"We're just getting old and tired. What this church needs is younger folks to pick up the reins and teach Sunday School and take care of the building like we have for so many years." "What the pastor should do is bring in young families with children." "We used to have so many people involved in service projects in the community: delivering meals on wheels, in the food bank, in the community interfaith organization, serving through Rotary, Lions, and so on. Now it seems like us seniors are too tired or gone to Florida or on other trips for months at a time. The younger members are all too busy with their work or kids. Nobody's stepping up to do what we ought to be doing." "I don't like these new hymns. Let's just sing the right kind of church music."
I've heard statements like these from pastors and church members and leaders. They know things aren't right and something needs to change, but can't seem to decide how to change or to make that change happen.
As a pastor or key lay leader, how do you lead change? Can you make a difference or are churches too stuck in the way they have always done things that they'll never change?
Former Harvard Professor John Kotter has written extensively on leading change in a business or government agency. He identifies 8 steps for leading change. See his website: http://www.kotterinternational.com/the-8-step-process-for-leading-change/
The steps are:
1. Increase urgency
2. Build the guiding team
3. Get the vision right
4. Communicate for buy-in
5. Empower action
6. Create short-term wins
7. Don't let up
8. Make change stick
In his book The Heart of Change, he stresses that "The single most important message in this book is very simple. People change what they do less because they are given analysis than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings." He and co-author Dan Cohen tell stories of how leaders have helped people see the need for a change, grab their feelings, and that this impels them to act. Real change doesn't come from gathering a book or Bible study group to intellectualize about how things might change. Change that lasts involves people seeing and feeling.
This past summer, I was crushed by the photo of the Syrian toddler being carried from a beach by a Greek police officer. I saw. I felt. I was impelled to write my member of congress and talk about the plight of refugees. Chances are you have been similarly moved.
So in this issue I invite you to imagine with me about how you might begin a process of change in your congregation, beginning with Step 1 - Increase Urgency.
Perhaps your congregation has inexorably declined in attendance over the past decade but members and other leaders either seem oblivious to the decline or they just can't seem to take any initiative for changing things. How might you help people see the gravity of their situation?
Here are some ideas to stimulate your imagination.
- Open a board meeting with a death announcement and funeral bulletin of the congregation. Base the date of death on current trends in membership and budget. Work with the church treasurer to come up with the figures.
- Prior to a worship service, place near life-sized photos in church pews of formerly active members who aren't present anymore - because they died, moved, drifted away, got mad and left... Perhaps do this on All Saints' Day.
- Do a slide show showing pictures of these former members
- Have a service of lamentation, thanksgiving, and confession
Perhaps you are concerned that the congregation is too inwardly focused. People see themselves as "friendly" but aren't really interested in the community surrounding the church building. Have a slide show of opportunities for ministry in the community; get community leaders in to tell stories of how your church might serve. Have a community leader escort leaders around the neighborhood and help them see with new eyes.
Perhaps they see themselves as friendly but don't really welcome visitors. Organize a team to have conversations with those who worshiped with you once or twice and gave you their contact information, but haven't returned. The team summarizes their findings and then presents a first person dramatization of what they heard.
These two approaches help members see the congregation from an outsider's perspective.
Perhaps you are having budget problems. You have the sense that people simply aren't committed enough either in faith or in the congregation. Some ideas:
- Place stacks of money symbolic of what rough percentage of their income that members gives to support the work of Christ in this church. In a congregation with 100 families in the Washington area where the median family income is about $100,000, the gross income of congregational members is around $10,000,000. If every family tithed, they would be giving $1,000,000 annually to their congregation. 5% would be $500,000. What if they were giving $250,000? How might you represent that visually? In such a congregation you could put a stack of 1000 dollar bills on the table in a board meeting, each bill representing $10,000. Alongside those stacks, place 25 dollar bills on the table, again, each bill representing $10,000.
- Have two stacks of bills, one representing what members gave ten years ago vs. what they give now.
If too few people are doing too many things, then this indicates that you aren't clear on God's priorities for you. Demonstrate this in a congregational gathering by having key people stand in the center with cords pulling them in many directions. Or perhaps have them wear a pile of hats, each corresponding to a duty they are trying to do.
The point is to be imaginative and dramatic. Grab the attention of both leaders and members to the situation. Increase the sense of urgency so that they will see the need to do something.
Are there concerns you have that simply aren't shared by most people? If people continue to ignore what you see, is it likely that the church will collapse? How might you dramatically help people to see the magnitude of the problem?
I will be addressing the rest of Kotter's steps in subsequent newsletters. But for now, I'd like you to come up with ideas for increasing urgency.
If you would like some coaching about how you might increase the urgency and lead change, please get in touch with me.
