Un-inheritable

Having a sense of place is possible in smaller (less than 1,000 worshippers per Sunday, I would guess) settings for pastoral ministry.  The pastor has a sense of place and so do the people gathered together as the church.  They know each other and are committed to the idea that they can know the people who worship and serve with them.  The larger the congregation becomes, the less focused this sense of place and identity becomes. 

Every church has a neighborhood, but the people who go to church in that neighborhood aren’t necessarily called to serve their own neighbors in the same ways or in the same settings.  Where I live, it’s very different to do ministry in the wealthy suburbs than it is to do ministry among the urban poor, both of whom are represented in neighborhoods here in town.  A sense of place has a lot to do with being effective in ministry in any setting.

The church I grew up attending had well over 5,000 members at one point.  Located at the intersection of two major freeways, the city of Houston was literally at our doorstep.  People came to church from all over the city and the outlying suburbs (often commuting close to an hour to worship on Sundays) to hear a talented communicator (hereafter “TC”) preach and to experience excellence in music, arts, and inter-generational ministries.  TC oversaw unprecedented growth as both the city and the numbers of people in the pews swelled. 

Right around the same time TC was beginning to move toward retirement, the Great Recession hit hard.  Houston and other growing cities weren’t as embattled as other areas, but it still hurt the church’s bottom line quite a bit.  Like many large organizations, the economic downturn forced a re-thinking of finances, facilities, and staff, often in painful ways.

Neighborhoods – helping the people of the church consider their sense of place in their ministry together – became less of a priority.  Helping the church feel smaller – not just in Houston but in many cities – went away as survival mode set-in.  I’m not entirely sure that many large churches have left the mentality of survival mode behind.

The pastor who came after TC lasted less than 5 years.  All around the country, talented young leaders are stepping into roles vacated by large personalities like TC and finding themselves frustrated as their churches sometimes prove unwilling to re-think or re-size their leadership expectations.  This trend, combined with continuing economic struggles for large churches (sometimes top-heavy and burdened by massive debts for buildings and facilities which are often empty) are making these senior leadership roles toxic.  I would argue that these TC-like roles as they currently exist (with the historic expectations for leadership attached to them like ballast) are now un-inhabitable.

Boom-time and massive growth for the evangelical church in America is over and fading from memory.  The generations most generously supporting the church are dying and the younger generations are wrestling with their calling to offer their resources back to God. Consumer debt and high-profile lifestyles kill generosity in families who would love to give faithfully but simply can’t squeeze it in to their monthly budget.  Leaders who have been called to be ministers of Word and Sacrament find themselves confounded by church finances, struggling with fear, and painfully aware of their own withering discipleship to Christ as the pressure mounts and budget forecasts look worse and worse.

Here’s my very immodest proposal: get back to the neighborhoods.  Courageous leaders and elder boards should begin considering new paradigms of leadership which will diffuse risk and responsibility across a team of cooperative, equally-yoked senior staff, each with a specific focus on a neighborhood or area of the city.  Within these defined ministry roles and locations, families, schools, small groups, and neighbors can – under the umbrella of the larger, once-mega church – begin to localize their church once again.  The central church’s large facility could be leased to innovative non-profits and para-church ministries, creating a hub of opportunity for entrepreneurial leaders seeking to reach their city for the sake of Christ.

At TC’s church, this approach could be expressed as a multiple senior pastor model. North Coast Church (northcoastchurch.com) in California has been doing something like this for years.  One senior leader is the lead pastor for Sugarland, a neighborhood to the south of the city.  Another senior leader is the lead pastor for Katy, or Kingwood, or Cypress, and the list goes on and on.  Responsibility for preaching, leadership, vision, and other duties would be diffused among a talented group of people, lowering risk and leveraging individual strengths for precise contexts. 

These senior leaders would meet together regularly but spend most of their work week with their neighborhood ministry teams in their actual neighborhoods.  Preaching duties and Sunday worship begin to happen in the neighborhood setting at community centers, school cafeterias, and parks.  Worship would still take place at the central church location each Sunday, ensuring that those who love the continuity and tradition to which they belong can continue to do so.  But the push-and-pull from leaders and from the pulpit is to re-focus energy and resources on neighbors and neighborhoods.

This approach is risky.  Riskier still is the approach which has been working for a while but isn’t going to be sustainable much longer.  As detailed in the painful-but-revealing book The Great Evangelical Recession, the underlying scandal of many evangelical churches (mega and otherwise) is that we’re not very good at reaching out to and empowering new disciples of Jesus.  Rather, statistics show that our churches “grow” because already-committed churchgoers are disappointed with their current church setting and move to our church for a while.  Then they move on to another setting. And another.  And other. 

I admit that this pattern discounts the importance of those saints who have been faithfully committed to their church for a long time, but this is often where our statistics regarding ‘growth’ are skewed.  When we offer new members’ classes at my church, there are precious few new disciples of Jesus compared to those whom we’ve welcomed from another church body.

Let me be clear: I’m not disparaging people leaving their churches to seek new ministry in a new setting.  I’m very, very grateful for followers of Jesus who come to our church.  But I’m most excited and invigorated by new disciples taking their first steps of faith, or by mature disciples beginning to do ministry with the understanding that the church exists for the sake of others.  

Ministry must always be given away.  Even though leaders like TC led well in many ways, the fruit of any ministry must be disciples who are willing to make other disciples, all under the authority of Christ and his Word.  Un-inheritable senior leadership roles will continue to be “snake-bit” until the leadership expectations and surrounding church structure is re-evaluated in light of our post-Christian mission field and the calling of the gospel.

To any senior leaders who are in the midst of an un-inheritable situation, or who may be considering stepping into one, I pray that Christ gives you the strength to re-focus and re-align your church with the mission of Christ.  And I pray that the church will be known as a nimble, faithful, courageous movement of humble disciples as we follow the Spirit’s leading into our neighborhoods and around the world.

Solo Dei gloria,

Travis