Bill Easums Observations

In studying church planters over the past decade, I’ve discovered two keys to explosive growth:

1. the  pastor is fixated on evangelism.  Pastor, if you want your plant to grow then in the early stages of your plant you must set the example and do one-to-one evangelism.  You also have to spend more time out  in the public than with your flock.
2. and the pastor is healthy enough to hand-off ministry responsibilities to others the moment a person with leadership potential emerges.  Effective leaders know that they can grow the church only so far. If they want their plant to outgrow their ability to grow it, they have to empower others to share their faith with their networks.

Recently the Lilly Foundation did a study titled “New Church Development in the 21st century.” It was a study of over 700 church plants in seven denominations. They compared the habits of highly effective planters to those who were far less effective. Their findings backed up my two observations. You can read about the study in Extraordinary Leaders in Extraordinary Times.

Not long ago wrote an article about the secret to growing a small church or new church plant that got picked up and circulated through Rasnet. It seems as if my article stirred quite a controversy as well as some personal rationalization for failure. One such response was:

“I can’t help but believe that thousands of faithful pastors of small struggling church reading this article have just dropped into depression or into feelings of failure. I know many churches with evangelistic pastors and yet the churches continue to remain small (and the reverse is also true; church growth in spite of the pastor’s efforts……

It appears this article suggest the lack of church growth is the pastor’s fault, and the converse would also be true, if the church grows it is due to the pastor’s effort… which is something great to talk about a pastor’s conferences.

Kent and Barbara Hughe’s book , Liberating Your Ministry From Success Syndrome redefines success as faithfulness, serving, loving, believing, praying, holiness, and attitude (it’s a great read).

I believe direct evangelism grows churches, but to make it all about the pastor’s evangelistic activity seems short-sighted.  I believe that church growth is more than adding numbers to the roll or notches on a belt; it is about the people of God, on mission with God, making disciple for God, in order to make a difference in the life of the world and the kingdom.”

Here is my response:

I guess you would have to define faithfulness.  I define it as sharing one’s faith so the Kingdom can be expanded.  One isn’t held accountable to how people respond, but one is help accountable to both the Great Commission and Commandment. Faithfulness is far more than how one conducts one’s life.

The study doesn’t make it all about the pastor. The hand-off of ministry also includes one-on-one evangelism.  However, if the pastor isn’t concerned about evangelism then the church usually doesn’t grow, so there is a direct correlation between what a pastor does and how the church grows.

Remember, this study was about church plants.  Churches simply don’t grow if the pastor doesn’t do most of the work in the early days.

I’m also not prone to allowing anyone off the hook when it comes to our Lord’s last will and testament -”Go and make disciples” and “be my witnesses.”

Bill Easum”

Now, I wish to add more.  The last thing we need are more books like the one from the Hughes that define faithfulness in such a way as to remove all responsibility for the mess in which we find the U.S. Church. The last thing I want to do is liberate any Christian from the success syndrome, much less the pastor.  We’re in a mess my friends. We have enough mediocrity in the church today.  We have enough churches closing for lack of leadership. I’m fed up with pastors who are willing to spend their entire ministry changing spiritual diapers and caring for every spiritual hangnail that comes along. We’ve had enough failure. It’s time we took responsibility and led the Church home.

I want to commend all of those faithful pastors who labor each day to bring someone into the Kingdom and grow them forward. And I want to give a swift kick in the butt to those pastors who are content with spending all of their time baby sitting self-centered church members. Shame on you. God expects so much more from us. 

One of the new realities of new, thriving churches is the less they do the more they grow. Sounds strange, doesn’t it. Here’s what I mean.  I’m seeing more and more new, thriving churches doing only a hand full of ministries, usually limited to worship, small groups, and children and youth worship, and missions- and nothing more. Thus, less is more.

And the converse is true.  I see more and more declining churches with a full calendar of events. The goal of many pastors seems to be “if I can get new people involved in something, I’ve got them.”  So, they heap one program on top of another in hopes of involving more people.  Whereas this method worked when the church was more at the center of society, nothing now could be farther from the truth. All over-programming does today is split up families one more time as if society doesn’t do that enough.

So why not start cancelling all of the programs you have to annually prop up by begging people to attend? Then look over all of your programs and ask “Which ones really contribute to the spiritual or numerical growth of our church? And then discontinue all of those that do not contribute.

You see one of the mistakes most churches make is they tie their new people up in some many church activities that within a couple of years they don’t have any unchurched friends anymore.  Instead of bringing people to church two or three times a week, train them to spend time with their unchurched friends and let them see what it means to be a Christian. You’ll see a marked improvement in the number of new people showing up.   

Bill Easum

For much of the past three decades, denominational officials have been promoting seminars and programs aimed at revitalizing the church. I know because I have been the speaker or consultant to many of these groups. For many of these leaders, their goal was to breathe new life into churches experiencing declining memberships and lack of commitment. Yet after years of trying to revitalize these churches, the vast majority of them are still declining. What gives?

Reformation, renewal, and revitalization assume some preexisting foundation of faith from which to raise up a new church. But what if that assumption isn’t correct? What if the assumption is part of our problem? What if being a member of a church for 40 years doesn’t automatically guarantee any spiritual depth? What if holding every office in the church doesn’t automatically mean someone is a disciple of Jesus Christ? Do we dare look deep enough into our souls to find answers to these questions?

Based on the conversations and actions of the thousands of Protestant leaders with whom I worked over the years, I have concluded that most of them are spiritually dead and their institutions have ceased being the church. They have the form but not the substance of what it means to be the church.

Let me define what I mean by spiritually dead churches. If your church spends most of its energy on itself and its members, it’s spiritually dead.

Such churches are living corpses. They are physically alive; some may even be growing; but they are spiritually dead to the mission of the New Testament church—to make disciples of Jesus Christ. They’ve turned inward and exist solely for themselves. They look for ways to serve themselves, and the kingdom be damned.

They’re like baby birds sitting in the nest with their mouths open waiting for momma bird (pastor) to feed them with no concept that Jesus intends them to feed others. Oh, they might collect money to send away to some distant mission field, but they’re all thumbs when it comes to sharing the good news with their neighbor or community. What growth they might experience is not of their doing—it just happens because of the population growth around them.

Here are eight death clues. Spiritually dead churches:

1. Have lost their sense of mission to those who have not heard about Jesus Christ and do not pant after the Great Commission;
2. Exist primarily to provide fellowship for the “members of the club;”
3. Expect their pastors to focus primarily on ministering to the members’ personal spiritual needs;
4. Design ministry to meet the needs of their members;
5. Have no idea about the needs of the “stranger outside the gates;”
6. Are focused more on the past than the future;
7. Often experience major forms of conflict;
8. And watch the bottom line of the financial statement more than the number of confessions of faith.

Bringing life back

The starting point for unfreezing a stuck organizational system is the development of a solid community of faith that includes spiritual leaders, the absence of major conflict, trust, and a desire to connect with the unchurched world.

True spiritual maturity is approached when people turn their attention to those outside the church and seek ways to spread the good news rather than exercise their entitlements as members. Unfortunately, too many pastors assume their church has spiritual leaders and skip right over this starting point. It has become apparent to me that most church leaders do not understand that the decline of their church is due to the lack of spiritual depth on the part of their leadership.

So, now, I want to go deeper on the spiritual issue. It’s not just that our churches are stuck; they are spiritually bankrupt!

I know. These churches are filled mostly with good Christian people, but there’s no discernable spiritual power, just good Christian people—and we all know what Jesus said about being good. (Mark 10:18)

So it’s obvious. Isn’t it? The only solution for spiritually dead congregations is resurrection. You can’t revitalize something that is dead. They must be brought to life again! And that is resurrection.

Revitalization is a waste of time. You can’t breathe life into a corpse. Only God can do that, and that is resurrection.

My experience has taught me the resurrection of a church happens in three stages. It begins with a new pastor. Either the pastor experiences a personal resurrection or the church actually gets a new pastor. Next is the resurrection of the leaders of the church either by transformation or replacement. Finally, the church itself is resurrected and turned around through some tactical change. Then, if resurrection happens, our behavior changes:

1. The church turns outward in its focus.
2. Jesus, not the institution, will become the object of our affection.
3. The Great Commission will become our mandate, and we will measure everything we do by how many new converts we make rather than whether we have a black bottom line.
4. Membership in the Kingdom will replace membership in the church.
5. Pastors will cease being chaplains of pastoral care and will become modern-day apostles of Jesus Christ.
6. And those who try to control the church with an iron fist or intimidate the church at every turn of the road will be shown the door.

The primary reason society is shunning the institutional church is because for the most part it is spiritually dead. Spiritually alive churches, no matter what their form or where they are planted, always grow. That is the nature of the beast. That is the kind of church God honors. That is what the church was put on earth to do—spread the good news. When a church faithfully does that, it grows. Period.

Adapted from “A Second Resurrection” by Bill Easum from Abingdon Press  

The American Church in Crises
David Olsen

This is a must read for any Christian leader who wants to play a part in what God is doing in our world at this point in time. Olsen has given us a priceless book. It’s not doom and gloom. It clearly shows the way forward. The hope of the American church lies in planting churches.

Here is some of the information

1) Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church - half of what the pollsters report. There are approximately 330,000 churches in America; out of those churches approximately 17.7% (52 million) of Americans attend church on an average Sunday. 2) American church attendance is steadily declining.

• Evangelical 9.2%
• Catholic 5.5%
• Mainline 3.1%

3) Only one state is outpacing its population growth. Hawaii. 4) Mid-sized churches are shrinking; the smallest and largest churches are growing.

• Churches under 50 and over 2,000 are growing
• Average attendance of Protestant church: 124
• 1,250 mega-churches in America/one emerges every three days

5) Established churches, 40-190 years old - are, on average, declining. New church starts reach more people better, faster, cheaper than existing churches. 6) The increase in churches is only ¼ of what’s needed to keep up with population growth.

• 3,000 churches close every year
• 3,800 new church starts survived
• Net annual gain: 800 new churches
• Net annual gain needed to keep up with population growth:10,000 new churches

7) In 2050, the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.

• US Population in 1990: 248 million/20.4% church attendance
• US Population in 2050: 520 million/11.7% church attendance

I’m not prone to using many superlatives when reviewing a book. But in the case of The Multiplying Church by Bob Roberts of Northwood Church. I reached into my bag of superlatives for one big enough to describe the importance of this book and I couldn’t find one.  I tried them all and they all came up short. This simply is perhaps the most important book written for our time other than the Bible.  Roberts has given us a must read.What I like most about the book is that it transcends all planting or institutional models and incorporates the best of the attractional and incarnational conversations and nails the purpose of the church- not to talk about God, but Jesus!Way to go Bob. The Kingdom is much richer thanks to you.

People who have followed my writings know that I was one of the first proponents of churches having a permission-giving attitude and ministry. My book, Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers, clearly defined how churches developed a permission-giving compared to “We’ve always done it this way” attitude.  As a result of this attitude, healthy churches usually developed multiple ministries, and grew because of the variety of ministries offered.

Now, however, I’m finding many strong churches who are doing just the opposite. Instead of lots of programs or ministries, they do only two things- worship and small groups that meet in homes. These churches usually do so for two reasons: one, they believe that small groups is the best way to disciple and retain people; and two,  because of the time crunch most Americans find themselves in.

I just finished reading Sticky Church by Larry Osborne, pastor of North Coast Church in Vista, CA. The premise of the book is that it is more important to close the back door than to keeping trying to open the front door wider. Instead of focusing on bringing in more people it is better to focus on giving great care to the present participants. And the way they have closed the back door at North Coast is by doing sermon-based small groups, and not much else. Worship and small groups seems to be a growing tide in the U.S.

Upon reflection, I feel the two different approaches have to do with type of church I might be consulting with. In most mainline churches that have been around more than 10 years I strongly recommend the permission-giving attitude because most of them are mostly stuck in the past.  However, for a new church plant or a very progressive church I recommend the church only do two things- worship and small groups.

I strongly recommend this book to those who are working with time crunched Americans.  It has a lot of wisdom to share on how to disciple them. The book will surprise many long time church goers.

Bill Easum

I got a blackberry about a month ago. I know. I should have gotten one long before now. But now that Im “in” Im even more aware of how tight our world has become. Last week I was in the Dominican Republic fishing. We were ten miles out in the Atlantic and i noticed the deckhand talking to someone on the phone. Now, consider that the average deckhand in the Dominican probably paid a week or more salary to purchase that cellphone.  To  top that off we werent even on dry land and it was working. We are reaching the point where there alsmost anywhere you can go and not be connected with the rest of the world, at your convenience!

Now, bring that into the church and ask, which is more connected, the church or the world? and you get a rather nasty picture. the average church in the U.S. consists of opinionated individual consumers who vote with their feet the moment something happens they dont like. Worship styles are based on what they like rather than what will reach the unchurched. Organizational style is based on “what we’ve always done” rather than adjusting them to meet the fast pace of todays world.

Isnt it time we all realized that all of us should have our own blackberry? Do you see the metaphor? Jesus is the blackberry we all need. He is what binds up together and defeats our egos and opinions. So, Got Jesus?

Opps. my phone is ringing

Everything Must Change
Brian McLaren

As are all of McLaren’s book, Everything Must Change is extremely well written and researched prose bordering at times on poetry. His theme is simple yet profound – unless everything changes in our approach to the suicidal systems story that drives today’s world life on this planet isn’t sustainable. He argues for Christians to believe a new framing story- the story framed by Jesus.

Based on the context of the Roman Empire (and the U.S. empire) the new framing story of Jesus is:

·         The law of good deeds for the common good replaces capitalism’s law of progress through rapid economic growth

·         The law of satisfaction through gratitude and sharing replaces capitalism’s law of serenity through possession and consumption

·         The law of salvation through justice replaces capitalism’s law of salvation by win-lose competition

·         The law of freedom to prosper by building better communities replaces capitalism’s law of freedom to prosper through unaccountable corporations

I can’t see how any Christian can disagree with McLaren’s conclusion that life on this planet is presently unsustainable. I took away several beautiful “A-hahs.”

·         We are all related to one another; therefore it should come natural to us to love even our enemies.

·         The world would truly be better with religion

·         The more Americans consume the more the world hates us.  The more the world hates us the more we fear and stockpile weapons. The more we stockpile weapons, the more the world fears and hates us.  I could go on but one can’t help but get the message.

However, based on the sales of apocalyptic books as the “Left Behind” series, I can see how many Christians will disagree with the solution he offers – we must truly disbelieve the framing story that the worse things get the closer we are to the second coming (which means we shouldn’t worry about saving the planet) and passionately believe a new framing story of God’s love for all creation including the planet earth (which means we should do everything in our power to save it and by doing so save ourselves).

Whereas I totally agree with the basic sentiment of the book, I have some serious concerns about the direction McLaren seems to be going (I wrote about this earlier on my blog). He seems to make salvation totally social – in relation to others and the environment. I get the impression that he has serious issue with salvation even having the hint of a personal savior.

If McLaren was an atheist I would say this is a book on how to respond to the plight of our planet. However, McLaren is a professed Christian and as such his treatment of Jesus concerns me. He constantly begs the Jesus question.

So I have some questions of Brian (you should know we have been friends for a decade)

 Is he the eternal son of God? Was he God incarnate or just another great prophet? Or does his divinity depend on our language within the community of faith? Is salvation both personal and social? Can Christians have a personal savior and still have a concern for social justice? Is there a literally heaven and hell? Is salvation nothing more than the liberation from the framing story of the U.S. Empire?  Did Jesus understand salvation to be nothing more than freedom from the Roman Empire or did it also encompass one’s eternal destiny? (The reader should know that I have always thought of salvation more in the context of how it causes one to live in this life but I have always also retained the belief in its affects on one’s eternal destiny.)

I would have found the book even more persuasive if so much of it was pitted against Brian’s fundamentalist background. Not all evangelicals I know subscribe to a literal interpretation of the book of Revelation. Even as Brian wrote this book, more social justice ministries are being done by evangelical churches than by liberal churches. The book would have far more punch, credibility, and a wider readability if he hadn’t based much of the early part of the book on that background.

Is this a book to read by all Christians- YES, by all means! The book is a call to arms to adopt a totally new way of looking at everything we do and profess to be. It tackles the second most profound issue of our day – the sustainability of our world (what is our relationship to Jesus). Still I want Brian to answer the questions above. Until he does I will continue to be concerned.

Bill  Easum

I just returned from speaking at the Exponential Conference on Reproducing ministries in Orlando.  I have to say it was one of the most stimulating events Ive been to in a long time.

It was like asking how do we plant 100,000 churches over the next ten years? How can that be done? The answer? Every church become a parenting church of a church plant that is going to plant another church that is going to plant another church and so on.

Tim Keller was one of the highlights for me. His message was on target- we need to refocus our attention on Jesus and his full message.

Dave Ferguson was another highlight. He said,

Three keys

• The freedom to say no- this means you have a crystal clear vision of what God wants you to do
• Go! Instead of come. We don’t belong to a church. We aren’t members of a specific church. We are people of the Way, basking in the warm of God’s kingdom of love. That means that every staff person needs to be planning on where he or she is going to go to plant a church.
• No ego. We have to quit squabbling over our pity opinions of tastes.  When we understand grace, there is no place for ego. We can’t care who gets the credit.

Four shifts for reproducing churches to emerge as a movement

• Shift from church growth to missional movement – you can’t build buildings fast enough; values the new, the lost, the edge, the sent rather than the old, the saved, the center, staying
• Shfit from ministry managers to spiritual entrepnuers move people up from the ranks
• Staff shift from reactive to proactive – when you are ready (when you are spiritually ready) you reproduce even if you don’t need the space. Leader readiness -
• From addition to multiplication. 

I just finished an interview with Craig Henningfield who is the missionary coach for the Church Without Walls in Denver. The Church Without Walls is a growing, loosely networked group of  house churches. Question: Why the House Church?Every day I meet more people who are dissatisfied with the institutional church.  Most of these people have never read the books like Pagan Christianity or the Barna research. I also run into many pastors who have been dissatisfied with the institutional church but still want to serve. We can’t throw the baby out with bathwater just because a churched tradition no longer serves a growing number of people.Question: How do you fund your ministry?Answer: Most of our pastors are bivocational.  Some raise their support from congregations and individual Christians.  Funding and giving are two of our biggest issues.  People come out of the institutional church and join us thinking there is no need to give any longer.  We have to rewire them to give out of grace to a mission rather than support of an institution.Question: What do you think will hold your movement together over the long haul?

Answer: Jesus. I know that is clique, but it is what we think we do it.  We aren’t a church planting movement, we are a disciplining movement. We’re not interested in how many more house churches can we plant, but how many people can we disciple to be like Jesus. The key is longevity is to train leaders so if they move they aren’t lost and can start new groups wherever they go.  America is a churched nation- everyone has some view of what a church looks like. So the house church needs explaining. When they get it, they will talk about it with all of their friends.  

Question: What question haven’t I asked you that I should have?

Answer: I think getting more clarity on the relationship between denominations and the house church movement is essential.  In the beginning our denomination supported our work with some start up money but as the project developed the denomination found it difficult to figure out how to relate to us since we didn’t resemble anything near an institution.  Denominations need to continue thinking through the relationship with the institutional church to avoid the “us” versus “them” problem.

According to Henningfield most of the house churches are still along denominational lines. This fact surprised me.