When momentum fades and growth begins to slow down at your church it can be tough to know exactly how to get things going in the right direction again. When plateau and church stagnation set in it can be even more difficult to know what to do next.
Many church leaders I’ve talked to become paralyzed by the tension of wanting to keep long-term people in the church around and engaged while also trying to reach new people by using old methods and approaches in an attempt to keep those long-term people happy (wow that sentence is a mouthful). Change in this kind of a situation isn’t simple. If it were, every church that is plateaued or declining would turn around. While there are certainly some commonality in plateaued and declining churches there is not a “one size fits all” solution.
Most churches in this situation tend to adopt a measured approach to make incremental changes over time. While there are times when the wise approach is to make incremental changes over time, when things are stuck or declining it may take more courageous measures, because incremental change gets you incremental results.
“Incremental Change gets you Incremental Results”
If you’ve been leading in a church that is stuck or declining then you most likely already know what is getting you the results you’re currently getting, because you’re already doing it…it may be time to really do something different and take a different approach to get different results. Here’s a few things you can do right now to begin to change the trajectory of your church.
Listen to Different Voices
If you keep listening to the same people that you’ve always listened to you’re not going to generate any new ideas. Find some new voices. Instead of inviting the same old people to the meeting who have the same old ideas, change up the invite list. Bring in people from a different generation, background or layer of the organization. I guarantee you’ll walk away with different ideas. Or make your next couple of hires from the outside. They’ll bring new ideas, different experiences and a new perspective to things.
Stop Learning From Other Churches
The church is the only organization or people on the planet that has been entrusted with the Gospel and mission to share the Gospel with everyone on the Earth. But the church does not have a corner on the market when it comes to innovation, organizational design, or leadership. So get outside of the church and visit leaders from different industries and learn what principles can be transferred back into the area you’re leading in. A Chick-fil-A Executive once told me that they don’t look at other fast food companies to learn from, they go outside their tribe to other global industry leaders to learn from.
Fire Yourselves
This exercise will help you…I promise: Imagine that your entire leadership team has been removed and a new team is going to start. Before you pack up your boxes and move everything out, take a moment to write down the key issues you’ve never tackled and the changes you wanted to make. Help the new leadership understand what’s working, what’s broken and what’s missing. Communicate the new initiatives they need to tackle and the things the ministry needs to stop doing. Once the departing team has confirmed that new direction, become the new leadership team. Start over, but this time follow through with everything you just agreed to do when you were out of a job. The reason this exercise is so helpful is that it helps to remove the emotions connected with core issues and new initiatives. It also eliminates the investment in ministries or strategies you’ve engaged in the past that aren’t working. A new leadership team wouldn’t have those attachments. They would start fresh. That’s what you need to do too.
Get Some Outside Eyes
Bringing in an outside experienced professional with fresh eyes and different questions is a great way to help you begin to think differently. I know some great consultants at The Unstuck Group (the consulting group I’m involved with) that love the local church and want to see you win. We’ve literally helped hundreds of churches get unstuck!
This article originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
