Over the next few blogs I am going to try to summarize the main points of the NCLI (National Church Leadership Institute) conference and highlight the key ideas they suggest for church revitalization.
The NCLI Seven Secrets
1. Understand the current situation and start where you are.
2. Be Positive and map your assets.
3. We must reclaim evangelism.
4. Reclaim our compelling Mission; "Why are we the church?"
5. Create small groups for spiritual formation.
6. Administration is Ministry: empower creative people and programs.
7. Transformational Worship.
#4 Compelling Mission: Why are we the Church?" led by Michael Piazza
In the order of service, the Call to worship and call to action should all explain the "why" question. Why are we here? Why are we the church? Following Jesus is the practice of compassion. We are all in ministry together and we learn from one another.
Worship should aim at developing the ability to put yourself in anothers' shoes.
A healthy church is a by-product of a powerful externally focused mission.
In anything that we do in the church, especially worship, we have to ask the tough question; are we just trying to maintain an institution or are we planning for Jesus' mission in people's lives?
Everything that we do in worship should be an extension of the mind and mission of Jesus.
Happiness comes from being externally focused. Despite cultural changes, our core values remain the same. We are stewards of God's grace. There are only a few things that churches must do well and there is a difference between what you could do, what you like to do, what you should do and what you MUST do.
Churches need to think bigger than they are!
In order to be a Church we must act like the body of Christ.
Is the church driven by management or by mission and vision?
The focus of church leaders should not be concerned with financial stability. The energy and faith of church leaders should be directed toward creating a vision of the mission that God has called them to. Everyone should ask, Are my decisions based on concern for institutional stability or Christ’s vision for our life together?
Who are the heroes of your congregation? Who drives the church?
There is a long list of possibilities;
creative people
leaders
managers
administrators
historians
fear-mongers
critics?
You cannot allow the 2% of critics to determine what a church does.
One Church’s Bulletin reads; "You are the body of Christ. To serve and not to be served.” Who is your worship designed to serve?
Is worship designed for those inside the church or for those outside the church?
Peter Drucker asks two questions; What business are you in? and Who are your customers?
In the corporate world consider that Sports Illustrated saw themselves as a magazine company while ESPN saw themselves as a Sports entertainment company. ESPN grew by reaching into other types of media while SI resisted the move.
What if oil companies shed the mindset that they are in the oil business and began to think of themselves as being in the "energy" business? How might they change the way they respond to legislation and how might they imagine new opportunities of doing business that is cleaner and better for the nation? Likewise, in what ways is the Church stuck in old ways of thinking about the business we are in?
Another way of getting at this issue is to ask; What business would a Martian say that you were in? When we go back to the reason for our existence, we can look at what Jesus did.
Our customers are the broken-hearted and the oppressed.
Members should not wear a bib but an apron; You are a host not a guest
You are a producer not a consumer. Worship should reinforce our core value of service. We need to be clear that the life of our church is about service.
There are many jokes about fundamentalist churches having an advantage over mainline churches because Fundamentalists have hell. What they really have is a sense of urgency.
Every church has the mission of Jesus. We have the kingdom of God and the message of grace.
Hell takes many forms. There are many people in this world today who are living in hell, the hell of poverty, war, aids, homelessness, injustice and violence. We need to be about the work of the church with a sense of urgency for those who live in the difficult places of life. This is an urgency we must speak of and we can do something about.
A sense of urgency cannot be generated by a congregation that is only interested in its own survival, institutional stability and paying the bills. We need to be about the things that Jesus was about. Turn the church upside down and find your mission. Remind people about the places that our members are serving in the world. Churches get stuck on governance instead of a vision for the kingdom of God. You must integrate service into the DNA of the church and continue in many ways to remind people what it is all about.
Pastor Laurene Bowers from Randall, Massachusetts, author of the book "Becoming a Multi-Cultural Church" led a workshop about Creating a Multi-Cultural church.
She encourages every congregation to reach out to people who historically did not feel part of the church whether those boundaries were due to gender, race, ethnicity, age, orientation, economic condition, or ability. It is important to put Jesus at the center, who is the thread that holds us all together. It is theological-we need to believe that radical inclusion of diverse people is the will of God. Diversity is good for you because it helps all of us to grow. In the new world, she says we need to practice "Sesame street" worship. Every part of the service should be limited to five minutes. There must be no dead time and songs should last no more than 3 minutes. Diverse congregations need to find ways to foster conversations and faith sharing. She suggested experimenting with a Sacred Conversations circle.
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