It comes down to four challenges that will require us to get uncomfortable. And those challenges involve four different groups of people.
The Teaching Challenge.
This is the challenge that involves our teaching pastors. As Greg and Cally pointed out, we’re good at getting people into the Bible on Sunday morning, but we do a poor job of encouraging Bible engagement outside the church. Any movement here will require pastors to shift their approach to teaching. The win isn’t a great message. The win needs to become people engaging God’s Word.
How do we help people see how the Bible addresses real life issues? How do we help people look to God’s Word when they need wisdom? How do we provide tools and encouragement and the right expectations to move people to a place where they become self-feeders?
The challenge is that we’ll have to provide practical next steps to help people embrace new spiritual disciplines. Remember, teaching has the potential to shift thinking while systems (or disciplines) have the potential to shift behaviors.
The Activity Challenge.
This is a challenge that involves our paid staff. As soon as we hire someone, we measure their success by how many people show up to the event. If we only had one ministry in every church, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
The problem is that even the smallest of churches typically have dozens of ministries. And whenever staff is involved, we’ve conditioned them to believe success involves holding a weekly event and getting as many people at that event as possible. The more staff we hire, the more ministry we expect to get done and the more events they try to pull off. Our staff end up essentially competing against each other to get more people to their activities.
The goal is making disciples, not keeping disciples busy. In addition to counting attendance and baptisms, what else do we need to start measuring to determine whether or not spiritual growth is actually happening? How do we redefine the win? How do we move beyond measuring activity to measuring heart change? How do we get ministry staff working together rather than competing with each other?
The challenge is that we’ll have to say no to some events and activities in order to shift the culture and the mindset of our churches.