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Change in Your Church
I’ve heard SO many pastors and church leaders tell me about how challenging it was to lead their church through a significant change…new building, worship style, staff transition, ministry launch, or program shutdown. Regardless of how successful the change was, at the end of that process they are usually so weary that they simply want to take a break from leading through change. The challenge is that this is the VERY time that they should lead through another change. Why? We’ll talk about that tomorrow, but for today tell me…
Has your church experienced an intense season of change? How did the people in your church respond? How did you lead through it? Afterward, did you feel ready or reluctant to initiate future change?
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We expanded our building (twice size), then changed our name a year later, changed ministry structures, and key leadership, all within about a two year period. I think people are used to it by now.
I am at the starting point of making changes because I have only been here two months. I am working now on laying out a vision and having people see the need for change currently. Some of the change God is doing because Sunday’s service are too full and we need to either add a service or build. I am seeing God move in other areas, so I am leading as God leads.
Probably what we’ve done most is to keep an environment conducive to change, so that change is not that unusual.
I wrote a post about leading change here:
http://www.ronedmondson.com/2009/07/successfully-leading-change.html
I became the lead minister of a church while the previous sr. minister (who has now been here for over 30 years) became the minister of pastoral care. We also had the transition of our worship minister and student minister, along with overhauling our leadership structure and the purpose values and vision of the church.
The result has been a 15% drop in attendance but we have seen more than a 400% increase in people being saved and redeemed in the last two years. We consider that a successful transition.
It has been much more painful than I would have ever imagined, but we have continued to push forward for more change and more transition in our worship style and teaching content.
Our big change is coming in the next month as our long time music people retire. There is a hard push by many to find people to do exactly the same thing that’s been done - traditional worship, traditional choir. But we desperately need to reach younger generations and our long standing traditional style worship isn’t doing it. We have 152 years of inertia behind us.
Our church is growing, so we are splitting up the High School and Middle School ministries, bringing 6th graders up to Middle School. I am developing our small group ministry (which we’ve never done before) and we are in the process of hiring an associate pastor. There are also some additional traditions that are being removed, with some controversy.
Great series topic Bobby!
Our local church recently assumed the leadership of another local church, instantaneously doubling our size and making us one church in two locations. We now hold services in two locations - both of which are live services - we start one at 9:30am, and then jump in cars and travel 25-35 minutes to our 11:15 service at the other location.
We allowed the summer to be a summer of adjustment. We asked (and received) for a lot of grace, and we allowed this time for people to make the paradigm shift.
As we enter the key fall season, we are now asking everyone to run with us, by providing a clear and compelling vision, along with clear and compelling steps to fulfill it.
So far so good - change is messy, and can be a battle, but like David said in 2 Samuel 24 “I’m not going to offer God, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice.” It’s all worth it!
In the last year my church hired me as a student ministry intern. Six weeks later they fired the student ministry pastor. Several months later one of our two administrative assistants quite, and we moved our office. A couple months later the pastor was asked to resign by the elder board. Two weeks later they announced me as the new associate pastor. From January to May, the attendance dropped from 200 to 120. At the end of June a new pastor was hired. And in March we started a new high school worship serve which had about 10 students. It’s grown to around 60ish students over the last 5 months. It’s been a very… interesting(?) year.
The congregation has responded in a variety of ways. Many left the church. Some of become skeptical of the leadership, and started to take shots at people. Others have stepped up their commitment and looked for new ways to serve.
I just tried to persevere, instruct people not to gossip, and point them towards the vision of the church.
My views on change haven’t changed at all. Though, I’ve learned a lot about what to expect during a change and how to (and not to) communicate coming changes.
Planting a church is one continuous change in my experience! Two years of metamorphasis. We are facing a couple of fairly big steps. Building campaign to begin Sept. 13th… shhhh still not common knowledge… and a third Experience at 5pm on Sunday that will begin in 8 weeks. Bobby, you nudged me over the edge. Both will test me/us… pray for us. These are the good old days. I’ll remember to keep filling the tank for what’s next… Enjoy the ride.
I serve at student ministry in South Africa and we have recently changed venues. We had to move into the main auditorium of the church so we could accommodate the growth that has happened over the past few months. The church auditorium is very “Churchy” and not very teen friendly…so we have had to make some adjustments to the venue in terms of decor, and man-oh-man is it a challenge leading through this change. The biggest challenge is finding the mid-way between the teens that use the venue on Thursdays and the Adults that use the venue on Sundays…
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