George Barna, a Christian research specialist, and popular author of numerous books on church health and the future of the church, provides hard data for church leaders and churches who need to face their denial of reality. Barna’s research presented in his Re-churching the Unchurched Seminar.

Denial seems to be a strong feature of most church leaders. Somehow we think that because we are busy doing ‘good things and being good people’ that we are being effective. After all there’s a little money in the bank, most of our pews are at least half full, most classrooms we use have people in them and we have a pastor that visits us, preaches on Sunday, checks on us when we’re sick or disgruntled and we enjoy the fellowship time with most of the people that attend.

There are several elements of denial many churches choose to ignore while we bask in our comfort each Sunday. While most ministers try to break through a congregation’s denial with their words there’s rarely a breakthrough. Many need data – hard data, rather than one person’s opinion or words. For those persons researcher’s like George Barna and George Gallup provide data.

George Gallup in Surveying the Religious Landscape declares, “Although more Americans than ever, 82%, say they want to experience spiritual growth, they lack the spiritual practices and disciplines that will take them there.” Furthermore his research concludes, “spirituality in America may be 3,000 miles wide, but it remains only 3 inches deep.”

For churches who say they don’t have any prospects, Barna’s research is clear that over one third of all adults in USA are unchurched. America is now seen by many as the ’pagan paradise’ of the world.

For churches that seem to think the pagan unchurched world is ‘not like us’ and ‘too ungodly to have interest in church’ Barna points out that there is very little difference in the demographics of unchurched and churched persons – we’re very much alike. Unchurched adults are more likely to be independent in their thinking, demand control, are achievement oriented, strive to be on the cutting edge, feel busy and stressed are less relational than the churched person and seek meaning in life. Each of these characteristics of the unchurched person has significant implications for churches today. However, Barna declares most church leaders are not really sensitive to the unchurched person. Many present at the seminar were stunned to hear that 5 out of 10 unchurched adults pray to God every week, 3 out of 10 have a quiet time/devotion, 1 out of 7 reads from their Bible. Eighty-five percent of the unchurched are not likely to return to church. Many of the unchurched don’t come to church because they are not invited – only 4% of the unchurched say they have been invited to church. What an indictment on believers and church members – why don’t we invite the unchurched? Are we ashamed of our faith? Our church? Our programming? Are we not people with a passion for the unchurched? Do we not want ‘them’ to come in and take over ‘our church? It’s time for our churches to break through denial. There are many spiritually thirsty and interested unchurched in our communities! They don’t come because we don’t invite – they aren’t engaged in our way of doing church because it more often than not doesn’t speak to them in ways that are meaningful. They sense we are more concerned about our comfort than in meeting their needs and facilitating their journey of faith.

Another segment of the seminar was on “Growing True Disciples of Jesus”. While this is the biblical mandate for the church Barna’s research painted a fairly bleak picture of our disciplemaking ministry. While churches and church leaders say we are about discipleship Barna’s data and the experience of most believers and churches seems to indicate something different. It’s time we break through our denial! “Discipleship is a process that facilitates being and reproducing spiritually mature zealots for Christ”, was Barna’s working definition for his research. Only 1 our 5 believers have measurable and specific goals for their personal spiritual growth. Most of our churches verbally advocate discipleship but gives no goals, standards or expectations. Only 1 in 5 say their church really facilitates discipleship. Less than 1% of believers perceive the worship service to be a means of discipleship. Less than 1 out 10 have ever intentionally built a friendship with a non-Christian in order to share their faith. Only 8% of believers tithe; over twice as many believers give nothing. Barna indicates there are 9 obstacles to overcome if we are to improve discipleship. He suggest the following strategies to address the obstacles…

• Creating clear and measurable definition of success,
• Create a systematic teaching/learning approach focused on spiritual transformation
• Create accountability relationships and structures
• Emphasize people transformation more than program efficiency and others that you can find in his book Growing True Disciples of Jesus.

It is time our churches take a hard and honest look at the kind of people we are producing by what we do on a weekly basis. It is time to break through denial and our excuses. Just because we are comfortable with the way we do church doesn’t necessarily make it Biblical, relevant or pleasing to the Heavenly Father. What is your church really doing to transform lives? Is it working? If not, might it be time to try something different? If we keep doing the same thing, expecting different results we are on the road to insanity.
Another segment of the seminar was Building Effective Lay Leadership Teams. So many of our leaders believe that committees are good teams – ‘we just changed the names’. NO – teams are different than committees. Teams empower, teams decentralize the power and authority for ministry, teams work from consensus not power and control. Many conferees were shocked to hear that only 1 out of 8 pastors have the gift of leadership. Such a reality may be hard to swallow for many, but is one clear reason why teams are needed in most of our churches. God has provided the leaders needed in the body of Christ – we just have to provide forums and permission for them to surface. Barna’s research indicates 10 reasons why we don’t use team leadership in our churches:

1. Its easier to do it by ourselves
2. Team leadership requires giving up control
3. Empowering teams reduces the perceived value of the individual leader
4. Teams may take longer to get the job done
5. The church has never done ministry that way before.
6. The church’s leaders have never been trained to work as teams
7. We have not seen team leadership modeled by other churches

(See Building Effective Lay Leadership Teams by Barna for more information)

Teams are biblical – consider the Trinity. In many churches the tradition, the personal preference has become one of control more than effectiveness. It’s time we break through our denial and confess teams are a threat to many because the power and control is decentralized. The vision is shared; the responsibility for failure or success is in the hands of many rather than in the hands of a select few. What about your church? Are you activating the entire Body of Christ in service? Is it expected of your membership? Is there a genuine permission-giving atmosphere for believers to follow God’s calling and gifting or are you still just staffing committees and positions that we had last year without even considering is God doing a new thing here that requires a new structure?

The final segment was the most exciting to me personally because I’ve been giving much time, thought, study, prayer and struggle around ministry evaluation. How do we evaluate our success/effectiveness? What does a disciple look like and behave? How can we evaluate spiritual transformation and growth and create experiences and curricula to intentionally facilitate maturing in Christ? What does the process of sanctification and growth look like in today’s culture and church? It was during this segment that he shared several instruments he has designed or located in churches that are effective in these areas of ministry. The model churches are highlighted in each of his books and on his website. I would encourage you to give serious consideration the measuring ministry effectiveness. I would encourage you to order and study with your key leaders Barna’s three books mentioned here. You can order by visiting www.barna.org or by any Christian bookstore.

Do you need to break through your denial about some of these issues or do you need to celebrate your churches progress and ministry in these given areas? Need help breaking through denial? See if these ideas help.

Practical Ideas for Breaking Through Denial

The data is helpful and shocking to many. Now what can you do to help move your people from denial to reality, from comfort to discomfort, from apathy to intentionality in growth and discipleship?

1. Create an intentional and focused prayer ministry among those who share the burden for the denial of the church. Prayer partners, 24 hour prayer chains, focused prayer for leaders and various programs/ministries. Gather those who pray and serve and ask what they sense God doing. Repeat this until leader begin to discern the heart of God and God’s movement, or lack thereof, in their midst.
   
   
2. Work with the remnant and don’t be discouraged by the multitude. Remember Jesus preached to the multitude but He invested himself in the remnant – those few who heard his voice and invited his counsel. This might be done through a School of Christian Ministry (process and curricula outlined in The Gathered and Scattered Church) or some small group designed to mature persons in spiritual disciplines, and discernment and celebration of God’s presence.
   
   
3. Use hard data from Barna and Gallup, but apply it to your congregation, doing same analysis there, and publicize this to the masses, among the prayer groups and the remnant. This mirroring process is hard, creates some tension and forums for disagreement, but it does begin to focus on reality and you begin to pray about and work with the critical issues.
   
   
4. Conduct a spiritual life inventory in your congregation. Provide questions or and inventories that will guide congregation to do a personal, private inventory of their spiritual life. There are many such inventories out there – Barna, Gallup, etc. I review several of these in Spiritual Formation in a Secular Age (to be released 3/2002)
   
   
5. Begin to ask the ‘hard questions’ of events, meeting agendas, planning processes, budget planning. How much of what we are doing or planning is for our comfort rather than a mission or ministry outreach? How much is about ‘doing justice or reconciliation’ rather than our preservation? Such are representative of the ‘hard questions’ – many other such questions can be found in The Gathered and Scattered Church or Making the Church Work by Edward Hammett.
   
   
6. Get honest among staff conversations, planning, prayer times. Remember so often the congregation takes on the personality and values of their leaders. Is there some denial among staff or in your own heart that needs to be worked with and confronted?
   
   
7. Provide learning resources for interested leaders that will help them understand different models and strategies. Print annotated resource lists of books, videos, audiotapes, websites, area seminars, radio broadcasts etc. that leaders can access. Quote them in your teaching and preaching sessions to create interest. This might be a book/resource table, a summary in the newsletter or worship folder etc.
   
   
8. Create forums for leaders who have experienced a ‘eureka’ or new insights. Invite them to share in worship, class meetings, prayer meetings, newsletter, and church business meetings or on video or audiotape. What a great record for church history – leaders who left a legacy of renewing the church for effective ministry!!
   
   
9. Send leaders to visit other churches for several Sunday’s and provide them resources to take the staff out to lunch after the service. This will open their hearts and eyes to what God is doing in and through other churches, worship styles, Sunday school and discipleship organizations, etc. Create a time for them to share their discoveries with other leaders and the congregation.
   
   
10. Enlist a team of faithful leaders to do a windshield survey on a Sunday morning during SS and worship. Help facilitate this as a learning experience. Who do they see not in church? Where are they? What are they doing? Send them to a local breakfast place or coffee shop to listen to the conversations and be made aware of how many are dealing with spiritual issues, but not in church and how many talk where church is not even on their radar screen.
    
    
11. Create forums for dialogue or encouragement – these opportunities may be a hallway bulletin board with questions, data and resources. Or it may be a place on your church website, maybe a chat room dialogue, or it could be a regular newsletter – online or in print – designed to Revitalize the Church.
    
    
12. Can your church encourage others in your area who might be struggling with the same issues of denial and the struggle to break through to reality? How could you share your churches journey into wholeness that might encourage and offer others resource, support and a model of moving from maintenance to mission? Through your radio or television audience or website publication of sermons, lessons or testimonials from leaders is a great way to share. This might even birth a time for partnering with others in a regional seminar on church revitalization.

If the purpose of the church is to transform persons into the likeness of Christ, how is your church doing? What indicators are present in your worship, your bible studies, small groups, mission groups to indicate that what is happening in these ministries is actually facilitating spiritual maturity among participants and transforming their lives?

©Held by Eddie Hammett, Leadership/Discipleship Consultant for Western North Carolina for Baptist State Convention of North Carolina Email at: Ehammet@bscnc.org or call 1-800-578-9730

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