Is marketing a bad term when it comes to the
church? I don't think so. It does depend on what we are marketing. Are we
trying to just make a big name for ourselves, or are we making a big name for
Jesus? If the former is true, then you may as well just join any club and make
a name for yourself. If the latter is true, then we should be shouting from the
rooftops that Jesus is Lord! Advertising and Marketing can be as simple as
telling a friend about Jesus over coffee. No matter how technologically advanced
our world gets, it still takes one on one interaction with people most of the
time to lead someone to Jesus! If computers could do it, the whole world would
have been won for Christ by now. We must be His marketers here on earth. As we
go and make disciples we are helping people become more like Christ. That makes
Christian our brand name, our tribe, our corporate identity.
How do we become known as the
church that is more interested in helping than being helped? The church that is
more interested in loving than being loved? The church that is more interested
in giving than getting? How do we become a church that gives itself away?
If we try to be all things to all people, in spite of Paul’s words, we are
likely to become nothing to nobody stretched so thin that real accomplishments
slip through our fingers. Most churches don’t have the manpower to staff
effectively every ministry that can be thought of by human kind. Our
communities each have hurting people with needs, but how do we choose which
needs are most important? My suggestion is that boards, committees, and impact
studies are not the answer. The key to being effective in an outreach area of
ministry is to let people in the church who have a heart to fill certain need
find others who are like minded. Once there is a core group of people who want
to start a ministry, then it doesn’t fall on the shoulders of the pastoral
staff to try to coerce people into volunteering for something that a committee
decided would be a good idea. All the pastor/pastors need to do at that point
is be supportive and if needed get the process going by which some funding from
the church’s budget can be used to help finance the ministry. As lay leaders in
the church are trained to take charge of areas of ministry it promotes spiritual
growth in the leader, the group and reaches out to the community in a way that
you as the pastor might never be able to. Letting people know that it isn’t
about how many people will join your church because of this new ministry but
how many lives will be affected for Jesus Christ is a great step in the right
direction. Creating an environment in which people feel free to try something
new, perhaps having great success and perhaps failing, is this layman’s view of
a great pastor and pastoral staff.
OK, so you have a church. What is
its purpose? Who is it trying to reach? I know that all churches have some
things in common. They at least should have in common that they are trying to
reach people for Jesus Christ and disciple those people and most likely be a
place of fellowship for believers. Beyond that, there are differences. Example:
if you are trying to reach out to young urban professionals, would you really
want to start your church in a barn or a rodeo arena? However, if your target
is to reach cowboys, that might be the perfect place. Some things to keep in
mind as you plant a church or redefine the church you have just started
pastoring...or even just realized something needs to change because you have
been in a downhill rut for years in the church you are a leader at. 1. Know what you are about. If you don't have a passionate call from God
to reach the people you are trying to reach, then why should they come to a laissez
faire church? Like writing a blog, if the church doesn't offer quality content,
then there is to much competition for their time. They won't waste it on a
church just because it has a building and a sign out front. 2. Be proactive in evangelism. You can't expect people to come through
the doors of your church on their own. They need a reason to come. Some will
occasionally come because they are family of the people already there, but to
reach the rest of the community, it is important to go to them. There are
thousands of ways to do that, but the important thing is that you are reaching
out beyond the walls of the church. 3. Don't rely on tradition to bring them in. This may just be a
continuation of point 2, but just because peoples parents are from the Church
of God of Methodibapticostal Episconazaratholic doesn't mean that they will
follow in those footsteps unless they have a reason to. This is also a point to
look at what you are currently doing. Is your church doing X program because it
is effectively helping you reach one of the goals of the church like reaching
out to the community or discipling believers, or is X program in place just
because as long as grandma has been there in that church that is the way it has
been done? 4. Help your congregation find their passions. Most people have them
they just need help focusing their passion. They need leadership, and that is
where you as a pastor or church leader come in.
Ok, so what can we learn as church
leaders from a place like Starbucks? They have a site called, My Starbucks Idea On this site you
can submit ideas for ways Starbucks could improve their service, or a new
product they could offer, or another way to improve their company. You can vote
on other people's ideas, discuss those ideas with other customers. So
Starbucks, through this site now knows, what their customers like, what they
don't like and what they want that Starbucks doesn't currently offer! Now, as a
church, we aren't going to change the Gospel of Jesus Christ to fit people's
taste. But, what if the suggestions are simple? It broadens the idea of a
creativity team to the entire church, entire community... People might tell you
that the very creative (so you thought) spotlight that you just installed for
the choir is really blinding the first three rows to the left of the platform.
(Pulled that example out of thin air, my church doesn't even have a choir, but
you get the point.) People often see things in a church that the Senior pastor
and the pastoral staff of a church don't see. Sometimes we become so
comfortable in "the way things are" that we forget what it is like to
be a new person trying to find the nursery, or trying to find offering
envelopes, or how communion cups are to be handled after communion... Having a
forum on your church's website, or an old fashioned comment box, might be a way
to help out the pastoral staff without adding cost to your staff budget. One
other lesson to learn from the Starbucks
site is the "see" part of the site where you can look at the most
popular ideas and what is being done about implementing them. People want to
see that comments are taken seriously. Does that mean that every suggestion is
immediately or ever put into practice? Of course not, but it does mean that
people will see that suggestions are not just thrown away. The good ones are
looked at seriously and the great ones are put into practice. Anyway, just my
thoughts...I think I need a Chai Tea.
It seems in most churches that
there are countless policies and procedures; some of which are written while
some are not. The question I want us to consider today is: Why is it so easy to
write a policy, but seemingly difficult to change one once it is in place? In
your church, is there a way to change or challenge existing policies without
causing a church split? I am not talking about challenging the deity of Jesus
Christ. I am more referring to things that the senior pastor may not realize.
Example, a couple weeks ago, we had a guest speaker. Our pastor sat in the
congregation and took notes along with the rest of us. At staff meeting the
next day he remarked that the pens that we give out with the bulletins don't
write well. We decided then as a staff that new pens were not an out of the
question change and set about ordering some new ones. Now, if our senior pastor
hadn't had occasion to sit in the congregation and use one of our pens; how
long would it have been before a change would have been made? (I am looking at
and thinking about our own church's policy/procedure as I write this.) The
funny or not so funny thing is that each of us in the room knew that the pens
weren't that great, but hadn't rocked the boat to look for new ones anytime
recently. (We still have a case of the old ones that haven't been used up yet.)
Pens are just an example, but it makes a few points come to life.
1. If you are a senior pastor. Take a Sunday to sit in the congregation and
watch how your church operates from a different point of view. Let an associate
speak or bring in someone from the outside, but other than the speaker, let
things go on as normal. (Other than that, you will get a twisted view of the
service if everything is done up especially for the guest speaker.)
2. If you are not the senior pastor. Remember that your senior pastor isn't in
every ministry area of the church. There may be a glaring or not so glaring
problem that needs to be changed that he quite simply is not aware even exists.
Let him know. It helps if instead of just pointing out the problem, you also
have a solution in hand.
I want to start this next idea with
a quote from Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals”:
One can lack any of the qualities of an
organizer – with one exception – and still be effective and successful. That exception is the
art of communication. It does not matter what you know about anything if you
cannot communicate to your people. In that event you are not even a failure.
You’re just not there. Communication with others takes place when they
understand what you’re trying to get across to them. If they don’t understand,
then you are not communicating regardless of your words, pictures or anything
else. People only understand things in terms of their experience, which means that
you must get within their experience.”
This is from a secular book that has nothing to do with
churches, but the truth of his argument rings true. We have the greatest story
ever told! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a life changing ideal that we need to
communicate to everyone! Doing so effectively is a challenge that we as
"The Church" seem to struggle with. We as Christians are always
communicating something to the world. The question is: What are we
communicating? How effective is our communication? Is it relevant to the
hearer? Communicate the Gospel effectively to someone today!
Marketing guru, Seth
Godin, wrote: "You shouldn't pick your strategy by modeling someone
else's success." He was talking about bloggers and marketing, but in the
ministry world, this holds true as well. It is easy to see other pastors who
have been successful and think, ((Well, if I had that building I could have a
church of 20 billion too!)) or the many other thoughts that pop in the head of
someone who for whatever reason feels like the ministry God has called them to
isn't quite measuring up to the ministry God has called someone else to. And
there you have my main point. IF you are doing what GOD called you to do, and
you are doing it to the very best of your ability, then you are successful in
God's eyes, and He is the one that matters. It is tempting to steal someone
else's vision just because we see it working somewhere else, but sadly, God
gave them that vision for their time and place in history. If He didn't give it
to you, then you still may see some success (As the world would judge success)
with a lot of hard work, but it won't be what God had planned for you. We can
all learn from others, but there is a huge difference between learning from
them and trying to copy what they did. Remember to always seek GOD'S vision for
you and your ministry!
I was just thinking about Moses wandering in
the desert. I have heard pastors say they feel like such and such a time was
their time in the desert. So lets look at the bright side of desert wandering.
Look at the desert as the transition time between where they were, Egypt, and
where they would end up, Israel/The Promised Land. It took some work to get the
people out of Egypt! Remember the plagues?! Then, as Moses and the people of
Israel are out in the desert, there are those church members (Oops, I mean
Israelite people) who want to go back to the way things used to be. However,
even in the desert, some of the greatest experiences took place! God gave Moses
the 10 Commandments in the desert, not in Egypt or the Promised Land! Please,
as a pastor don't take this example to far and think (((Great, so my job is to
lead through the desert, and then God is going to need someone else to take my
congregation to their promised land.))) However, it probably does mean that you
will need to make changes in your leadership style! Doing things they way they
have always been done tends to give you the same results you have been
getting...or worse, not better. Just remember in any change out of Egypt, there
is some transitioning desert time of struggle and complaining before you get to
the Promised Land. Where ever you are in this journey, praise the Lord that He
is allowing you to lead a group of people there!
Ok, so your church has been
thriving and growing, and it seems like God is blessing you immensely! And
then, something happens. Is it sin in the camp? Is it the music? Are the
greeters to friendly? You experience a drop in attendance. It may, or may not
be accompanied by a drop in offering, but you notice that there aren't as many
people coming. How do you as a leader approach this new dynamic. You can put
your head in a hole and not admit that anything is going on. You can make
excuses, "Its summer." "Holiday weekend"
"Raining" "Beautiful weather for a day at the lake"
"Game day" "Race day"... You can blame people in the church
for not being holy enough to make God a priority. (And there may be some truth
in that one.) Or you can get away with God and find the passion for Him that
helped you through when your church was just a church plant. Find the
excitement that you had when you first took over the church and you saw all the
potential that this congregation had for reaching out to the community. As a
leader, are you casting a vision that people want to follow? Will they really
miss anything if they skip a week? When someone asks, "So what's new at
your church?" Do they respond with enthusiasm about all the great things
God is doing and the ways the church is reaching out to the community and
changing lives? Or do they say, "You know how it is..., same old, same
old." If the leadership of the church doesn't know where it is going, then
those on the outer circle won't make it a priority to be there because they
won't know either.Let God inspire you
to greatness in your ministry whatever that may be!
Many pastors and leaders have a
vision for their church/community/company...Remember that it isn't enough to
tell people once! Many times, we as leaders wonder why the people we work with
don't catch the vision. Maybe it is because we aren't communicating it well. (I
am a Spanish teacher and on exams, I see when I have communicated the material
well and when I haven't.) In church, we don't usually give exams to our
parishioners, but we do see the results of people making the vision of the
church their own! If the vision can be "sloganized" it should be used
every week! A more detailed version of the vision should be communicated to the
church body a minimum of once every six weeks. Yes, I know that is 9 of your 52
sermons a year. Remember that I am not a senior pastor. I do know that the
pulpit time is very valuable to communicate the message God has given you. If
the vision God has given you for the church you are leading isn't the same as
the messages He is giving you throughout your ministry, then you might need to
take a second look at what you think the vision for your church is. At our
church, the Vision Statement is to "Reach lost people with the love of
Jesus and teach them to love like Jesus" It is simple, but that idea
permeates each sermon/series/activity/ministry that we do. As people get a hold
of that vision, they will be excited about it with the same passion that you as
the pastor are. (Note: if you don't have a passion for the vision, neither will
the people in your congregation.)Have fun and let people in on the vision. It
isn't a secret that others will steal; it should be given away freely!
We as a church must have a purpose!
If we just say, "Well, we want to be a church." What does that mean?
Why should God bless a church if it has no purpose for being? Here in South
Carolina, you almost can't throw a rock without breaking a stained glass
window. There are at least four churches within a quick stroll of my office. We
each have a ministry working as part of the Body of Christ! As pastors and
leaders who read this, remember that the congregation needs leadership. If you
are a leader who isn't the senior pastor, remember to support the leadership of
your pastor! If he can't count on the trust of his associate pastors and lay
leadership, he will be hamstrung in his ability to lead the church. Does that
mean that you must agree with every move he makes? No! But, it does mean that
you trust him to be hearing from God, and if you think he is hearing wrong, you
will confront him directly and privately, not talk about his "bad
decision" behind his back. (Remember that I am not a senior pastor and am not speaking out of anger
here.) God will do great things with a church that is showing people his love
and leading souls to Jesus Christ, but my personal belief is that He doesn't
have much reason to bless churches that are really just clubs that sing nice
songs together. It is also hard to lead a church that is fighting internally.
Pastor or leader, are you a Lone
Ranger or part of an A-Team is the question we are looking at. If you aren’t in
the right age bracket for those references to make sense, The Lone Ranger
fought crime by himself (though he did have a sidekick) and the A-Team was a
group of guys who fought as a team, each one adding his level of expertise. I
am not talking about how many people you have on staff. Some of you have a
small church, and you are the staff. What I am talking about is running your
church and sermon preparation. Are you trying to do it all by yourself? I want
to suggest, if you aren’t already doing it that you try having a creativity
team/big picture team/ideas team or whatever you want to call it. That doesn’t
mean that God isn’t still your source of inspiration for your sermons. But it
does mean that once you have the direction for your sermon that there will be
people to help you in the planning. If you use video clips, they can help you
get or create good ones to go with your sermon. They can help you pick out music
for the song service that ties into the sermon topic. If you decorate your
platform for a sermon or series, they can help you come up with ways to do it,
and help carry out that decoration. These people don’t have to be paid staff,
just find creative people in your church that love the Lord and would be
willing to meet with you at some time during the week. As people see how things
come together in your church they will be more supportive of you as a pastor as
well. This works in a church of 20 or a church of 20,000. Granted in the church
of 20, if your creativity team is very large, there won’t be very many people
who haven’t already hashed out your sermon with you before Sunday morning
comes, but so what? They are involved, and they will remember the sermon better
than if they just came Sunday morning and listened to it. Hebrews 10:25 says,
“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but
let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
This doesn’t have to only apply to the Sunday morning worship service.
Pastor, are you a rancher or a
hired hand? You might say, “Wait, I thought the pastor was supposed to be a
shepherd.” Here is the quick summary of my thoughts. In my own church, one of
the things I learned at our membership class is that our pastor cannot be fired
by a deacon board or other such entity in the church, while when I was a youth
pastor/associate pastor, I answered to a board of elders who controlled the
vision/goals/structure etc. of the church. One can quickly see where this is
going. The Pastor who is the rancher, or chief shepherd if you prefer, sets the
goals, vision etc. His only fear is that he will not hear God correctly and
will have to answer for that to an almighty God. That is not to be taken
lightly, however it is entirely different from the attitude of the hired hand
pastor. He serves at the whim of the powers in the church and is realistically
incapable of leading the church. That is because if he attempts to lead in such
a way that the sheep don’t like, they have no trouble in firing him and
searching for a new hired hand. Take a hard look at your own church. Maybe you
are on that board that likes having just a hired hand instead of a land owning
rancher for a pastor. To grow, a church needs strong leadership, and from
experience I can tell you that the church rarely gets its leadership from its
laity if the laity is not in submission to the pastor.
Before I write anything on this
topic, I must first confess that I am church cultured all the way through. I
have been in church since the first Sunday after my mother and father created
me. Nine months or so later, I became a regular in the church nursery. You get
the picture. In the world of business, a lot is changing, old business models
aren't necessarily working as well as they once did. Technology and the
internet have made it possible for people to make business connections that
were nearly impossible 5o years ago. So, my question is, how is that affecting
the church? Should it? While the message we have to give away must remain
constant through time, the way in which that message is given must be ever
evolving and changing if we are to reach this generation for Christ! Pastors,
we are awful about finding something that works and sticking with it long after
it has ceased to work. Flannel board was all the rage and the newest and
coolest way to reach people with the love of Jesus about 40 years ago. Fanny
Crosby wrote incredible hymns that were put to the popular music of her day in
the later half of the 1800's. Overhead projectors shining the lyrics to
"Majesty" up on the front wall of the church were great in the
1980's! None of those things are bad. None of them will send anyone to hell. So
why wouldn't we keep using them in church? (Some churches still do.)The sinner
on the street wouldn't connect with the method in which the message was
portrayed. Fanny Crosby herself said that her songs were written to speak to
the man on the street, not to the highbrow church person. I am not just writing
about music. Fellowship is meant to be relational. We can worship together in a
large church, but fellowship only happens in small groups. How do we as a
church, unless your church is only 10-15 people, continue to reach out to
people while also creating environments in which small groups can assemble and
spend time getting to know each other in very real relationships? At our
church, we use a small group model that we call "Home TEAMs". They
are great! The problem is that less than 25% of our congregation are actively
involved in one. That means that 75% basically show up on Sunday for a worship
service and never experience the meaningful relationships that Christ meant for
His Body - The church, to share.
Going back to the idea of rethinking business. Often 80% of your customers only
account for 20% of your profit/income. In the church, we often say that 20% of
the people do 80% of the work. Nice to see that isn't only a church problem,
but is it possible to get the other 80% actively involved in the work of the
Lord? Yes it is! Here is my "Rethinking church" idea. We often refer
to certain organizations as "para-church organizations" or
"faith based organizations" I would propose that maybe some of these
are really undercover churches. An example: I used to work as a volunteer with
a group of theaters in the Midwest called Stained
Glass Theatre. They put on plays using volunteer actors. All the shows
contained a strong salvation message, but were not "Bible stories".
(Except for very few.) This group of stage hands/script
writers/actors/editors/...were a fellowship of people who loved the Lord and
loved theatre. Through that ministry and its offshoots, thousands of people have
come to know Jesus as their Savior. Thousands more have had their walk with the
Lord strengthened, and I am only referring to the spectators! The people who
were in the theatre, were all working toward a common goal. Some had big jobs,
others little ones, but all were involved with a purpose. When one is sick or
hurting all are their to comfort and help. When one rejoices, all rejoice. Is
SGT perfect? No! But were real meaningful relationships build every day? Yes!
People found fellowship with other Christians and with God there. So is it a
church? You can decide that one...maybe we should look at that model though,
and see how it can affect our church. Having a common goal and purpose, and
each person having his or her role in carrying out that goal can cause a
revolution in Christendom. Sorry this one is so long. Have an awesome day!
Hopefully you are thinking a bit.
We all know by now that people come
to church not just because the preacher does an incredible job of applying
God's word to our lives or because the choir sings so well the angels are
jealous or because the sanctuary is wonderful and pristine in its decorations
or that it is a perfect doctrinal match for them. People come join with a
church often because of the connections they make there. One of the reasons the
landscape is dotted with small churches is because half the people in the
church are related and the other half are their friends. The connections are
there! In a church that is growing, you soon run into the obstacle of people
coming in, loving the service yet still not coming back after a few weeks. They
didn't get connected to those around them. So what is the quick fix? Get
friendlier greeters and ushers? No, your greeters and ushers are most likely
friendly enough. (If they aren't then you have other issues to deal with.)
There isn't a quick fix. The long hard fix is to find ways to connect people
with new believers who come into your church. There isn't one perfect way to do
that. Some churches have great Sunday school programs! My church doesn't even
have Sunday school, but our Home TEAM's are exploding! Please don't take that
to mean that we have it all figured out...we still have a long way to go! I
have a friend whose wife absolutely despises small groups/home groups...but
they love singing in the choir at their church and have established lifelong
friendships with those in the choir. We as humans have to fight against our
habit forming nature to reach out to the new people who come through the doors
of our churches to help them connect to others. If you are a pastor, mentor
your church leaders to reach out rather than standing in a circle talking to
each other on Sunday Mornings. Invite people over to your house for lunch or to
go out to eat with you after church. Only by getting involved in people's lives
outside of Sunday mornings will we be able to effectively reach them with the
gospel and then keep them in a relationship that will help them connect to God
and to each other. Have an awesome day!
Small groups are called many
different things: Sunday school, Cell groups, Home groups, Home TEAMs… What is
important is that people's lives are being changed. People are getting involved
with other people in meaningful relationships and growing in their
relationships with God as they work together. If your church is growing beyond
the 60-100 size, you are probably starting to see that you no longer know
everyone. There are two solutions. One is to not invite any more people to your
church and thus keep it small so that you can continue to have great
relationships with all the members. The other option is to be excited about the
growth of the church and all the people's lives that are being changed by the
Lord and at the same time create environments in which people can connect on a
more personal level. There isn't one perfect model. In my own church, we have
multiple types of small groups. Some are ladies only, some are men only, some
are couples, some meet every week, some twice a month, some once a quarter,
some are related to a theme like "the band" which plays music every
Sunday for our worship service, some are classes like the one we currently have
going which is a Marriage Enrichment class based on the movie and curriculum
from Fireproof. All of these groups have different purposes, but all meet the
need of helping people connect in a smaller group setting where they can build
friendships and relationships with others. There are many other options, in a
traditional church, there are Sunday school classes, or the choir. These can be
excellent if opportunity is given for those relationships to be built. There is
no need to suddenly stop what you are doing now, but you might look and see if
there are opportunities to help people build meaningful relationships in your
church to help combat the busy American lifestyle that doesn't lend itself well
to having close friends.
If your church has less than thirty
people, you can skip this section and come back later. Many people like a
“small church” because they feel like they get to know people better. One of
the complaints about mid-size and large churches is that people feel they get
lost in the numbers and don’t really create relationships. So, the challenge is
to create the “small church” inside the “large church”. That is where all the
small groups come in. Churches who get people plugged in to what they are doing
find that those people don’t leave. It is a way of closing that back door.
Small groups can be many things though, not just Bible study groups. Again, I
will give a few suggestions, but then let your brain spin a little and see if
you can add some.
1. Traditional Small Groups/Home Groups/Cell Groups/Sunday School
2. Accountability Groups
3. Worship team or Choir
4. Drama Group
5. Motorcycle Club
6. Prayer team
7. Church Decorating team
8. Ministry teams – puppet, music, street evangelism…
9. Creativity team – Art, Setting up the Pulpit area for each series the pastor
is doing.
10. Event Coordination team – Sets up 4th of July, Septemberfest, Christmas
activities etc.
Hopefully this scratched the surface for you and got you thinking about ways to
plug people into small groups in your church so that they can build the
relationships that smaller churches take for granted.
Nate Larkin, founder
of The Samson Society said, "
Almost everything changes when Christian faith escapes the prison of
individualism and becomes truly collaborative." Nate and I have a similar
history in many ways, so I really appreciate his ministry! This quote of his
really spoke to something more than just pastors who were/are porn addicts or
struggling with sexual addictions. We as an American society tend to fight for
our individual rights. We find in life that we can do so much more when we work
with others in a collaborative way. We have a tendency to see our faith as
personal; I challenge each of us to see our faith in a more community oriented
way. We challenge each other as we grow in the Lord when we are open and
transparent with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Ultimately, our strength
comes from the Lord, however, I have found that when I am weak spiritually,
having a Jesus with skin on is a great help. Having a brother in Christ who can
hold me accountable, encourage me, etc. is a great thing. I pray that I can be
that same brother in Christ in return when others are weak and I am more
spiritually/emotionally strong. As we share with each other in a safe
environment, we can say exactly what is going on in our lives without fear of
being ridiculed for our weaknesses. That is what the church should be. All of
us who are Christians are redeemed sinners striving toward holiness. Let us
strive together in that journey!
Recently, in recruiting new
leaders, I talked with a couple who I thought would make a great pair to host a
new Home TEAM(our name for small groups). They were interested, and then
pitched an idea to me. "What about a group for blended families?" I
was pleased with their initiative and so we began working out the details.
During those weeks, I did some checking because honestly, I know nothing about
blended families beyond watching the Brady Bunch when I was a kid. There are no
step or half anybodies in my family. I came across some interesting statistics.
30% of marriages in the United States create a blended family situation. As we
know, the divorce rate in the church sadly is no different than outside the church,
so chances are that there are blended families in any congregation. As I began
reading about some of the issues they face, I realized that what started out as
an idea from one couple who want to be Home TEAM leaders could end up being an
incredible ministry! As I look around my own church, I don't think it would be
a stretch to say that at least 20% of our congregation are in some kind of
blended family situation, and the reality is that I am probably very low on
that statistic. I am writing as someone who knows nothing of the struggles
these families face except from what I have read. Many pastors and church
leaders are like me in this respect, so maybe this paragraph will trigger a new
idea for your congregation.
Is marketing a bad term when it comes to the
church? I don't think so. It does depend on what we are marketing. Are we
trying to just make a big name for ourselves, or are we making a big name for
Jesus? If the former is true, then you may as well just join any club and make
a name for yourself. If the latter is true, then we should be shouting from the
rooftops that Jesus is Lord! Advertising and Marketing can be as simple as
telling a friend about Jesus over coffee. No matter how technologically advanced
our world gets, it still takes one on one interaction with people most of the
time to lead someone to Jesus! If computers could do it, the whole world would
have been won for Christ by now. We must be His marketers here on earth. As we
go and make disciples we are helping people become more like Christ. That makes
Christian our brand name, our tribe, our corporate identity. 
I was just thinking about Moses wandering in
the desert. I have heard pastors say they feel like such and such a time was
their time in the desert. So lets look at the bright side of desert wandering.
Look at the desert as the transition time between where they were, Egypt, and
where they would end up, Israel/The Promised Land. It took some work to get the
people out of Egypt! Remember the plagues?! Then, as Moses and the people of
Israel are out in the desert, there are those church members (Oops, I mean
Israelite people) who want to go back to the way things used to be. However,
even in the desert, some of the greatest experiences took place! God gave Moses
the 10 Commandments in the desert, not in Egypt or the Promised Land! Please,
as a pastor don't take this example to far and think (((Great, so my job is to
lead through the desert, and then God is going to need someone else to take my
congregation to their promised land.))) However, it probably does mean that you
will need to make changes in your leadership style! Doing things they way they
have always been done tends to give you the same results you have been
getting...or worse, not better. Just remember in any change out of Egypt, there
is some transitioning desert time of struggle and complaining before you get to
the Promised Land. Where ever you are in this journey, praise the Lord that He
is allowing you to lead a group of people there!
pastor and am not speaking out of anger
here.) God will do great things with a church that is showing people his love
and leading souls to Jesus Christ, but my personal belief is that He doesn't
have much reason to bless churches that are really just clubs that sing nice
songs together. It is also hard to lead a church that is fighting internally.