The Public Merger Meeting
Once everyone in leadership agrees that a unified effort is likely God’s direction, you’ll generally want to have at least one public meeting.
Assuming one church is taking the lead, the other church will likely want to gather to hear the vision and ask questions.
Here is how we’ve always done it: In each partnership we’ve entered, I’ve spoken to the partnering church and answered questions. Before the meeting, the other pastor (or leadership group) should have presented the idea to the people. Then we schedule a mid week evening event. Following worship, the pastor always says something to the people then introduces me.
After honoring the pastor, telling our story and explaining what the partnership could look like, I always:
- Explain things will change drastically! I never want people to believe it will be ministry as usual. If they don’t want change, they shouldn’t join us.
- Explain how the leadership structure works. We make sure everything is clearly understood how we function.
- Describe how this has worked with other churches. Because God has blessed each partnership we’ve entered, I always tell those stories.
- Introduce the leaders of our church. I want everyone to know our leaders. (One of our board members was from a previous church we partnered with.)
- Cast vision for reaching people. The best reason to partner is to reach more people.
- Answer questions. People always want to know what will happen to their favorite ministry. I spend ample time honestly answering questions.
- Allow people to vote. We don’t vote at our church, but I believe it is important for people who are giving up a lot to believe in their future. Every time we’ve done this, the people have voted overwhelming in favor of partnering.
What are your thoughts?
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my name is David Sherwood and I merged Cityview church with Lifechurch when i was the lead pastor.
Let me say first of all that this was one of the greatest moments of my life, and, it was the hardest.
From my perspective these are the crucial points from the weaker church side of the merger.
1. Walk in the shoes of the larger church. If you do then you will quickly understand that FULL surrender is the only way that this can be done in a way that takes full advantage of the stronger churches strengths.
2. God only has 1 church and so transfering members to be lead by others isn’t really that radical idea…in particular if they are more skilled in taking the church in the direction the weaker church needs to [but can't quite figure out] go. Think of it as part of the Exodus moving from Moses leading, to Joshua leading His people into thier promised land.
3. Don’t pick 3 or 4 potential merger partners and compare and contrast. This makes for a competitive spirit. In fact in my case I started down this road and exited from talking to other churches for a variety of reasons. 1 was the fact that 1 church promised me a job after the merger and this put my integrity at risk. It was important for the congregation to understand I was risking as much as them [if not more].
4. Pray and look for confirmations. Make sure upper leadership is on board and when you take it to the people cast vision and get early wins.
5. Make room for catharsis. This will be very painful for some people and they will need to vent. Just make sure that there is a rule that no small groups vent together and thus form little posse’s of mutiny.
a final word for pastors: Putting up your church family for adoption is probably going to be the hardest thing you will ever do. But you love them and want them to become all God wants them to be. Trust Gods sovereignty, it doesn’t mean that you failed…it simply means God trusts you enough to do something that looks insane [welcome to Abraham, Moses, etc lives]. There are very real emotional, career, and financial consequences to all this….BUT!…God is big enough to take care of all of it in the fullness of his timing.
The imperative of vision will trump fear if you are a good leader.
And I consider all my scars from this experience as trophies of His goodness.
I think the humility and courage involved in doing this is huge! David, you seem like a man after God’s own heart. A lot of church leaders might be tempted to stay the same size, reaching out to the same holy huddle and never reaching the lost in their community because their pride won’t allow them to consider this amazing opportunity. I think, based on what you wrote above, that you are an amazing man!
Thanks Craig for sharing you thoughts about the public merger. It helped me see this at a whole different level. It’s more than two churches working together, it’s one church yielding to the stronger church to come under and to become one. At least that’s what jumped out to me as I read your words.
Thanks David for sharing your story. It helped me as a pastor to see what that final journey would be like. I realize from your words that a pastor that feels lead this way must count the cost. It must also be a God thing, it’s not like we are becoming a franchise and “I” stand to gain from this. It’s a kingdom move.
Brandon, All church partnerships don’t have to work like this, but I do believe this is one of the best workable models.
David, You are one of the heroes of the faith!
I was thankful that God did not ask me to make sure the merger between NCC and LifeChurch went through. In all my business decisions prior to ministry, I was the leader and that meant that I would position myself and the direction I wanted us to go so that moving forward was a no brainer.
God released me of level of ownership by telling me and the Elders that we were to just present the opportunity to the body. We provided the church with ALL the information, both good and the bad. We may have even overemphasized the bad.
We had discovered with the help of LifeChurch which of our current staff would make the transition and which would not. We were upfront with the staff and the members with all that info before they were asked to vote.
We told them which ministry programs would be cut and which ones would be reworked. We told them that our current band would have to audition for the LifeChurch band—etc
They had access to all the information I did and they felt the weight of making the decision as much as I did.
93% said we are in!!!!
Thanks for the insight on this Craig! I’ve been through 2 church mergers (1 when I was in high school and the 2nd when I was on staff). The first did NOT go well (they tried to keep both pastors as co-pastors). The second eventually resulted in the merger becoming more of us helping them get on their feet and letting them go (a good thing for both parties). I think your insights are great here! I think this will happen more and more as time goes on and it’s good to think through the basics before that opportunity arises.
I echo David. There is a bit of pain involved. The process tends to either bring out the best in people or the worst. In my case, it helped identify key players in the future LifeChurch.tv campus. The process also weeded out many non-contributors to the vision. Like with refining Gold, the impurities (my self included) rise to the surface under the heat. With these issues on the surface, it forces one to deal with the change that needs to take place. This is a good thing. It lays a much healthier foundation and creates an atmosphere for God to do amazing things.
One thing that I believe is important from the 2 that I have been part of is that when either of the churches are going to have a meeting to discuss or cast vision for thier church for the coming together of the 2 churches it is a good idea to have represenatives there from the other church to hear what is said. It helps eliminate potential hear say comments that can bring unnecessary challenges.
I think what’s being discussed here has some merit depending on the spiritual temperature of each affected congregation. As a church planter, I’ve had my share of heartache and struggles but I personally wouldn’t consider this for my congregation. Not because I’m selfish, not because I want to stay in my “Holy Huddle” as one commenter here mentioned but because I think it’s perfectly OK for a church to stay at about 200-300 people if that’s what God wants for it.
I’m not saying the merger idea is a bad one. I think highly of Craig and Lifechurch and have a friend in Oklahoma City that attends there. They do tremendous ministry and I know people who’s lived are being changed by their ministry. Thank God for that. What I am saying is that many pastors feel like they aren’t as gifted, aren’t as skilled, or aren’t as “leadership oriented” as our new church culture tells them they should be. Steve Sjogren is planting a new work in Tampa, Florida after years as pastor of the highly successful Vinyard church in Cincinnati. He addresses this complex in his book “The Perfectly Imperfect Church”. His congregation in Ohio numbered in the thousands but now he says he’d rather have 10-12 churches of 300-500 people rather a large church of 6,000 or more. His reasons are outlined in the book.
I think it’s perfectly alright for a church to stay a smaller size while still reaching out. Nothing says you cannot evangelize and even establish another church from time to time. I think both options are perfectly feasible but will depend on the stick to-itiveness of the Pastor and his leadership.