Don’t Make These 10 Church Transition Errors…
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Wed, June 06, 2007
- Viewed 616
- (1) comments so far
We hurt transition....
1. When we simply try to copy another church! Other churches may exemplify what we desire to become, but we better make sure that the change and transition we want to make are burned in our hearts by the Holy Spirit!!!
2. When we try to transition too fast! I know that some transitions, empowered by God, can take place rapidly. However, to move an existing church from one mindset to another takes time - for planning, for educating, and for implementation.
3. When we try to transition without well grounded relationships! This is a HUGE mistake. People follow leaders they trust. Trust does not come without love - love does not come without relationship! The nature of those relationships is dependent largely on the size of the church. The smaller the church, the more one on one relationships matter. The larger the church, the more those relationships have to reside with leadership and key influencers. If anyone really believes they can transition a church without meaningful relationships, they are in a for hard landing!
4. When we gloss over the real impact of transition! If we just tell people, “Don’t worry! It will work out fine!”, we are in for trouble. Transition means real change. Some people are going to go through grief as ministries or programs or structures that have existed all their life goes away. If you don’t minister to their grief, you will catch their grief. If pain will be involved in transition, certainly work to minimize it - but don’t ever try to hide it from your people.
5. When we are unwilling to see it through! If God has REALLY called you to lead transition in a church, then you have to be willing to demonstrate that you are willing to see it through. Many churches will not follow leadership through transition because they have observed leaders bailing out when the going gets tough! They figure - why bother - this leader probably will not stick it out either!
6. When we are unwilling to FINE TUNE the transition! # 5 has to be balanced with #6! Be willing to see transition through, but don’t be so arrogant and myopic that you cannot make reasonable adjustments to the original plan. My sense of things is that God doesn’t usually give you 100 % sight of all that will be needed on the front end. He measures our “next step of obedience!” The plan of God continues to unfold as we walk with Him.
You can read his last four here...
What do you think? What is the most important part of a church’s transition?
My friend Tommy Mitchell has a great post going over at his Rurban Church Blog. He's talking about the mistakes many make when transitioning their churches. Here's his top ten list...
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Don’t Make These 10 Church Transition Errors…So what?
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