The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Seventh Church

Here's a Seventh Church piece from Anne Marie in Calgary:

 A young woman in a congregation where I previously worked, succumbed to leukemia after a two-year battle. In her final moments, when she was struggling for breath and surrounded by her close family, she said, "Don't worry about me. I'm home now."

 

 

Arne's Arguement

Every once in a while I get a message that is worth responding to. Here's an exchange on The Fifth Church and the future of how the American Mainliners are about to become Flat Liners.

Rich, musing over your thoughts on fifth church I was struck by your thoughts of the death of the mainline church and your observation that we have lost the ability to reproduce. I would suggest that the whole Christian church has lost that ability. If you read the research by Patricia Killen in "the None-Zone" you will find her conclusion that no one is really reproducing the faith. the growing churches are not really impacting the unchurched, they are not reproducing but rather borrowing members from other church bodies. (implication mainline) Over 100 years of statistics in the  show a fairly steady rate of unchurched population. To the extent that this is true then the faithful are not growing or waning but rather moving. I wonder if this is cyclical and we can expect a movement back from the "contemporary" to the "traditional" I wonder what is good about our traditions that we sjhould cling to and continue to make the case for. Just a few thoughts. Thanks for your ministry.

Peace be with you, Arne from Washington State

Hey Arne,

Christianity dying? Not a chance. Check out Indonesia and Sub-sahara Africa and China and parts of Latin and south America where the holy spirit is moving and the church is growing leaps and bounds.

Maybe the kabod yahweh has left the building, but it hasn't left the planet.

God will build the church. No question about that. The only question is, will be there when it happens?

As Winston Churchill said, "There are basically three kinds of people:

    Those who make things happen.

    Those who let things happen.

    Those who don't know anything has happened.

Sad to say, I think the bulk of the American mainline falls squarely in the final column when it comes to seeing the handwriting on the wall.

What to do?

Let's work on it. I think the answer will have something to do with getting the WORD in, and getting the WORD out. With faith from the family up rather than faith from the church on down. With opening the kid before try to open the book. With faith formation rather than mere information in education. With engagement and player coaches rather than sages on the stages who demand spectators who are to sit quietly, applaud when appropriate and refrain from throwing things.

It will be a back to the future church, and look more like the second chapter of Acts than the current institution. And it will be marvelous in God's sight. After all, God's already designed it.

We just need to figure out the design.

 

Plan

Vision and passion are foundational, but vision and passion without a plan will shoot up quickly and then fry on the rocks during the noonday sun.

My momma always said, “Plan your work, then work your plan.” George Patton once said, “A half-decent plan violently and immediately carried out is better than a perfect plan put off until tomorrow.”

You may have a great vision and a great passion, but do you have a great plan? Is it all in your head? Then it isn’t a great plan.

A great vision might be given by God to one leader. A great passion might be entrusted by God to one leader. But a great plan is never given by God to only one. A great plan is always a group process, because a great plan isn’t great until and unless it has ownership. It won’t get off the paper dinner mat it is written on unless it gets major buy-in. And major buy-in only comes when other great people catch the vision and passion of the leader, and are invited into the process of pounding the pages out onto the streets.

So, you've got the great vision. You're infected with a great passion. What's your plan? And how are you going to attract smarter people than you to take the ball and run?

I'd like to hear some plans from you for discussion tomorrow.

Passion

Vision

The Bible says it well: “Without vision the people perish.” In the book of Habakkuk, the writer makes it clear that you must make it clear: “Write a vision. Make it plain upon tablets so that even a runner can see it.”

Is the vision you have for the church powerful and pervasive? Is it posted on the walls, preached from the pulpit, and written on the hearts of leaders and others of influence? Do your people see it everywhere they turn?  Does it pepper your speech? Fill members conversations? Cover walls and bulletins and bumper stickers? Is it a great vision that people will work to see accomplished? Do they want to be a part in fulfilling it?

Abraham Lincoln used to make a practice of sneaking out of the White House and going to church. Mary Todd Lincoln, who didn’t find much edification in Washington worship, slept in most days  but would often question her husband about the services. One day upon his return, she asked: “How was it?”

“Fine,” he responded.

“Only fine?”

“Yes. The worship was fine. The music was fine. The sermon was fine.”

“But it wasn’t great?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t ask anything great of me.”

If you want greatness to respond to great needs, you must ask something great of it… or them.

Tomorrow: Plan

Vision, Passion, Plan

There is no such thing as a money problem in the church.

Not when you have easy access to ten times the financial resources you currently are taking in. Most people in the pews could easily move the decimal point on their pledge over 1/16 of an inch to the right without it impacting their life style in the least. Some of them could move it over two decimal places and still get by just fine. What’s keeping them from moving a tiny dot 1/16 of an inch?

They won’t do it for a budget. They won’t do it for a plea in the bulletin or a temple talk from the chair of the finance committee. They won’t do it for a mediocre vision. (No one gives their time, talents or treasure to a mediocre vision.) They might do it for a friend with a great vision, an irrepressible passion and a powerful plan.

As I said, there is no such thing as a money problem in the church. There is only a vision problem. A passion problem. A plan problem.

Tomorrow I'll talk about vision. Wednesday I'll hit passion. Thursday I'll cover plan. Friday I'd enjoy your feedback.

Marketing 101

So you think the Da Vinci Code is going to give the church a problem?

I've got news for you, we've got a bigger PR problem than that.

Imagine This…
You are a marketing executive in charge of getting the word out on a great and wonderful product line. You know personally that this product works. It has saved and transformed billions of lives – including your own. You have an unlimited supply of this product, and people desperately need it. And your company is growing by leaps and bounds, right? No?

It is currently losing as many customers as it is gaining. You are at net-zero growth. That’s the good news.

The bad news is, most of your colleagues and friends in the field across the country are losing 3% of their market each year to the competition. Their message isn’t connecting. Across the industry, the future is bleak.

So, marketing executive, do you: A. Keep doing what you've always been doing and hope things get better on their own, or B. Immediately pull the best minds you can find together for a think-tank and launch a massive reexamination and restructuring of your marketing plan?

Reality Check Guess what? If you are a parish pastor, you ARE a marketing executive in charge of getting the word out on the wonderful product you have been called to market. There is another word for marketing and getting the word out in your field: Evangelism.

You have been entrusted with the most life-changing, grace-filled, abundance-giving product in history. You know personally that it works. (If you don’t, what are you doing “in the business?”)  It saves. It transforms. You do have an unlimited supply. People desperately need it. And your church is growing by leaps and bounds, right? Possibly.

If you’re a mainliner, 20% of you can say your churches you are growing. 40% are at a net-zero growth -  losing as many members to funerals and attrition as you are gaining through baptisms and transfers. The sad and scary news is, 40% of mainline congregations are losing ground. Overall, mainline Christian denominations are losing 3% of their market share each year to the competition.

A wise guy once said, “One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Another added, “If nothing changes, nothing changes.”

That isn’t exactly true in our case. For the mainline church, if nothing changes, the mainliners will be flatliners a decade or two from now.

You might say, “If nothing changes… we’re dead.”

I'm thinking we've got more than a marketing problem here. What do you think?

Raising Kids Who Worship As Adults

Here's a short list on what you've got to do to raise kids who attend church as adults.
1. If you want to raise kids to attend church as adults, then you'd better raise kids who attend church as kids.
2. And you'd better have kids involved up front in that worship all the time.*
3. And you'd better engage both their hearts and minds - teaching, preaching, reaching to the heart and creating (can I say it?) sensual experiences in worship that teach the whole brain and involve all of the senses.
4. And there had better be surprises in worship.
5. And there had better be moments of transcendence.
6. And there had better be sermons that ask something great of them.
7. And there had better be questions with no easy answers that they take home and tape to their refrigerators for the whole week.
8. And the art had better grip them.
9. And one "hook" thought or phrase ought to be burned into their memories.
10. And if your kid is a boy, their dad, grand dad, or another faith mentor male had better be sitting right next to them, holding their shoulders in the communion line, and singing the songs with gusto.

And that's only the start. I'd enjoy hearing some of yours.

(*Regarding Involving Kids All the Time: Their art on PowerPoints, their voices as singers and readers, their stories as temple talks, their skits as sermon aids, their answers and thoughts with a mic in their faces during the children's sermon. SIDEBAR PET PEEVE: The children's sermon should star the children - not the pastor. They're a lot cuter, so get them up off the floor, standing facing the crowd and let the pastor use the mic like Oprah interviewing them.)

iGod?

They just sold their billionth iTune.

Apple and their college drop-out CEO know how to market.

What are they selling? Music? No, music is only a part of it.

It came over the airwaves only a few short years after the first one was sold, changing the way my kids think (and expect) things should be delivered.

Immediate. Cheap. High Quality. At their fingertips. What they want when they want it.

They invented the category and the delivery, and own 80% of the market.

So what are they selling?

Cool.

Now, on to Jesus.

Consider this: You're a marketing executive in charge of getting the word out (evangelism). You've got the most wonderful, life-saving, grace-filled, abundance giving product in history. You have an unlimited supply, and people need it. It has transformed billions of lives.

And your company (church) is growing by leaps and bounds, right?

No? It is losing as many customers (funerals) as it is gaining (baptisms and transfers). You are at a net-zero. Most of your fellow sales people across the country are losing 3% of the market each year to the competition.

Do you keep doing what you've always been doing, or do you start examining your marketing plan (or lack thereof)?

Back to Apple

People carry their iPods with them where ever they go. They wear them on the outsides and are tuned into them constantly. They tell others about them. They are happy to be seen with them. When something goes wrong, they run right to the Apple store and get it fixed. (By the way, Joseph's iPod broke a week after the warrenty expired and the kid at the "Genius Bar" - the cool place where they fix all Apple products at Mall of America - said: "Ah, what's a week! You're an Apple customer. Here's a new one.")

Now, back to Jesus.

Do your people carry Jesus with them wherever they go? Do they tell others about him? When they come to the Church for help, do they get that much grace from you?

I think it is time we get the best marketing people in our churches - and out of our churches - to have a little sit-down to help us figure out the spectacular marketing disaster we are perpetuating.

We've got the best thing out there. We've got the REAL real thing. Lives depend on  our getting the product out. And we're doing a lousy job.

Rich

(PS I have refrained from using the "You're fired!" line, but for those who believe in hell, it may literally apply.)

Denominational Plugs

I just spent two days at a national denominational headquarters, trying to figure out the future of Christian education with them. They were very gracious and kind.

Most of the people I hang out with these days are telling me not to waste any energy or effort with the dying mainline. Let someone else bury them. I don't quite agree, although I do see God doing amazing things outside of the traditional arenas.

Will death come with a bang or a whimper? Will anyone know or notice when the last mainliner turns to a flat liner? When I started on the road 12 years ago there were 11,000 churches in my denomination. Now there are 10,000.

Is it time to pull the plug on the denominations and head off to see what God will do next? Here's a fun piece from Cliff at Church Resources that might shed some light:

Subject: A room with a view

It doesn't hurt to take a hard look at yourself from time to time, and this may help get you started... During a visit to a Mental Asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized. "Well," said the Director, "We fill up a bathtub and then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub." "Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup." "No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug." Do you want a room with or without a view?

Superman's Pal: Anonymous Lutheran

And here's one for thought.

Jimmy Olsen, Superman's cub reporter photographer friend, is listed as a Lutheran on a "Famous Lutherans" website.  He is a Lutheran like all too many other Lutherans. The reason he is listed?

Has he ever discussed his faith with his friends?

No.

Has he ever been seen going to church?

No.

Has there been any evidence of his faith in his words or actions?

Questionable.

But he's a Lutheran, right?

Yup.

His name is Olsen.

That's it.