Why Rock the Boat? -- Guest Post

This is a guest post from an author I really like:  my wife, Kaye Sims,  who asks some of the questions she has been wondering about lately.  This one is addressed to church leaders who encourage cutting edge ministry... and then fail to support their pastors who actually implement innovative methods, some of them ultimately losing their jobs as a result.

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Why do you encourage missional thinking?  Why do you bring in innovative thinkers with their radical and transformational ideas?  Why do you invest so much time and energy getting pastors fired up to lead their churches into organic, refreshing, authentic ways of doing ministry?  Why do you push these amazing, wonderful, life-changing concepts and encourage pastors to implement them?  Why do you convince people that disciple-making is not a program, but that it is a radical way of thinking and living, a fresh but ancient wave of spiritual reproduction?  Why do you challenge church leaders to dismantle their fortress mentality and to learn instead what it means to unleash the church - to BE the church outside the institutional walls?

But the real question is this:   When pastors follow these principles and find themselves and many of their people invigorated and becoming more effective in reaching their community, and then when the local power brokers get up in arms about the inevitable break from tradition, why, oh why, do you refuse to stand with those pastors?  Why in the world do you stand instead on the side of the status quo as yet another pastor gets kicked to the curb?  Why do you blame him and the people who followed him into the new Spirit-led ministry that you introduced?  Why do you label them rebellious - those who dared to venture out and live out these transformational disciple-making principles?  

Why indeed do you encourage such innovative thinking that violently upsets the apple cart?

Innovative thinkers blow up the status quo.

Wouldn't it be better to promote ways to keep things running smoothly?  Wouldn't it make more sense to invest your leadership resources and energy in training pastors how to avoid making waves?  Why don't you bring in speakers and organize conferences around the principles of compliance to authority?  Forget finding the "man of peace" in a community who might be instrumental in welcoming a move of God that would transform that town.  Instead why not train each pastor how to quickly recognize the "man of power" in the local congregation - the one who pulls the strings or at least holds them?  Wouldn't a pastor benefit from learning the steps of how to keep that person happy?  

Instead of challenging pastors and people to resist the status quo, maybe it would be smarter or safer to train them to submit to it.  Wouldn't that be the way to keep the machinery oiled and running smoothly?  The way to avoid church splits and to keep the statistics steady and the monthly reports rolling in on time.  Isn't that what matters?  

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Kaye Sims very much enjoyed serving in church ministry for pretty much all her life until suddenly finding herself on the outside.  She has since discovered glorious freedom and loves to  watch for opportunities to be involved in reconciliation, redemption, and restoration.  She still finds herself wondering about lots of things and writes about some of them at her blog,  Wondering Journey.

Signs of Decline

  A couple of days ago I was conversing with a young pastor about the Life Cycle of a Church that has been described by author Alan Hirsch* and others.  According to Hirsch, it seems that in what he calls the adolescent stage when a church is young, it is populated by visionaries and pioneers whose focus is on people.  During the middle stage the church's focus is administration, so it needs administrative pastors.  And during the declining stage, the higher value is put on structure, so doctrines and programs and policies and properties are given a greater priority than people.
  This young pastor with whom I was talking was thinking about his future ministry direction, so it was important for him to look at his own gifts and inclinations and then pursue the sort of ministry that would accommodate him, be it pioneering a new plant, administrating a mature church, or nursing a dying one.
  Not long after our conversation it occurred to me that I have observed signs of a church in decline, and I really do mean actual signs, as in, printed notices that are posted on church walls.  My epiphany was that churches that have their policies posted for all to see are churches that are likely in the declining stages of their life cycles, since their focus is on structures.  Remember, declining churches put high value on policies, doctrines, and properties rather than on people.
  At my former congregation I have noticed these signs posted on walls:

• "Youth and children under 18 are not allowed to sit in the balcony unless supervised by a parent."  Posted at the foot of the stairs to the balcony.
• "Your Mom does not work here-  Please wash your own dishes."  Posted in the church kitchen.
• "Children, please do not operate the window blinds."  Posted next to every window in the fellowship hall.
• "If you open a window, make sure to close it before leaving the room."  Posted next to every window in the fellowship hall.
• Parents, do not allow your children to play on the wheelchair ramp."  Posted on the railing of the ramp.
• "Do not take coffee or drinks out of the fellowship hall."  Placed at the exit to the fellowship hall.
• And here's my favorite, a sign that was posted in the men's room of a church in a neighboring town: "Gentlemen, please stand closer to the urinal, and flush twice."

  These signs do not make the church a user-friendly place where people feel safe and accepted.  Rather, they make people feel nervous that they may do something wrong and be reprimanded for it.  They indicate a higher value placed on the property than they do on people,  an obvious sign that a church has moved into it's declining stages.


  Hmm, maybe I'll write the book on the actual Signs of Decline in churches, and make a lot of money.  I will need your help though:
  What signs have you seen posted in your church?  What do you think the subliminal message was that people got from that sign?  Welcoming or threatening?


*The Shaping of Things to Come", Alan Hirsch & Michael Frost, 2003