SIMPLE CHURCH, p. 4: ALIGNMENT

"Simple Church" by Eric Geiger and T. Rainer has captured the imaginations of many people in America. They are already holding "Simple Church" conferences around the country with hundreds of people in attendance. While that is interesting, my concern is how we can take the Biblical principles from this book and apply them to any local church in order to experience growth. The growth we are looking for is both quantitative and qualitative growth. I believe the two are related.

In our continuing series as we study this book, we are on Part Four: Alignment. Alignment is defined as "the arrangement of all ministries and staff around the same simple process." According to their research, "there is a highly significant relationship between church vitality and alignment".

Alignment includes the following parts:
1) Recruit on Process - Staff & volunteers must be deeply committed to the specific discipleship process your church has selected. This is no place for lone rangers who decide they will use their own curriculum, methods, and means to do their own ministry style in their part of the church. Everybody must be using the same terms, systems and means to make disciples.

2) Offer Accountability - regular review of the process is necessary. For staff people, this may mean a weekly staff meeting. For church volunteers it needs to include a monthly leadership community meeting where the process is reviewed, and each ministry is tied in to that process. Accountability includes making sure that ministries are tied in to the overall purpose of the church.

3) Implement the Same Process Everywhere - same terminology; same spiritual growth milestones; same end-game.
You may adapt it to different groups, or ages, but the goal is essentially the same. This way unity is increased, and families experience the same process.

4) Unite around the Process - Remember the definition of a simple church: "A simple church is a congregation designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth." Everybody is walking the same path toward spiritual growth.

5) New Ministry Alignment - This simply means don't start anything new unless it fits your process. The hardest part for you will be retooling existing ministries to align them with the discipleship process you have selected as a church. So make sure that if you start something new, that it already is in alignment, so you don't have to go back later and retool again.

After the final section of our "Simple Church" study, "Focus", I will be sharing with you the steps we have taken in our church to implement the Simple Church process. We have been studying it, and working on it for 6-months now, and we are just beginning to launch the new process with the congregation. Stay tuned for that.

Until later,
Dr. Bill

Grow your church by adding a Saturday Service

We have just added a Saturday night service to our line-up and the results so far have been great!

Here's the background: we are a church of 700 people with two Sunday AM services. Both services were experiencing the classic 80% problem. Not every week, but often enough for us to realize that we are 'full' (by North American standards of comfort). So we debated whether or not to add another service on Sunday, or a Saturday night option. We chose Saturday to provide another option for people who work on Sundays; medical professionals, firemen, police, and some butchers! who work on Sundays.

Results after two weeks have been very good. We have had 188 and 185 coming each week. Our average attendance has jumped up by 70-100 people per week. (We have a lot of overlap right now. That will shake out in the next several months.) Our two morning services have softened up a bit and provided more room for people who want to come in the morning. We already noticed that the demographics of this Saturday night service are considerably younger than our morning services. When asked why they chose Saturday night over Sunday morning, several young families said that it was much easier to get the little kids to church on Saturday, than to wake them up and get them ready Sunday morning.

We also have noticed that we are getting some new seekers from the community at this service. They saw the ad in the paper, or they came for the coffeehouse we run beforehand. The atmosphere on Saturdays is more casual, relaxed, and fun.

So that's all for now; I'll keep you posted.

Dr. Bill

SIMPLE CHURCH: Movement, Part 3

Most churches don’t stall out because of one or two problems that they can easily fix. Most stall out because of church systems! That is, the entire way you have put your church [Christ’s church, but since you have messed it up, its ‘yours’] together is wrong. Simple Church makes you look back at the systems approach to church growth and discipleship. In our continuing series analyzing the impact of the book "Simple Church" by Eric Geiger and Thom Rainer, we are looking at the second church health principle of "Movement".

Simple Church helps you ask the question, “What is our system for making disciples here?” You do have a system don’t you? You see, even if you don’t, you still do. As Edward Deming has astutely put it, “You have the perfect system for getting exactly the results you are getting!”


Do you have weak and anemic disciples at your church? Your church system is producing weak and anemic disciples! Or are they strong and vigorous? Again, it is your system.

What is the system in your church? Can you identify it? For example, let’s say that this Sunday someone turns their life over to Christ at your church. Then they stay with you for 3 years, and then are transferred away. What do you want that disciple to look like at the end of 3 years of participating in your church discipleship system?

The focus of what we are talking about here is MOVEMENT! And Movement, is the 2nd key principle of the Simple Church Book. For an intro to Simple Church see my Jan. 16th, 2007 blog, and for the first principle of Clarity see my March 3rd, 2007 blog.

Movement is defined by Geiger & Rainer as "... the sequential steps in the process that causes people to move to greater areas of commitment."

Where do disciples start in your church and where do they go and grow? In most churches I’ve served in, there is no clear system. We just hope that they meet the Lord, start attending services and Bible studies and start growing. Isn’t that good enough? Try asking some of the big guns like Rick Warren at Saddlebback with his 4 bases. Or try asking Bill Hybels at Willowcreek with the 7 steps to maturity system and the 5 G’s. They’ve got systems in place to develop disciples.

Question: Is it enough just to copy the 4 bases of Saddleback and say that you’ve got it done? Not if you don’t understand the concept of church systems yet. Then you are just mimicking what you’ve seen, and as soon as someone tinkers with it, you will have problems.

Here’s what we are doing at our church to really put these principles into practice:

First , we answered the PRODUCT question. That is, if the example cited above of someone coming to church for 3 years and then leaving really occurred, what kind of a disciple would we want to produce? So over the course of several months, with staff, and leadership, we defined 27 character qualities of a mature disciple. These 27 character traits cover 3 broad categories related to Head, Heart, and Hands. Or put another way, we have defined Intellectual goals, and Emotional/
Attitudinal goals, and we have defined Behavioral goals.

Then, having just defined that, we are now working through all of our church programs, and determining exactly what kind of life-change we are trying to accomplish in each ministry. The question is "how does each ministry program in the church contribute to one or more of the 27 traits of spiritual maturity?

Also, we are clearly marking out our discipleship movement path for our church. We have identified a one-year path which we will encourage all new converts, new members, and seekers to pursue. (It is optional, and is also available for current regulars if they wish to join.).

Here is our path in synopsis:
First, Newcomers Dessert social
Second, On-Ramp (new members class), targeting the newcomers at the social
Third, Passport Dinner – to introduce them to the recommended “journey towards growth”
Fourth – one-full year of growth training, broke down into 4 separate discipleship groups:

This includes 4 discipleship groups which are coached, and that is a key part. Our awesome Small Groups director, Jim Troe, (he's reading this, so I had to say that;) put together this one-year plan…
-- Alpha – 10 weeks on the basics of Christianity for Seekers.
-– Connections – 8 weeks on how to develop healthy relationships with seekers.
-– Foundations – 8 weeks on basic discipleship issues like a daily quiet time, and Bible study.
-– SHAPE training – 8 weeks on discovering and using your spiritual gifts.

Fifth, Once they have completed the one-year discipleship training, we place them into long-term growth groups, which are normally “sermon-based” groups, that is, discussion and curriculum is based on the current teaching series.

Please note, these are all optional at every step of the way, although we do recommend a particular course of action.

So that is our current plan for movement. Yes, it may change, but we finally have a "clear path for discipleship", which happens to be what we call it. We know where we are going, and by God's grace and guidance we hope to get there.

NOW, how do we make sure to encourage people to follow this course of action?

That relates to the 3rd Simple Church principle, which is Alignment. I’ll update you on that next month.

Until then,
In Christ,
Dr. Bill

Coaching vs. Mentoring

I'm currently in a national seminar on coaching taught by Bob Logan. A great question was asked about the difference between a Mentor and a Coach. In general, here is the difference:
MENTOR - has gone before, and pours in.
COACH - someone who comes alongside, and draws out.

MENTOR - when asked a question will answer it.
COACH - when asked a question, will 'unpack' the thinking of the other person, and reflect that back to them.

The key difference between a Mentor and a Coach, is that a coach practices "discovery listening".
Here are the 3 steps to Discovery Listening:
1. Summarize Periodically
2. Invite to Say More
3. Unpack Fully before giving your input

The best coaches are quite non-directive. They help a person to discover their own values, decide their own action steps, and set their own measurement goals.

Coaching is an incredibly effective tool for multiplying ministry effectiveness. Logan claims that any ministry initiative will be twice as effective if it is coached, rather than not coached.

That's all for now.

More later,

Bill