Leading the Middle Size Church

Lake Junaluska, NC, July 7-10, 2008.

The Challenges and Culture of the Mid-Size Church

1. A Middle Size Church (MSC, henceforth) is one that has 100-250 average weekly attendance.

2. MSCs usually face trying to solve this issue: “We are too big to _________ but too small to
___________.”

3. There are five types of MSCs:

1. Growing into an MSC from a small-membership church
2. Growing from a MSC to a large church
3. Declining from a large church to MSC.
4. Declining from a MSC to a small church
5. Plateaued at MSC and neither growing nor declining.

4. MSCs often find that they have to move from something to another. Examples:
1. One service per Sunday to two.
2. Little happening during the week to many things.
3. Sole staff to multiple staff
4. Pastor as “hub” to pastor as “general supervisor.”
5. Individual leaders to leadership teams
6. Pastor goes to the people, to the people coming to him/her.
7. Less administration to more.

5. Four types of churches:

1. Patriarchal/matriarchal: up to 50 active members
1. “family chapel”
2. “single cell” of people and activities
3. incorporates newcomers the same way a family does – birth, marriage or adoption
4. newcomers almost always have a pre-existing relationship with one or more people in the
church before they join.
5. Pastor is mainly a chaplain rather than shepherd: preaches, visits, opens meetings with
prayer, and stays out of the way of the patriarchs or matriarchs.
6. The church's calendar = pastor's calendar.
2. Pastoral: 50-150 active
1. two or three cells, generally united around a common interest
2. pastor is involved in everything and is expected to do everything
3. newcomers bond with pastor first
4. current members are often not interested in newcomers and think that outreach is the
pastor's job
5. church's calendar dominates pastor's calendar.
3. Program: 150-350 active
1. focus moves from pastoral care to congregational self-care
2. church members may become annoyed at pastor because s/he has less time to spend one-
on-one with members (is not a chaplain)

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 3. newcomers assimilate into groups of the church and bond with them rather than the
pastor and may be primarily attracted by programs rather than worship.
4. church calendar is busier and larger than the pastor's calendar – there are more activities
and meetings being done than the pastor can personally attend.
5. Committees and teams do most of the work.
6. Chronically understaffed and under-resourced.
4. Corporate: 350-700 active
1. has human, financial and physical resources that rival commercial entities.
2. Complex array of programs and ministries
3. senior pastor is fairly remote from the congregation and serves to unify and stabilize a
diverse and complex organization.

6. The MSC typically has:

1. Inadequate facilities
2. Inadequate staff
3. Inadequate finances
4. Poor administration
5. Increasing complexity

Planning and Organizing for Ministry and Managing Change

7. Effective leaders (clergy and lay):

1. Have a vision.
1. in the Bible, vision is given to leaders, not to committees.
2. If the budget does not fund the vision, there is no vision. And and there is no budget,
either, just an expenditure sheet.
2. Are prepared to be an agent of change
3. Know how to manage conflict
4. Develop and teach their successors
5. Understand the proper use of authority.

8. Some distinctions:
1. A Leader communicates the vision, purpose and direction and mobilizes people to support it.
2. A Manager deploys people and resources for specific roles, jobs and tasks to achieve the
mission.

9. Obstacles to effective leadership

1. Lack of vision
2. Failure to discern God's will
3. Failure to look, listen and learn.
4. Captivity to the status quo.
5. Failure to attend to one's own spiritual and recreational life.

10. Management:
1. The efficient and effective use of resources to accomplish the mission and achieve the vision.
2. Stewardship of the human, financial, material and spiritual resources of the church.

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 3. Efficient – how well the church's resources are being used.
4. Effective – how well the goals are being achieved.

11. Basic management functions

1. Plan
2. Organize
3. Coordinate
4. Staff
5. Motivate
6. Finance
7. Evaluate

12. Challenge for the pastor: Seminary does not teach its students to lead or manage churches. They
are theological institutions, not leadership or management schools.

13. What about planning?

1. Proper planning prevents poor performance.
2. Planning is essential for effectiveness
3. Planning requires spiritual discipline

14. The planning process

1. Mission – the enduring reason for existence for the church
2. Vision – what we hope to become
3. Goals – what we want to accomplish
4. Action plans – how do we do it
5. the larger the church, the more distant the planning horizon

15. Common planning pitfalls

1. Plans or goals with no leader identified or resources allocated
2. Lack of coordination with church leaders and the master calendar.
3. Lack of communication
4. Procrastination
5. Lack of follow-through
6. Inability to change a plan that is not working

16. Useful planning tips for pastors

1. Block out all personal time such as vacations a year in advance
2. Create an annual calendar for the church reflecting:
1. Baptism Sundays, membership Sundays, Bible study dates, special-service Sundays,
special events
2. Meeting dates for the coming year for the church's committees and work areas.

17. Organizing:
1. The larger the church, the smaller the governing board should be.
2. Some megachurches have a governing board of only a dozen members.

18. Organize work and budget around ministry areas:

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 1. Missions
2. Worship
3. Discipleship
4. Family ministries
5. Create budget lines around ministry areas.

19. Keys to success in the MSC: Customize then standardize:

1. New member process
2. Weddings
3. Church calendar
4. Staff meetings
5. Agendas
6. Building policies

20. Healthy change can happen if:

1. There has been a time of prayer
2. The vision of the future is more compelling than the memory of the past
3. The planning horizon is congruent with the significance of the change
4. The leaders work to consensus
5. The leaders can deal with conflict in a healthy way

21. The types of change:

1. Minor – example: attendance pads in the pew
2. Major – example: evangelism program for follow up
3. Transformation – example: a passion for the lost that mobilizes the church.

22. Five opportunities for change:

1. Crisis
2. Pastoral change
3. Budget preparation
4. Spiritual renewal
5. Planning

23. It ought not be this way – things that repel newcomers:

1. Run down, unkept buildings
2. Run down playgrounds and rec. areas
3. Litter around the church or unkempt appearance
4. Poor nursery care
5. Burned out light bulbs
6. Untidy grounds
7. Lack of adequate signage
8. Poor sound systems
9. Outdated web site
10. Insipid worship
11. Unprepared pastors

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Leadership Development and Involving Laity

24. Pastors of MSCs have to stop asking the question, “What am I going to do about this?” and ask
instead, “Which lay team is best able to handle this?”

25. Keys to identifying leaders. Look for members who are:

1. Passionate
2. Teachable
3. Available
4. Already involved
5. Spiritually growing
6. Givers – in all four areas of prayers, presence, gifts and service

26. Developing leaders

1. Meet regularly with the pastor and other leaders to study, pray and learn
2. Send them to a leadership course
3. Budget for lay leadership training
4. Give evaluation and feedback
5. Hold high expectations

27. Helps to success

1. Adhere to the three-year rotation model (but get the Council on board with this as policy!)
2. Help place laity in positions that accord with their spiritual gifts
3. LLC should interview lay nominees just as the PPRC interviews paid-staff candidates
4. Lay positions should have written job descriptions
5. Regular training and resource availability
6. Get rid of positions that are not actually doing anything.
7. Pastor should get out of the way of competent laity
8. Planning – pastor should not surprise lay leaders or vice-versa
9. Reduce bureaucracy
10. Allow laity to step down graciously from positions that do not fit them.
11. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

28. Causes of lay leader burnout.

1. Frustrating and unproductive meetings
2. Unclear job or task descriptions
3. Lack of evaluation
4. Indeterminate term of office
5. Inability to organize and delegate
6. Lack of appreciation

29. Leadership choices (clergy and lay)

1. The leaders can either reinvent themselves to minister effectively for growth in a new
environment, or
2. The leaders will shrink the church down to a size they can manage.
3. The “Peter Principle” applies to both lay and clergy.

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The Multi-Staff Environment

30. The Staffing Cycle

1. Paid staff usually becomes necessary by the increased demands of a growing church.
2. In the initial stages, staff is usually part-time:
1. Music
2. Secretary
3. Youth
4. Education
5. Financial records

31. How much program staff do we need or can afford (rule of thumb)?
1. One full-time position for every 150 participants
2. In a growing church, one full-time position for every 100 participants
3. Re-evaluate periodically, at least annually.

32. Common staffing pitfalls

1. Hiring someone in a hurry
2. Failure to consider a long-term employment relationship
3. Hiring church members – or not.
4. Lack of job description and expectations
5. Lack of supervisory experience by the pastor
6. Not doing annual reviews
7. Not addressing issues or problems timely.
8. Lack of staff meeting time
9. PPRC allows triangulation between itself, the pastor and a staff member, or among two staff
members.

33. Creating a three-year staffing plan

1. List all positions
2. Show progression of part time to full time, and vice versa
3. Show new positions
4. Show supervisory relationships

34. Staff Coordination

1. Regular staff meetings
2. Staff retreat
3. Regular meetings with the pastor
4. Email distributions
5. Staff recreation

Stewardship, Fundraising, Financial Management

35. Stewardship has two dimensions

1. Stewardship is ministry

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 2. Stewardship is discipleship

36. Problem indicators

1. Routinely coming up short financially
2. Living Sunday to Sunday or month to month
3. Relying on a “December miracle” to meet budget
4. Sacrificing programs, staff support or facilities upkeep because of lack of funding
5. Not understanding that secular charitable organizations compete fiercely for members' money
and are very sophisticated in their marketing, methods and appeals.
6. Failure to protect the givers in order not to make non-givers uncomfortable
7. The pastor isn't allowed to know who the top givers are
8. The church's giving records are kept under lock and key and are not available to the lay
leadership committee for identifying potential lay leaders.
9. Clergy who think that they will minister to people differently if they know which members
are givers or not – and lay people who think this, too.
10. Using outdated and ineffective methods of stewardship development.
11. Not educating members of how to leave part of their estate to the church

37. Realities about congregational giving

1. UMC congregations are not poor – they are affluent, well educated and employed.
2. Many people on fixed incomes are “fixed” pretty well.
3. Of members who actually give, the average giving level is 2.8 percent of income.
4. No one has ever been driven into financial difficulties because they gave too much to the
church.

38. Why are clergy uneasy with money issues?

1. Lack of training
2. Fear of “offending” the laity
3. Laity often do not allow frank and full discussion of financial issues
4. Not wanting to appear to be always talking about money.
5. Thinking that finances are not pastor's business.
6. Pastor's own personal finances are not in order
7. Clergy make excuses for the congregation.

39. In an MSC, the pastor needs to be the chief development officer, the one who matches resources
with the vision.

40. What about tithing?

1. Average giving level is less than three percent.
2. Tithing is a realistic possibility, but it will take time.

41. How can we move people toward tithing?

1. Concentrate of biblical principles
2. “Give to God first.”
3. Use proportional giving as a measurement of how to determine how much to give – ask
people to give 2.5 percent of their income, or 2.5 percent more if they are already giving that
level.

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 4. Encourage members to step higher incrementally, say be decile or quintile.
5. Tell the people that if tithing becomes to difficult to bear, the church will give them their
money back.

42. What are trends in churches today about stewardship?

1. Year-round stewardship emphasis
2. Personal financial management courses and seminars
3. Monthly stewardship letters with monthly giving statements
4. Stewardship in the Sunday School curriculum
5. Narrative budget – presents the budget figures into ministry areas with a narrative paragraph
explaining the significance of the budget for the vision of the church. Use “supporting
ministries” include utilities, salaries, insurance and the like.
6. Three-year budgeting
7. Electronic funds debiting from members' accounts
8. Bank card processing
9. Giving options on the web site, such as via PayPal.
10. Regular capital funds campaigns
11. Endowment and planned giving education
12. Stewardship staff position

43. Template for a 12-month stewardship plan

1. January Wills and estates seminar
2. February Personal financial management
3. March Family stewardship workshop
4. April Funeral planning
5. May Tithing month
6. June Four-week study of “simplicity”
7. July Summer newsletter with return offering envelope
8. August Organize fall stewardship campaign
9. September Tithing month, personal financial management
10. October Annual stewardship campaign
11. November Year-end tax seminar
12. December Church's Christmas wish list

44. Stewardship Sunday

1. Needs to be the third-largest Sunday of the year in attendance.
2. Have all ages participate.
3. Bring commitment to the altar.
4. Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate.

45. Some quick stewardship ideas

1. Use offering envelopes and get them to members in a timely manner.
2. Send monthly statements with stewardship cover letter.
3. Consider automatic debiting from members accounts for those who agree to it.
4. Put financial information in the bulletin.
5. Enable giving on the church's web site.
6. Publicize how giving to the church makes the ministries of the church possible.

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 7. Ask the members for a commitment.
8. Find ways to thank the givers.

46. Buildings and Renovations

1. Well kept church buildings and grounds are a form of evangelism and stewardship.
2. All churches should have an active capital funds program.

47. General Principles

1. When a sanctuary is 80 percent full, it will appear to visitors and latecomers as entirely full.
2. When a sanctuary is 50 percent empty, it will appear to visitors and latecomers as simply
empty.
3. Don't plan on more than two attendees for every parking space.
4. Allow for 30-36 inches per person in the pews.
5. People don't want to sit on folding chairs or other temporary seating.
6. Property maintenance and debt service should never exceed 25-30 percent of the operating
budget and ideally will not exceed 10 percent.

48. How much money can we raise for new buildings or renovations?
1. New construction: 2-3 times operating budget
2. Renovations – 1-2 time operating budget
3. Debt reduction campaigns – 1-1.5 times operating budget.
4. The safe debt limit for an MSC is not more than four times the operating budget.

49. When planning building or renovation, consider well:

1. The church's fundraising potential
2. The safe debt load.

50. Common mistakes

1. Designing more project than the church can support financially.
2. Relying on architects who are not experts in current church design and practices.
3. Not designing expansible space.
4. Inattention to financial dynamics of the church.

Worship Opportunities and Challenges

51. The basics

1. A welcoming atmosphere
2. Well panned and coordinated service
3. Quality is essential
4. Authentic and relevant
5. Readily identifiable theme
6. Easy to follow service, especially for visitors.
7. Secondary needs met (such as nursery).
8. Passionate worship leaders and preaching
9. The place is alive!
10. Today, worship is a team undertaking.

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Effective Communications

52. Verbal announcements before worship are not effective and should be extremely limited.

53. The web site is the new front door of the church. Churches must leverage technology to reach
people, including their own people.

The Pastor's Role

54. Is the church operating on one church model and the pastor another?

55. A pastor should, in consultation with the PPRC, determine his/her three most important pastoral
priorities.

56. Pastor's self care

1. If pastor's don't care for themselves, no one else will care for them.
2. Family time must be built into the pastor's weekly schedule.
3. Spiritual reflection and growth must be scheduled also.
4. Self care plans should include:
1. Spiritual
2. Physical
3. Recreational
4. Intellectual
5. Emotional
6. Relational

The Future of the Middle-Size Church

57. The eight “death clues” of a church – signs that a church is is serious declines that must be
addressed if the church is not to die out:
1. Loss of passion or sense of mission to take the Gospel to the unchurched.
2. Values member fellowship more than most anything else.
3. Expects the pastor to take care of the members' personal spiritual needs primarily
4. Designs ministries and programs to meet the needs of members or satisfy their complaints.
5. Has no idea how to meet the needs of the unchurched in the community.
6. Seeks to preserve a heritage more than build a future.
7. Often experiences major conflicts within the congregation.
8. The members are more concerned with the church's finances than the number of conversions
or baptisms.

58. Six signs of a resurrected church

1. Outward focus
2. Jesus, not the institution, is the object of love and faith

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 3. The Great Commission is the church's ironclad mandate. The key measure is how many
people are converted rather than whether the bottom line is black or people feel
“comfortable.”
4. Citizenship in the Kingdom is more important than membership in the church.
5. Pastors are not chaplains of pastoral care but are apostles for Jesus Christ.
6. People who try to control the church through threats or intimidation are not heeded and find
no satisfaction in using those methods.

59. Five practices of fruitful congregations

1. Radical hospitality
2. Passionate worship
3. Intentional faith development
4. Risk-taking mission work and service
5. Extravagant generosity

60. Growth
1. Growth tends to plateau at various points and it can be very difficult to break the plateau
without transformational change in the church
2. Two types of growth:
1. Growth within the current model
2. Growth into a new model

61. Growth strategies

1. Develop a distinct identity
2. Add staff to develop ministry areas
3. Use facilities multiple times
4. Offer multiple worship services
5. Develop and implement a long-range plan
6. Improve quality of ministry in all areas
7. Concentrate on doing a few things well rather than many things average or worse

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