Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. I'm Jeremy, I'm Matt. This is the third part in the Will my Church Need a Transitional Pastor Deep Dive. Today we will discuss some more signs that you can look for in your church A church in decline or recline All of your physical updates are over 10 years old. Disagreement among your elders over the mission or vision of your church and loss of trust and or complaints about the leaders.

Speaker 1: 0:27

As you listen, think about your church. Are we describing your church? If so, and if you want help doing your own internal deep dive, we want to help you. After you listen to this episode, send us an email so we can talk to you. And if you haven't already listened to part one, it's linked in the episode notes below. Already listened to part one? It's linked in the episode notes below. We are continuing on to talk about some of the checkboxes you can look for to know if you or your church should be using, or considering to be using, a transitional pastor. So question number one can you walk us through quickly, like 30,000 of you? What is the church cycle? You referred to it, I believe, in our last episode. What is the church life?

Speaker 2: 1:10

cycle. Yeah, so I learned this from a guy named Ken Pretty and we can put a link to his original essay about this in the show notes. Church life cycle typically happens over a 40-50 year period. It goes through three phases incline, recline and decline. Incline is a period of time where ministry capacity is growing. Church is healthy. Many times it is growing in size as well and growing in the ability, primarily growing in the ability to do ministry. People are giving sacrificially and and people are focused. They're keeping that dynamic tension between the outward forces towards outreach and evangelism and the inward forces towards a fellowship and discipleship. And then, on a day that nobody's expecting, the church slips into recline. And typically that happens because somehow some internal interest becomes more paramount than the outward push in outreach and evangelism.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Churches actually love recline. I have four recliners in my house. That's right, jeremy. I believe you. Four, four recliners. Why do we like recliners here in America? Because you can just kick up your feet and you can relax. The motto at Incline if you've ever climbed an incline, you know that it's not relaxing. The motto on incline is this is hard because pushing a rock uphill is hard. Just ask Sisyphus. The motto on recline is whew, we made it. And typically church and recline has enough money, staff, programs and they have some sort of stable facility situation. That they did, they made it and they're sort of resting on their laurels. They're beginning to focus more on themselves. But as soon as a church slips into recline they've begun to sow the seeds of their own destruction, because someday a sustained period of recline that is not interrupted by a new incline will turn into decline and there'll be less money, less programs, less staff, less people and if that's not arrested by a new incline, then the church goes out of existence.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Okay, so focusing on incline for a second Sure. You said way back at the beginning of season three that churches in the phase of incline oftentimes can get a pass when it comes to using a transitional pastor. Tell me more about that. Why do they get a pass?

Speaker 2: 3:35

Yeah, because they are ostensibly healthy, they have a clear sense of who they are and where they're going, and so they don't have as the same kind of need to stop and reflect and retune before they get a new pastor. They can simply look at what they need in their next pastor to keep going what they're doing, because it's good what they're doing, it's bearing fruit, and so they can afford to just find somebody to keep going what they're doing, going with what they're doing, and they'll be really good. Actually, there's just not very many of those churches that we run into, so they are the exception.

Speaker 1: 4:10

They are for sure. So one of the boxes you look for is is this church in either the phase of recline or decline, have they said we've made it. It's time to kick up the feet, take a little break, take a little breather, or we're actually starting to see some disintegration, see some atrophy.

Speaker 2: 4:29

Yeah, it's actually the church that says we're good. That worries me the most, because the church that's on incline goes like yeah, man, you know we saw some people come to Christ last year but man, we'd really prayed for like 20, and we're like trying to figure out why and we don't know why we really want people to be growing their discipleship but it's not working all the ways that we want. So we're really looking at that and we're trying to tune our discipleship pathway. And it's those churches that actually are unsettled in the best ways, unsettled about ministry dynamics that are the ones that are the most healthy. It's the ones that are settled. That are the ones that are the most healthy. It's the ones that are settled. There's kind of like no, we're good, why would anything need to change? Why do we need to do church health assessments? It's all good here. You know, those are the ones that worry us because they evidence that they're at least in recline, if not decline, that they've not detected yet. You're smiling.

Speaker 1: 5:20

I am smiling, and I'm smiling because this is a necessary word to hear. It's one that I think does necessarily step on toes. It does necessarily indicate that leadership has in some way maybe taken their foot off the gas pedal, maybe not looked as closely, maybe not paid as much attention to the annual maintenance or the regular maintenance that they need to be doing, and it does demonstrate that there's a lack in the leadership which needs to be addressed. Now we can either get to that point and say well, we're going to deny this, we're not going to talk about this because it's going to. We're being cruel.

Speaker 2: 6:05

We might have to be different as leaders.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Right, or we can look at this and we can say, hey, I've just found out some news that I didn't expect and I can now address some things to make sure that all of these things I've been working for, all these things I've been laboring for, haven't been for nothing and it requires that humility in order to move forward, been working for all these things. I've been laboring for. Haven't been for nothing.

Speaker 2: 6:31

And it requires that humility in order to move forward. Maybe that's the best word to describe it is. All of this requires humility, which you, if you have read your Bible. God gives grace to the Perfect, oh. Close but no, cigar does not not say that god gives grace to the, to the humble, but the second half of that is what gets me as somebody who don't believe that second part.

Speaker 1: 6:55

We don't believe that god resists the proud. We can preach it, we can teach it.

Speaker 2: 7:00

It's the scariest verse in the bible because I'm somebody who can be proud and if, as a church, we're proud, then we could actually be in that spot where God's resisting us. That's why those words in Revelation 2 and 3, we try and make churches wrestle with those words. By the way, particularly when we interview people in the church health assessment phase, we want them to wrestle with those words, because in those letters from jesus because electric take the church nephesis like jesus says nine good things about the church, nephesis nine he says one critique. But he says, for the sake of that one critique, if you won't repent of this, I'm gone and I'm taking the light with me, so jesus doesn't play around. I I've walked into churches where Jesus left a long time ago, but the people were still meeting.

Speaker 1: 7:47

I take it as granted that 99% of pastors out there legitimately want to see Jesus at work in their congregations and in their communities Absolutely, and that when they look around, what they say is Lord, less of me, more of you. They say as Lord, less of me, more of you. The humility comes into play when the church as a whole leadership and then flowing down from there is able to say it is not about us. We want people to see Jesus, not me. That's what humility requires and that's where all these things that we have built can become a real stumbling block to that statement. Because we worked really hard on these things that we built. We've worked hard on the programs, we've worked hard on the development, we've worked hard on the relationships and the building and everything, everything, yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:37

Alright. So building this part here just moving right along makes me gag, sorry, kind of a lot. You have it here, so I gotta ask about it. Tell me how you really feel. Why is it that a church that hasn't put money into its physical premises for, I think you say, more than 10 years is a ripe candidate for a transitional pastor?

Speaker 2: 9:01

So when a church doesn't pay attention to its facility, doesn't pay attention to its facility. What that tells me is they don't care about how they smell.

Speaker 1: 9:16

If my son's listening, I did not tell him to say that.

Speaker 2: 9:24

So you know, when we meet people who it's clear that they have not taken care of their hygiene and they didn't care how they smelled when they met us today. Think about it Like if you go into a job interview and you're hiring manager and somebody walks in and they didn't pay attention to their hygiene, are you likely to hire them? Expected answer no. If a church, it's obvious that they don't care about their hygiene and they smell bad. And there's lots of ways for churches to smell bad, but one of them is it does not take a lot to pay attention to a facility. It takes caring, it takes volunteers, but very rarely does it take oodles of money to care well for a place. But I'll tell you this I work with churches oodles of churches over the years, hundreds of churches over the years and I can instantly tell the moment I walk into a church.

Speaker 2: 10:15

We're recording in a church building right now and I walked in here and I said somebody thought about this carefully and when somebody, when a visitor walked in, they'd go okay, so this is not my grandfather's church and that is important to visitors. It's important for them to walk in and to understand oh, this is a church that's thinking about 21st century people and, moreover than that, they thought about me. They thought about putting up signs that could direct me to the restroom or the sanctuary or the nursery, and they thought about people that were not yet insiders, and so that's what we're trying to think of. We're trying to think of how do you actually make people feel like you thought of them, and taking it to their facility is a way to do that. Okay, now you said it makes you barf, but I'd like to understand that more.

Speaker 1: 11:13

I'm going to take you to my follow-up question to that is this but Matt, the church is the people, not the building, and frankly, I'm tired of capital campaigns. Why can't I just get a new lead pastor?

Speaker 2: 11:24

Yeah, yeah, so you can just go get a new lead pastor. Yeah, so you can just go get a new lead pastor. But it probably won't help you with your visitor retention challenges, because visitors know whether they've been thought about or not, and that's pretty critical. What I like to say to churches about visitors is you want them to come because you want new people at your church. Everybody wants new people at their church, except if you're one of those really strange churches that doesn't want any new people at your church but you probably wouldn't be listening to this if that was you.

Speaker 2: 11:58

Most people want new people at their church, but they don't want to go through the work that's involved in making those new people that they want at their church to actually feel thought of, heard and welcomed. And so, yes, it is about the people and, in particular, it's about the people having room in their life for new people that don't know Jesus or who are brand new to the church, and that's hard work to keep leaving room in your life for new people. Okay, so it's not that it's apart from people, it's that a visitor long before they interact with any people, they have already had an experience of your facility. Okay, and what do you want that experience to be?

Speaker 1: 12:39

Thank you for that answer.

Speaker 2: 12:40

You're welcome. That does help me.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Next question, and again checking boxes here. Obviously there can be different ideas about which direction to go, what the church's values could or should be, even among the leadership. Sure, and you list. If your leadership is not clear on the direction that they believe the church should be going, that's a good time for a transitional pastor, right? What is it about a transitional pastor that is superior to having someone come in help set that vision, help bring that clarity and then walk it forward.

Speaker 2: 13:13

So I think that one of the things is that the guy who comes in so say your next pastor comes in and you're expecting him to set the vision right If he's worth his salt. He certainly will.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Okay, I think I'm hearing what you're saying.

Speaker 2: 13:28

However, a lot of the people in the church may not like the vision that he sets and tries to lead the church forward with, because it's the very rare pastor that has the tools and the skill set in order to come in and do that collaboratively. So there are guys that can come in and just set it, said let's go, but they didn't do it collaboratively with the people, said it said let's go, but they didn't do it collaboratively with the people. The opportunity that you have in transition with a pastor who does not need the job long-term, does not have to keep everybody happy with him is he can lead them collaboratively together to say who are we and what is God calling us to be about and to do and to be, and where is God calling us to go, to whom has God sent us? And if the people in the church have a strong sense of that leadership and congregation, if they have a strong sense of, hey, god says, send us to these people. And when they go and they advertise their position to new candidates that are out there for lead pastor, if they can reflect to candidates in the materials that they provide in the packet that they that we'll talk about this eventually. But we help churches make what we call a lead pastor packet. It's the advertising piece that you use to say, hey, apply for our position If they can reflect in that. Hey, here's who we are as a church and we think this is who God sent us to. Do you want to come? Help us go there and reach those people? Candidates, look at that and here's what's good about it. Some candidates will look at it and they'll just be like, okay, that's cool. It's a church that knows itself and knows what God's called them to.

Speaker 2: 15:01

But that's not me. You know, single moms, that's just not my bag really. You know, if we were starting a school, maybe I could be interested in that. But man, this church is really animated about single moms. They've got so many in their community. It's great that they are. It's just not me, so I'm not going to apply. And then the next guy comes along and he goes. No way, god's put single moms on my heart. I was born of a single mom. I was raised by a single mom. I was raised by a single mom. This is who I've always wanted a church to be. And that guy looks at it and he goes. I can't believe this. I never knew there was a church that would want to reach out to single moms. This is insane.

Speaker 2: 15:36

And here God's done a work over time in both the pastor and the church, and then brings them together. And that's what we're trying to do.

Speaker 1: 15:43

That's excellent. Final question for today's episode is this I've heard that on occasions, congregations may become disappointed with decisions that the leadership have made, and on even more rare occasions, they will actually complain about it.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Pure sarcasm from Jim.

Speaker 1: 16:04

You cited this particular scenario as being one that may be useful for a transitional pastor. My question is this when is the grace? How do you apply the Gospel? How does a transitional pastor in a case where you have a church that maybe it's not even as bad as schisms, but they're divided, they're vying for position how does a transitional pastor help to bring the gospel and apply grace into the situation so that the church can experience healing?

Speaker 2: 16:38

Sure, yeah, I had the privilege of working with a church over a couple of years and when we started there, it was a very divided group.

Speaker 2: 16:47

They'd gone through COVID in the election of 2020, and it had been very difficult, like it had been in a lot of churches, and really our privilege was to try and first help the leadership come together and then help them after they'd applied the gospel to themselves and they had figured out how to have better conversations among themselves to help foster that in the congregation and in that particular case, the Lord was very gracious in that.

Speaker 2: 17:12

So I think that wherever the gospel reigns, where people are willing to be gospel humbled because that's what Piper got famous for saying this, and I think he's right is that it's actually grace that humbles people. Because when you come to really understand grace and you go, god is willing to receive somebody like me in his family yeah, and that's a wonder to you Then you can sort of put down and say the things that divide me from other people are not that important when God receives us both into his family. And so when we can do that as a leadership and then we can evidence that with people and say these things that have divided people. They are not as important to Jesus as us being humble and loving each other, because we're all loved by the same Father and we're not loved because we're awesome, we're loved because Jesus is awesome. Then, as we understand the gospel, we can apply it to ourselves and then in our congregations. That's what we're shooting for. That's where we're trying to go.

Speaker 1: 18:13

So I was going to leave it there, but at the risk of stepping on, piper, I'll share from my own story here, or at least from my experience, and let you respond, and it'll close up. One of the things that I've told people many times, and sometimes to the same person many times, is here's the situation. We have an ongoing situation between two parties where we can talk about the fact that enablement may be going on someone struggling to overcome or escape from blah blah blah, to overcome or escape from blah blah blah, and a party is feeling misused because they're the one. The other person keeps on coming back to them and the question that comes as why am I, why am I continuing to give them this grace? They don't deserve this, and my answer to them is always this I said by definition can only be taken advantage of. There is no grace that is ever deserved, unless we are taking advantage of something. It's not grace that privates, so that breaks down because we can take advantage of things that are not being offered from grace.

Speaker 1: 19:30

But when it comes to God, right, the only thing that we can do with grace is take advantage of it or reject it. But because he's offered it, because Christ died before I was born, because he looked and before time began, the son was sacrificed for all of my sins past, present and future, crazy, wonderful, the only thing I can do is take advantage of him, take advantage of God. Do is take advantage of him, take advantage of God. And so the encouragement that I give is justice. You have freely received, freely give.

Speaker 2: 20:05

Yeah, it's good. It's good, but it's difficult. It is, you know, the question that Paul puts the Corinthians right. Wouldn't you rather be wronged, to which every American goes no, never would I rather be wronged, because the thing that we've been holding on to is so important to us that we've got to be proven right and we were on the right. We would never rather be wronged.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Jesus, strengthen us that we might better lay hold of your grace.

Speaker 2: 20:41

Amen.

Speaker 1: 20:42

We'll leave it there for today. Thank you, guys for coming by. If you think someone can benefit from this, or if it has ticked you off, please let us know and please share it with a friend. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching.

Speaker 1: 21:00

Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them.

Speaker 1: 21:02

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.

Speaker 1: 21:09

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 flourishcoachingorg and you can reach us by email at info at flourishcoachingorg. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and we would love it if you would like subscribe, rate or review the podcast wherever you're listening. Please share this podcast with anyone you think it'll help and if we 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.