church growth – Page 2 – The Flipchart

7 Top Tips for growing Messy Church

It’s a common story. Regular guests at Messy Church are making little or no progress towards becoming more involved in the life of the whole church, and if a growing church is the aim – then Messy Church isn’t working. Many church leaders are now stuck with bacon sandwiches and crafts once a month and are desperately asking: what’s next?\r\n\r\nThere is a key mistake in the way we think of Messy Church.\r\n\r\nTo put it simply, we need to stop seeing Messy Church as an introductory church programme designed to bring people to another, more important programme called ‘Main Church’. And it follows that we need to stop treating guests as attendees in an organization and start treating them as family members in a family.\r\n\r\nWith that in mind, here are my seven top tips for taking Messy Church to the next level.\r\n\r\n1 Appoint a pastor. The pastor will be the focal point for developing a strong community within Messy Church. It may be a member of the clergy or it could be an experienced lay person. It might be a great role for an experienced couple. Whoever it is, the pastor needs lots of time to be the pastor and take responsibility for the welfare and concern of their flock, a flock which may be made up mainly of people who don’t go to church. A word on gender: the pastor could be male or female, but consideration should be given to how to engage the fathers and grandfathers who come with mothers and children and just read the papers. My observation is that fathers are usually much less comfortable at Messy Church.\r\n\r\n2 Localise the goals. As long as the goal is to move ‘attendees’ from one programmed event to another event of some perceived greater importance, then leading Messy Church will tend to be impersonal and remote. Instead, set growth goals local to the group. Are friendships growing across the group, do people know each other better this year than last, do they care for each other? What is the quality of community we are building? Have we pitched our worship at an appropriate level to move on their discipleship? Focus on growth that is possible within the group this year.\r\n\r\n3 Make it personal. Encourage community growth by creating opportunities for people to really get to know each other. Plan times where families can share BBQs, go for walks on Bank Holidays, babysit for each other, learn the names of each other’s children. We say it but don’t believe it: most people need to belong before they believe. In patient parish ministry we weave a community together over a long time, and the richness of this work depends on our ability to step outside the church walls. In this work Messy Church is a gift. It gives us an natural, fresh opportunity to deepen the quality of our community, but it only happens when people are in close proximity for extended periods of time.\r\n\r\n4 Be personally vulnerable. If Top Tip 3 is Make it Personal, the next has to be make it personal – to you. This is possibly the hardest thing do. In general church leaders want Messy Church to grow through organization and they really, really don’t want to commit to a new set of deep relationships. There simply isn’t time. But the reality is that the true cost of effective leadership is not in organizing a well run event – that’s easy. The real cost is in the time it takes to become friends. If you never allow people to cross your own personal thresholds then you can never grow a church of deep and high quality community. It’s tough. It’s not only time consuming, it places demands on the whole family, and it can be the source of personal pain and disappointment. But it is an important key to growing Messy Church. Pick leaders who will make leading Messy Church their sole ministry, and be clear about the sacrifice required – in personal time, friendships and church attendance.\r\n\r\n5 Be clear about identity. Rather than hoping to surreptitiously slide people from Messy Church to Main Church, be clear about the identity and limitations of Messy Church. Say up front that Messy Church is a great opportunity for whole families to take part in a simple act of worship, but that it’s only one small part of what mature Christ-followers do. Promote church events. Talk up teaching programmes being used across the church. Invite people to opportunities for deeper worship, for family ministry, for discipleship. Help people see that they belong (not just attend) to something with a clear identity, but which is part of something bigger and richer.\r\n\r\n6 Challenge personal growth. Also be clear about the call and expectations of every Messy Church member in the light of the gospel. Just as we would encourage every-member ministry in the Main Church, so we should create opportunities for personal growth at Messy Church. Ask people to read out loud, to invite their friends to special events, take part in service planning, even to pray in public. We have to create opportunities for the group to serve each other.\r\n\r\n7 Integrate with the whole church. A strong identity allows Messy Church to stand-alone so that people can belong, but we should then create clear opportunities to join and serve the larger church community. This may mean joining in significant acts of worship or other community events, or taking part in leading some aspect of whole-church life, perhaps helping organize a family day or the Christingle service or the summer fair. Plan integration carefully to make sure it happens.\r\n\r\nAll these tips come down to one main point about dedicated leadership in Messy Church:\r\n

Leading Messy Church should be the most important ministry for those that do it. It cannot be a clip-on ministry playing second fiddle to something more important.

\r\nWill it work? I have grown house groups, Alpha courses, nurture groups, pastorates and churches, and all of the above tips have played a key part in every group that’s grown.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWritten over two weeks in various places, finished in Neros Clifton

Growth and … Headroom

Growth isn’t from everywhere. Its from specific places.\r\n\r\nIf your hand-printed silk head scarf sells at £400, your market consists of all those who haven’t bought the scarf already and are most probably women, glamorous and wealthy … or their partners and friends.\r\n\r\nYour market is not everyone in the world, or even all women in the world, or all wealthy people in the world.\r\n\r\nHeadroom is the gap between those who have already bought the scarf and those who are most likely to do so.\r\n Headroom is not the gap between those who have already bought the scarf and everyone in the world.\r\n\r\nThe market is specific, and knowing this allows you to develop a marketing strategy that reaches probable buyers more often.\r\n\r\nTo put it differently,\r\nHeadroom does not include the market share you will simply never get.\r\n\r\nAnd to put it in other words,\r\nHeadroom is the room in which to manoeuvre, position and pitch for growth.\r\n\r\nSo to invest well it is important to know, where is the Headroom?\r\n\r\nWhich brings us to churches who write strategies for growth without any concept of Headroom.\r\n\r\nLet’s consider two typical areas – Evangelism and Youth Work.\r\n\r\nIt is right to say that everyone in the world (let’s say parish) should have the opportunity of knowing and responding to the Gospel, which is uniquely designed for everyone in the world. But not everyone wants to hear the Gospel, or wants to respond, or feels they need to hear the Good News, or they simply don’t believe it. Not today, anyway.\r\n\r\nSo although the offer is suitable and appropriate for everyone (in the parish), the reality is that the size of the group who are interested and likely to respond is much less due to the self-determination of members of the group itself.\r\n\r\nIn this case, Headroom is the space between those who have already accepted the Good News and those who have not but are willing to consider it. Growth will come from making sure those who really want and know they need Good News get to share in it.\r\n\r\nYouth Work is different. There is no compelling Biblical description for youth work ministry in church, but we believe it’s a good idea. And others do it, so we think we should too. We believe that the Headroom in this case is the space between those young people already coming on a Friday night and those (in the parish) who don’t come yet.\r\n\r\nBut it’s not. As in the first example, there will be those who opt out because they simply won’t be interested in coming. Growth will come from making sure those who really want to come to a youth club for the benefits it offers.\r\n\r\nBut unlike the first example, youth work is a product not a truth. And unlike expensive scarves, the product is not a finished object but a set of relationships and experiences within a community of particular people. This means that the quality of the ‘product’ is not based on remote manufacturing processes somewhere else, but on the resources and competencies of the people running the ministry there and then.\r\n\r\nSuddenly the idea of Headroom changes. If the resources are inadequate and the competences are poor, the headroom for growth becomes those not already involved, who would be interested in coming, and who can tolerate embarrassing incompetence.\r\n\r\nAnd that’s another truth. Bad products have little Headroom for growth.

When pruning means cutting growth

We started a new ministry two years ago.

It was popular. It was reasonably well attended.

But after one year we cut the programme.

Why? Because although it had grown, our detailed analysis revealed some interesting facts.

First, although the event had grown its growth was mainly due to people who would have gone to any number of events that were reasonably accessible, reasonably competently run, and populated with people they knew.

Second, it was an inclusive, welcoming environment, and people of all ages and abilities came and worked together on great projects. However, that highlighted the difficulty of bringing established congregation members into something they perceived as too creative and out of the ordinary.

Consequently, and third, the church in which this event was hosted never got behind the programme. In other words (or in our words) the event was not renewing the people we wanted to renew.

So our event was inclusive, and welcoming, and creative, and accessible, and, to an extent, growing. But it was unsustainable. And it was taking a considerable amount of our available leadership resources.

And so we cut it when it seemed to be in its prime. It was sad, but we needed the resources for something more effective.

Anyone who’s pruned roses knows the problem. Roses need pruning in the spring to prepare for growth, and then fast growing suckers need to be removed once the growth starts so energy isn’t drained form the main plant, and they need dead-heading, and they need pruning at the end of the season. All this if they are to reach their best.

In other words, to get a beautiful rose all season the plants need to be pruned surgically and often, from before the beginning until after the end of the growing season.

The only time roses aren’t pruned is in the winter when everything is dead.

And that’s probably true of some churches too.

Serendipity. Coincidence. Guidance?

Not all coincidences or accidents can be taken as guidance. In fact, trying to ‘read’ guidance into dramatic physical occurrences can easily fall into the category of superstition (said Jesus in Luke 13).\r\n\r\nBut sometimes the dramas of life can lead in a clear direction.\r\n\r\nSo it was in the story of Arthur Tappan Pierson, a New Yorker, born in 1837 and named after his father’s employer. He was a bright student, language scholar and Phi Beta Kappa. He grew to be a powerful orator and was a pastor of great and large churches around America, and accidentally also in England, where he had been invited by his friend C H Spurgeon to help with preaching duties at the Metropolitan Tabernacle during the latter’s illness. A Presbyterian not a Baptist, Pierson found himself ‘in post’ when Spurgeon died.\r\n\r\nPierson was the one of the first members of the YMCA, and spoke at it’s first conference in Northfield in 1886 where he coined the phrase “the evangelisation* of the world in this generation”. From this conference 100 men dedicated themselves to overseas missions and became the founding core of the Student Volunteer Movement. By the time of Pierson’s death in 1911 over 5,000 Student Volunteers had sailed to mission fields abroad.\r\n\r\nBut what about the sign?\r\n\r\nWhen Pierson was 39 years old he was a prominent leader in his denomination, a well published writer of articles, sermons and poems, a powerful speaker, and successful parish minister. But he was dissatisfied with his successful ministry in high profile churches because he could not reach the poor in his local city, let alone the un-evangelised populations around the world.\r\n\r\nOn March 24^th 1876 Pierson met with around sixty of his parishioners to pray – not in the church building – that the obstacles that held his church back from reaching the poor be removed.\r\n\r\nWhile they prayed, and without their knowing, their beautiful church building was burning down. Everything was destroyed, right down to the desk where Pierson stored his Bible notes. Only, the Bible notes survived.\r\n\r\nPierson took it as a sign. The church hired the local opera house as a meeting room and in the next fifteen months hundreds of people came to faith under his new style of preaching – simple, direct, challenging. He never looked back from his new focus on evangelism and mission theory.\r\n\r\nComfortable yet Dissatisfied? Talented, Equipped, but Ineffective? Pray. Invite others. Maybe even pray for the church to burn down! (Metaphorically)\r\n\r\nAnd if you have the chance, read the story of Arthur Tappan Pierson.\r\n\r\n* NOTE: spell checker want to put Liberalisation instead of Evangelisation … in a strange way, maybe not far from the truth?

St Augustine’s Islington

It’s a basic premise based on thirty years of problem solving:\r\n\r\nThe Quality of Research determines the Quality of Solutions\r\n\r\nThe wider the frame of reference the broader the perspective available.\r\nThe deeper the subject is mined the richer the solutions become.\r\n\r\nThe opposite is true.\r\n\r\nInadequate Research leads to Inadequate Solutions\r\n\r\nThis is nearly always true of parish ministry. Without a sound understanding of (sometimes arcane) details parish strategies are almost always based on some incomplete premise or another borrowed from a book or a course or from the church’s history or practice or another church.\r\n\r\nWhat sort of research? How could it be used?\r\n\r\nToday I completed a brief overview of St Augustine’s parish in Islington, London. A typical London inner city parish, geographically small, few distinguishing features. Good church building. Committed congregation. The question is, what’s next?\r\n\r\nThe data tells us that nearly 4,000 people in the parish call themselves Christian; and roughly 3,000 people are technically Financially Vulnerable; and nearly 3,000 people are on tax credits. Which is half the working age population. And these may not all be the same people.\r\n\r\nAnd all the reverse details are true too. Half the population are not on benefits, are not financially vulnerable, and do not call themselves Christian.\r\n\r\nAnd there are about 600 pensioners and 1,200 children.\r\n\r\nI’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure it’s better to know than not to know.\r\n\r\nClick here to see the complete details and zoom in, or just look at the map …\r\n

Reorganisation of the Modern Anglican Benefice

It would be reasonable to assume that most Church of England clergy are uncomfortable with the idea of simply transferring business models and methods into the church.\r\n\r\nAs the church wrestles with questions of long-term sustainability some new thinking about structures has to be carried out, and it is not enough to simply adopt a streamlined management plan from a profit-motivated organisation and hope that the Anglican church can adapt. For start, most corporate internal organisation charts don’t include the client; they focus instead only on the Team, which can be controlled, not the public, (and for public read ‘Ordinary Church Member’).\r\n\r\nIt was reflecting on this problem which led to the doodle which led to the diagram below. It proposes an alternative organisational diagram for the modern Church of England Benefice.\r\n\r\nFor a larger version for zooming in see here.\r\n\r\nOn the same subject see Models of the Successful Modern Church of England Benefice\r\n

The successful modern Church of England benefice 4 – Planting

The successful modern Church of England benefice is an organic, networked and campus church, created for growth and witness. It is the logical outworking of this new Anglican focus that the successful benefice will find opportunities to share its resources and experience and expertise with other churches and in other places. It will become a Planting church. At times this will mean offering help to Anglican and other churches experiencing difficulties, and at other times it will mean starting new ventures of different shapes and styles to meet particular needs and opportunities.\r\n\r\nThis is 4 of 4: to see the whole poster go here\r\n\r\nOr see each individual post here: 1-Organic 2-Networked 3-Campus \r\n\r\n

The successful modern Church of England benefice 3 – Campus

The successful modern benefice in the Church of England will need to become a Campus. This means it will draw together resources for teaching, mentoring, coaching and training, for the purpose of helping Christians deepen their discipleship and witness. Lay ministers will need to work in a more flexible way, working in teams, with each person working to their strength, be it research, writing, preaching, coaching. The Campus church will also attract external resources from outside the Anglican church – theologians and educators – as well as offer resources to all local colleges and schools (not only Church of England schools!) to build up the life of society as a whole.\r\n\r\nThis is 3 of 4: see the whole poster go here\r\n\r\nOr see each individual post here: 1-Organic 2-Networked 4-Planting\r\n

The successful modern Church of England benefice 2 – Networked

A successful modern Church of England benefice will need to be Networked. That is, it will need to work across churches of different styles, theology and history, and across parish boundaries. Networked churches will make the most of resources, limiting duplication to maximise effectiveness and sustainability. To create and environment for sustainable growth the successful benefice will draw on the expertise of many people wherever they are found, in Anglican churches and others.\r\n\r\nThis is two of four: see the whole poster go here\r\n\r\nOr see each individual post here: 1-Organic 3-Campus 4-Planting\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Networked Benefice

The successful modern Church of England benefice 1 – Organic

A successful modern Church of England benefice will need to be Organic. That is, it will need to grow and flex within existing and new areas – geographically, physically, theologically and socially. Rigid strategies won’t cut it. Leaders will have to be creative and articulate, the people they lead will need to be patient and forgiving – and more involved! All will have to be totally committed to making it work if it is to grow. This has not been the Church of England way in recent times, but if it is survive into an uncertain future then traditional Anglican sensibilities will have to be challenged.\r\n\r\nThis is 1 of 4: see the whole poster go here\r\n\r\nOr see each individual post here: 2-Networked 3-Campus 4-Planting\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Successful Modern Benefice is … Organic