When Leith Anderson arrived at Wooddale Church in suburban Minneapolis more than a dozen years ago, he came to a congregation that had plateaued-in fact, declined. “People tended to talk about how much better the church was ‘back then,’ ” Leith says.
Eventually, the congregation began to look forward, and as a result it relocated, changed its name, and overhauled its constitution in order to better reach people. But “probably the most significant change of all,” Anderson reflects, “was taking people’s eyes off the past and putting them on the future, off how great the church had been and onto how great the church could be.”
What does it take to make that happen? In this article, excerpted from Mastering Church Management, a forthcoming book in the Mastering Ministry series copublished by LEADERSHIP and Multnomah Press, Leith discusses the factors in looking ahead rather than behind.
As soon as people walk into a church, they can tell if it is oriented toward the past or the future. They don’t discover that by what they see as much as by what they hear. When I visit a church or catch conversations in my congregation, I listen to how people talk about one subject: the greatest days of the church.
At one well-known mid western church, for example, visitors may hear people say: “I remember when folks lined up to get into evening services. Conventions of major national associations were held here. When people came to town, they attended here.” Their glory days are past, not future. The result, for both the listeners and people speaking, is an overwhelming feeling of sadness.
When I came to Wooddale Church, people spoke similarly: “I remember when we used to. … I remember when attendance was growing instead of declining.” I found it emotionally difficult to be involved in conversations in which people quoted somebody else’s sermon, said the music or the ushering was better before I came, or pointed out that this week’s attendance was lower than the previous week’s.
I knew, as every pastor does, that it is enormously important which direction the people are looking. But how could we move from looking backward to looking forward? How could I shift people’s wistful gaze at the past to an expectant peering into the future?
The God Who Transcends Time
It takes a great deal of faith and courage for a pastor to switch the direction people look. It demands waiting it out and working it out. There is not one simple answer.
But the starting point for any answer lies in God. Vision is rooted in God. God transcends time: He is the God of the past, but repeatedly in Scripture he is the God of the future. We need to fix our attention on who he is and what he wants to do.
Theology, in the Scriptures, is not a doctrinal discourse but the record of God’s revealing himself through history. We must assume God will continue to reveal himself in the future. We can’t, therefore, live only in the past, because God is calling us to something. There’s always something out in front of us.
Harry Truman visited Oliver Wendell Holmes when Holmes was in his nineties. When Truman walked into the room, the retired justice was reading Plato’s Republic. Truman asked him, “Mr. Justice, why at this point in life would you be reading something like that?”
Oliver Wendell Holmes replied, “I may be old, but I haven’t stopped growing.”
If somebody can have that perspective about law and philosophy, ought we not all the more have that perspective about the church of Jesus Christ?
Eventually, this general vision of God’s purposes for the local church needs to become specific: What mission has God given our particular congregation?
Too often that is immediately taken to be numerical growth. But for a church in the Iron Range of Minnesota, which has had in recent years as high as 80 percent unemployment, decline can be success. On the other hand, Wooddale is located in a city that has grown from 24,000 to 34,000 in the last five years. If we weren’t growing, it’s hard to believe we would be fulfilling all of our mission given by God.
In either case, though, the appropriate specific mission grows out of the knowledge that God is leading his people into the future.
Present Needs, Not Past Success
Past success can become a burden. What causes a church to settle into past-directed thinking is not so much present difficulty as past success. Churches don’t longingly remember defeats and conflicts; they grow nostalgic over past victories and expansions. Past success can become a staggering weight. What, people wonder, can they possibly do to surpass those days?
A similar dynamic occurs for any person successful early in life. Consider Jonas Salk, whose pioneering medical research led to the development of a vaccine for polio. His achievement immortalized him. What possibly could he do next?
Recently, however, Jonas Salk is in the news again-not because of polio, but because of AIDS. He’s working on a vaccine. Here is a person who said, Yes, I’ve had past success. But there are needs in the present. He’s using the skills he has developed to help his present generation.
In a similar way, a church lifts the burden of past success when it focuses instead on present needs: What do the people in this community and world need? How can we provide that?
At Wooddale, probably 99 percent of the people would now say the greatest days of the church are ahead, because they see present needs they can help meet.
One man who led our junior high program became a missionary to the Sundanese. Of the thirty million Sundanese in West Java, only one hundred are believers. Yet in this man’s two and a half years of ministry there, fourteen more have come to Christ. It’s phenomenal and almost unprecedented.
In a morning service he told the congregation, “This is not because I’m a great linguist; it’s because you prayed.” He read from letters he’d received from people in the church: “I pray every day.” “I run five miles every morning, and as I run I pray for the Sundanese people.” An 11-year-old had written, “I get down on my knees every night and pray for the Sundanese.”
The people at Wooddale think that in the next ten years thirty million Sundanese are going to be won to Christ. They’re not talking about yesterday; they’re talking about tomorrow. Why? They have been gripped by the needs of these Sundanese. Past success fades in the light of present needs and opportunities.
A Few People of Vision
Most people are not persons of vision. In a church of hundreds or even thousands of members, a leader would find only a few.
Part of the reason is generational. The baby-boomer generation has, until now, been present-oriented. The generation, as a whole, has given little concern to traditions or to the future. But foresight won’t necessarily come from the older generation, either; the elderly may be more prone to look to the successes of the past.
Some leaders lament the paucity of people of vision. But to move forward, an institution requires only a few. Robert Kennedy put it this way in his great quote: “Some people look at the way things are and ask why; others look at the way things could be and ask why not.” A church needs only a few such people-ideally, a pastor and one or two lay people. If they are leaders, others will follow.
Many pastors, serving a congregation, wonder how it can ever move forward. There aren’t enough people with vision. No one sees how things could be. But usually there is one other person, or two, who can envision greatness, and gradually that influence can spread.
People with vision don’t even have to be on the cutting edge of ecclesiastical innovation. The field of medicine provides an analogy. Most U.S. physicians are not researchers (and most hospitals are not teaching hospitals). Rather, most doctors treat patients on the basis of what they learn at seminars or read in journals.
Similarly, a few pastors and churches in the United States pioneer new structures, approaches to evangelism, and methods of outreach. But the vast majority minister on the basis of what they learn at seminars or read in journals. A church’s few persons with vision may not be on the cutting edge, but if they are willing to learn, evaluate ideas, and adopt some of them, they can move the church forward.
The Pastor’s Role
What is the pastor’s role in all this?
A few years ago a magazine ad pictured a man standing in his office, looking out the window. The caption read: “Why would a company pay this man $100,000 a year to look out the window?” The point: Every organization needs someone who looks out the window, outside the organization, to the world and to the future. A pastor helps the congregation by looking out the window.
But how much time ought a pastor devote to dreaming of the future, especially with a multitude of immediate concerns?
The answer varies with each situation, obviously, but much of the answer is determined by how long a pastor has been with the current congregation. Strangely, natural tendencies work against effective vision.
Typically, when pastors come to a church, they are not vested in the programs. Therefore, they can be objective: “We shouldn’t be having this many services,” or “We shouldn’t be doing Vacation Bible School this way.” Most pastors start with a burst of energy in envisioning how things could be. (In addition, when pastors come to a church, few members call or trust them with information. This frees time to look ahead.) But new ministers’ ideas often are not readily accepted by the people. Even a good vision can die because people haven’t yet learned to trust the pastor.
But after pastors have been in a church five or ten years, most programs reflect their ideas or bear their imprimatur. Their schedules are jammed, so they have little time to dream about the future. Momentum shifts to maintaining the programs they have built.
We need to reverse the process.
When we start in a congregation, most of our time should be devoted to current program, not looking ahead. Then, gradually, we need to slide the scale until we spend more time on future projects. Why? Because a congregation won’t follow a pastor in looking forward unless it trusts that pastor, and building trust takes time.
I know one pastor who went to a church that was ready to build, change its constitution, and reach out. He accomplished more in his first year than I accomplished in my first seven or eight. But that doesn’t happen often.
Most pastors enter situations in which people remember the past and problems exist. These pastors have to build credibility. The best way is to concentrate on existing program. As a pastor works hard inside the given structures, the congregation develops the trust that later allows the pastor to lead people forward.
It’s taken a quarter of my life to reach this point, but now I am able, in many weeks, to spend more time on future possibilities than on current program. This week, for example, I have concentrated on a variety of dreams: starting a daughter church, providing a Saturday night service, expanding staff, and helping new missions projects. Now, these are fitting tasks, but they probably would not have been when I began at Wooddale.
Pastors need to look out the window, but in the early years particularly, it pays to spend more time at the desk.
Obstacles to the Pastor’s Role
Every pastor would like more time to look out the window. But that requires overcoming significant obstacles.
First, we hands-on types may find looking forward painful, because there is so much present work demanding attention. A more hidden, formidable obstacle is our need for affirmation. Planning doesn’t receive much recognition, at least not nearly as much as direct ministry does.
When I devoted most of my time to hands-on ministry, I could see my impact. When a baby was born, the parents called me, often before they called the grandparents. When someone was dying, I would spend a whole night at the hospital. When the family made decisions about shutting off respirators, I watched the switch being thrown.
Because of the congregation’s growth, however, we may have three or four babies born in one week. I can’t be there for them all. In order to fulfill our mission, I have to make sure somebody will be there, but it can’t always be me. My role increasingly is to look ahead for the entire body-to look out the window-and that means I have to give up many wonderful strokes from hands-on ministry.
Having said that, however, every pastor must give direct, hands-on attention to some areas. Which ones? The few most essential for the congregation right now.
Recently, for example, our staff discussed the prayer life of Wooddale Church. Although there is much prayer in various cells and subcongregations, I’m convinced, by my own observation, that the vast majority of that prayer is for personal needs. People are praying earnestly for kids struggling with drugs and adults fighting cancer. But I sense we are not doing as well in praying for the fulfillment of our mission, for the services of the church, and for missions.
So the question came up: Who will lead the midweek prayer meeting that draws only a handful of people? I volunteered. I thought, If I stop people in the hallway and ask “Will you pray with me on Wednesday night?” they are likely to come. Our congregation won’t move forward without corporate prayer, so right now I’m giving it hands-on attention.
Specific Strategies
It is not enough, of course, to look ahead in a general sense. Vision must translate into specific strategies:
Have people think next year, not this year. At the start of school, Greg Weisman, our minister to junior high students, has planned his program for the entire school year. He has in print every time the group will play miniature golf. He knows when and where they will hold retreats, who the retreat speakers are, and which bus is scheduled. With the program completely planned, what’s left for Greg to do?
Minister to kids.
He doesn’t have to worry about a topic for next Sunday’s lesson. He doesn’t have to reserve the bus. He doesn’t have to schedule a camp for the junior high Breakaway. Living week to week consumes energies for ministry. It is painful not to know what you’re going to do next week. But planning ahead releases ministry, and that moves a congregation forward.
Further, as members see the pastor planning, they do the same. That spirit permeates the organization. Wooddale’s treasurer, for example, doesn’t sign checks. He looks at how we’re going to fulfill the purpose of the church financially through 1992. He concentrates on modeling projected income, expenses, and debt service. That way, when an opportunity appears on the horizon, we know in what ways we’re able to respond.
Spend time as a cultural anthropologist. Pastors benefit from keeping their ears to the ground of culture. For example, one shift I failed to foresee is that people increasingly choose not to be classified by marital status. Whether they are single, divorced, separated-it’s irrelevant to them, or at least they don’t see that as a primary point of identification. Traditional categories-single and married-have become fuzzy because there are so many new classifications: living together, once divorced, separated but acting like a single, and others.
By listening for these rumblings, pastors can be ready for the eruption. We are asking serious questions: Is it time to reorganize singles ministry? Should we group according to preferred learning style? Or solely by age? Or more likely, should we group people by the age of their children? Already, we have placed no restrictions on which Sunday school class someone attends, and many singles attend classes composed primarily of couples.
In an increasingly pluralistic society, it’s wise to offer options. (If I had my way, I’d lead one service in a sweatshirt, a second service in a suit, and a third service in a robe.) Baby boomers are highly tolerant of pluralism and comfortable with diversity. By studying culture-through seminars, books, and conversations-we can provide options when they’re needed.
Plan for opportunities rather than problems. This principle, advocated by Peter Drucker, helped the congregation about ten years ago, when we were ready to add a staff member. The choice narrowed to either a minister for counseling or a pastor of singles. The church couldn’t afford both. Which position would most directly fulfill Wooddale’s mission?
When we looked at projections for the area’s singles population, we were stunned. The number of singles was going to increase rapidly. We said, “That’s where the opportunity is. Many Christian counselors exist in the region, but who is going to seize this opportunity for singles?” We hired a pastor of singles.
Related to this is the well-recognized principle that a church staffs to grow, not because of growth. If the church-growth experts are right that a typical congregation should have one pastor for every 150 parishioners, then the time to add the second pastor is when the congregation reaches 151, not 300.
Emphasize ministry rather than structure. Right now we are building a new sanctuary. We have planned for it for years, and we can’t wait until it’s completed. But when I want to upset people, I talk about “when it’s time to sell this building and move.” The idea stuns them, but it makes the point wonderfully: I am not beholden to this building. If in five or ten years this building doesn’t fit the ministry God has called Wooddale to, we should tear it down. It is ministry we’re concerned about. As we emphasize that, people are better able to let go of structure and move ahead.
Becoming Purpose Driven
I don’t think of myself as a futurist. I prefer to think of myself as “purpose driven.” Looking to the future is part of that. But being future oriented is not the end; it is only one means to the end of fulfilling Wooddale’s congregational mission: “to honor God by bringing lives into harmony with him and one another.”
Consider, for example, if the United States were to have a depression or nuclear disaster. There may not be any future, or at least only a painfully difficult one. To fulfill the purpose God has given us, we might be setting up bread lines or providing help for people with radiation burns. But that would be looking forward, with purpose.
Mother Teresa is future oriented, even though many of the street people she touches are going to die. But she is driven by a purpose. She is doing what’s necessary to live as Jesus Christ would in the streets of Calcutta.
Karl Barth says that Christians are to be the “provisional representatives of a new race.” Would that all our churches were driven by that wonderful concept. We are provisional in the sense that we haven’t arrived, but we are called to live as a new race of believers.
We are a future-oriented, purpose-driven people.
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