A study was undertaken by Stetzer and Dodson (Comeback Churches, 2007) of 324 “comeback churches” in America – churches that experienced 5 or more years of plateau and/or decline since 1995 and this decline was followed by significant growth over the past 2-5 years, including a membership to baptism (conversion) ratio of 35:1 or lower each year and at least a 10% increase in attendance each year. This approach overcomes the conversions-switchers problem (since it does not rely solely on measuring worship service attendance) although, it is subject to contextual restrictions, since only US churches were surveyed.

The main quality/comeback characteristics they identified were: leadership, three faith factors (renewed belief in Jesus and the mission of the church, renewed attitude for servanthood, and strategic prayer efforts), worship and preaching, intentional and strategic evangelism, connecting people to spiritual maturity, motivating and mobilizing people out of the pews (helping people discover their spiritual gifts), and connecting people through small groups.

Leadership

Proactive Leadership: “Comeback leaders took the initiative for change” (praying Matt 9:37-38 regularly and passionately and model evangelistic passion). pp.39-41

Sharing Ministry: “Comeback leaders shared the ministry…made choices about those in whom they invested their time and how they invested their time…[and] quickly gave away nonministry tasks.” pp.42-43

Intentional Planning: “Comeback leaders intentionally used their time and the time of others differently…[and] intentionally planned to spend more time doing “people stuff.”” pp.44-45

Vision: “Comeback leaders agreed that having a clear and compelling vision was foundational in the transformation of their churches.” p.45

Developing Leaders: “Comeback leaders multiplied themselves.” p.50

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Wow…what a GREAT service we had on Sunday evening launching our new, exciting series: Mark’s Gospel – What if God was one of us?

Great preach, great worship, real sense of God in our midst.

Last Sunday (for those not in the know) we changed our service time from 4pm to 5.30pm to provide more time for people (especially those involved in serving/ministry teams) to rest and relax and enjoy fellowship with each other before the afternoon service, launching a 12 month series (interspersed with Christmas, Easter, etc.) on Mark’s Gospel.

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Here are a few nuggets I’ve found helpful in my recent readings and studies on leadership and change management.

“There is nothing more difficult to to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” (Machiavelli, The Prince)

“In building a great institution, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, our research showed that it feels like turning a giant, heavy flywheel. Pushing with great effort – days, weeks and months of work, with almost imperceptible progress – you finally get the flywheel to inch forward. But you don’t stop. You keep pushing, and with persistent effort, you eventually get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You don’t stop. You keep pushing, in an intelligent and consistent direction, and the flywheel moves a bit faster. You keep pushing, and you get two turns…then four…then eight…the flywheel builds momentum…a hundred…moving faster with each turn…a thousand…ten thousand…a hundred thousand. Then, at some point – breakthrough! Each turn builds upon previous work, compounding your investment effort. The flywheel flies forward with almost unstoppable momentum. This is how you build greatness.” (Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors)

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As a church we believe in excellence. It’s one of our core values. But it is so easy to confuse excellence with perfectionism. Perfectionism is: setting impossible goals; motivated by a fear of failure; meditating on failures/mistakes and discounting successes; taking criticism personally (value as a person is related to performance); unhelpful comparisons (with other people and organisations, leads to pride/discouragement); frustrating; elitist: some people will not be able to achieve an ‘A’, their best may be a ‘B’; expensive: lots of money being spent unnecessarily on state of the art/super luxurious stuff (yet Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee in a fishing boat not a 30ft luxury yacht); always out of reach, a perfectionist’s bar on excellence is constantly being raised, which gives the impression that leaders and God are never satisfied; exhausting; puts a person under the law.

Excellence on the other hand is: giving your best efforts; going beyond (your) mediocrity; motivated by God’s grace (Romans 12:1); about learning from mistakes how to fail forward (Proverbs 24:16; Psalm 42:5); learning from criticism (Proverbs 9:8-9); deriving our value as people from God (not performance); doing all things well for God’s glory; each believer reaching his/her greatest potential; being better tomorrow than you were yesterday; matching your practice with your potential.

As we pursue excellence together, let’s try to avoid the perfectionist trap by drinking deep from the wells of God’s grace.