Wednesday, September 17, 2008

After John Ellas left...



(Edited from an earlier Leadership Monthly - for those who've not read the whole Ellas' report at www.arcentralchurch.org, but would like a very brief summary.)
After John Ellas left…

...we had a lot of information to reflect on. Lots of numbers and information that show our strengths and our areas for improvement; but at the end of it all is a decision for us to make as a leadership. Who do we want to be? And after that decision is made, are we willing to make the changes in us as leaders to make it happen?

One key thing we’ve worked through in deciding ‘Who do we want to be?’ has included looking at ourselves very closely and owning up to our own myths about ourselves as a congregation. Some examples of things we’ve learned and have had to face about ourselves as a church include:

1. We’re not a downtown church – we’re a metropolitan-regional church that serves a membership that lives, for the most part, at least 5 to 10 miles away from our building.

2. Racial diversity doesn’t necessarily mean cultural diversity – we’re more similar to each other across socio-economically than most people think about, and we need to remember that race and culture are different things.

3. We are a middle to upper-middle class congregation – churches do not often find success or receptivity in reaching out to people who are different than their membership – in Central’s case, the poor or the very wealthy.

4. We still think like, act like, and organize ourselves as a congregation smaller than we are – if we want to grow evangelistically, we must make significant changes in how we think, how we speak and in what we do.

5. We do not communicate well – we must become people who listen well and who positively seek information we need about events, ministries, etc, rather than waiting for people to spoon feed us what’s often right in front of us.

6. We are showing signs of being a maintenance-driven church – “Will I like this, or does this make me comfortable?” versus “What will help attract and assimilate new people into our congregation and into God’s Kingdom?”

7. Evangelism today is different than evangelism of past decades – gospel meetings were great, but people today normally respond to ‘spiritual events’ only after a relationship with a Christian friend has developed.

8. We are friendly to outsiders and new people, but we are inadvertently reluctant to make room for new people by our not making friends with them, actively making new groups for them, or paying attention to them long term.

9. We have a lot of people involved in great service activities but one of our greatest needs is men & women who will commit to true leadership roles that extend outside of worship and class times & that aren’t simply task oriented.

10. We have difficulty getting on the same page, speaking the same language & pursuing the same goals – we need a clear language, path & agreed upon methods we will all pursue as the best things as opposed to a lot of good things.

Perhaps the hardest thing to hear was that our baptism rate is well below what a growing church must have to keep it’s head above water. Baptism of our children is precious, great thing. At the same time, baptizing our kids isn’t necessarily helping us reach out to those who don’t know Christ. We must change our thoughts and actions about evangelism.

We knew having an outsider come in to give it to us straight would be like going to the doctor for a complete check up after experiencing symptoms we were concerned about. It would have been a colossal waste of money and time to pay a person to come and tell us things to make us feel good, but conceal difficult things from our hearing.

But it’s not all bad news. While somewhat more general than some wanted to hear, he did give us some clear pointers for us to look toward so that we could begin making changes; first in our hearts about who we are and who God wants us to be and secondly in our actions as individual members at Central Church. While it is strong medicine, it is healing…

…if we will take it. Over the past three months, our shepherds and staff (hereafter known as our frontline leadership), have met to digest the Ellas’ material, prayerfully reflect on it and to begin looking ahead. In the past two months, our entire leadership group has met to talk about it and to begin taking the faith steps Our hope and prayer is that every member at Central will be a part of the upcoming meetings to talk about the new directions God is leading us in.

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