Committed to….Position

Statistics show that over 50% of a church plants original core team will leave within a few years. On the front end of launching a church, not one of them thinks that will be their story…but on the back end it’s a painful reality for too many. If we didn’t learn anything from this tragic occurrence it would even an even more depressing situation. Exploring the process reveals some nuggets of wisdom that can be passed on for the benefit of others. If we learn the principles behind why this “divorce” rate is so high we can help other churches avoid some of these pitfalls in the future.

Let’s examine this problem from two vantage points: the church that’s getting ready to launch and the existing church. In the first case with the new church there’s a fatal flaw in the way people are recruited to join the ministry. When the pastor’s in the place where he has no-one he’ll take just about anyone. In an attempt to put some people on the team you’ll ask anyone to join you and put them in positions they shouldn’t fill. You’ll take someone you think you know and give them a title, a position of responsibility. At first all seems great, everyone’s getting along and they think they’re talking about the same “vision”. Add some people to the equation and you expose chinks in the armor. If you’re the pastor of a new church, who you allow at the table in those early days tells you a lot about how far you’ll go. The way you “invite” them to join you relates directly to how long they will be around. When we started Pastor Steven asked 7 families to sell their home, quit their jobs, and move to an unnamed city and sacrifice to start an unnamed church. And by the way, there isn’t a job for you. And whatever role you start in doesn’t mean that’s where you’ll stay. You might be the person to get us to 500 people, but if you can’t get us beyond that you’ll have to shift and if there isn’t a position within the organization you won’t be on staff. That was the hardest thing in the world to hear, but the best thing he could have ever said. He wanted to make sure we were selling our homes for a vision, not a position. And by the way, even though we had know each other for more than a year we took 7 months and met as a core team weekly to lean, understand, embrace and exude the vision that was placed deep down in Pastor Steven’s heart. Assembling a group of people to start a church is easy. Developing a core team committed to a vision is hard work and takes time.

The second case, the case of the existing church has many more subtle pitfalls because positional commitments are exposed through change. As your organization grows, so your structure has to change. It doesn’t make a difference if you’re dealing volunteers or full-time staff, when you’re talking about re-aligning the organization and shifting the structure to prepare for where you’re going, you’re talking about people. Shifts are about putting people in a more strategic position. Shifts are painful, especially for those who are married to a position. When you come along and say, “I know you’ve been doing x, but we need you to do y”, how do they respond? A person committed to the vision will respond with “I love doing x and this will be painful, but if you need me to shift to y I’ll do it”. But when the person is committed to a position it’s extremely painful as best and a tragedy at worse.

If you’re a leader, the people who surround you will determine how far you go. The “ask” to join your vision has to be brutally honest. Make sure people want to be a part of your vision, not their position of preference. One of the worst things I see in the church is when staff members sell themselves to the highest bidder like a whore. The moment they’re asked to shift for the betterment of the church is the moment they move on to the next thing with the most money like a prostitute. A person committed to the vision won’t just say “I’ll do anything”, they’ll actually do it when called upon. Commitment to anything less than the vision leaves a place for personal preference to undermine your mission.