Inner Revolution

Five Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier (Part 5 The Volunteer Maze)

Over the past few days we’ve been looking at simple ways to make your church stickier. Based on visiting multiple churches over the past few months I have found some common areas which, with a little attention, would make it much easier for newcomers to connect. Today let’s finish with an area that every church wants to do well in; attracting new volunteers.

The volunteer maze

My wife has been involved in working with children since she was started leading the children’s choir at her church at the age of 15. She taught public school for many years, worked as an administrator at several public and private schools, served on multiple school boards, led children’s ministry at a local level and was the Children’s Ministry Pastor at Seacoast where she was responsible for over 1000 children on multiple campuses. So she thought it would be fairly simple to volunteer to work in the nursery at our new church. Not so much. She had to be fingerprinted, have a background check, attend an orientation, meet one-on-one with a supervisor, shadow a leader and attend a training meeting. It took her several weeks to finally be placed in a nursery with two bored teenagers and a half dozen babies. While safety and training are very important in children's ministry, giving birth to her own baby was less complicated than this process.

While this is an extreme (though not exaggerated) example, it points to a challenge I see in many churches. How difficult is it to volunteer at your church? Most leaders would say it is very easy. There is always an opportunity to sign up to hand out bulletins, watch babies or park cars.  But what if there are higher capacity people in your church who might be able and willing to contribute at a senior level? It is very likely that there are men and women in your auditorium on Sunday who would be willing to share their extensive experience for free if there were an easy way to connect. While they may not be ideally suited to serve coffee or change diapers, they bring years of invaluable expertise. The church that made my wife jump through every standard hoop to babysit missed the opportunity to tap into 30 years of experience. What free expertise and experience are you missing by channeling everyone through the lowest common denominator opportunities?

How can you simplify your onboarding process for new volunteers? How could your church create an obvious and easy on-ramp for high capacity leaders who would like to volunteer in your church? Is there a tool that would help you quickly identify and connect with these leaders? If you can figure this one out the payoff in Kingdom effectiveness will be exponential.

Five Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier (Part 4 Better Preaching)

(Sorry for typos and heresy, this was posted between flights. So it hasn't been edited. Oops)

This week on the blog we have been ways to make your church stickier. I’m not talking about how to make your church more attractive then the church down the street. I’m talking about the new people who walk into your church looking for a place to connect, a place to belong, a place to heal. How can you make sure that they find the restoration and reconciliation with God they desperately need? Based on visiting several churches over the last few weeks I’ve identified some common barriers that are relatively simple to tear down. Today we’ll tackle a fourth barrier that may feel a little personal, but I think could have the biggest impact.

Make you preaching more applicable and practical

Every church I have visited recently (especially yours) has had a very capable preacher who has given a fairly clear, coherent presentation of the Gospel. At the same time I have felt a little lost on occasion (except at your church) as to where the pastor was going with their sermon. As a new (or old) attender at your church there are three questions I need answered in every sermon:

What do you need me to know?

Sermons are packed with all kinds of information. Background information on the Bible passage, personal stories, famous quotes, obscure statistics, amusing anecdotes, paradoxical historical references, multiple Bible verses from multiple books of the Bible. Out of all this information that you are sharing in 30-60 minutes which part do I need to know? As every college student has asked at some point, what will I need for test? While I’m sure everything you say in your sermon is essential and life changing I can’t possibly absorb or remember it all. Not even close.  So please, please, please tell me what part do I NEED to know? And make that part memorable.

How has this essential knowledge impacted your life?

The inside information you gave on the life of a 1^st century rabbi was fascinating. The quote from Bonhoffer was absolutely riveting. The story about the five year old teaching her grandfather the true meaning of faith was totally adorable. But what I really want to know is how does this play out in your life? Do you have doubts? Are you generous? How do you find God’s will? Who are you sharing your faith with? What is your small group like? If you don’t have personal stories of how the main point of your sermon works (or doesn’t work) in your life then lets just skip the sermon and get home in time for the pre-game show.

What exactly do you want me to do as a result of hearing this message?

I need a specific action step. I need something I can do now, today, before I go to bed tonight. I can’t remember five steps and by tomorrow morning all I’ll remember about your sermon is the joke you told about the priest, the rabbi and the elephant.  And I need the action step in a specific, binary format; if I will do X then Y will begin to happen in my life. I’m not asking for a part the Red Sea miracle, but I need to know that if I take action on the essential information I will see progress similar to what you have shared from your own life. And be realistic about how big of step I can take today and how much progress I will actually see. I have to believe you if I am really going to take a step.

If I knew that most Sundays at your church a pastor would share essential information grounded in his own experience that applied directly to action steps I can take to improve my life I think I would be inclined to attend as often as possible. (Obviously true life change only comes from biblically based messages focused on the cross. My point is that these sermons need to be delivered in format that the average attender can connect to.)

Tomorrow we’ll finish this series by looking at how hard it is to volunteer at many churches. (But not yours)

 

Five Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier (Part 3 Connection)

Here is something that I’ve realized in my recent church shopping experience: most of us who are visiting your church aren’t coming because your pastor is a stunning communicator, we’re not coming because your worship leader looks like Keith Urban and leads like Matt Redman, we’re not even here because Disney takes cues from your children’s ministry. Most of us are here because we want relationships. We want to know and be known. We are walking through a lonely, difficult time in life and we “want to go where everyone knows your name.” And churches (not yours of course) can make that really hard. 

After visiting several churches and not really cracking the code on how to connect (other than attending the pancake breakfast), my wife decided she was going to solve the riddle. After service on a recent weekend she waited in line at the table designated  “Connect” to ask how we could get into a small group. When she reached the front of the line the volunteer explained that we were at the wrong table and walked her over to the correct line. When her turn finally came she asked again how we might join a small group. The very sweet volunteer was very well versed in the process:

“Our small groups don’t start until the middle of next month, so if you come back in two or three weeks you can fill out an interest form. The form will go to the Small Groups Coordinator, who will give it to several group leaders based on your interests. Those group leaders will then contact you and you will then be invited to attend their small group.”

This was a well thought out system, which was explained by well-trained volunteers who were warm, friendly and helpful. The challenge is that we left knowing that we were at least a month from actually connecting with someone. In the meantime if something comes up in our lives where we really need a friend to lean into we can always drop by the pancake breakfast.

Churches should be more like car lots. I could never walk away from a car lot wondering how to buy a car, or be told to come back in a few days, or have to give my phone number so someone can call later and talk about car ownership. I’m not suggesting churches should be pushy or over-bearing, but we should adopt the motto of car salesmen, “How can I put you in this car today?" If the main reason people are showing up at church is to find relationships there has to be a way to help them connect today. Not next month, not at the pancake breakfast on Saturday, but today.

How can you create an obvious and easy opportunity for people who want to meet people every weekend at your church? If it’s a reception with the pastor then make sure you have friendly connectors there as well. If it’s a box lunch in the basement make sure it isn’t awkward for people who don’t know where the basement is, when it starts or what they are supposed to do when they first get there. And for the love of all that is good don’t let the members clump up in little circles laughing and talking to one another at your connection opportunity. Newcomers don’t need yet another chance to feel left out.

This isn’t about consumer Christianity or church growth; this is about people going through life alone desperate for a friend. This is the central theme of discipleship, that we love one another. People want to connect, you want people to connect, let’s put significant time and energy into making this happen.

 

Five Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier (Pt 2 Navigating the Maze)

This week we are talking about simple ways to make your church stickier. The idea for this series came from attending nine different churches recently and running into the same challenges (except at your church). Yesterday we covered one of the biggies which is helping your people be friendly and hospitable to new attenders. Today we’ll look at an area that is so obvious that many churches overlook it.

Make your church easier to navigate

 One way to solve the personal debt crisis in America is to make stores as difficult to navigate as many churches. Just figuring how to park is often an irritating early morning brainteaser. At a church we recently attended the main entrance to the parking lot was blocked by orange cones. There was no sign, no parking attendant, just orange cones screaming, “No room in the inn”.  Because we were determined to attend we found a secondary entrance and parked in the lot with the blocked entrance.  We often see signs at large churches that say “Lot full” with no indication of where we might be allowed to park. At one church we kept following signs and lot full signs until we were eventually dumped back out on the main street. Again, we eventually found ample parking on site, but we had to be determined. I have seen Do Not Enter signs on auditorium doors with no explanation or alternative. Can you imagine a sign on the entrance to Target "Store full, do not enter"?

Once we park it is often difficult to figure out where we should go. Which building is the auditorium? Where are the children’s rooms? Should I bring a pee cup, or does this church have onsite restrooms? These are the questions that many churches do not provide obvious answers to. On more than one occasion I have stood in the lobby and waited to see where the majority of the people seemed to moving toward to find the auditorium. Imagine standing with the fam at the front gate of Disney World with no indication how to enter the Magic Kingdom. That’s how new attenders feel when they arrive at your church.

Once inside church the challenges continue. Can I bring my soda (or coffee if you are one of THOSE people) into the auditorium? Do I find my own seat (like a movie) or will someone find a seat for me (like a play)? When do I stand, sit, hand over my wallet? Will I be forced to sing a solo? Approximately how long will this service last? Am I supposed to wash down the stale bread with a big swig from the cup of wine? These are the kinds of questions that normally I have to figure out on my own. Printed program guides are helpful, but I'm not sure if I should really sit and read while everyone else is standing and singing.

The challenge is what the Heath brothers in Made to Stick call The Curse of Knowledge. All of the regular attenders know how to navigate the church experience and they’ve forgotten what its like not to know. So how do you make your church easier to navigate? Here are a couple of ideas:

Get fresh eyes

As often as possible ask new attenders what obstacles they faced when they first attended. Get someone who doesn’t attend to try to navigate a weekend and give you feedback. Hire one of those “Secret shopper” services and see what they say. You can’t know what its like because you have the curse of knowledge, you need an outside opinion.

Retrain your host team

Make sure your host team is thinking constantly about the new attender. What message does this sign send? If we have to close an entrance how can we best explain the alternatives? Are we always scanning for that bewildered look and are we proactive about helping? What can we do each weekend to make the experience for the first time attender easire to navigate?

Start Here

A very simple but powerful idea of I’ve seen is a Start Here sign for new attenders. Most churches have welcome centers, connect tables, get acquainted tables, but a very prominent place that clearly instructs new attenders to Start Here would be awesome. (Even awesomer would be a cookie crumb trail from the parking lot to the Start Here center) The center needs to always be manned with friendly volunteers who can help navigate the experience. A simple one-page guide would be great. Not every small group and upcoming event, but a Disney type map and explanation of everything you need to know to expertly navigate the weekend experience. And a clearly defined Next Step. But we’ll get more into that tomorrow. 

The bottom line is we should do everything we can to make our church at least as easy to navigate as the local Target. How has your church tackled this challenge?

 

Five Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier (Pt 1 The Friendly Factor)

For the first time in our lives Sherry and I have the freedom to choose what church we attend. When we lived at home our parents chose for us, and after we got married we always attended the church I (and sometimes she) worked at. But now we are free to visit any church we want, so over the past couple of months we have visited nine different churches. In most cases we have gone as anonymous visitors and it has been an eye-opening experience. We have been surprised how difficult it is to fit in and connect at a new church. (If you know we attended your church recently I’m obviously talking about one of the other eight.) So this week I thought I’d share some tips on how to attract, connect and retain new attenders: Five Simple Ways to Make Your Church Stickier. None of these ideas are new or revolutionary, but I bet you think you’re church is a LOT better at each one than you really are. Trust me on this, they're not.

Let’s dive in with Simple Way One:

Make your church friendlier

I’m sure you assume your church gets a pass on this one; your church is one of the friendliest churches on the planet. When you walk in everyone says hi, you have a built in greeting time in your service when all the new people feel welcomed, and after church people hang around forever laughing and connecting. You’ve got the friendly thing down.

Let me give you an outsider’s perspective on the friendliness of your church. When I arrive one or two assigned people with big nametags smile and say hi. (At some churches the assigned greeters are either engaged in conversation with someone else, grunt hello, or just frown and hand me a bulletin.) Once I navigate past people in the lobby talking to people they already know I am placed in an isolation bubble called the auditorium. I sit with people who don’t acknowledge my presence in any way until the forced greeting time. “Turn and greet your neighbor before you sit down.” At most someone might crack a half smile, give their name and shake my hand. Normally I get a grimaced look, a quick handshake and a short, “Hi”. I don’t realize it at the time, but that is the last time anyone will make any contact with me at your church. After service I again have to navigate the lobby where people who already know each other have exclusive parties with other people who already know each other. Sometimes I stand in the lobby looking bewildered and feeling as out of place as a bikini in aDenver snowstorm, but no sees me.  Finally I find my way back to the car feeling more alone than I did when I arrived. And in case you think its because I’m an introvert, my extroverted wife feels the same. Feeling alone and disconnected is the one experience we’ve had at almost every church we’ve attended.

So how do you make your church friendlier? Here are a couple of ideas (most of these I stole from others):

Teach on hospitality
Take a weekend (or a month) and teach your congregation how to be hospitable at church, in the workplace and at home. Hospitality has always been a hallmark of Christianity, so we need to teach on it.

Create a “gorilla greeter” team
Get as many people as possible to be gorilla greeters. Their job is to make sure they talk only to people they don’t know for the first ten minutes after they arrive and for the first ten minutes after the service is over. They don’t need lanyards or nametags (in fact that would defeat the purpose.) Their job is to find people who seem disconnected and figure how to connect them.

Adopt a “neighborhood”
Divide your auditorium into sections and get leaders to adopt a section as their neighborhood. They commit to attend the same service each week, sit in their neighborhood and watch for new people who sit in the section. They become the small group leader of that section.

Give the greeting time a purpose of kill it
Find a way to make the greeting time in your service purposeful. Why are you doing this? How can you make it more effective? Is it accomplishing the purpose you designed it for?

How has your church worked on friendliness? What has worked and not worked?

 

Five Scary Trends (Pt 5: Pastor Praise)

This week we have been looking at Five Scary Trends that Could Shipwreck the Church. As I have stated often I am very excited about what God is up to in the American Church and I think the proclamations of gloom and doom in the blogosphere are dead wrong. At the same time in an age of instant reporting of every move a leader makes on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube we have to be incredibly diligent. 

Don't be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what's good. Throw out anything tainted with evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:21,22 The Message)

 So let’s finish with what I believe is the scariest trend of all.

Pastor Praise

I come from a long, long line of pastors. Every relative on my dad's side of the family is either a pastor or married to a pastor. All of them, all the way back to my grandfather. And over the past few years working at Seacoast, Leadership Network and most recently Saddleback I have had the opportunity to meet hundreds of pastors of every size church, from small to giga. My overwhelming feeling about pastors is that most would do anything to see people come to know Jesus, and they are blown away that they get to do what they do. There are egos and bad motivations in the mix, just like any subset of society, but almost all of the pastors I’ve met are good men who have given their lives for the advancement of the Kingdom. 

But there is a very scary trend I see in some churches; treating the Senior Pastor like a rock star. Sometimes this is led by well-meaning church leaders and sometimes it comes from the pastor himself. Tony Morgan wrote a great blog post about what he called the Culture of Honor describing this trend. Unchecked I think this path will lead to disaster for many pastors and churches in America.

The royal treatment takes various forms: private parking garages for the pastor and his wife, live in personal assistants, entourages housed in luxury suites wherever the pastor travels, a personal security team that shadows the pastor wherever he goes on campus. In extreme cases every whim of the pastor is immediately tended to so that he never has to pour his own drink, drop off his own dry cleaning or fly on a commercial airline. 

I don’t want to just throw stones; I know there are good reasons, at least in the beginning, for many of these perks. And as Tony Morgan said there is certainly a biblical mandate for honoring our leaders. Where it falls apart for me is when I see Christian leaders allowing themselves to be treated in a way that Jesus wouldn’t have tolerated. I can’t imagine Jesus demanding his favorite drink be chilled and available at all times, his scroll be carried by an intern, or his security team swarm the instant a crazy started a scene. (Imagine what “guest services” would have done with the Gadarene Demoniac.)

Security is an example of the pastor as rock star trend that is out of whack. After some high profile and horrifying incidents of gunfire in churches, pastors all over the country have employed their own private protection squads. While it is imperitive to make sure the pastor and the congregation are safe, this trend has gotten a little whacky. If Jesus had had some pastor’s security teams he wouldn’t have had to die for our sins. But when Peter tried to play bodyguard Jesus told him to put away his sword and he fixed the damage Peter had done. My guess is that more pastors die every year from shark attacks than from gunfire, but churches spend almost nothing on clergy shark protection. Let’s do a cost versus benefit analysis and be good stewards of what God has given us.

For anyone who wants to chime in about the evil of Senior Pastors, that the Bible doesn’t say anything about authority in the church and that all big church pastors are just ego-maniacs, you’re on the wrong blog. I love pastors and I believe strongly in authority and honor. All I’m saying is that we all need to look in the mirror and ask if we’re living a lifestyle that accurately reflects the attitude of Jesus. Anything that smacks of worship of anyone but the King of kings has to be rejected.

 

Wow, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Now let’s join arms and get back to pointing people to Jesus.

 

Five Scary Trends (Pt 4: Planting Pandemic)

This week we're looking at Five Scary Trends that Could Sink the Church. I am not camping out here to spread doom and gloom; I'm actually very bullish on the local church. My goal is to shine the light on cracks in the foundation that could keep us from becoming the overcoming church God called us to. So let's look at Scary Trend Five:

Planting Pandemic

Who knew that church planting could become trendy? My grandfather was a church planter in Oklahoma back in the 1940s and 50s, and it was anything but glamorous. There were no conferences, web sites or networks; just Grandpa, Grandma and their three kids scratching out an existence on donated food and hand me down clothes; preaching the Gospel to sharecroppers and farmhands. 

But now it seems like every young leader is thinking about planting a church, and churches are popping up in every school, theater and warehouse in sight. Each church plant seems uniquely the same as every other church plant; same music, same four piece band, same lights, same culturally relevant message uniquely geared to the same subset of society. When you scratch below the surface you find that the majority of the attenders at many of these cookie cutter plants are transplants from other churches. (We even have name for it: split+plant=splant) Are we just subdividing the herd and moving them into different pastures?

We can't continue to plant churches to plant churches. The formulas we used for the past 30 years aren’t as effective any more (except to draw a crowd of disgruntled church attenders from other churches). We have to stop planting churches to plant churches and we have to crack the code on reaching into the community where the majority of people don't give God or church a second thought.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we need fewer church plants. I believe we need more church plants. Many, many more. But we need new models. We need models that can grow slower but still be sustainable. We need bi-vocational church planters who don’t have the pressure to get the tithe up quickly to pay the bills. (Show me a new church with a big tithe income and I’ll show you a church split.) . We need visionary mega-church pastors who will financially back younger leaders starting radically different congregations.

And this goes way beyond just house churches. House churches are great for a certain niche, but over and over people have shown a desire, a need, to gather in larger groups. We need more house churches, more community churches, more mega-churches that are ACTUALLY reaching people far from God. That's where i want to put the majority of my time and energy for the next several years, helping new leaders find new ways to break the church planting code in America and beyond. What examples have you seen of church plants that reach beyond the walled garden and impact those far from God? How can we replicate those models?

So far this week we’ve looked at Multisite Mania, Reform Revolution, Worship Worship and the Planting Pandemic. Tomorrow we’ll finish by looking at what I believe is the scariest trend of all: Pastor Praise. 

 

Five Scary Trends (Pt 3 Worship Worship)

We’re doing a series this week on the Five Scariest Trends that Could Shipwreck the Church. While overall I’m optimistic about the future, I believe we have to be ruthless in our commitment to take the Gospel to those far from God. The Five Trends we’re looking at this week could keep us from that quest. On Monday we looked at Multisite Mania and yesterday was the Reformed Revolution. Let’s dive into Scary Trend Three today:

Worship Worship

I love corporate worship. One of my favorite aspects of working in multisite churches has been visiting multiple worship experiences every weekend. I have participated in as many as six different services in a single weekend, and I love seeing people connect with God through the leadership of a gifted team of singers, musicians and technicians. 

The scary trend, however, is the growing worship of the art of worship. The worship leader/pastor/director/producer has become a rock star. The need for ever-improving technology (“2K Projectors? Yes!!!”) dominates the church budget. The demand for professional musicianship squeezes out the possibility of homegrown talent. On Monday mornings we talk more about the sound quality, the experience, the arrangement than about the jaw dropping recognition of the awesome power of an omniscient God. We are in danger of worshipping the creation more than the creator.

What are we trying to accomplish through musical worship at our weekend services? Is the goal to compete with secular concerts or the mega-church down the street? (Do we really think we can compete with U2? Seriously?) Is excellence the goal regardless the price? Is holding the attention of the occasional attender the aim? Or are we truly focused on worshipping in spirit and in truth?

I'm not saying we need to go back to the good old days of bad sound, marginal talent and torn hymnbooks. I love technology; excellent sound, video and lighting makes me tingle. But the allure of technology, talent and ego could shipwreck what we are really called to do; make God famous. Entertainment, easily and often, can crowd out pure worship. Matt Redman makes my point better than I ever could:

When the music fades and all is stripped away and I simply come 
Longing just to bring something that's of worth that will bless your heart 

I'll bring You more than a song for a song in itself is not what You have required 
You search much deeper within through the ways things appear
You're looking into my heart 

I'm coming back to the heart of worship and it's all about You 
All about You, Jesus 
I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it when it's all about You 
It's all about You, Jesus 

Is the worship in our church more about lights, video, pedals, haze and talent, or is it really all about Jesus. When was the last time the music faded away and all that was left was the overwhelming feeling of standing in the presence of a holy God? If we want to see the church prevail in America we may need to move beyond worship of worship and simply humble ourselves before God.

 

Five Scary Trends (Pt 2 Reformed Revolution)

Yesterday we kicked off a series on Five Scary Trends that have the potential to shipwreck the American church. As I said yesterday I am excited about much of what I see in the church, but if we are going to actually impact the growing percentage of people who don’t care about God or church we have to sharpen our game. Yesterday we looked at Multisite Mania, today let’s dive into trend two:

Reformed Revolution

I never thought that theology could be trendy, but now if you are young and cool you are Reformed. Since I am neither young nor cool I may miss this wave. My problem with the Reformeds, however, is not theology (I'm too much of a light-weight to argue there), but with attitude. I'll call it PLA (Pharisee-ic Legalistic Arrogance)

First is the arrogance I see among some young Reformed protégées. I recently shared Thanksgiving dinner with a young man invited by another family member. When he discovered I might have a non-Piper bent he decided somewhere between the stuffing and the cranberry sauce this would be the perfect setting to argue the finer points of Calvinism. Instead of expressing gratitude for grace and provision we spent the latter part of the meal sparring over limited versus unlimited atonement. I am sure he walked away feeling vindicated; I just wanted more apple pie. I have run into this combative theological mindset among many in the TULIP field. This type of theological gunfighting does not draw people to Christ nor does it promote unity in the body. There are some things we need to agree to disagree about and get on about the business of pointing people to eternal Kingdom citizenship.

The second challenge in the Reformed Revolution is a leaning toward legalism. There seem to be certain theological litmus tests that have to be passed before you can be accepted in fellowship in some Reform circles. I have stumbled into one of these tests on more than one occasion when my egalitarian slip begins to show. The relational temperature int he room drops suddenly as I explain that my family first came to know Christ when my grandmother responded to a salvation appeal from a lady evangelist traveling through Oklahoma in the 1940s. Eventually my grandfather became a Christ-follower and then a pastor. All of his children and grandchildren became pastors. Thousands of lives around the world have been impacted by the sermon of that faithful Pentecostal preacher who happened to wear a skirt. Can we at least have a conversation about the role of women in the church? Or should I be shunned? Shunned I say, shunned.

Pharisee-ic Legalistic Arrogance is not the sole property of the Reformeds; every tribe has its ego. But the current popularity of this stream among young evangelicals brings PLA into bright focus. If not checked it will slow down or even strangle our joint mission to see our communities turn back to God. Let’s stack hands on the essentials, agree to disagree on the non-essentials and focus on the work at hand.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at Scary Trend Three: Worship Worship

 

Five Scary Trends that could shipwreck the church (Pt 1)

I am excited about the future of the church. Every week I meet sharp young leaders who are passionately pouring themselves into seeing the Kingdom on earth expressed through the local church. At the same time when I read articles about the fastest growing segment of society being those who don't give God or church a second thought I realize that we have to sharpen our game considerably if we want to see the local church prevail in America. To paraphrase Paul we need to discipline ourselves mercilessly lest after having preached to record crowds on Christmas Eve we lose our communities to apathy. 

To start the conversation I have identified five trends that I see in the American church that, if unchecked, will shipwreck us. These trends are not pointed at any particular church; these are simply my observations and opinions based on 30 years in the trenches. I am feeling a little Old Testament minor prophetish, so I apologize in advance if there is a negative tone, my only goal is the expansion of the Kingdom and to see the church prevail. 

I’ll unpack one trend a day on the blog this week, finishing with what I believe is the scariest trend on Friday. Let’s get started with one near and dear to my heart:

Multisite Mania

Since co-authoring The Multisite Church Revolution in 2006 I have seen multisite go from an obscure mega-church phenomenon to the hottest growth strategy in the country. It seems like everyone is “one church in many locations”. Pastors are almost apologetic when they admit they are a mono-site church. "We're adding a new location as soon as we break the 50 barrier, I promise." 

Multisite is a great tool for some churches to fulfill their God-given mission. It is not, however, the right direction for many or even most churches. Multisite can be a drain on leadership and budgets, it can feed an already overfed pastor ego (more about that on Friday) and it can be very difficult to undo. (Once a site is launched it is really hard to un-launch.)

In one city in Orange County, California at least three churches have video campuses located within blocks of one another. And these are not wildly dissimilar churches, in fact on many weekends they are probably all singing the same songs. Are each of these churches responding to a God-inspired mandate to open a new site, or are they simply jumping on the latest bandwagon? And are these new sites really reaching new people with the Gospel or just giving the already convinced more options on Sunday morning? If we are serious about reaching beyond our walled garden into the open field of the unconvinced we have to be laser sharp about the methods and motivations of our mission.

For a church that is experiencing rapid growth, or has a God-inspired passion for a unique outreach into an underserved community, multisite is brilliant way to expand the Kingdom. I am excited about the innovative ways churches across the country are attracting new Christ-followers to the Kingdom using a multisite strategy. But for a church that is just looking for a new growth curve or the next big thing multisite is a terrible idea. It is never a good idea to attempt to give birth when you aren’t pregnant.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at Scary Trend Two: The Reformed Revolution