Simple Church: Clarity
CLARITY - STARTING WITH A MINISTRY BLUEPRINT
Hi all,
please note that the phrase “Starting with a Ministry Blueprint” and other key quotations related to Simple Church are being quoted from the book, Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger.
This has been a book that has tremendously impacted our thinking at our church. Ever since we read it last November, it has gripped us and revolutionized the way we view our current church. Here’s why:
We are in a church of about 700 people on a Sunday morning. We are right at the edge of the great American large church bureaucracy. That is, we are right at the crossroads between the two churches described in the book, “Cross Church” and “First Church”. As soon as we, the ministry staff, read it, we realized this truth. And that knowledge is what has propelled us on the Simple Church journey.
What is the Simple Church Journey?
It is the process of addressing all 4 elements of a Simple Church: Clarity, Movement, Alignment & Focus. It is the process of making sure that you are controlling the destiny of your church, rather than having the normal untamed growth process of American Christianity reshape your beautiful little church into a gigantic monstrosity of complexity as it matures.
So, the focus for today is CLARITY.
Clarity means having a blueprint for your ministry. Most churches have no clear plans for growth. Clarity is defined as “the ability of the process to be communicated and understood by the people”. This is a reference to your discipleship process. If it is not so simple and clear that the people of your church can easily communicate it to one another, then it is too complicated to work!
It must be simple enough to communicate, but the plan must have enough depth to actually create a system for discipleship. It is like the difference between brochures and blueprints, say Geiger and Rainer. Brochures are simple and cute; but blueprints are detailed. Brochures describe who you want to be as a church, but blueprints show you how to get there.
Do you have a discipleship blueprint for your ministry?
There are four parts to defining a clear discipleship plan:
1) PURPOSE
2) PRODUCT
3) PROCESS
4) PROGRAMS
1) PURPOSE
Many churches have done a good job here. They have taken the time to clearly define exactly what their purpose is as a church. Thanks to the work by Rick Warren, everybody understands the need for a ‘purpose driven church’.
But the problem comes immediately after the purpose is written. Because what happens is that the rest of the church is put together w/o any direct reference to the clarity granted through a good purpose statement. That is, the Product, Process, and Programs never refer organically back to the Purpose statement.
2) PRODUCT
The product is the type of disciple you are trying to produce. Have you ever written out with clarity exactly what a disciple from your church should look like? Let me put it this way: if someone were to come to your church this next weekend, and accept the Lord, join your church and start growing, and then they attended your church and your church’s key ministries faithfully for the next 3 years. Then they are transferred away, and you never see them again. The question I have for you is this: What will they Know, Feel, and Do as a new disciple of Jesus Christ, because of the discipleship ministry of your church?
At our church we have defined what the disciple will look like. In fact, we have specifically set up 27 traits divided into the categories of Know, Feel, Do (Knowledge, Character, Behaviors. We know what is most important to aim for as a church.
This impacts step three of gaining Clarity as a Simple Church...
3) PROCESS
At the Process Stage, you actually ask the question of HOW you will make disciples at your church. What are the stages and the process of making it happen? Rick Warren famously has his 101 to 401 classes. That is his process. Many have simply duplicated this, but there are other ways of doing it.
Here are some other Process Stages:
a) Win, Build, Send
b) Love God & Love People
c) Evangelize, Edify, Equip, Exalt
d) Attract, Attach, Activate
e) Relate, Reach, Redeem, Redeploy
But you are not done just by naming your key stages. Then you have to develop a plan to get to each stage. And that can be really complicated and tricky. It gets complicated because you have to try to separate the programs which really help your purpose from those that do not.
And that is the fourth stage of getting clarity as a simple church...
4) PROGRAMS
I would venture to say that almost every church in America is over-programmed. Yes, over, not under-programmed. There is too much stuff happening; too many activities; too many events on the church calendar.
The problem with all of these events is that if you want to be a Simple Church, you only want to keep those programs which lend themselves to achieving your Purpose, developing your Product, and following your Process.
That is why the Programs should never be addressed until you have achieved clarity on the rest of your church discipleship plan.
SUMMARY
So what we have done so far is only venture part-way into the Simple Church plan, as related to CLARITY. Clarity is the blue-print (not brochure) that defines your entire discipleship plan as a church. It includes PURPOSE, PRODUCT, PROCESS, and PROGRAMS.
Next time we will look at the second part of becoming a Simple Church, which is Movement.
Until then God’s best to your and yours,
Dr. Bill
HighPower Thoughts
Saturday, March 3, 2007
