Monday Morning Insights

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    Prophets or Pirates?

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    Watching a number of testimonial videos that report the progress of congregations, I’ve noticed a tendency to use logic like this: “we’ve grown by 300 people this year…and check out these stories!” The lights come down and we all watch a moving 3 and a half minute video featuring people who have experienced real life transformation. The video is both authentic and appropriate.

    But it’s what goes unsaid that bothers me. Citing the aggregate statistics and then illustrating them with two or three testimonies allows the congregation to assume that its growth is a result of stories like that. Let’s hope that’s true—but is it? Too often, when this fill-in-the-blank logic is used, leadership makes no attempt to report on the big picture: how much of the growth has come from new or re-churched Christians rather than membership piracy, albeit usually inadvertent?

    Even if the progress is mostly transfer-driven, the testimonies in isolation allow the church to believe that these stories are representative. If they are, then wonderful. But don’t we need to know that for sure? And if they are not, doesn’t someone need to have the courage to announce that growing by assimilating believers is not good enough, and that we’re going to fix that, or that we don’t really know how our growth is happening?

    Don’t get me wrong. Everyone in this scenario means well and is sincere. No one is trying to be deceptive or to misrepresent anything. And every ministry is going to have some transfers, sometimes for very legitimate reasons. The issue, however, is that churched culture rewards aggregate growth at almost any price, and sometimes, that price can be the failure to think through the impression we are creating. I know this because I have paid that price myself.

    So what will we evaluate in our church start? The answer is a work in progress, but our first step is to decide that we will not use any standard that has the effect , even inadvertently, of creating the impression that we are reaching people alienated from God when the reality is that we are filling seats with Christians who like (or need) our church more than the last place they attended. We are called to be prophets, not pirates.

    If you could start a church, how would you evaluate the progress of the congregation in its context?

    About the Author: Earl Creps has spent several years visiting congregations that are attempting to engage emerging culture. Until recently he directed doctoral studies for the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri (http://www.agts.edu ), where he spoke, trained, and consulted with ministries around the country. Having pastored three churches, one Boomer, one Builder, and one GenX, Earl and his wife Janet are now working on planting a new church in Berkley, California. Earl’s book, Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders, was published by Jossey-Bass/Leadership Network in 2006. Currently, he is working on another book about Reverse Mentoring. Connect with Earl at http://www.earlcreps.com

    As Janet and I prepare for our church start in Berkeley we are thinking through the issue of what we will evaluate to determine whether our effectiveness. A very knowledgeable person on these issues told me recently that fruitfulness in the Bay area is a ten year proposition with most people giving up in five. It’s just tough, so I respect anyone who serves there. But the issue of measurement belongs to all of us, not just to church-starters, because we all do it. In our case, however, we have a chance to draw up brand new benchmarks that are not bound by the almost universal emphasis on attendance and budgets. Lately I’ve seen that emphasis play out in a very specific way.

    Comments

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    1. John on Wed, August 29, 2007

      You might want to contact The Quest in Novato, CA (just north of the Bay area).  Joe Everly has been doing this for about 5 years there and could give you some real insight on the area and the people.  They have had some good success in life transformation.

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