After attending NCLI (National Church Leadership Institute) this summer I thought it would be helpful to list the seven secrets or church re-vitalization.
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.
#2 Be Positive and map your assets
Asset Mapping
Mike Piazza has broken down the process of new member growth into three simple steps.1. get them to come.
2. Get them to come back
3. Get them to stay
A database is more important than a membership list. Increase the number of touches with your database. A "touch" can be a snail mail mailing, an email, a social media announcement, a blog or any other way that you communicate with a member.
First time worshippers are your VIP's. Over 90% of all people who come to a church for the first time do so because someone in the congregation personally invited them. Marketing, branding, communication, advertising and PR are all important, but nothing is more effective that providing opportunities for members to invite people they know.
Find out why visitors come back. What is your niche? Websites like citydata.com and persept.com can provide you with information about your community. If you average two visitors a week, times 52 Sundays is 104 people, three visitors a week is 156, 4 a week is 208. You only have to do a few things well. You have to know what those few things are and do them well. Who can your church appeal to? Why doesn't it?
Think about those who might come if they thought that they were welcome.
Know who you are and what you stand for.How do we get people to come back? Every church thinks that they are a friendly church. Most often they are friendly with each other. Research shows that the larger the number of people who introduce themselves to a visitor increases the likelihood that they will return. Visitors respond to a friendly church, exciting morning worship with great music (and it's important to do it well), service opportunities, children and youth programs, and hope for transformation.
They come back for value.
Two things get them to stay;
1. Give them a job
2. Give them a friend
People are looking for a sense of significance and fellowship.
Do three things well; Worship, small groups and outreach.
The Cathedral of Hope has a policy that every person does something this year.
It's important to recognize and amplify your assets. All of the aspects of church life fit together and it's easy to connect the dots. Mission, evangelism, fellowship, and worship have always been what the church does. Do them well.Michael offered some practical suggestions based on appreciative Inquiry and Asset Mapping. I have cut and pasted below a definition of Appreciative Inquiry from Wikipedia. It is the most important tool for leading change and is worth practicing. Too often when churches begin to look critically at their church they become cynical and judgmental and want to cast blame for perceived weaknesses. This is the place where much constructive change is halted. It's important to believe in what you are doing. You can google Asset Mapping or Appreciative Inquiry. There are many great online resource. I bookmarked a Case Western Reserve University site that has extensive material about AI.
Michael suggests that you arrange small group gatherings within the church to discuss those four foundations of church life and use sticking sheets with creative suggestions on them and then ask people to get up and vote with their feet and stand by the sign that they believe in strongly enough that they would be willing to put time and energy into. Nominations should be taken from the congregation. a broader group knows more people and may have a better sense of gifts and interests than a small committee. It also fosters a sense of engagement and participation from everyone.
Appreciative Inquiry is based on the belief that what you feed grows.
Here are the four phases of AI.
Discovery; Appreciate what is
Dream; What might be
Design; Determine who you should be
Destiny; Create the new vision
Keys to moving forward
1. Stay positive
2. Start where you are
3. create an atmosphere of trust
4. be honest about the challenges
5. focus on your assets not your liabilities
Wikidpedia definition;
Appreciative Inquiry (sometimes shortened to "AI") is an organizational development method that seeks to engage all levels of an organization (and often its customers and suppliers) to renew, change and improved performance. It has been said to be applicable to organizations facing rapid change or growth.[1] David Cooperrider is widely credited with coining the term 'Appreciative Inquiry'.
The model is based on the assumption that the questions we ask will tend to focus our attention in a particular direction. Some other methods of assessing and evaluating a situation and then proposing solutions are based on a deficiency model. Some other methods ask questions such as “What are the problems?”, “What’s wrong?” or “What needs to be fixed?”.
[2]
Appreciative Inquiry takes a different tack. As a self defined "asset-based approach" it starts with the belief that every organization, and every person in that organization, has positive aspects that can be built upon. It asks questions like “What’s working?”, “What’s good about what you are currently doing?”[3]
Some researchers believe that excessive focus on dysfunctions can actually cause them to become worse or fail to become better[4]. By contrast, AI argues, when all members of an organization are motivated to understand and value the most favorable features of its culture, it can make rapid improvements.[5]
Strength-based methods are used in the creation of organizational development strategy and implementation of organizational effectiveness tactics.[6] The appreciative mode of inquiry often relies on interviews to qualitatively understand the organization's potential strengths by looking at an organization's experience and its potential. The objective is to understand the assets and personal motivations that are strengths in the organization.
The following sequence is how AI supporters describe some of the distinctions between Appreciative Inquiry and approaches to organizational development not based on what they call positive potential[7]:
Appreciative Inquiry attempts to use ways of asking questions and envisioning the future in-order to foster positive relationships and build on the present potential of a given person, organization or situation. Research has shown that this method can enhance an organization's capacity for collaboration and change.[8] Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a cycle of 4 processes, which focuses on what it calls:
There are a variety of approaches to implementing Appreciative Inquiry, including mass-mobilized interviews and a large, diverse gathering called an Appreciative Inquiry Summit[10]. Both approaches involve bringing large, diverse groups of people together to study and build upon the best in an organization or community.
The basic philosophy of AI is also found in other positively oriented approaches to individual change as well as organizational change. The principles behind A.I. are based in the science of Positive Psychology. The idea of building on strength, rather than just focusing on faults and weakness is used in mentoring programs, and in coaching dynamics. It is the basic idea behind teaching "micro-affirmations" as well as teaching about micro-inequities. (See Microinequity[11])
AI has been used to foster change in businesses, health care systems, social profit organizations, educational institutions, communities, local governments, and religious institutions[12].
The model is based on the assumption that the questions we ask will tend to focus our attention in a particular direction. Some other methods of assessing and evaluating a situation and then proposing solutions are based on a deficiency model. Some other methods ask questions such as “What are the problems?”, “What’s wrong?” or “What needs to be fixed?”.
[2]
Appreciative Inquiry takes a different tack. As a self defined "asset-based approach" it starts with the belief that every organization, and every person in that organization, has positive aspects that can be built upon. It asks questions like “What’s working?”, “What’s good about what you are currently doing?”[3]
Some researchers believe that excessive focus on dysfunctions can actually cause them to become worse or fail to become better[4]. By contrast, AI argues, when all members of an organization are motivated to understand and value the most favorable features of its culture, it can make rapid improvements.[5]
Strength-based methods are used in the creation of organizational development strategy and implementation of organizational effectiveness tactics.[6] The appreciative mode of inquiry often relies on interviews to qualitatively understand the organization's potential strengths by looking at an organization's experience and its potential. The objective is to understand the assets and personal motivations that are strengths in the organization.
The following sequence is how AI supporters describe some of the distinctions between Appreciative Inquiry and approaches to organizational development not based on what they call positive potential[7]:
| Problem Solving | Appreciative inquiry |
|---|---|
| Felt need, identification of problem(s) | Appreciating, valuing the Best of What Is |
| Analysis of Causes | Envisioning what might be |
| Analysis of possible solutions | Dialogue what should be |
| Action Planning (treatment) | Innovating, what will be |
- DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
- DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
- DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
- DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.[9]
There are a variety of approaches to implementing Appreciative Inquiry, including mass-mobilized interviews and a large, diverse gathering called an Appreciative Inquiry Summit[10]. Both approaches involve bringing large, diverse groups of people together to study and build upon the best in an organization or community.
The basic philosophy of AI is also found in other positively oriented approaches to individual change as well as organizational change. The principles behind A.I. are based in the science of Positive Psychology. The idea of building on strength, rather than just focusing on faults and weakness is used in mentoring programs, and in coaching dynamics. It is the basic idea behind teaching "micro-affirmations" as well as teaching about micro-inequities. (See Microinequity[11])
AI has been used to foster change in businesses, health care systems, social profit organizations, educational institutions, communities, local governments, and religious institutions[12].
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