church growth

What’s my line?

/ pastorfeltz / 1 Comment

Have you ever been at a church meeting or gathering, and asked for someone to pray? Let me just guess how it went: 80% of the people quickly closed their eyes and folded their hands to indicate their preparedness to pray silently and the other 20% is the pastor or Sunday school teacher.

When I ask someone else to pray, I usually looked at like I had just asked someone to be the lead in a Broadway Play without a script. The reason why they won’t pray is usually the same:

“I don’t know what to say”
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How do you eat an elephant?

/ pastorfeltz / 3 Comments

elephant-in-museum_GkIPn8uu

Church leaders face a big struggle when it comes to revitalization of their congregations. 90% of churches are either in decline or stagnant, which means only 10% of churches are growing. Many churches (and, if we’re being honest, church leaders too) want simple solutions to make the process of turning around a decline quick and painless. But the reality is that revitalizing a church will take time. It may be helpful to think about the process of revitalization as the process of “eating an elephant”.

When I was in ROTC, I remember an instructor asking our class of cadets (who had noticeably become frustrated by our perceived lack of progress) a seemingly absurd question: How do you eat an elephant?

His answer?

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Moving from the kids table…

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Thanksgiving holds a Rite of Passage for every person – moving from the kids table to the grown up table. That transition demonstrates that the larger family is ready to welcome you fully as one of their own; they believe you can add value to the larger table without causing too much of a mess (I don’t have the best table manners, so this was a concern for me).

Churches have ‘kids tables’ and ‘grown up’ tables, just like family Thanksgivings.

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Growth in the cracks…

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Plant growing in cracked asphalt - vitality symbol

Finding new life in an established church can be a challenge. There are a lot of stereotypes about older (older both in age of the congregation AND age of the church itself) churches that are, unfortunately, true. And a lot of pastors struggle with “revitalization”, myself included.

Facilitating new life in an established church can feel a lot like trying to get grass to grow through blacktop. But I love the work of revitalization. Here’s why:

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