Sifting Through The Rubble

What if the Church Growth Movement playbook IS part of the problem?

Photo by Nick de Partee on Unsplash

Six weeks. That’s how long it was between Launch Sunday of our brand new church plant and the world shutting down.

The ministry handbook I’d run with gusto over decades I quickly found to be lacking. A play book developed on large gatherings and over the top programs was no longer helpful.

Sadly, I was so deep into survival mode that I didn’t even fully process what this meant or would mean for me until recently. It’s funny how grit and determination can cloud your perception. I was standing in the midst of rubble that had only been erected weeks before. Rubble that looked like Sunday morning programs and purpose-driven ministries and simple church philosophies and staff-led initiatives that would, according to the books, produce a large, prevailing model expression of church. That expression would look like a large gathering on Sunday mornings with lighting, and kids programs, and outstanding music.

My reality actually became trying to hold the attention of people on a livestream while they cooked breakfast, cajoled toddlers, and scrolled on their phones. It is ludicrous now that I think about it. All week long people could consume content from Francis Chan and Elevation worship and I was naive enough to think they’d still show up in our little corner of the interwebs on Sunday mornings. But grit has a way of challenging the way you think.

Not one church growth trick or tip could change this reality.

Maybe if I could just double down on the tips and tricks?! Yes! That had to be it. Preaching classes during the pandemic, leadership development, an increased presence with our kids ministry, online discipleship groups it seemed no one wanted. Running Rick Warren plays expecting Rick Warren results. I worked the whole playbook. Turns out, the playbook was the problem.

When the world reopened and our school reopened a year later, what the playbook had promised me wasn’t my reality and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Instead, we discovered a group of people genuinely unsettled about what they even wanted. Here’s the crazy part: it was those who already had a church background who were unsettled.

Turns out, we were all trying to figure out what we actually believed church was for.

I wasn’t the only one who had been formed by the Church Growth Movement’s playbook. They had been too.

Church planting has a way of exposing the motives and wishes of everyone-myself included. The playbook always feels neater than sifting through the rubble.

The rubble was the Sunday morning playbook.

The rubble was the consumeristic beast that demanded to be fed.

The rubble was the programs.

The rubble was the style.

The rubble was the competition.

Looking into my hands now I realize it was the rubble of the Church Growth Movement.

I have never liked rubble. Rubble by its very definition is what is left over after something collapses or falls down. It implies failure. I was failing at the Church Growth Movement.

You know how “they” always talk about hindsight being 20/20? I think that applies here. I didn’t walk away. And I don’t think that’s what we do today when we recognize the rubble left behind from the CGM.

Instead, I think we begin to sift. We sift through the playbook and see which pieces still hold value and can be used without compromising the greater integrity of the structure.

We sift through our contexts.

We sift through the programs.

We sift through our motives.

We sift through the consumeristic beast we all deal with as church leaders.

What do we have that is still valuable and appropriate for building because Sunday mornings and programs and excellence still matter. But they can’t carry the weight of the mission. Healthy, vital churches are the result of healthy, vital people. Friends on mission who are sifters.

These are the sorts of sifters who must discern what needs to be set aside and what was truly always a cornerstone. Decision-making will be required. Could it be that some of the pieces that remain could be reimagined? What if imagination is what helps us gather courage and take the next step toward a community that isn’t blinded by grit or programs? What if the treasures that remain could become the cornerstones upon which life-giving faith communities are built?

Sifters with imagination. Sounds kinda like an adventure to me.