Jim Collins’s recent book Good to Great has inspired both business and church leaders. It is a study of 28 good companies that became great as measured by their outperforming the stock market by at least seven times over a 15-year period. Countless companies are now applying the “hedgehog concept” and other principles from the book, trying to become similarly great.
Likewise, many churches are seeking to become great churches. Entire ministry industries exist to help that process—from fund raising, to church building programs, to worship resources, to programming. And in nearly every community, there’s at least one great church, as measured by numbers and facilities.
But large churches discover a troubling secret. Size alone isn’t good enough. Great or small, churches need something more than bigger numbers.
Bob Buford, author of Half-Time, notes that at midlife, many people discover they’ve built their lives around “success” only to find it empty. So they reinvent themselves to build the second half of life around “significance.” Similarly, Christian Washington, former investment banker and current director of Leadership Network’s MC2 (Missional Church) Network notes that many “successful” churches are now in “half-time” mode and want to move “from success to significance.” What’s that look like?
The Bible says, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and … he went around doing good … because God was with him” (Acts 10:38). Wouldn’t you expect more superlatives to describe his greatness? Yet Jesus’ ministry is summed up, “he went around doing good.” Maybe from God’s perspective, the greatest thing we can do has more to do with goodness than greatness. Some churches follow that pattern—trading “greatness” in numbers for doing the “good” that Jesus modeled.
These are the “Great to Good” churches.
And this isn’t just about big churches. Two-thirds of America’s churches are either plateaued or declining. Not all churches are destined to become “great.” But regardless of size, they can go about “doing good.”
Good churches are those that do good things. The good that Jesus did can point the way.
Ministries of mercy
What did Jesus do? He did “good” through his ministry of mercy. Mercy is “God’s attitude toward those in distress.” Mercy is giving a person a fish so he can eat today. It’s not attacking problems at the systemic level. It’s just making someone’s life better, if only for today.
It’s why Jesus so willingly fed the five thousand (the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels). He didn’t give them a lecture on planning ahead, or how to plant wheat for a future harvest. No, he said, “I have compassion on these people … I do not want to send them away hungry” (Matt. 15:32).
He did not solve the world’s hunger problem, but he did make these people’s lives better for that afternoon. And that was good. Sometimes we are paralyzed by inaction. With the overwhelming problems that people have, we often think, What good will this little act of kindness do? But Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).
At Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California, Andy Bales is well aware of the poor and homeless people in his community. Although there are nearly 1,900 homeless people in Pasadena, the shelter capacity sleeps under one hundred. The problems with “the system” are huge, but that doesn’t prevent Andy and the caring people at Lake from showing Christ’s mercy to those without homes.
Last January Bales held a Super Bowl party at Lake for the homeless in Pasadena. It was a day of feasting and football with 250 homeless people coming to a place of love, care, and celebration. The party did not cure their homelessness that day, but for those January hours it was a respite. This Super Bowl party has since turned into a weekly supper followed by a bourgeoning Bible study.
If Bales’s dreams come true, one day soon Lake will have transitional housing apartments over their parking garage, but for now, he is “doing good” by making people’s lives better for the day.
Martem Tenens (later to be named Saint Martin) was born in what is now Hungary and was drafted into Constantine’s army at age 15. As a tribune at the age of 18, on a bitterly cold day in Gaul, Martem came across a beggar, naked and shivering. Martem, a follower of Christ, slashed his heavy military cloak in two with his sword and gave half of it to the beggar. That night, sleeping under his half cloak, Jesus appeared to him in a dream wearing the other half and commended Martem for his mercy. “When you did it to the least of these brothers of mine you did it to me.”
If we really believed that our actions toward the “least of these” were actions toward or against Jesus, would these little acts of mercy have greater meaning for us?
Every time a church gives someone water in the name of Jesus, it is a good thing, which makes visible the kingdom of God.
Ministries of empowerment
Among those Jesus encountered were the blind, the lame, the deaf, the lepers and the demon possessed. Apart from the physical infirmities, these people faced at least two other problems.
First, they were most often unable to work and so lived in dependence on others to care for them. They were unempowered.
Second, they were excluded from the social and spiritual life of the community. They were disenfranchised. They were outcasts looking in.
Jesus comes across one such individual in John 5:1-15, a man who had been lame for 38 years. Jesus asks him, “Do you want to get well?” This question was neither cruel nor rhetorical. It was a real question because Jesus knew that if the man were to be healed, everything would have to change—he’d have to go from dependency to sufficiency. He couldn’t sit and beg the next day; he’d have to get up, get out, and earn his livelihood. Every time Jesus healed someone of a debilitating illness, he was empowering him or her not just for a day but for a lifetime.
It is well known that proficiency in reading is essential to be in the mainstream of our educational and employment system. As director of urban ministries at Hope Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Eli Morris seeks to involve every member in meaningful ministry both inside and outside the church.
Three years ago 25 volunteers from Hope paired up with 25 inner-city first through fifth graders from South Memphis. Children were tested before the program began. In the first 12 weeks of reading with these children for just an hour a week, reading scores were raised by 1.2 grades!
Today Hope has over 100 of its adults helping children to read. Every time you teach a child to read you empower that young person for a lifetime.
In 1987 Luis Cortes, working with other clergy in North Philadelphia, began Nueva Esperanza (New Hope) “to improve the quality of life in our community through the development of Hispanic owned and operated educational, economic, and spiritual institutions.”
The economic disparities in Philadelphia are challenging. The average net wealth of a Latino family is a mere $4,000 compared to an Anglo family’s wealth of $44,000. With 60 percent of wealth held in home equity, helping people own their own homes was a natural place for Nueva Esperanza to start. This innovative ministry has now built or refurbished more than 100 homes to sell to Latinos at cost and provided mortgage counseling to over 2,500 people. They have served more than 650 people in their Welfare to Work initiative. People in North Philadelphia are better off because of Luis and Nueva Esperanza.
Helping kids that struggle with reading, coaching the unemployed with interview training, providing job skills—these are ways some churches are making the leap from great to good by empowering others.
Ministries of evangelism
Jesus also went about doing good through announcing the good news. Ultimately his agenda involved bringing people into the kingdom of God through faith. While mercy brightens one’s day, and empowerment prepares a person for a lifetime, when a person comes to faith, that life is changed for eternity. Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, the woman at the well, and many others came into the kingdom because of this aspect of “doing good.”
The most effective apologetic for the 21st century will be a combination of good news and good works. Often Good works is the bridge over which the good news runs.
Ministries of replication
The forth way Jesus went about doing good was through his ministry of replication—helping transform others from followers into leaders. If Jesus wanted to change individuals he would have stuck with teaching, feeding, and healing. But because he wanted to change the world, he invested in leaders, primarily 12 disciples he trained to duplicate his good works and to preach the good news.
Before sending them out, Jesus gave them the essential components of replicable ministry—authority and instruction.
In East Los Angeles is a church called Mosaic, which is full of ministers and not just consumers. For the past four years, they have averaged one adult each month being sent out as a career overseas worker—mostly into the 10/40 window of China, Indonesia, India, the Middle East, and North Africa.
To become a part of Mosaic’s community is quite easy. One simply needs to declare that they “want to be a part of this community of faith.” But pastor Erwin McManus challenges everyone in their community to become part of Mosaic’s self-supported “staff.” To be on the staff requires four commitments:
To live a holy life (understanding that no one does it perfectly, but to come clean when you fail).
To be an active participant in ministry.
To be a generous giver reflected in tithing.
To live an evangelistic lifestyle.
Over 400 of the 1,300 attending adults have been anointed and commissioned to be part of the church staff. McManus has multiplied his effectiveness nearly a thousand-fold by teaching and empowering these people to invest their passions, their service, their resources, and their relationships for the kingdom.
Jesus said the key to greatness really is goodness through service to others. “But whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant” (Matt. 20:26). Not every church can go from good to great in the traditional sense, but perhaps it is in going around doing good that we become great—no matter what our size.
Eric Swanson is associate director of Leadership Network’s MC2 (Missional Church) Network. www.leadnet.org
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