What If?

I have started a post like this more times than I can remember. And they are always deleted – erased from public view. This post, I hope, is the first of several (it depends) that I have long wanted to write, but for a variety of reasons never have written. So, here goes…

I’ve been a pastor of three Southern Baptist Churches since 1981. From 1981-87 my family and I served Allyn Baptist Church (which no longer exists) in Allyn WA (you will have to use a magnifying glass on a map to find it). From 1987 till 1991 I was pastor of what was then called Southern Hills Baptist Church in Salem OR. After I left in 1991 the church changed their name to Skyline Baptist Church. Since 1991 my family and I have lived and served in Winston OR where I pastor Community Baptist Church.

I have a vision/dream of what a church is to be that doesn’t necessarily fit with the standard ‘growth’ models in SBC life. SBC churches – at least the model which our church has often been measured against – comprise small groups (we used to call them Sunday School Classes…now these groups go by an uncountable number of different names and structures); worship services featuring contemporary music, presented by a worship team (choirs died a natural death about the era of COVID); and an active weekly calendar.

Now, there is nothing wrong with that model. It’s the model I grew up in and sought to replicate in all three places I have lived and served.

And yet…

As the current church I serve continues a steady decline in attendance and financial offerings as the congregation gets older (like their pastor), I have to ask – what if I’ve been chasing the wrong model?

A number of years ago I found myself overwhelmed by some very specific needs in the community. I won’t rewrite my Doctor of Ministry Project Thesis (which has been read by at least 4 or 5 people – 2 of whom were my committee) but there were teem suicides, and a number of other community needs that propelled me into becoming a community activist (or according to some, a community agitator).

Along the way I trained a few people to engage deeply in the community instead of the traditional small group/worship centered model. There were some major flaws in my D.Min project, but as a result about 12-15 folks in our church became heavily engaged in the community. In another post I’ll brag on some of them and relate some successes along the way.

Back to a model. What if taking Jesus’ command to make disciples as we go about our daily activities became the focus and not the gathering on Sunday? What if we stopped measuring our impact by the number of people in the building? Yes, I have attended many, many conferences and sessions aiming to assist pastors to lead their church into missions, community engagement and so on. Yet the Annual Church Profile, which captures the ‘health’ of a church asks the all important questions:

What is your average Bible Study Attendance (Sunday School, Small Groups, Life Groups, etc)”?

What is you average attendance at the main worship gathering?

How many individuals did you baptize (i.e. how many people made a profession of faith in Jesus?)

How much money did people freely give? How much of those dollars went to mission causes?

Did other people join your church, become members in one way or another?

Do you see the connection? All these questions are answered with a number. Yes, I know there is nothing wrong with numbers, after all there is an entire book in the Old Testament titled, ‘Numbers.’

I get that these numbers give a glimpse of the health of a church. I understand that we have to (really?) quantify ministry.