Building a church

On August 5th I had the privilege (I think) of being part of a presentation to pastors attending a conference on congregational development. It was a privilege, but it was a lot of work to prepare in the middle of a challenging time for our church. We're building a building, and it is demanding extra attention from all of those on our church's staff. I took the bunt of it in the 2 months leading up to the presentation as I was filling in for our pastor while he was away. The presentation gave us the opportunity to tell our story as a 7 year old church meeting in a school to pastors and other leaders considering planting a new church. I learned a lot about our church from this presentation. I've only been there a year and this filled in a lot of blanks for me. At the end of the presentation a gentleman asked if we had planted or intended to plant any other churches. I listened as our pastor responded by saying, "No, that's not really our vision. We have this land(26 acres) and were going to build on it someday. There is a huge difference between the man's question and the response he received; but both might be referred to as building a church(es). What does it mean to build a church? I honestly think people get confused sometimes. Some think it refers to a construction project such as the one we're in the midst of now--that is to say an actual, physical building like the temple in the Hebrew scriptures. Others would counter (sometimes vehemently) by saying the church isn't a building, it's the people--a la 1 Peter which uses a building as a metaphor for the church with people are the building blocks. Reminds me of the children's Sunday school rhyme, "Here's the church and here's the steeple. Open the doors and there's all the people." My reflections have led me to the conclusion that there is another way of understanding this idea of building the church. The third way is to think of the structures of the church as distinct from a structure called a church. What in the world am I talking about? Think of it this way: The church is an organism, a living body composed of individual people; and it is an organization which has structures to organize and help it function effectively. I'll be honest, I think our church's land is just a piece of dirt and i could care less if we ever build a building there. On the other hand I love the people in our church. Ok, sometimes I don't want to, but Jesus is helping me to love them. Anyway, as I continued to think about this I realized that it's easy for us to focus on a construction project because it's a concrete representation of our efforts, our gifts, and our presence. Too, the idea of the church as people receives a lot of focus, especially from those of us, like myself, who are trained/being trained for vocational ministry in the church. What about the third idea? In over 80 hours of seminary education, I have never had a class that talked about the importance of building the church in organizational terms. I've had classes about a particular structural system in use by my denomination which is broad, at times contradictory, and confusing, and really doesn't provide that much guidance for the local congregation. At this point, I'm sure some of you are asking what's the big deal? Well, there's a story that will answer your question. It all started one day when food was being distributed from the food pantry at First (insert your denomination or lack thereof here) Church. Among those receiving the food, there were some who thought they were getting the short end of the loaf, so to speak. So they went to the pastor, a harassed and harried person, with too much to worry about already. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The pastor was fretting about making a decision when his friend and mentor Hal E. Spirit dropped in for a chat. Hal immediately saw that his friend the pastor was about to lose it and leave the church to become a (insert an appropriately bad career, location or denomination here). Hal took charge and said, "Pick some others like say, Stephen, and put them in charge of making sure the food is distributed fairly." By now you've figured out that this is the story of the first "deacons" being chosen in Acts 6. The point is this; there need to be structures and systems in place to ensure that the resources of the church are being used in appropriate effective and balanced ways. Most churches have basic structures in place having to do with finances, property, worship, and Christian education. However, as a church grows so does it's need for more structures as the work of ministry multiplies. I don't believe there is a magic number that tells us when we need to add more structures in our church. Rather, I think it's a continuous process of listening and being aware of what is happening in the life of the church. When several people start saying something isn't right or when our leaders start to feel bogged down in too many responsibilities; it may be time to add ore structure to address these issues. Yet, many of us continue to try to do things the same way and we wonder why we aren't building the church in terms of people. We get bogged down in the details and wonder where our passion went. Or the details just don't get communicated and more time has to be spent on catching people up. We're struggling with this in our church right now. People have become comfortable with a structure in which only a few people needed to know what was going on, and they just kind of passed the information on informally. Now, however, more people are in the mix and there are more things going on. The old method of communication by osmosis won't work. We need to build our church by adding more structure in regard to communicating with each other. That's just one example. In the context of a new church, this idea of building church structures takes on a great deal of significance because you are starting from scratch. Here are some observations I've made from my experience in three different church plants:
Simple is good.
Think ahead. Lay a structural foundation that will help you as you grow.
Read about other congregation's structures and then do what's right for your congregation. There is no one right structure. No church is doing what's right for everyone.
Learn from others and your own mistakes. I'll never forget the lesson I learned from a previous church about trying to plant a new church at the wrong time. Even better I'll never forget my own attempts to do too much which ended in a major flameout.
Ask for help. Look around you. Is there a local church that's doing well? Maybe your denomination or organization provides help. Hire a consultant. There are a lot of ways to get some help and very few excuses for not doing so.
Don't think you or your congregation can do everything and don't think you can do everything you have to do in house. We're all human. We'll all have strengths, weaknesses and limitations. You need a web site. If you don't have a professional web designer in your church, trust me, hiring one will pay for itself because you won't keep redoing your ugly website, or wishing you could. Same goes for letter head, logos, decor, etc.
Even if you can't or don't need to engage in a particular ministry now--i.e. youth or seniors ministry in a new congregation--maintain a file of ideas and pray for God to send people to lead these ministries, whatever they are. The number one mistake I've seen new congregations make is failing to prepare to minister to those they are trying to reach and bring into the church. Don't be the football coach who recruited a team but had not playbook. Your recruits won't stick around if you're not ready for them.
Finally. Pray, pray, keep praying and never stop praying. The other day I watched Finding Nemo and I learned a lesson from the forgetful fish, Dory. Throughout the movie she keeps repeating, "Just keep swimming." Sounds crazy. Fish swim all the time, don't they? That's the point. Fish swim all the time because they live in water. Christians pray all the time, because we are surrounded at all times by God.
~