Items that Hinder Church Growth: Lack of Vision

I am appalled at the lack of vision within urban churches.  Recently, I sat in the sanctuary of an urban church with a well-known pastor in our city.  He shared about the mess the church was in when he came, spoke of the growth of the congregation under his leadership, and pointed gingerly at various parts of the sanctuary as he talked.  After about fifteen-minutes I asked, “Where do you see this church in five years?”  He grew quiet, but eventually said, “I don’t know.”  I explored the topic with him in detail, but this pastor could not tell me any part of a vision for his church or for his people.

In traveling throughout the country and talking with many pastors over the past few years, I have noticed three distinct types of pastors.

The first type is building his ministry.  Sadly, many of today’s pastors are busily building a self-made career, climbing the church and denominational ladder to an empty throne of false hero worship.  These pastors have their groupies of younger pastors wanting to catch the hero’s coattail on their way up the ladder too.  As a young man, I followed this path.  However, in my late thirties, I grew to understand its vanity and God’s desire for a greater relationship with me that transcended into so much more than I could ever have gained on my own.  This type of pastor has but one vision, and he is the center of it.  Yet the gospel is preached and God uses the message to reach others.  Even though the motivation is wrong and the vision is self-centered, God can still use this man to help save people.

The second type is reaching the community for Christ and meeting human needs.  I stood in front of a church in Monroe, North Carolina with a pastor who pointed north, south, east, and then west as he explained how the church had worked to remove drugs and prostitution from their community.  To hear this pastor talk, this was his community and God wanted it cleaned up and rehabilitated.  He had presented his people a method for reaching these goals, which included buying some of the neighborhood houses so they could better control what went on in their community.  His church was packed to overflowing as the community responded to his love and care for their daily challenges.  He had a God-centered vision.  Like Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, this pastor had a vision for his community and it was a God-centered vision with people at its heart.  This man not only preaches the gospel, he lives it and people's lives are made better and eternally changed.

The third type of pastors has no vision for the church or the community.  This type pastor scares me and angers me at the same time.  God’s Word is clear, where there is no vision the people perish.  Yet there are large numbers of pastors that have no vision.  I believe this is because being a visionary is hard work.  Receiving a vision requires spending much time in prayer before God.  It takes face-to-face (F2F) time with God.  It takes God size glasses to look at a run down neighborhood and see the “heaven” in it.  It takes a visionary to look at a drug-ridden section of the city and see how God can transform the area, to look in the face of poverty and see the potential for creating wealth, and to look in the penthouses of loneliness and see joy and happiness.  Visionaries are needed in our cities across this nation and throughout the world, but visionaries have to spend time F2F with the Heavenly Father.  Visionaries learn to see through the Father’s eyes what can be.

A pastor who is a visionary can move into the most hellish part of the city and change it into a suburb of heaven.  Visionaries are not fearful of the flames of hell, for they understand the power of God to transform the bad into good, to reclaim the broken, and when necessary to create out of nothing.  If God has given you a vision for the cities, God will give you a strategic plan to bring that vision into reality.  God is a strategic planner, and He makes stuff happen through his visionaries.  There is no safer place in all the universe than being in the center of God’s will, and no worse place in this life than being outside God’s will.

What do you do if your pastor is building his own ministry, unconcerned about the real hurt and pain in your neighborhood?  What must you do when your pastor has no vision?  Pray and pray hard!  We are living in the last days, and we do not have time to be playing denominational games.  We need to be about the Lord’s work of going throughout our cities and making disciples and baptizing them in the name of the Lord Jesus.  Pray for your pastor, pray for your church, and pray for God to give you a vision for your city and the courage to help make it become reality.

Items that Hinder Church Growth: Leadership Failure to Respect Time

Urban centers are fast pace with events happening all throughout the city every day, and Sunday is no exception.  Cities experience professional sports teams, concerts, conventions, etc nearly everyday of the week.  This causes the avid fans to make a hard decision, and sometimes the length of a service becomes the determining factor for attending.  Some urban churches become proactive in helping members and guest attend.  One church I know located near a stadium where professional football games often start at 1:00 pm, has timed their worship to end at 11:30 a.m.  When games are being played at 1:00 pm, they throw a big “tailgate party” in the parking lot allowing worshippers to eat and still make it into the stadium for the kickoff.  Members and guest can attend worship and not feel the need to skip church to make the game.

Churches can fight against urban social events, or use the events to advance the cause of Christ, taking advantage of the event for outreach opportunities.  Worship leaders need to understand the urban mindset of worshippers.  Churchgoers want:

•  worship and discipleship at times convenient for them.
•  accessible parking and ease of entrance, with no waiting, lines, or delays.
• greeters, ushers, and staff that are polite and efficient.
• their worship leaders to be well educated.
• up to date with use of technology in worship and teaching.
• able to equip correctly interpret and mentor Scriptural application to modern urban life.
• all worship and discipleship to be accessible and high quality.
• to use technology to communicate events and happening in real time.
• accessibility to staff 24-7

In summary, churchgoers want convenience, quality, and technology blended into services and training.  Pastors and staff want better pay, better working conditions, and personal recognition, but often resist learning new technology, continuing education, and “putting themselves out there” to meet the needs of city dwellers.

Urban families have numerous demands that pastors should take into consideration.  Divorced parents often are shuffling children back and forth between parents, many people work on days of worship, and household chores demand much of the weekend time.  In the case of my wife and me, we find ourselves squeezing in time with our adult children and their families, household chores, and serving as power of attorney for my mother who is in the later stages of Alzheimer’s.   

When pastors fail to understand and respect the worshipper’s time constraints, the pastor hinders the growth of the church.  Urban churches must creatively develop unique ways to allow members and guests to worship and to experience discipleship training.  Churches must not make worshippers feel bad when they are unable to attend a set time of worship.  The key is to offer more worship times, not less, to develop online discipleship training tools, and to create Bible Study and fellowship times very throughout the week.

The problem with dying churches, especially in urban areas, has more to do with church leadership making bad leadership decisions than any other single factor.  Churches can no longer expect the faith community to fit restrictive preset times and structure and must embrace flexible efficiency in order to experience growth.

So what do you do if your leadership does not respect your time or makes you and others feel guilty that you cannot make or stay for events?  First, commit this issue to the Lord in prayer.  Continue to pray until the Lord gives you a clear directive.  Second, talk with the pastor about your personal time restraint.  Be truthful with both yourself and the pastor.  Sometimes the hardest part is being truthful with oneself, but it is never easy speaking with the pastor about such matters.  Some pastors think they have more to say than they really do, while others think that what they have to say is more important than anything else.  Third, take the information gleaned from your conversation with the pastor and continue to pray concerning it.  Continue praying until the Lord gives you another clear directive.  Fourth, when the Lord speaks to you, act on His directive.  Often the Lord directs a person to leave their current church instead of creating a major issue.  Remember, God deals harshly with those who raise their hand against God’s anointed.  On the other hand, you may discover that your pastor is already aware of the issue and he may enlist you to help resolve the issue.  If this is the case, be patient, change takes time. 

Items that Hinder Church Growth: Lack of Visibility and Audibility

Churches throughout the country are loosing youth and adults due to the “decision makers” failure to modernize the church’s technology.  Today’s worshippers want to see the speaker on a screen or large flat monitor, and the sound must be crisp, clear, and easily understandable.  Worshippers want quality that exceeds older “sound systems.”  Youth and adults today have come to expect high quality media.  Audiences quickly loose interest in media that is poor in quality, and often view it as laughable.  Sound and video projections should never distract from conveying a quality service and message.  Yet many church leaders fail to understand the need for clear visibility of the minister and worship leaders, as well as clear audible sound.  This requires some of the latest equipment and properly trained operators.  Decision makers and worship leaders destroy worship and eventually the church through a failure to understand that the congregation of worshippers wants to hear and see what is taking place.

One church where I occasionally worship has such outdated equipment, but to complicate the problem, they seldom use it.  When a congregation or soloist is singing, or the children are performing a play or musical, the screens are normally used.  However, when the pastor starts to preach the projectors are always off and the screens remain blank.  Worshippers are often moved by the facial expressions of the pastor.  The leader conveys the seriousness of the message or the love of Christ through facial expression that generally cannot be detected in larger facilities.  Churches that choose not to “magnify” the pastor’s image deprive the listeners of much of his communication.  There is a reason business deals are made face-to-face and not over the phone.  Pastors who do not allow their image to be magnified are faced with an increased pressure to use the spoken word, as facial and body language are removed from their ability to communicate.

One woman shared with me how her eyesight had diminished over the years.  She said, “When the pastor preaches, I can’t see him clearly anymore.  So I focus on the large cross behind him; I just focus on the cross and listen.”  While there is a message in this woman’s statement, it is sad that this woman could no longer see her pastor and his body language.  This is exactly what many churches do to the worshippers.  Fortunately, this woman’s church was able to install large screens and now she can once again see her pastor as he preaches.  Worship is more meaningful to her in the waning years of life and she can see the love and care once again in her pastor’s face as he comforts and encourages her through God’s Holy Scriptures. 

Contrary to popular belief, quality sound, lighting, and media tools are not just for the youth – although the fog machines might be.  As people age, their ability to see and hear usually diminish as well.  This is one reason baby boomers have aided the sale of large flat screens and surround sound for their home entertainment, and expect no less from their house of worship.  Younger adults and youth have grown up with the latest of technology, and they equally expect their church to use the latest technology to enhance their worshipping experience.  Sadly, this is a time in life when the Word of God is needed to comfort and sustain Christians in finishing the race of life.  So if you have opposed quality sound, lighting, and media in worship thinking it was just for the youth, think again!  Everyone likes to hear and see what the pastor and worship team is trying to communicate.  Great sound and visual aids, and yes even the fog machines, is about getting the message of Jesus to the masses who need salvation, discipleship, and comfort.  Let us see what we can do to improve the communication in our urban churches.  This Sunday, take a different look at how your church uses sound, lighting, projection, etc and see if you can suggest to your leadership team how your church might improve worship.

Items that Hinder Church Growth: Failure to use Digital Technology.

One of the reasons many churches are loosing youth and young adults is the misunderstanding of the “decision makers” to adapt technology into the life of the church.  The announcement below was lifted out of an actual order of service in an urban church that I recently attended. 

As I looked around the congregation, I notice that this church had mostly middle to older adults in the service.  I am fifty-five years young and try to stay current with effective ministry trends.  If you see me in your service, I will be using my modern devices.  I am not trying to be disrespectful or discourteous to others.  I just want to reach people for Jesus!  There is a big difference between asking people to “silence their data devices,” and asking them “to refrain from the use of all electronic devices.”

 Even the phrase “electronic devices” refers more to vacuum tubes and integrated circuits, and clearly reflects an outdated understanding of today’s digital data technology.  Used properly in worship digital devices can excite the congregation, be a great outreach tool, and help a church grow.  I use my Blackberry in worship!  In fact, my Bible is on my phone.  Why would church leaders ever suggest that reading one’s Bible in service is being discourteous to others?  Digital Bibles are increasingly used by the masses today because it is free and printed Bibles are expensive.  Fewer and fewer people own printed Bibles.

A few weeks ago in another church, I watched as a man used his iPad during service.  I watched as he followed along with the Scripture readings, and then took notes as the pastor preached a dynamic sermon.  This was no more distracting to me than if he used a printed Bible and a pencil and paper to take his notes.  What pastor would not desire for his listeners to take sermon notes?  Some people even use their phones to make digital recordings of the messages so they can listen to it again, or share it with a family member who is unable to attend.  This bulletin announcement clearly shows leadership that is out of touch with the people to whom they are to minister, and it is a clear turnoff to youth and young adults.  Failure to use technology in the church is certain to lead to participatory decline and eventually the death of the church.

Sometimes I use my phone to snap a picture (no flash) and send in out to social media outlets with a note like “this music is fantastic” or “the pastor is firing on all cylinders today” followed with something like “ I sure wish you were here to enjoy this service.”  Smart effective pastors encourage this in their churches.  It builds excitement, boosts attendances, and is one of the best methods of modern outreach.  Why do church leaders want to stifle outreach and growth?  Can you imagine the number of people that could be reached if just ten percent of the people in attendance at your service did this every Sunday?

If your church is not using digital data technology in its worship and Bible study, I challenge you to sit down with a group of 15 – 25 year old's and ask this question, “How can we use digital data technology in our services?  Let them brainstorm, share openly, and observe their excitement.  Then ask them this question, “Will you help our church do some of these things you just suggested?  Again, observe their excitement!  Don’t you really want to find a way to use these wonderful ideas and excitement to grow your ministry?