The Salvation Army Leadership Letter

Transcription

1 Issue 23: The Salvation Army Leadership Letter Has the Church lost its evangelistic edge? Dear Len You ve led a large church for many years and 18 months ago your denomination made you the regional leader for your family of churches, as well as still leading your ow n growing church! It s a big responsibility, but your new executive pastor will free you up to lead these churches with distinction. I m not surprised you ve had mixed feelings about w hat you ve seen on your first round of visiting. As you say, many churches are doing w onderful community ministry, and you re rightly thrilled w ith this. But you re troubled that, w ith all this good w ork, few churches are making any evangelistic impact on their communities. In a w ord, you re concerned that somehow, somew here along the w ay, many churches have stopped challenging people to follow Jesus. And you w onder how to revitalise them. Getting Your Situation in Perspective For more than a decade, other senior denominational leaders have been saying the same thing. In fact, you re the second in a fortnight to share this concern w ith me. And if they ve been in ministry a long time, they all say that the Church today bears little resemblance to the Church they started out w ith. Put simply, they believe the Church has lost its evangelistic edge. So I w asn t surprised to read your comment that evangelism does not seem to be happening in many of your churches. You also feel many pastors aren t preaching the Gospel w ith urgency and their people aren t sharing their faith at a personal level. So you think w e ve lost our confidence in the pow er of the Gospel to transform lives, preferring to offer the Gospel as one of many possible solutions for the human condition, rather than the ultimate cure. But you go further in your recent , w hich is very strong. You feel that some of your more committed people are uncertain about w hat the message of the Gospel really is, are ill equipped and untrained, even apathetic about the need to reach others. In short, you feel w e ve lost our sense of urgency, our confidence in the Gospel and our ability to reach the masses w ith the good news that Jesus saves. And you feel that to share in [Christ s] ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5.18) w e must first know him ourselves. If that s the picture, what can you and your churches do about it? Here are a few suggestions to get you started. They are built, as you ll see, around the Law of the Ripples in the Pond. Author: Gordon Miller Page 1

2 The Law of the Ripples in the Pond I got my first lessons in leadership w hen I w as growing up on my father s farm. My dad had a dam, or pond, on his farm. On a calm day, w e could throw stones into the middle of the dam and w atch the ripples fan out till they reached the edge of the dam. But to affect all the w ater in the dam, w e had to land our stones in the middle of the dam. It s like that w ith changing the DNA of churches. We ve got to start in the middle w ith you and your leaders because you re the ones that make things happen. To change your churches, we start w ith you and your leaders. It s the law of the ripples in the pond and it leads to the follow ing steps you can take to revitalise your churches. Step 1 Model the Gospel s Call Yourself Leaders of organisations have an incredible influence on the organisations they lead, so get as close to God as you can and let him fill you daily w ith his Spirit. As you read the Bible, think long and hard about the broad sw eep of redemptive history. Think often of the tragedy of the fall in the Garden of Eden and the devastating consequences for us all. Remind yourself constantly of how frequently Jesus spoke about hell and endless punishment. Sit at the foot of the cross and marvel at the grace that saves us all. Be encouraged every day by Acts 1.8 s promise of pow er for service and be challenged by 2 Timothy 4.2 s call to be urgent. Let the great heroes of the past, like the Wesleys and the Booths, fire your spirit. Give yourself to your ministry w ith the last great day of history always in view. In your leadership position, you set the tone for your leaders and churches because renewal is caught as much as taught. As John Maxw ell and Kevin Turner put it, We can t fix our team until w e fix ourselves. If you model the Gospel s compelling call yourself, your leaders and people w ill catch it off of you. Step 2 Pour Yourself into Your Regional Staff Regional offices are run in different w ays across the denominations and staff are employed on different bases. For example, the regional youth leader may continue pastoring a s maller church w hile leading the region s youth. Some denominations have regional offices with full- and part-time staff. How ever regional staffing is w orked out, the principle is the same your staff, who have so much to do w ith the pastors and people of your region, get their ministry cues from you, their leader. If you model the Gospel s compelling call in your dealings w ith them, they ll come to love the truths that you preach, stress what you stress and model the Gospel s compelling call themselves in their w ork in your region. Through your regional staff, you start a people movement that further dow n the track w ill change the w ay your churches work. To get effective evangelism back into your churches, you must start w ith your regional staff. Author: Gordon Miller Page 2

3 Step 3 Pour Yourself into Your Pastors Over time, pastors have a profound influence in shaping their churches, so if you look at longer ministries you ll find that the churches the pastors lead become expressions of what the pastors themselves believe and model. This means that your relationship w ith your pastors is a critical component in reviving evangelis m in your churches. Here are tw o general principles to get you started, w ith the details in the larger church discussion that follows: 1. Pour yourself and your dream into your pastors w hen you re visiting them, for whatever reason. Build such a strong relationship that you can talk freely w ith them about their w alk w ith God, their beliefs and preaching, the ebb and flow of evangelism in their church and your evangelis m expectations of their church. 2. Pour yourself and your dream into your pastors w hen you get them together in regional gatherings. Encourage them to follow your example (Phil 4.9) and keep the broad sw eep of redemptive history in view with its highs and low s, its compelling Gospel call and its w arnings about going to an eternity w ithout Christ. When you get your staff and pastors flow ing with you, you re half way to reviving your churches evangelism fortunes. This leads us to the other half of the evangelism equation in the sections that follow. Step 4 Help Churches Change their Sunday Services Our Sunday services (meetings) are in many w ays the most aw esome experiences w e can have on earth. God is there, w e re there and people w ho haven t yet started follow ing Jesus are often there, so it s in this amazing situation that w e experience what Rick Warren calls the evangelistic pow er of worship, w hen God w orks in astonishing w ays provided w e cooperate w ith him and don t get in the w ay, that is! To put evangelis m back into Sundays, w e need to do the follow ing things. 1. We need to sing songs that everyone can sing easily! Today, w e often sing performance songs, w hich are led by experts. They re difficult to sing, frustrate our worshippers, alienate our seekers and thw art the Holy Spirit s ministry. Indeed, when I look back on the 2000 services I ve attended in the last generation, I believe it s our singing that s let us dow n more than anything else. Generally speaking, it s not blessing us as it should and it s a major stumbling block to reaching seekers. So encourage your leaders to choose songs that people can sing and the Spirit can apply. The age of the song isn t the real issue, it s w hether the people can actually sing it and love singing it! 2. We need to preach messages that explain the Gospel clearly, apply it helpfully and challenge people against the backdrop of eternity to take the next step on their spiritual journey. We need to be urgent in doing so (2 Tim 4.2 RSV). No message, not even a teaching message, should end w ithout a clear invitation to follow Jesus and an equally clear comment on w hat people need to do to start their journey w ith him that day. Author: Gordon Miller Page 3

4 Of course, we should alw ays be sensitive to w here people are at on their journey, know ing some w ill need time to think the issues through so they can make a decision later. But w e should alw ays be clear and urgent. Generally speaking, as you and other senior denominational leaders tell me, this Gospel dynamic is not happening today and it must happen if w e re to get evangelistic traction in our churches again. Our preaching is the second thing that s letting us dow n on Sundays and w e must change that. Urgently! 3. We need to get rid of cringe factors in our services like religious mumbo jumbo that new er people can t follow and develop an inviting culture that encourages our committed people to bring their pre-christian friends to our services. Most churches are too small to run a service for Christians and another service for seekers, and Sunday morning is still the best time to reach Kiw i families. So most churches are locked into one Sunday morning service w hich, done w ell, can be the linchpin of reaching people for Jesus. In 1 Cor , Paul laid dow n once and for all the guiding principle of how church should be done. As the NIV text note reminds us, Paul expected to see three groups of people at church on Sunday in Corinth Christians, unbelievers and seekers and he advised the leaders to do church in a w ay that included them all. The w ay we ve done Sunday church in the past few years is the third thing that s let us dow n. This too has to change if w e re to experience again the conversion flow that comes from the evangelistic pow er of worship. A cringe-free service is an absolute requirement for doing church effectively on Sundays. Step 5 Help Churches Change their Other Ministries But if Sunday morning is important, w hat w e do in our ministries outside of Sunday is just as important especially in the ministries that focus on building relationships w ith those w ho don t yet know Jesus. To put evangelis m back into our w eekday ministries: 1. We need to get all our weekday ministry leaders up to speed w ith the next step principle, that is, helping people w ho don t yet know Jesus take the next step on their journey tow ards him. For example, if they and their children attend Mainly Music and its related social events, w e may invite them to attend a special Mother s Day or Father s Day service that features their children, follow ed by a morning tea w here we can mix w ith them. For more on this basic ministry principle, see pp in The 7 Practices of Effective Ministry by Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner and Lane Jones (a great book to take your leaders through!). When w e practice the the next step principle in our w eekday ministries, w e lift our evangelistic tempo hugely. And w hen we take our leaders through the 7 Practices book, we grow faster still because our leaders put all their time and energy into reaching people for Jesus and grow ing them in his likeness. 2. We need to include a small but important evangelism component in our small groups. This is w hat a friend s church does with their hundred small groups, w hich are built around the 4 Ws of Welcome, Worship (w hich may or may not include singing), Word and Witness Author: Gordon Miller Page 4

5 (the evangelis m bit w here they focus briefly on the one or tw o pre-christian friends they re each trying to lead to Jesus). At their meetings, they encourage each other in their outreach, pray for the pre-christian friends they re reaching and plan occasional social events that they can share w ith these friends. We lift the evangelistic tempo of our church several more notches w hen we involve all our small groupers in reaching their friends for Jesus because we re now grow ing disciplemaking disciples. We also keep our small groups from becoming self-centred as many did in our first experiment w ith small groups in the 70s and 80s, leading many of them to finally close. 3. We need to apply the 7 Practices principle of narrow ing our church s focus so we excel at reaching people for Jesus and grow ing them in his likeness. As the book reminds us, good churches have a tendency to do too many things because they do them w ell, w hen we should eliminate some things w e do w ell so we can do the few things w ith greatest potential. So, at the w riters church of many thousands, there are many accepted church things they do not do because their focus is on keeping the evangelism and discipling task simple so the church bears the greatest fruit. They re also not afraid to kill w hat s working (Jn 15.2b) so something w ith greater potential can take its place. They stress creating brands to nail w hat it is they re trying to do w ith each ministry. So their InsideOut ministry is small groups for students, UpStreet is small groups for children, and so on. Each ministry is designed to do one main thing w ell. To learn more about the Narrow ing the Focus principle, read pp of the 7 Practices book. Step 6 Help Churches Resource and Empower Their People When w e consider the stories of the Wesleys and Booths, w e see that they stood out because they started people movements. They created an army of people w ho w ere committed to their evangelis m and social reform dream. To w in at evangelism in our churches, w e need to do the same. We need to start a people movement by doing the follow ing. 1. We need to inspire our people w ith the same broad sweep of redemptive history that fires us teaching them about the Fall, the teaching of Jesus, the Great Commission and the Cross, the outpouring of the Spirit and the Last Things. In many cases, people care not because they know not and they know not because none taught them. And they ll stay that w ay till their preachers, like Paul, spell out the w hole counsel of God (Ac RSV). To get your people fired up w ith the evangelistic challenge, your preachers must teach them this counsel and be urgent in doing so. As the saying goes, like priest, like people. Over time, people mirror their preachers. To put it another w ay, strategic topical preaching that focuses on the juicier high interest topics that pull the numbers in, is an important assault w eapon in the preacher s arsenal. But to change our people s DNA, w e need to balance that w ith contemporary biblical preaching that picks up on the great evangelism and discipling principles that flow from the text of Scripture. Author: Gordon Miller Page 5

6 Short series on Gospel incidents like Jn 4, the teaching of Jesus and parts of Acts can be a great w ay to get our people up to speed w ith the big picture of w hat life is about, w here sharing our faith comes in and how we all fit together into God s great plan for things. 2. We need to train and resource our people so they learn to share their faith w armly and easily. There w as a time w hen training resources were limited, but that s all changed now. Organisations like Willow Creek (and a host of w ebsites) feature some of the many training resources available today - and some leaders even develop their ow n resources to fit their mix of people. But w hatever resources we use, w e should focus strongly on equipping our people to share their faith easily. 3. We need to help our people see that seekers come to Jesus in many different w ays, so w e need to be sensitive to their needs at the time. Some of our people w ill be excited to learn that there are many different pictures of the cross that w e can use when sharing our faith. Each picture is like a gate to Jesus and corresponds to a major human need. Many years ago, w hen Joni Eareckson w as struggling w ith the effects of a dreadful accident that left her paralysed from the neck dow n, her friend Cindy pointed her to Jesus suffering on the Cross and how he was paralysed too. This w as a great help to Joni even though she wasn t healed because Cindy pointed her to the picture of the Cross that most applied to her. All the pictures and gates w ork like this, so there s one for everyone which makes sharing our faith exciting. To find out more about the 10 NT Gates, go to the bottom of the listed Leadership Letters on this w ebsite and click on the World Vision ones listed below. Scroll dow n to Letters , noting 169 especially and the crisp little Reflections handout w ith 170 (Mar/Apr 2002). How ever you do it, get your people up to speed w ith the many different ways there are of introducing seekers to Jesus as Jesus himself illustrated in his ow n dealings w ith interested people. Rediscovering the Gospel s Compelling Call Years ago, I knew a regional leader w ho revived the sagging evangelism and discipleship fortunes of his churches. He had about the same number of churches as you, and I w atched him move in, handpick his regional leaders from around the country and pour himself into his pastors and churches. Passionately committed to his evangelical heritage and packaging his strategy in his denomination s w rapping, he systematically w orked out the broad principles of this regional evangelis m manifesto. His churches grew. To ensure they kept grow ing, he did many 1-2 night teaching stands in his churches to get them all on the same mission page. Len, you ve made a great start, and you ll w in too because you re a gifted and passionate leader. And like the man in Psalm , w e re praying for you from the sideline and w e ll celebrate every victory with you. May all your evangelis m dreams for your churches come true! I ll w rite again. Author: Gordon Miller Page 6

7 Gordon Miller Territorial Church Growth & Development Consultant To Discuss at Local Church Leaders Meetings 1. Roughly how many people in your church started follow ing Jesus last year? If the number w as low, why was it so low and what steps will you now take to change that for the future (write the number and steps dow n)? 2. Do your preachers regularly give clear and urgent invitations to follow Jesus at the end of their messages? How effective have those invitations been and how could they become more effective (write your answ er dow n)? 3. How effective are your weekday m inistries at building evangelism br idges to pre- Christians? How w ill you build in the next step principle into those ministries (w rite your assessment and the steps dow n)? 4. Roughly w hat percentage of your committed people are confident at sharing their faith? How many have brought people to Jesus in the past year or been key links in bringing them to him (w rite the numbers dow n)? 5. What progress have you made at harnessing the 10 percent in your church who are likely to have the gift of evangelism in a developed or undeveloped form (write your summary dow n)? 6. Given your response to the above questions, w hat church evangelism strategy w ill you now develop to bring all these facets together into a razor sharp focus on helping people find and follow Jesus (write the essential features down and add the names of the people responsible for each feature and the desired outcomes)? Author: Gordon Miller Page 7