And Lead Us Not Into Dysfunction

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Church Organizations and Their Leaders

Friday

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781532636745
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

Dysfunction. Anyone who has sojourned through congregations or denominations would agree that these are not immune to dysfunction. These holy organizations often eschew the standards upheld by secular organizations. It matters not that those "profane" or "worldly" processes accomplish those organizations' missions and serve humanity well--all within sound ethical boundaries. Consequently, many church organizations deny themselves the best practices of better organized entities. Their leaders think they have nothing to learn from secular leadership theory and practice. They fail to realize that not every leadership or organizational practice portrayed in the Bible is healthy or appropriate for our times. And Lead Us Not Into Dysfunction pursues the conviction that church organizations and their leaders can perform far better than they do. The book explores the causes of anything from mediocrity to dysfunction in church organizations, and outlines several helpful measures that congregations and denominations may embrace to secure organizational and leadership health. This book is a must-have for every pastor, church leader, denominational leader, seminarian, and leadership and organizational dynamics student.

Part I

It Is Eleven O’clock Sunday Morning; Do You Know Who Your Church Is?

I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.—Rev 3:1, NIV

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!—Rev 3:15, NIV

I know your deeds . . . Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.—Rev 2:2, 4, NIV

Chapter 1

Four Churches You May Know

At first glance, your church may look like a church. You know that church very well. There are some things about your church, though, that either worry you or give you pause, or create searching questions for you. Nagging questions. Disconcerting questions. Something about your church isn’t quite right. You know it deep down, but you can’t quite place your proverbial finger on exactly what it might be. You may not realize it, but your mind and spirit are really prodding you toward processing organizational questions about your church. Some of those questions touch on the leaders, others on the members; but overall, they all regard the way your church is organized, and who your church really is. Questions about how your church functions or does not function are questions about organization. Above all, though, your questions about your church arise from your particular understanding about church, which may or may not be Tom, Dick, Harry, or Mary’s understanding about church. It all boils down to the frame through which you are viewing your church, and whether your church is healthy or unhealthy.

There are good churches and, unfortunately, there are also bad churches. Of the bad kinds, there are many, by many different names. You might probably know one or more of the four churches in this chapter; well, not necessarily by name or location, but you probably know four churches either exactly like these or very much like these. You probably know a church that is an exclusive social club; another, which is a kingdom; still another that is a bureaucracy; and one more, a museum.

The Exclusive Social Club: City Edge Church

You may not want to know it, but your church may be an exclusive social club. Churches are always in danger of becoming exclusive social clubs, draped in biblical curtains. More churches have succumbed to this threat than realize it. Perhaps your church, or one you know, is already an exclusive social club. Now, don’t toss the book out of the window in disgust just yet—keep on reading!

City Edge Church had been declining for decades; yet, many of the members who still remained, loved being there. City Edge has had an extensive—and alarming—turnover of pastors in the last thirty years. Problems began for Glenroy Hughes, City Edge’s most recent pastoral alumnus, when he urged the members to understand that, if they were to be a congregation that was true to its calling to imitate Christ, they therefore did not exist to serve themselves but instead to serve their community. This, among other things, annoyed some of City Edge’s leaders, and started the tide toward Hughes’s eventual dismissal. This dismissal was not occasioned by a congregational vote, as required by the fledgling church’s bylaws, but by the church’s deacons, accustomed to doing their own thing, while enjoying their special club status as “deacons for life.” They enjoyed this status whether or not they continued to be fit to be deacons, and whether or not their actions injured or displeased the congregation.

When City Edge called Glenroy Hughes as pastor, it was clear that the deacons and members had the hope that the church’s membership would grow; indeed, Hughes’s own family members constituted a full 20 percent of the church’s usual Sunday attendance, and his teenaged children were often the only ones of that demographic present. Shortly after Hughes’s arrival, new visitors began to stay—at least, some of them—as they discerned desirable change beginning to percolate through the church, due to their pastor’s leadership attitudes and initiatives. However, it was these same attitudes and initiatives for change which began to challenge the old deacons’ self-perceived power, making it clear that were City Edge to grow in any way, power shifts had to happen and old stumbling blocks had to give way to new vision.

It was Hughes’s submission to the church board of a written proposal for changes in City Edge’s congregational life, as well as ministry and management, that placed him on the fast track to dismissal. Before the board could even meet to hear him and discuss the document he delivered for their contemplation ahead of a meeting, the deacons and other leaders’ easy suspicion and paranoia were piqued, and blunted any hope for objectivity in those discussions. The discussions never happened. Some of the younger deacons and other leaders understood, and were quite supportive of, Hughes’s initiative; they believed it to be not only the reason new visitors were coming and staying, but saw it as the way to City Edge’s new and bright future.

While all of this was happening, within his first four months at City Edge, Hughes was already processing twelve people who requested membership. Those twelve would have increased City Edge’s membership by 80 percent! Processing certain categories of new members included an interview by the deacons. For some reason, the deacons failed to meet after Hughes advised them of the twelve applicants. Time and again, Hughes would remind the deacons of the need to meet the twelve. Five months passed, each with several reminders. No meeting happened. Gradually, seven of the twelve left and went elsewhere. Re-reading the bylaws one day, Hughes discovered an oversight he had made and realized that the application status of the remaining five did not require the deacons’ approval; but only pastoral approval and presentation to the congregation for their welcome.

Ironically and unbelievably, it was the Sunday when Hughes attempted to present and welcome the five to the membership of City Edge that all hell broke loose. The old deacons (along with a couple of their younger supporters) objected, interrupted, and destroyed the worship service, despite the pleadings of George Conrad, one of City Edge’s denominational leaders whom Hughes had invited, and who had a long history of interventions with City Edge over the past decades. Nevertheless, the old deacons prevailed. The five membership applicants, though accepted into membership by the remainder of the bewildered congregation, were, by the following Sunday, worshipping elsewhere, because, by the end of that week, news had circulated that Hughes had received a letter from a lawyer, retained by City Edge’s deacons, advising him of his dismissal and warning of trespassing, arrest, and prosecution if he should return to the church premises.

City Edge’s leaders—though not all of them—preferred to squander the arrival of congregational renewal and membership growth rather than make way for the marvelous change that was seeking to break in. Curiously, they desired the church to grow, but evidently did not want any new members! Their new pastor and the remaining five prospective members represented to these old persons (along with a couple of younger leaders, relatives, and supporters) a threat to the status quo. The new pastor and prospective members signaled a significant change in City Edge’s very nature, and the end of the congregation’s inertia and insularity. But, quite sadly, City Edge preferred to remain an exclusive social club—and a very small one at that—rather than become a viable and effervescent congregation of Jesus Christ in a neighborhood that desperately needed a healthy presence of and witness to Christ. Conrad, the denominational representative, told the deacons and other leaders that day that they just squandered their very last chance of becoming a healthy congregation, and that he, too, was finished with them.

The Kingdom: Ocean View Fellowship

Perhaps your church is nothing like City Edge. Perhaps it is a more sophisticated version of an exclusive social club, minus the rancor and obvious disease as City Edge’s. Perhaps it is in no near danger at all of being or becoming an exclusive social club. Perhaps, though, it may be a kingdom, or in danger of becoming a kingdom.

Terry Fellowes has been Ocean View Fellowship’s pastor from the church’s inception. Fellowes planted the church in a depressed side of town several years ago, and then years later moved the congregation into a spanking new building on a bustling side of town, though not quite the suburbs. The congregation grew, to the point of becoming one of Ocean View City’s premier churches. Terry Fellowes had the last say in everything, and nearly always the first word, too. He led with a strong arm, and few persons would cross him or his opinions. Yet, the congregation kept growing. Reverend Fellowes had a charming personality despite how brusque he could be when laying down the law.

Over time, though, prominent persons began leaving Ocean View. Some left because they no longer felt they could toe the line, or challenge Fellowes; some were either shown the door or felt such onerous requirements made of them that persuaded them that they could not stay. Others were consistently locking horns with Fellowes. A large number left because they were threatened for inadequate financial giving and pressured to tithe. Rather than being pastorally engaged or compassio...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I: It Is Eleven O’clock Sunday Morning; Do You Know Who Your Church Is?
• Part II: Leadership that Transforms Congregations
• Part III: Our Churches Can Do Better—And They Should
• Part IV: So Much Spirit, So Little Strategy!
• Appendix 1: Collaborative Performance Review Document #1
• Appendix 2: Collaborative Performance Review Document #2
• Appendix 3: Collaborative Performance Review Document #3
• Appendix 4: Crestview Community Church Deeper Growth Ministry Logical Framework Matrix
• Bibliography