”

We all like to think about what a new year will be like, usually giving it a more rosy picture than it will turn out to be, but then the human condition thrives on hope, doesn’t it?

I turned to Church Executive’s editorial panel (their names are on page 6 on the masthead) for some wisdom for the year ahead, and “it’s the economy, silly” that came to the top of the heap, of course.

“Interest rates have been bouncing off of historic lows for a number of months now [this being written in January],” writes Dan Mikes, evp and manager of Religious Institution Banking at Bank of the West. “Consequently, it has been easy for religious organizations with existing debt to be complacent about refinancing. However, at some point the market will anticipate that a sustained economic recovery and unprecedented levels of cash printing will bring inflationary pressures, and this will cause interest rates to move upward, perhaps significantly.

“Consequently, even churches facing prepayment penalties should do the math now to determine whether refinancing makes sense,” says Mikes. “We expect to see an increase in construction financing requests as the economy continues to recover. As consumer sentiment improves, church leadership may be more comfortable with moving forward with expansion projects that may have been put on hold.”

From the insurance side of the economy, Eric Spacek, senior manager for GuideOne Risk Management and Loss Control, observes that “churches have been enjoying very competitive and low rates for their property, liability and business auto insurance coverage over the past several years. However, the insurance market is showing initial signs that it is starting to turn.

“If this continues to happen, it is anticipated that churches will start to see hardening or increasing property and casualty insurance rates in 2012 and beyond,” Spacek believes.

CFO Denise Craig at Abba’s House suggests that it is a “pivotal year” and that “leaders need to be at the top of their game, honing their skills and remaining dedicated to life-long learning in a time of rapidly-advancing technology.”

Mark Simmons, business manager at California’s Christ Community Church, sees accelerating trends toward online church activities with an increasing variety of devices. “As an example,” he says, “our pastoral search went through almost wholesale transformation as a printed report describing our church was replaced with multi-media available through our website, initial reviews from a couple page resume were replaced by the search committee listening to the candidate speak by downloading podcasts and going to their current church’s website and blogs to learn more about the candidates.

Similarly on the technology side, he sees the beginning of new church systems software that integrate the various church functions into a suite of applications.

Circling back to the economy, Steve Briggs, associate pastor for administration at First Baptist Church, Hendersonville, NC, worries that “many churches will continue to struggle to meet their operating budgets. Mainstream media will ‘spin’ a lot of good news about the economy in a presidential year that may or may not be real.”

Got a question or comment? Email Ron@ChurchExecutive.com

The most overused word in an election year is probably “projected,” as in Wolf Blitzer saying, “CNN now projects the winner will be…”

We all like to think about what a new year will be like, usually giving it a more rosy picture than it will turn out to be, but then the human condition thrives on hope, doesn’t it?

I turned to Church Executive’s editorial panel (their names are on page 6 on the masthead) for some wisdom for the year ahead, and “it’s the economy, silly” that came to the top of the heap, of course.

“Interest rates have been bouncing off of historic lows for a number of months now [this being written in January],” writes Dan Mikes, evp and manager of Religious Institution Banking at Bank of the West. “Consequently, it has been easy for religious organizations with existing debt to be complacent about refinancing. However, at some point the market will anticipate that a sustained economic recovery and unprecedented levels of cash printing will bring inflationary pressures, and this will cause interest rates to move upward, perhaps significantly.

“Consequently, even churches facing prepayment penalties should do the math now to determine whether refinancing makes sense,” says Mikes. “We expect to see an increase in construction financing requests as the economy continues to recover. As consumer sentiment improves, church leadership may be more comfortable with moving forward with expansion projects that may have been put on hold.”

From the insurance side of the economy, Eric Spacek, senior manager for GuideOne Risk Management and Loss Control, observes that “churches have been enjoying very competitive and low rates for their property, liability and business auto insurance coverage over the past several years.

However, the insurance market is showing initial signs that it is starting to turn.

“If this continues to happen, it is anticipated that churches will start to see hardening or increasing property and casualty insurance rates in 2012 and beyond,” Spacek believes.

CFO Denise Craig at Abba’s House suggests that it is a “pivotal year” and that “leaders need to be at the top of their game, honing their skills and remaining dedicated to life-long learning in a time of rapidly-advancing technology.”

Mark Simmons, business manager at California’s Christ Community Church, sees accelerating trends toward online church activities with an increasing variety of devices. “As an example,” he says, “our pastoral search went through almost wholesale transformation as a printed report describing our church was replaced with multi-media available through our website, initial reviews from a couple page resume were replaced by the search committee listening to the candidate speak by downloading podcasts and going to their current church’s website and blogs to learn more about the candidates.

Similarly on the technology side, he sees the beginning of new church systems software that integrate the various church functions into a suite of applications.

Circling back to the economy, Steve Briggs, associate pastor for administration at First Baptist Church, Hendersonville, NC, worries that “many churches will continue to struggle to meet their operating budgets. Mainstream media will ‘spin’ a lot of good news about the economy in a presidential year that may or may not be real.”

By Ronald E. Keener

Since Jenni Catron moved from being an artist development director in the Christian music industry in Nashville, to being executive pastor of Pete Wilson’s Cross Point Church, she hasn’t seen the two being wholly different. “I like to say that ‘I put feet to the vision,’ which is what I do now for Cross Point.”

She worked nearly nine years in the Christian music industry with some amazing artists, she says, including TobyMac of dctalk, Stacie Orrico, Audio Adrenaline, and Rebecca St. James. Her role was to be the liaison between the artist and their management team and the record company. “I was the champion of their vision inside the label, responsible for overseeing all marketing and promotional efforts.”

How did you get involved with Cross Point?

My husband and I were a part of the volunteer launch team that helped start Cross Point. It’s so rewarding to reminisce the first meeting of about 30 adults who dreamed about the potential for a new church in Nashville. For the first couple of years I volunteered but didn’t have aspirations to be on staff. I was pursuing my dream of being an executive for a music company.

When Cross Point started averaging about 500 in attendance each weekend, Pete and I began discussions of me coming on staff to oversee the administration side of the ministry as well as to lead the staff team. March 1 was my seventh anniversary on staff and it’s amazing to look back on all that God has led us through with now five (soon-to-be six) campuses and more than 4,000 in attendance each weekend. Each season has led us to growth and new opportunities we’ve never imagined.

Who was the pastor of your youth and what is your conversion story?

When I was eight years old my Great Uncle Tom invited my mom to attend church at the small Assembly of God Church where he played piano and organ. As I recall, Uncle Tom had been pestering mom to attend this church for some time and when she finally “gave in,” it really became a turning point for our family. I remember my mom walking me through the prayer of salvation in our living room shortly thereafter. Uncle Tom was the person who taught me by example to love and serve the local church. Every Tuesday afternoon I walked from school to Uncle Tom’s house for piano and voice lessons and every Sunday Uncle Tom would call upon me to sing or play in our Sunday service. Not only did Uncle Tom influence my decision to follow Christ, but he was part of shaping my earliest leadership moments.

How do you define leadership in terms of what you do in working and guiding others in this area?

Leadership is such a complicated word with a lot of different interpretations. I think the best leaders represent a balance of what I refer to as the Four Dimensions of Leadership: Visionary, Managerial, Self and Spiritual. Great leaders need to be able to cast vision for where they want to lead others, they need to be able to manage the details to get them there, they need to have self-discipline and be self-motivated, and as faith-based leaders we need to provide spiritual direction and encouragement. Every leader will naturally excel in one dimension more than the others but the best leaders understand the importance of growing in each area.

Outreach magazine named you one of the 30 emerging influencers reshaping leadership. How did you get that honor?

I’ll be honest, I have no idea! I was shocked and honored when I found out I was on that list. I do believe that God has given me a very unique voice as a woman in ministry leadership and my heart is to steward my role and influence wisely.

In what ways is your church implementing social media with the congregation?

Social media is a big part of our communication at Cross Point. Everything we do, whether sermon series, student ministry events, community groups activities, missions and outreach opportunities, etc., includes a plan for communication via Twitter, Facebook and our blogs. We’re in the process of creating an app built especially for us and we’ve begun using QR codes on our print pieces as well.

During the 2010 flood in Nashville, Twitter and Facebook were the best methods for us to get word out quickly about flood relief efforts.

What is the church’s next step in multi-sites? Merger is a growing interest; is a merger being talked about with other churches in the area?

Our vision is to reach the greater Nashville area with the hope of Christ and we’re investigating every opportunity that will help us accomplish that vision. Four years ago multi-site became a key way for us to accomplish that vision and we plan to launch campuses as long as it continues to be effective in reaching people. This year we plan to launch at least one additional campus. We have discussed several mergers but as of yet, there has not been a partnership that has been a good fit. In addition, we love resourcing other churches. Our team spends a great deal of time personally coaching and encouraging other churches, especially church plants. We are investigating creating a Cross Point Network for churches outside of the Nashville area.

What would you advise other pastors about leading campus pastors of a multi-site church?

Multi-site is messy. There is just no way around it. When it comes to leading campus pastors, I think it’s important to be sensitive to the tension and challenges that a campus pastor feels. They are responsible for casting the vision of the senior leader, while also being accountable for the day-to-day leadership of their campus.

They are constantly swapping between first-chair and second-chair leadership. That can be a very challenging place, yet it’s the reality of the campus pastor role. The more aware you can be of that tension and the more intentional you can be to keep communication open, the stronger you will be as a team.

Anything special you are doing to ensure connectedness between the campuses?

Communication is the key to effective multi-site ministry. Because all of our campuses are within a 45-minute radius of our broadcast campus, all of our staff can meet together weekly. This provides us both relational time with each other as well as time for planning, trouble-shooting and problem-solving.

We use Kulabyte for our delivery system. This system offers a “nearly live” delivering of the broadcast feed, kind of like DVR technology. One of the things I love about this is that our lead pastor can give special instructions or talk to our campus pastors on

Sunday morning during rehearsal if there is anything last minute that we need to communicate.

For a young church as yours, what is your strategic planning model? What vision are you working against?

Our Cross Point vision statement can be boiled down to three elements: discipleship, community and evangelism, and our vision is to try to maintain a balance of those three things at all times. We really believe that that balance results in a healthy church. We want a culture where our attendees are being challenged to grow in their faith, while also building relationships with other believers and purposefully inviting the unchurched.

Everything we do as a church should support one of these elements of our vision statement. Strategically we plan in 12 to 18 month increments. We’ve attempted to do five and 10 year plans but they just don’t work well for us. If we’re healthy as a church as defined by the balance of those three points of the vision, the natural bi-product is growth. We tend to be responsive to growth but proactive towards creating health.

The staff seems highly organized in terms of goal setting and accomplishment, performance evaluation, periodic goal assessment, and the like. Do you have a particular approach, or follow anyone’s model, for that?

I stole a lot of our management philosophy from the company that I worked for in the music business and I’ve adapted it to work for our team. Each of our staff creates goals every six months for their role and then they are evaluated on those goals every six months.

Additionally, we use Patrick Lencioni’s idea of a thematic goal. We create one thematic goal for the entire organization and then each campus and respective campus staff apply that goal to their individual responsibilities.

How is the economy affecting the church and giving? How have you kept the budget healthy and balanced?

Our 2012 budget is just under $5 million. We operate pretty lean, but because of that value we have been fortunate to weather some of the economic ups and downs of the last few years. While we have not met our budget goals every year, our team does an amazing job of keeping expenses under actual receipts. We’ve finished every year of Cross Point’s history in “the black” and we have not had to lay off any staff due to budget reasons. Fiscal responsibly is a huge priority to our entire team and everyone takes their role in that very seriously.

How do you see the power of branding as expressed at Cross Point, and how that makes a difference when new people are deciding to remain at Cross Point?

Because my background is in brand management and marketing, I think it’s a very important for every individual and organization to understand the power of their “brand.” I know people sometimes wrestle with the idea of brand development for the church, but branding really boils down to understanding your strengths and gifts and doing your best to be consistent in them. At Cross Point we’re very intentional to be true to the Cross Point brand. I want our attendees to feel confident that if they invite a friend to any of our Cross Point campuses, they can be sure the experience will be consistent. We know that we’re not the only church or the best church in town, but we do believe that God has called us to a unique style of ministry that reaches the people we are best gifted to reach.
I’m told you like drinking tea?

Oh, I love tea! I’m sure that I was supposed to be born British. I really drink all different varieties, but a good Rooibos loose leaf tea with a hint of orange is my favorite. www.CrossPoint.tv

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Cultivate her’ mentors

Jenni Catron began an organization called Cultivate Her in working with and mentoring women leaders. Here she explains its purpose:

A few years ago a woman leader that I really admired challenged me with this: “Jenni, how you steward your influence as a woman leader at Cross Point directly impacts every woman who comes behind you.” That might seem rather obvious but it was a wake-up call to me of the importance of how I steward my place of leadership.

I think sometimes we as leaders underestimate how much others are watching us.  For me, I had lulled myself into a place of thinking that I had to focus on my own growth and that I wasn’t ready to develop others. I felt too young and inexperienced.

That challenge prompted me to start Cultivate Her as a place where I could share what I was learning and encourage other women leaders along the way. Our goal is to connect, engage and inspire women leaders to help them feel confident to lead well, wherever they lead.  I meet locally with women leaders in Nashville, we use the blog for creating conversation for women leaders around the globe, and we’re working on ideas for coaching and mentoring opportunities this year. www.cultivateher.com

By Ronald E. Keener

The Willow Creek MOVE study follows on from the REVEAL survey in finding new insights into spiritual growth.

“Are we making a difference?” is a question that most churches and pastors ask weekly. Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, IL, essentially asked that question in a four-year process and a spiritual life survey, with the findings from 1,200 churches involving 280,000 people.

The study that Willow Creek gave its own congregants is known as REVEAL, that, said pastor Bill Hybels, “challenged some of our core assumptions about our effectiveness as a church.”

The results of the wider survey were published in the book MOVE by Greg L. Hawkins, executive pastor, and Cally Parkinson, brand manager (Zondervan, 2011). Hawkins responded to questions from Church Executive:

For you, what were the most startling results of the study?

The biggest insight was that we in church leadership are assuming far too large of a responsibility for our congregants’ spiritual growth. We need to move from being spiritual parents who feel the full burden of someone’s growth, to being spiritual coaches who walk alongside people as they grow.

If an individual does not own his or her own journey toward Christ, there’s really very little the best church in the world can do for them.

Also, based on hearing from more than 280,000 actual churchgoers, people really want to grow. The spiritual appetite is very strong, and with a few changes, the church can really meet that need in a powerful way.

How did the results of the national MOVE study compare to the original REVEAL results at Willow Creek Community Church? What new findings did you discover?

The national survey confirmed all our early findings about what drives spiritual growth. The work that led to MOVE has extended those learnings and allowed us to identify some best practice churches. We spent time studying those churches and discovered strategies that they had in common. Those insights form the basis for half the book.

How has involvement in the study affected the participating churches? What are some of the changes and results you have seen?

We have had hundreds of conversations with pastors who participated in the study and what we have heard over and over is that their individual church results helped them gain crystal clarity on what areas in their church they needed to focus on for maximum spiritual growth.

With more than 1,200 participating churches there was significant diversity represented in the study.

When we studied the churches which appeared most spiritually vibrant, we found no pattern of size, location, denomination or style. Church effectiveness appears not to be determined by those traditional categories. That has been one of the more encouraging discoveries for our team. Any church, at any size and location, can become more effective.

What are the four most important discoveries from the study for a pastor?

First is the realization that you can measure spiritual growth, thereby allowing us all to get some clarity on how people grow and what we can do to catalyze that growth.

Second, the most significant catalyst for spiritual growth, with no close second, is engagement with the Bible. Do whatever you can to inspire members of your church to fall in love with God’s word.

Third, involvement in church activities, by themselves, does not drive long-term spiritual growth.

Fourth, your congregants are looking to you, as their pastor, to teach them God’s word, show them how you yourself are living it out and then to challenge them to take a next step in response. Leadership really does matter and if you want a spiritually vibrant church, it starts with your own spiritual life and then extends to your bold, unrelenting leadership.

In MOVE you have identified the top 5 percent of the most effective churches in the survey.  What can churches learn from their best practices?

By studying some 1,200 congregations, we were able to isolate some churches with high spiritual vitality.

Something special was going on there. When we spent time with those churches we discovered four common practices that appear to be transferable to any church setting. What was inspiring was that implementation of these ideas worked in small and large churches and really were not dependent on the size of a church’s budget.

Why is it important for churches to pay attention to this information?

This work is important because Christ himself has asked us to go make disciples. Any insights into how our church can be more effective in that work should warrant our focus and attention.

We would ask any church leader to read MOVE and to reflect on its insights. Remember, we did not make this stuff up — it all comes out of the experience of real church attendees and real church leaders, confirmed by the teachings of Scripture. It is not necessary to have your church take the survey, although that is a very effective way to jump start implementation of these concepts. The ideas in the book are transferable, we believe, to every church, regardless if they take the Reveal survey.

Do ministers worry about their effectiveness in guiding people spiritually? Isn’t it all up to God anyway?

I have always felt a responsibility to use my gifts to help people get closer to God. I believe God gave me those gifts so that can actually occur. While I know that all fruit is a result of God’s activity, he has asked me to be faithful with what he entrusted to me, which consists of my spiritual gifts, abilities and experience. I must ask questions around ministry effectiveness and be open to learn from others.

Church leadership can do a lot to promote spiritual growth. What MOVE outlines with great clarity is what specifically a church should be doing at each stage of someone’s growth, and that list does change as a person changes. But our work has clearly found that there are practices a church can pursue that appear to accelerate the rate of spiritual growth.

In all of its teaching and communication, First Baptist is direct and unambiguous about the discipleship goal of its ministry. But that’s not its real distinctive. What distinguishes First Baptist, and other thriving churches like it, is their persistent, overarching commitment to that pursuit. The salient point is this: Everything starts by committing to the life-changing (not activity-creating) goal of discipleship and making it the top priority for all ministry efforts. The resolve of best-practice churches to achieving this objective is so steadfast that they risk letting people walk out the door – in fact, they encourage them to do so – if becoming a follower of Christ is not a commitment they’re willing to make.

Harbor Light Church, Fremont, CA
Pastor Terry Inman of Harbor Light Church with 1,000 attendance, says, “The most feedback I get from my congregation is not on my sermons; it is when I tell my own story about my walk with God and my family’s walk with God.” He understands that it is not his words, but his actions that speak the loudest. And he is intentional about letting his congregation in on how things are going in his relationship with God.

Transparency is key. What congregants see modeled in these leaders is not perfection so much as a work in progress. Leaders of the top 5 percent churches share their failures and their struggles. They let their congregations see their flaws so everyone can learn from their mistakes.

tThe Bridge Community Church, Wildwood, MO
Tim Gray started The Bridge Community Church in rural Missouri in 2006 with eight people and $156. Today, his church of 400 is anchored on a cell family model that is flourishing, largely because he equips cell leaders for success. While Tim’s leadership requirements may seem quite ambitious by normal church standards, his disciplined approach provides food for thought about what people who lead within their church are willing to do to serve Christ.

Tim’s cell leaders, for example, receive 35 hours of training in Bible teaching, pastoral care, and biblical counseling. This is after they’ve experienced the 14 hours of training required to become a church member. Members also sign a covenant allowing someone to mentor them and committing to mentor someone else. Tim defends these high standards, saying, “We are commanded to go and make disciples, not members or pew dwellers. But empowering people is not enough. You don’t just hand over the car keys without making sure your child has driver’s training. You cheat your church if you give away leadership and don’t train the leaders. People want training. Our mission is to equip as many as possible to be capable of equipping others.”

Tri-County Church, DuBois, PA
David Bish, lead pastor of Tri-County Church (890 attendance) who coined the “I don’t go to church; I am the church” motto of this best practice, empowers people to live into this vision in three practical ways: Preach it! Teaching is imperative. “I am the church” is central to Tri-County’s annual vision-casting series.

Reinforce it! Beyond the teaching, Tri-County dedicates a wall in their sanctuary to visual images that illustrate what “I am the church” looks like. They distribute t-shirts on which the phrase is prominently featured. And they distribute response cards regularly, to capture and communicate stories congregants share in answer to the question, “How were you being the church this week?”

Do it! Being the church also has a corporate “doing” component. Every fall hundreds of attendees don their t-shirts and join together for a weekend of community serving.

During the Thanksgiving weekend I read an article in Vanity Fair magazine, the source of much good journalism, titled on the cover, “Inside the Murdoch-family Fortress.” It had all the earmarks of a good thriller: the father patriarch, conniving daughter and spouse, a son aspiring for the father’s media empire, a wife with undue influence, and much money at stake.

It might just as well been titled, “Inside the Schuller-family Fortress,” that just a week prior saw Robert H. Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral sold off by the bankruptcy court to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Orange to cover some $50 million in debts the 56-year-old ministry owed to vendors and others.

The congregation may sustain itself in a diminished way, elsewhere, but the television ministry won’t likely survive. The four daughters and their spouses share the blame for a great congregation’s demise. But interestingly, if there are any bright spots in the sordid mess, it is with the grandchildren, the adult son and daughter of Robert Anthony and Donna Schuller.

Three years ago I interviewed Bobby Schuller and was immediately struck by his character and intelligence; if anyone in the family had a chance of making a success of succeeding his grandfather, it was Bobby, but it wasn’t to be his timing. He formed his own congregation near Garden Grove that continues today.

The daughter, Angie Schuller Wyatt, is an author, motivation speaker, and businesswoman. She brought an incisive intelligence and open mind when she wrote for Christian Post in November about the bankruptcy decision: “I liken my grief of the Crystal Cathedral’s death to grieving a loved one with a terminal illness.”

Her transparency on the issue is refreshing: “There was nothing I could do to stop my misguided family members. Others in the family seemed to be holding on to ‘a miracle’ that would come just in time. I knew better. Something that defined my life, something I hoped would define my children’s lives, was about to die …

“Eventually the madness worsened to the point that death itself signaled relief. If you’ve ever held the hand of a dying loved one, you know that death becomes the final blessing. Yet, during that final moment, you pause in respect. It’s a holy moment to reflect on what was and to grieve what shall never be again. Yesterday [Nov. 17], Crystal Cathedral Ministries died.”

Angie wrote: “Its problems were not terminal. They could have been solved. My father attempted to fix these problems during his short tenure as senior pastor. He saw the Crystal Cathedral was headed toward bankruptcy. He attempted to restructure the board, cut his siblings’ salaries and establish fiscal responsibility. For these actions, he was fired by the board [July 9, 2008] which consisted of, you guessed it, his siblings.”

A daughter’s love for her father aside, there is a ring of truth to her testimony. Sometimes truth skips a generation.

There was a book written some years back about the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, called “The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson.” When challenged on the meaning of the word tragedy, the author said he meant it not as “Oh, how terrible,” but rather as “Oh, what it could have been.” The Crystal Cathedral had a long run and did much good, but oh, how much more it could have been.

Got a question or comment? Email Ron@ChurchExecutive.com