Walking New People into the Life of Your Church
A Travel Free Learning Article
By William T. McConnell, Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership
Voice: 513.266.0961, E-mail: BMcConnell@TheColumbiaPartnership.org, Web Site: www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org
Download McConnell, From the Outside In, 10.11.11 Edition
Listen to the Travel Free Learning Dialogue with Bill McConnell talking about his article:
Over the years I have been involved in ministry in the local church, I have read many books and attended many seminars on attracting visitors, assimilating new members and closing the back door to retain members. In many approaches each of these segments are treated as free-standing programs and ministries. It is my belief that to be effective they must be linked and seen as a whole. They must be understood as a process and presented as a path.
Many of us involved in ministry have learned the place to begin planning is at the end point. We know we must first decide where we want to end up before we can begin. Wisdom tells us that with an eye on the goal we develop a path or a process that leads us to that goal.
For me, that ending point—the goal—is to produce a disciple. Though it isn’t registered in the annual report, I acknowledge that my goal as a pastor is to move well beyond just having a person just join the church. When I speak of producing a disciple I realize that “disciple” can be defined in many ways. I believe many pastors would not describe the average church member as a disciple. For too many of us, being a Christian has become more a matter of joining and less a matter of being. In the last church I served we called what we were working on developing a fully functioning follower of Christ.
During most of my career in ministry, my approach was to get someone into the life of the church, offer them as many possibilities for learning, growth and ministry and then hope for the best. Each time I stopped and took the time to assess the results I was invariably disappointed at the outcomes. Yes, some people did grow in their faith and relationship with God. Yes, some did get involved in doing ministry. And, yes, some did come to the front to provide solid, spiritual leadership for the church. But those answers were few and far between.
I will also admit that it me a long time before I was able to do an honest assessment. Like many of us involved in ministry, I tended to work hard but was seeking the wrong outcomes, and then measuring according to those standards for those results. Examples of these wrong outcomes were no one angry with me; a positive review at the end of the year; enough money to meet the bills; and, a functioning youth group and women’s ministry
Even when I changed my measurable outcomes to changed lives and making disciples, I still struggled with being honest about how positive my ministry really was. Like many of us, when it comes time to report the yearly average attendance, I tended to overestimate how many individuals were growing spiritually. I will admit that spiritual growth is difficult to measure but changed lives can be seen. Quite honestly, if the church was a business and I was the CEO, I would have been fired.
As is my habit, I continued to ask the question “Isn’t there a better way to reach our goal?” When I speak at conferences of being goal-oriented I often get quite a bit of blowback. Somehow we of the church seem to see being goal-oriented and attempting to measure results as bad things. My view is just a bit different. Instead, I believe we are working for God and should always push ourselves to do the best job possible and produce the best possible results. If the results are un-measurable then the goal is unobtainable. If we insist that our results are impossible to measure it allows us to be comfortably ineffective.
The clearly documented research tells us that there is a lack of difference between the lifestyles of those who make no claim of knowing God and those of us who call ourselves Christian. That lack of difference is, in my opinion, not a good thing. I believe that lack of difference is ample proof that we of the church are not particularly successful in producing disciples. I am not accusing or complaining. I am just making an observation. Many of us are doing the best we know how. But perhaps a new and different approach is in order.
I say all of that to help you understand how I concluded that to get the outcome I was seeking I needed a plan, a process, and a path. Disciples don’t just happen. They are taught, developed, trained, mentored, coached and developed. The question became how could and should that be done? I was reminded of the first day of classes in college. The professors would hand us the complete syllabus, the books to be purchased, the articles to be read, the papers to be written, and the tests to be taken. They dumped the whole load on the table and our minds were reeling. My first inclination was to head to the registrar’s office and start dropping classes. It was overwhelming; undoable.
My suggestion is that we make a plan to develop disciples and then morph that plan into a process. We then present that plan as simple and obvious steps—a path—that can easily be followed. Decide exactly what things you will offer to people who are outside the church to help them see that being a part of the church could be a positive influence in their lives, Or, that being a part of the church could be a good thing. Help our church members understand that they need to get outside the church and connect with people who are not a part of the church and invite them in. There are many ways this can be done and I suggest you look into and experiment with them all.
The next part of the plan is to provide special opportunities for new people to make new friends, meet the pastor or pastors, find out what the church is all about, who God is and what God is about and how to begin a growing relationship with God and fellow believers. In churches I served this has been done with a series of catered luncheons following worship gatherings. These gatherings usually lasted less than 90 minutes. Child care was provided.
Next we offered a series of short term small group meetings that covered some of the basics of the Christian faith. After attending these meetings we strongly encouraged these people to commit to attending a small group for 90 days. Our ultimate hope was that they would remain a part of these small groups we called Life Groups.
Instead of giving the new people a syllabus of our “Plan to Grow a Disciple”, we attempted to get them started on the path to discipleship. It is more comprehendible and less intimidating to be asked to just take the next step on a path moving one forward. We just ask a person to invest 60 minutes in a class. Then take the next step and join a group for a few weeks. Then take the next step and join a group for 90 days. Simply encourage people to take one step at a time down a clear and simple path.
Questions to Explore
· If you have a plan to develop disciples, can you write it down clearly and simply?
· What systems do you have in place to attract new people to your church? If none, what comes to mind?
· How do you meet and greet visitors to your worship experiences?
· What things do you do to help visitors meet new people in the church?
· What are the first and most important things you would want new people to know about your church?
· What is your end goal for developing a disciple?
Important Things to Know
Bill McConnell is a Ministry Colleague with The Columbia Partnership. He is a Church Leadership Coach and Church Transformation Consultant as a member of the Transforming Congregations Team. He is available for speaking, consultation and coaching with church leaders and congregations.
The Columbia Partnership is a non-profit Christian ministry organization focused on transforming the capacity of the North American Church to pursue and sustain Christ-centered ministry. Travel Free Learning is a sharing knowledge emphasis of TCP. For more information about products and services check out the web site at www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org, send an e-mail to Client.Care@TheColumbiaPartnership.org,
or call 803.622.0923.
Subscribe to the Travel Free Learning Articles: Text "TCP" to 22828
