So I've been reading about growth barriers in small churches. I noticed that the small church I attend has most of these barriers.
- The desire to preserve social intimacy
- The desire to maintain control
- The desire to conserve memories
- The desire to protect turf
The desire to preserve social intimacy
I think this is a more subtle problem in our church rather than a real noticeable problem. We like knowing everyone in our little church. We all like to go out to eat together after church and we like the fact that we can all fit into one restaurant. It's tough to break out of this because we all know each other and there is a certain predictability in that intimacy. New people bring surprises and new things to deal with.
The Desire to maintain control
This seems to be our biggest problem. We bought a church building after renting a space for almost 10 years. The desire for control is in full swing right now. We've changed the locks on the doors at least once because we felt we were losing control of who had keys. While that might seem a prudent thing, it also speaks volumes about what our priorities are. Right now the congregation is feeling a little out of the loop you might say. Most people had certain expectations when we purchased our own building and I think one could make the case that most of those expectations have not been realized. Some of those expectations understandably were too high to be met in the first year but others I believe were very attainable. Some of those expectations were growth and to some extent that happened but after a year and a half of not tapping into that growth and building on it we have slipped back to the mostly same old crowd with a few of the new ones sticking around and as many old members leaving so mostly it stays the same.
A second and a very crucial expectation was that we would finally have our own building to carry out those things that we weren't able to do while renting. This I believe is where we have utterly failed. For the most part the congregation has been literally locked out of their own church. The church is only open on the two evenings that pre-planned events are scheduled on. In fact I believe that most weeks we probably utilize the church building for less than 5 hours. So we aren't experiencing anything differently than what we had before. In fact very little has changed except the frustration level of the members. So I have wondered why is it we don't utilize our building now that we have one? I have gathered a few reasons from just listening over the past few months. The number one reason it isn't utilized is that most people don't want to jump through all the hoops in order to get permission to use the building. Now I think there should be some restrictions placed on using the church but I don't believe we should have so many restrictions that the building sits empty 95% of the time. I have also heard the very valid arguments of money. If the church is used then the electricity bill and water bill goes up and well we just don't have enough money for that. I would argue that we can't afford not to let our building be used by it's members. If the congregation does not feel vested in the building, if the members do not feel ownership of some sort then they will cease to behave as owners. By that I mean they will cease to take care of the building both physically and financially. They will defer those things to the ones that actually have possession of the building and the ones they perceive to be controlling the use of the building. I believe we have already seen this happen to some degree in our church. The church is also under utilized because no one is available to have the church open so that members may come and pray and worship at different times or just come to talk with one another. One of the things that I miss most from the church I used to attend was the ability to meet in the church during the day or evening to pray or worship or just sit with a friend and talk or pray together. I realize our church is not large enough to have the resources to have our church open on a regular basis all week long but I believe we could offer some hours of availability to our members.
Those are just a few of the ways I think the control issue is out of balance. There are other issues that directly relate to control such as the secrecy that goes on in our church. When the leadership continues to keep important things from the general members of the church there is a problem. When leadership tells one thing to some members and then tells something totally different to other members then leadership is using their power to control the entire congregation. We cannot allow our good intentions of moving the church in what we think is the right direction to become a tool used to control the congregation to achieve what we think is the right thing for the church.
In conclusion, I have to say that I include myself in the leadership and that I have been guilty of most of the things that I've written about. There is no one person responsible for our lack of growth. We are all responsible and we need to step up to the plate and begin to work for the changes that need to take place. We have to learn to listen to each other and learn to admit that sometimes the congregation does know what is best for the church and sometimes we as leaders don't have a clue. Sometimes we just need to get out of the way. I wonder what a study of Jesus' idea of leadership would look like compared to our model of leadership. A blog for another day.
As always feel free to comment and always take what I say as only my opinion which can so often be skewed by my very myopic perspective of things.
