Get your church used to change – before it's too late

What if you’re a leader and you’ve run out of ideas?

Amongst the many leaders I coach, this is a common experience and it can easily drain a leader’s confidence that they can even do the role.

As much as we might rightly rest on the faithful in-season and out-of-season teaching of the Word of God, coupled by an assurance of God’s sovereign oversight, many leaders know that they are operating in unfamiliar territory where ministries that functioned adequately for many past years no longer thrive in the current culture. Even the most helpful practical books on best practice can feel outdated and out of touch within a few years.

Leaders who panic when they run out of ideas in the face of a faltering ministry often make one of two errors – they either double down on the current way of doing things, hoping eventually something will improve, or they reach for a gimmick. That is, they seek to use an attention-grabbing initiative that has temporarily worked at another church and to graft it into their church without consideration of one’s values and unique context.

There is, however, an alternative. The leader should resign as the primary agent for ideas and instead build a culture amongst volunteer leaders in the congregation to generate and implement innovations for the health of the church and effectiveness of its mission to the community.

Of course, the response to that is, "Yes, but how?"

There are three things that I’ve seen work particularly effectively in creating a culture of innovation in a local church – let me walk you through them.

(1) Team leaders should meet with the pastor regularly

The first innovation building block is that volunteer leaders should meet with the pastor regularly and ideally in a group environment.

This provides opportunity for the pastor to re-ink vision and values so that it is constantly part of the conversation with the key leaders in the church.

It also enables pastors to quickly identify any issues or misalignments, allowing them to be more quickly resolved. Without this regular "touching base", those problems grow into frustrations, and those will drain any energy or enthusiasm for a team to try something new.

Most significantly, the pastor who connects regularly with the whole group of leaders needs to see their primary role as inviting new solutions from the group, giving them permission to "experiment" by implementing them, and, crucially, celebrating the attempts regardless of whether they were a triumph or a damp squib.

(2) Be honest about the problem and the constraints

If we are inviting people into the risk of offering and implementing new ideas, we owe them transparency about why the problem matters to the church and what few resources are actually available to them.

For example, if we are aware that visitors to the church are not being spoken to and therefore it will diminish the likelihood they will return, that needs to be disclosed rather than vaguely suggesting the welcome team "could do with a revamp".

Similarly, if the children’s work is growing to a size that requires two groups, if that needs to be staffed by only those on the current rota, that needs to be flagged clearly at the start. It can be too easy to set groups up to fail, but an apologetic clarity on the constraints engenders a sense that "we’re all in this together". In these circumstances, I am always mindful of the work of Boyd and Goldenberg who argue in their book Inside the Box Thinking that rather than inhibiting creativity, well-understood constraints can actually enhance the quality of innovation.

(3) Micro-dose the church with the loss of change

I have had the opportunity to work alongside a number of churches that have sadly had to close because they had shrunken to no longer be viable. In these deeply tragic situations, I’ve often wondered what went so wrong that a once vibrant church community could fall away to nothing, and in most of these cases it was not that they became theologically liberal. Rather, I believe it is because they lost the ability to handle the pain of change.

To some extent, all change is loss, and loss is uncomfortable. It is easy for churches to kid themselves into believing that they will be courageous enough to make the necessary big changes when they are required to do so, but the reality is, unless you regularly exercise the muscle of change in your church, you will be unlikely to have the collective ability to withstand the pain of change when it really matters.

A sure sign that the muscle of change has atrophied in a church is when a leadership team refuses to make a decision unless there is consensus or unless they can be absolutely assured no one will be upset by the proposed innovation.

The key way for this muscle to be strengthened so that it is genuinely ready for the big decisions in church life is to gently but constantly make small changes: the experiment of moving the welcome table from the left of the door to the right, the additional song one week during the service order, or the trial of a new formation of the chairs in the sanctuary all micro-dose the church in the loss of change and build its muscle for when you really need it.

In the ancient world, the one role that knew the least of stability and preference was the slave. For the life of a slave was the experience of constant change, even constant inconvenience in the service of the master. This is why it is notable in 1 Corinthians 9v19 when Paul says that he is a slave in the service of seeing as many saved by the gospel as possible. He pulls this idea through the passage and in verse 22 reveals that the flexing for the benefit of others involves intentionally experiencing the most intense inconvenience and giving up of preference if it leads to others being able to share in the blessings of Christ.

It is this same desire as Paul, to make our preferences subservient to the missional opportunities in our community, that drives innovation as not merely the niche of a few churches but the mandate for all churches – and surely before it’s too late!