What Needs to Change

The good news for plateaued and declining churches is that spiritual health and vitality, including growth, is possible ... if the members are willing to change. (See 7/8/18 post - The Good News ... and Challenge ... about Plateaued and Declining Churches.)

But change what? What needs to change?

Once churches are willing to address the decline and do the work of change (a huge step!), the tendency is to change the wrong things: organizational structure, worship styles, programs, schedules, facilities ... even pastors and staff! In other words, we change what we know to change. We seek to improve what we have always done. We do what we know to do. While these efforts can make a difference ... for a time, they will not produce the change that is needed nor will they produce change that will last. They will not produce spiritual health, vitality, and growth.

Ronald Heifetz, et.al., calls this kind of change technical work - applying known solutions to known problems, (The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World, Harvard Business Review Press, 2009). Heifetz says what is needed is adaptive work -  leading a group to address situations and conditions . . .

for which known solutions do not work,

which require different questions,

which require the group to face the factors that create the condition;

which call for new learning that leads to different thinking and functioning.

Adaptive work builds on the past but requires new thinking and functioning in order to be effective in addressing the new realities of the present and to prepare for the coming future. 

Heifetz's writings points to what really needs to change. What needs to change is the thinking that shapes the functioning, the way we view and define the situation, the unidentified attitudes that govern how we do what we do, the spirit that permeates every aspect of church life. What needs to change is the church's culture. Until a church's culture changes, little else will change ... no matter how much time, energy, and money is invested in changing what we do.

Culture is about attitude ... spirit ... outlook ... thinking. It lies outside our awareness but it is reflected in how we do what we do ... in the comments that are made ... in the decisions that are made ... in how the decisions are made and who influences them ... in the policies we adopt to define what can and cannot be done ... in our need for policies.

The culture in most plateaued and declining churches is focused on self: our preferences, our comfort, those like us. (See again last week's post.) It is generally conflict avoidant. This kind of culture is shaped by our human nature, untouched by our religious beliefs and involvement.

What is needed is a church culture shaped by the nature of God rather than our human nature, by the teachings of Jesus rather than our likes and dislikes. What is needed is a culture that reflects the servant ways of the Kingdom ... a culture marked by grace and forgiveness, a spirit of glad welcome that embraces all (without exception or condition), an orientation and commitment to personal growth and transformation, compassion, mutual support and encouragement, generosity and abundance, joy. What is needed is a discipleship culture.