Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. I'm Jeremy, I'm Matt. The second phase for a church in transition is called envisioning. After completing a church health assessment and answering the questions where have we been and where are we? Now it's necessary to answer two more questions who are we and where are we going? This is the phase we call envisioning and that's what we're going to unpack in this episode. We invite you to think about your own congregation as we talk and consider how your church would answer these questions.

Speaker 1: 0:31

If you haven't yet listened to the episode the Church Health Assessment you should do so now. You'll find a link in the episode description below. We are going to continue talking through the steps, the process that you would be working through with the church looking for a transitional pastor, really talking through the steps, the process that you would be working through with the church looking for a transitional pastor, really going through the process of bringing in a new lead pastor, but the process of getting there. So we're talking right now about envisioning. Envisioning is the second phase in your three-phase cycle. If you will, right, let's talk about the first question for you is what are some of the speed bumps or hurdles that you've seen churches run into as they're trying to answer the question who are we?

Speaker 2: 1:09

Yeah, we talked a little bit earlier in a previous episode about a commuter church and whether that was a challenge or not. And one of the challenges that we run into is if a church self-identifies as a commuter church and they still think that's a good thing, they can definitely run into a problem because if that's part of their identity, then a lot of the work that they ought to lean into in the envisioning phase is actually a great challenge for them. So we'll say something like well, you should study the demographics in your zip code and they're like well, but we draw from all over the city or the county or whatever. Why would we care about our zip code? And we're trying to gently push them towards hey, love the neighbors that are right next to where you are, and that can be definitely a challenge for them.

Speaker 2: 1:52

I think that the other thing is if a church is a long ways away from the plant face of the church, like if it's been there for 30, 40 years and the people that are there may not even remember when the church was started. They've gotten so far away from a missionary mindset and we're trying to come and build back that muscle. It just feels really different and painful. Why would we do demographics? Sometimes we're in the churches that are just like I've got to do demographics on government forms and it feels odd to them when we're trying to come and basically say, well, it's very difficult to reach your neighbors unless you know what they're like and kind of who they are and what their needs are, and so that's the process we're trying to take people through is trying to help them figure that out. So with that, one in particular.

Speaker 1: 2:41

yeah, sorry to interrupt you, yeah, yeah, but I did. Do you get pushback from people who say, hey, this feels too much like marketing and this is the church, this is spiritual. We're not trying to advertise, we don't have a demographic that we're shooting for, we don't have a target market?

Speaker 2: 2:56

Yeah, so sometimes we do. What we try and help them understand is these are your neighbors and that's a Jesus category. We're just trying to help you understand who your neighbors are. We try and talk to him about. You know act 17. Paul's going into athens. He doesn't know his neighbors are there, so he goes in and learns all that he can about them in order to reach them with the gospel. That's why he's, why he's there.

Speaker 2: 3:17

So we're talking, trying to talk about in this question, I think, primarily how the church conceives of itself. Like who are we? Right, and so those are things like it is broadly identity. So for a commuter church, that can be part of our identity, right? And and we're definitely going to push back to some degree on that and say, hey, this part of your makeup is actually a malformation. It's like if you've been in counseling before and someone's like, hey, you were always the oldest kid in the family where the dad got lost and you had to kind of grow up with a chip on your shoulder and you still carry that into adulthood and that's not really helping you. Now You're meddling, but it's actually something that that aspect of you that you do count as part of your identity. It ain't helping you anymore.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Especially if you don't even see it, especially if you don't even see it, and so sometimes we're coming in and we're saying, hey, you might know this as part of your identity, but it's not helping you at all. So, broadly speaking, though, who are we? We're looking at identity, so we're looking at things like what are the values that the church has? And sometimes, what are the values that the church has? And sometimes the church will have their values printed in their bulletin, on their website, up on the walls.

Speaker 1: 4:28

See, that's exactly what I was going to say. Every church has their mission statement, their value statement, their vision statement, their statement of faith, their beliefs, their core. Everyone has it on their website somewhere. How is this not?

Speaker 2: 4:44

just one more rhetorical, introspective navel-gazing session. So what we do is that we actually survey congregants and we ask them to pick from a list of 33 biblical values.

Speaker 1: 4:54

Oh, that's interesting. You have my attention, sir.

Speaker 2: 4:58

And so, yeah, we ask them to pick you know off this list what are the top five or six for your church, and people really don't have too difficult of a time doing that. Then the second thing that we do, which?

Speaker 1: 5:09

I think is Hold on before you go to the second thing. All right, how did you, did you develop this list? Where did this list come from? It's?

Speaker 2: 5:15

actually a. It's a oh, what's the way to put it? It's a compilation I looked through when we were developing this product. I looked through other work that people had done in this and I kind of pulled together the ones that I thought the churches that we were working with. These are the most common ones that they run into Interesting.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Yeah, patent pending no.

Speaker 2: 5:36

No, I don't think I could patent that right, but it is, and we do emphasize that these are biblical values, yeah. And so we're trying to say, hey, this is a decent shot here. Out of these 33, the five or six of them are the reason, and here's the distinguishing. There's two things about values that are important in the way that we look at them. So we look at current values. That's the things that if you walk into a church on a Sunday and you visit it, you're going to pick up their current values, unconsciously. Right, you will pick them up because they are embedded in everything that the church does. Okay, you walk in and the church is.

Speaker 2: 6:11

There's a church that we worked with just got a pastor a month ago, a church that we worked with. Very fun, interesting church to work with. I walked in to visit on a Sunday and there's a church of about 600 and their ability to use media and screens was greater than some of the mega churches that I have gone to. They were exceptional. What was that telling you about the church?

Speaker 2: 6:37

Well, technological adaptation was really important to them, that aspect of being a missionary in the Western world to reach modern people who are technological themselves. They had leaned into that and that was a very clear value of their church. On Sunday I walked into a church and it was a poorly printed paper bulletin. It never happens and instantly I could see okay, so I know that this isn't a value of this particular church. The way that they represent themselves in the print that you receive was not a value to them. So current values are things that you pick up just by walking into church and visiting it. If you're paying attention, and it's also maybe why I don't think I want to go back to that church.

Speaker 1: 7:23

And it really speaks to the character of the church. And I don't think I want to go back to that church. And it really speaks to the character of the church. And I don't mean the moral character, I mean the actual. If you were to draw a caricature of the church, this is what would be there. You have the bulletin that says welcome to Gob's house, right?

Speaker 2: 7:36

Yes, exactly yes, yep, this prison bulletin is driving me bananas.

Speaker 1: 7:42

But, you know, I tell churches that there's a dyslexic person who didn't get that joke, by the way, that's exactly it.

Speaker 2: 7:46

They didn't get the lesson on that. It's really good. I tell churches and they don't like this, but I still keep telling them because it's still true, even if they don't like it. What practitioners say is that when somebody experiences your church, you have 10 seconds, 30 seconds and 10 minutes. You have 10 seconds. That's when they drive into the parking lot and was the building easy to find and did they find a parking spot easily? You have 30 seconds. How did they experience walking into the building? And you have 10 minutes. That's the first 10 minutes of the experience, from when they find a seat onward, and that's long before your pastor has started to speak. That is the experience someone has of your church. By 10 minutes in, they've decided whether they're going to be back or not and that's before your pastor speaks.

Speaker 1: 8:31

And just so that you know they're going to lie to you when they leave.

Speaker 2: 8:35

Yes, that's 100% true.

Speaker 1: 8:36

They're going to say, oh, we're going to see you next week and you will never see them again and you won't see them again.

Speaker 2: 8:40

Right and so, but those? Because those values can be picked up in the first 10 minutes. That's why. And so, if your current values match that of the person who's your church visitor, then there's a decent chance they'll be back if you were nice to them and the message was good. But if, uh, if not, they will have picked up your current values already and they'll decide whether to come back or not. We also measure aspirational values, and I think that this is really important. I can't remember who I learned this from or if this is a genuine Matt invention. There are a few genuine Matt inventions, but this might be one of them. I can't remember, sadly. We also measure, hey, so here's the current values of the church. You already told us that when we surveyed congregants, if your church was going to add three values, what would you want added to the current values of your church?

Speaker 1: 9:28

Go ahead and press pause if you're listening, and write down your answer. You can mail it in to info at flourishcoachingorg.

Speaker 2: 9:38

So those values, when we collect them all together, the way that we like to put it is this is the way the Spirit is working in the hearts of your people. That's good. This is when we ask them, they tell us why they're at your church. When we ask them current values, when we ask for aspirational values, we're seeing the collection of what the Spirit's doing in your church and that is super informative. For what should your direction be as a church where we're eventually going to get to and talk to more?

Speaker 2: 10:06

Because it's all fine if there are a third single parents in your neighborhood, which is the most common thing that comes up in any demographics we do, in any community in America, that every third kid walking on the sidewalk is from a single parent family. It's staggering, but it's true. It's all fine and good if that's the case, that you, that that's the demographics in your neighborhood. But if your people don't have a growing sense of wanting to value mercy in their church, compassion, it doesn't. It doesn't. In one sense, it doesn't really matter that all those people only have single parent families, because that's not the way the spirit is already at work in your church and we want to lean into the way the spirit's already at work in your church as we work through this process together.

Speaker 1: 10:52

So I know that your heart here is not to set up a great marketing campaign, right? This is not about and I want to make sure I say this really clearly so that no one hears what you're not saying, and so they do clearly hear what you are saying this is not about identify your target audience and figure out how to market to them so that they have an experience that lures them in, because the answer to that is really simple. The answer to that is okay. The gospel is what does the work?

Speaker 1: 11:19

And we're here preaching Jesus and we're here giving a message that was once delivered to all the saints. It doesn't change, it's timeless, it is the power of God unto salvation and, frankly, whether or not I've got new paint on my walls or not is not going to affect someone's salvation. Nevertheless, what you're saying is, each of these things are either hurdles or they are gates that allow someone to pass through to a point where they can be met, where they are in that seat, in that pew, wherever it might be, and be converted from an even into a disciple, right?

Speaker 2: 11:59

right. So you did know that your neighborhood was third single parenting and that broke your heart and you developed ministries to be with single parents. They're the most distressed people you'll ever meet. Do you think it's possible, if you you loved some single parent families in your neighborhood, that some of them would be interested in knowing more about Christ because they've been loved by Christ's people? It's possible. It's possible.

Speaker 1: 12:24

So, as you have worked with churches through this particular step, what are some of the wins that you've seen actual churches actually gain through this step?

Speaker 2: 12:33

Yeah. So I think the most exciting thing of people looking at their values, looking at their gifts, looking at their philosophy is that they gain more self-awareness about when they interface that sense of self with as we help them study their community. They look and they go. We had no idea. If we had known this, we would have already started to, and that's the. That's the moment you're looking for. Okay, I was with a church last night and as I was driven around the neighborhoods by the elder around the church, it's a fairly wealthy northern Virginia neighborhood and that local elementary school is over 60% free and reduced lunch in a very wealthy neighborhood. So what does that tell you? It tells you that the somewhat wealthy church that's there probably does not have contact with the families that are impoverished in their neighborhood. Well, what can make a difference with that? Well, this church actually give them kudos. They've actually started doing tutoring at the school. They have a good relationship with that school, they've bent towards that and that I think is awesome, because they're actually trying to love their neighbors.

Speaker 1: 13:52

That is awesome Shifting gears here trying to love their neighbors. That is awesome. Shifting gears here a little bit. The second part of the visioning what questions need to be answered? In order to answer the question, where are we going?

Speaker 2: 14:05

Yeah. So I think self-knowledge is part of it. That's why we study gifts, values and spiritual gifts, what's in the toolbox and also what's our philosophy. So what are the things that are possible or would be valued by us? So, as we think about where are we going, I think we have to merge that with what are the needs that are out there. Who are the people that are in our community and what are their needs?

Speaker 2: 14:26

Because I think that Jesus says love your neighbors. Well, different neighbors need to be loved in different ways. Jesus says love your neighbors. Well, different neighbors need to be loved in different ways. The single mom needs to be loved differently than the mom of four, his husband's away 12 hours fighting through traffic in Baltimore. Right, she needs to be loved in a different way. She needs to be loved, but in a different way, than the single mom or the elderly widow or the newly married couple or the people who are in the minority in the neighborhood.

Speaker 2: 15:01

And so trying to understand who our neighbors are and what their challenges are helps us understand. Oh, wow, well, we could. And that's the genesis of new ministry ideas, because we better know ourselves, we better know the place that we minister, we have a better idea how to actually love our neighbors and reach out to them. With the gospel, that's the magic, if you will. It's not that mysterious, it's not some crazy formula, but it's what a church planter would do when they land in a community. We help a church do that in the middle of its life cycle.

Speaker 1: 15:28

I think it's a really good paradigm to view this through, because the picture it was calling to my mind is this is essentially what a consultant would do if they were coming in to work with a church to help them reach whatever goals they had set for themselves who's around you? What are their needs? I mean, this is a pretty simple gap assessment, right, right? And yet it's something that is easy for churches to overlook, especially if they have been going for a long time, especially if they've been going for a long time under the same leadership, unless you have a very dynamic leader who's very vision-oriented, who's very driven sort of that entrepreneurial bent who's saying there's something I want to accomplish, and every three to seven minutes that changes because that's just who he is. Generally, churches are going to settle into a pattern and a character that fits with the least friction possible and that does not necessarily lead to accomplishing effectively the mission of the church.

Speaker 1: 16:34

It does lead to comfort, being able to develop relationships and grow deeper in knowledge of God and grow in your own discipleship and feed the flock, but not necessarily to reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus.

Speaker 2: 16:50

This is probably a show that we can link in the show notes, for this particular podcast is one that we did on Church Life Cycle, and we actually have got handouts on this too, because I think that what happens over time with the church and Jeremy's described it is that we get more focused on ourselves and what the church can deliver to us, rather than on having an equal importance on outreach and evangelism. So a vital church is one that has this equal ultimacy between the forces that pull inward, towards fellowship and discipleship, and the forces that push outward towards outreach and evangelism, and that's what gets lost over time, because we're innately selfish and so we tend to think about ourselves more than others. Speak for yourself.

Speaker 1: 17:42

I love talking about myself.

Speaker 2: 17:43

I think it's why it's so acute that Jesus says don't love yourself. He says love your neighbor, because we very easily love ourselves.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Amen to that. So, with the time that we have left for today, what are some of the tools, tricks, paradigms, processes that you use to help people walk through answering this question?

Speaker 2: 18:03

Yeah. So, in terms of you know, where are we going, some of the tools that we use to try and answer that question where are we going? So we do have them. Study the community, because I think that a part of trying to answer the question of you know, what should we be about as a church, where should we be going? Is to self-knowledge who are we? But also trying to understand who are our neighbors, what are their needs, what are the pockets of distress.

Speaker 2: 18:34

One of the things I like to say I had the privilege of taking some doctoral classes at Talbot Seminary and one of the things that I discovered in studying more missiology than I had in my master's degree was that just thinking about ministry here in the US, like missionaries, think about it overseas. If you read any missionary diaries or biographies or memoirs or whatever, they always go to where people are struggling. They look for the people that are in distress. Why do you go to India and reach out to the untouchables, to the Dalits? Well, because they're made in the image of God and they're as worthy of dignity and respect and honor as anybody else. But their culture doesn't value that. But the gospel does. The gospel speaks that, and here's people who are in the most distress that the gospel's great news for, and that's everywhere. Everywhere that missionaries go, they look for people that are in distress.

Speaker 2: 19:26

And so when we are helping people try and answer this question, we have them study their community yes, the demographics, but also we have them do interviews with community leaders and with ministry leaders and we very simple interviews what are you seeing? What are the pain points? What are the challenges in this community? What are the places where a church could be of help? How could we be neighborly? And so when we take that, what we learn from these community leaders, they're already doing it, they're already invested in it.

Speaker 2: 19:53

Right, and sometimes churches will come along in the last community leaders and the like, we've never had a church. Ask us this. It's a fun story A church in West Seattle. We started to partner with our local elementary schools and we were at a spring cleanup day for this elementary school in our neighborhood and they were introducing the groups at lunch and they got to our group and they were like and we have a group here from such and such church, and you could tell that the person saying it was absolutely mystified that a church would be interested in one of the other institutions in the neighborhood. That was a great day, that's sad.

Speaker 1: 20:37

I'm glad you had that day.

Speaker 2: 20:39

It's sad but it was a great day because they're our neighbors, yeah, and they need the gospel and if us going and serving there gives some viability to our witness, with that principle, some of those parents, some of those families, we were their neighbors. That was awesome.

Speaker 1: 20:58

This is what Jesus meant when he said if you do it to the least of these, this kind of least of these ministries is. If I personally were to give a critique to the evangelical church, especially the white evangelical church, it would be that the least of these ministries is an area that we have overlooked and we have instead looked at ourselves and building ourselves up in our most holy faith, which certainly we are called to do, but we have prioritized our own spiritual growth over the work of the gospel that God has called us to as a church and not to put too fine a point in it, but I do believe that Jesus is going to hold us accountable for that. I think he's calling us to recognize and to lean back towards him in this regard, Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:48

He sort of went out and said go out into the hedges and invite them to come. That's where his heart is, so it should be where our heart is.

Speaker 1: 21:55

I don't know any better place to leave it than that. Matt, thank you very much. Glad to be here. We'll talk to you guys soon. Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching.

Speaker 1: 22:10

Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them. We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that, this day dawned, jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it. When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy. If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us at flourish. Thank you get a client because of a recommendation you make. We'll send you a small gift just to say thanks, and a special thanks to Bay Ridge Christian Church in Annapolis, maryland, for the use of their building to record today's episode. All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists. The Church Renewal Podcast was produced by me, jeremy Seferati, in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you.