Solving Church Problems (part 2)

A couple weeks ago I met with a few of my Ministry Team leaders. At that meeting I reviewed some of our goals for growth in the church and also some of the hindrances we face in meeting those goals. Many of our hindrances are invisible on the surface. Even so, they are very real, and they are incredibly tough to overcome. Let me expound on the four most prevalent growth inhibiting factors we face in our congregation and perhaps in your congregation also.

Group think
Some people have called this "elitist thinking". I do not want to call it that because there is a "snooty" conotation that comes along with it. That is not my meaning. My use of "group think" denotes thinking that is shared by a particular group, in this case the long established "status quo or experts." There is a greater likelihood of solving problems with a diverse group of non-experts. We who have been in the church for a long time, tend to think alike. We have become experts on what church should be, based on what church has been. We have experienced many of the same things and have read and listened to the same people. Because of this mental pre-disposition we are not able to ask the “dumb” questions that need to be asked that will lead to break-through ideas.

This means that we as a group need to find new ways to involve the whole church in the problem solving process. Brain storming, suggestion boxes, twitter sessions and the like can all spur on the process, but it is vitally important that newer members, even visitors participate. If we leave it to us “experts” it will fail to produce real innovation.

A Risk-adverse culture
In the church, mediocrity and routine are bigger problems than failure. Most of us do not want to hear about what didn’t work. We are especially vulnerable to this attitude after having come through a period of upheaval or change. Over a period of time we want things to work so we prefer safety over creativity. However, not making mistakes is just as big a problem as making the same mistakes over and over again.

We must not be afraid to try new things, even untested things. We of course need to make sure that the new ideas and methods do not violate Biblical standards and principle, but we must not be afraid to fall on our face, get up and dust ourselves off and try again. We should also not shy away from letting an outdated, ineffective program die a dignified death. And most importantly we must not stand back uninvolved from the action so that we can later point our fingers and say, “See I told you that wouldn’t work.” This sabotages problem solving.

A Bureaucratic organization
Let’s say you come up with a fantastic idea. Then you do all the right things to present the idea to the powers that be. I need to ask a question. How many different meetings or approvals will the idea have to pass through until it could be implemented? Perhaps it might just lay dead on someone’s desktop. Our culture moves so fast today that it’s all about speed to market. The pace of change in the context of ministry is such that the shelf-life of ideas is constantly being shortened. If it takes 6 months to a year for the implementation of an idea, it is obsolete. Speed to market matters even in church.

The church must find ways to shorten the time it takes to implement new ideas. We can not always wait for another board meeting to act. How do we do that?

One way is to establish of Action Teams to do just two things. 1) To examine the status of other ministry teams and assist them in carrying their ministry forward. Adding fresh eyes is often the only way to see past our ineffective routines and come up with fresh methods. 2) To cut through the red-tape of the bureaucracy.

Finally in this area there needs to be a no micro-management/trust ministry teams, attitude by both the pastoral leadership and the board. It may seem risky to trust others to do a job that you believe you can do better or needs specific oversight due to the sensitive nature of the work. However, it is most effective when properly staffed ministry teams are allowed to run with the ministry. Of course there needs to be some parameters set ahead of time (that’s what overall policy is for), but within the overall guidelines of ministry....let the priesthood of all believers, be the priesthood of all believers.

Top Down Feedback.
Most innovation happens at the customer level. For the church it means those in the pews. Unfortunately those who have the most opportunity to discover innovation possess the least amount of power to implement it. Most often feedback flows from the top-down but not much from bottom up. We must find a way to open the flow of information and creative ideas from the bottom up. Our need is to collect feedback from everyone but emphasis should be on 1st time and 2nd time visitors. They and the recently assimilated members hold the wealth of information when it comes to how to attract or repel new people.

With this information in hand we must build an assimilation process that not only enfolds our newest people but continually asks for new feedback so that the process can be repeated so that more effective innovation can occur.