by Carey Nieuwhof: As churches slowly reopen their physical doors, church leaders are all asking the same question: who will still be around?

It’s a great question.

And not an easy one to answer. A lot of church leaders are nervous, uncertain and longing to get things back to something certain.

With several months of online-only church, it can be hard to know how many new people have come on board, who’s still engaged, who’s left, and who may be drifting.

And even as buildings re-open, it’s hard to get a gauge because of social distancing, limited capacity and, in almost all cases, no kids ministry (leaving families for the most part still at home).

In this post, I’ll take a quick look at the numbers, offer some observations and some strategies that I hope will help your church not just maintain, but advance in the midst of all this uncertainty.

Church Goers Are…A Little Uncertain

As a church leader texted me recently, opening is so much harder than closing.

The Barna Group is doing weekly polling that, leading up to Easter, showed 49% and even 59% reported surging online attendance compared to their former in-person attendance.

Since Easter, that’s dropped.

Now, only 25% of churches are reporting an attendance surge above previous levels, and in talking to leaders every week, more are seeing their online numbers drop.

So what about reopening? Who will be streaming back as doors open again?

A recent related poll of thousands of church leaders facilitated by Gloo showed people have little consensus around when they feel ‘safe’ to gather again in public.

Asked which other type of activity BEST signals to you that it is time to open in-person worship at the church, the most common answer was a low community level of COVID cases (21.5%)

Other responses included when

Social distancing and stay home guidelines are lifted: 17%
Local businesses are open: 14%
Local restaurant seating areas are open 8%
Testing is widely available and utilized 6%
Schools are open 4%
Vaccine available 3%

But the following results also speak volumes:

15% said they would only return when all the conditions are met (low cases, business open, restrictions lifted, vaccine available).
10% admitted they just weren’t sure.

Essentially, 25% either aren’t sure or aren’t coming back for a long time.

An additional 30% of respondents said they’d rather worship at home and only return when they can be mask-free at church.

25% of church attenders aren’t sure when they’re coming back or aren’t coming back for a long time. An additional 30% of respondents said they’d rather worship at home and only return when they can be mask-free at church. Click To Tweet

I know, that’s not encouraging, but it’s both real and understandable.

If you’d like to poll your congregations on these questions (for free) and even add a few questions of your own, you can do that here.

So how do you put this all into perspective?

Here are four thoughts that I hope can help guide you as you make some very pivotal decisions.

After all, re-opening your church is so much more complex than closing it ever was.

Re-opening your church is so much more complex than closing it ever was.Click To Tweet

1. Become a Lot More Agile: Normal Isn’t Coming Back Any Time Soon

Church leaders who are waiting for things to get back to normal will be waiting a long time.

It’s hard to go back to normal when normal disappeared.

So much has changed, not just in terms of what’s legally allowed (or morally responsible) but, as the poll results suggest,  in terms of how people think.

And to make it more personal, consider how you think.

For example, even if you could, do you really want to get into a crowded restaurant right now? Would you want general admission floor tickets to hear your favorite band so you could crush in with everyone else?

Probably not. At least I wouldn’t.

The psychology of human behavior has an entirely new dynamic that leaders will have to deal with.

Before you over-spiritualize it, it’s not a question of faith over fear. It’s a sign that this is a deeply confusing, changing time.

People need to be led and cared for, they just need to be led and cared for differently.

Church leaders who are waiting for things to get back to normal will be waiting a long time. It’s hard to go back to normal when normal disappeared.Click To Tweet

Instead, pivot into a new normal.

Don’t be so focused on getting back to “normal” that you step back into the past when you step back into your facility.

To do that, you’ll have to become far more agile in the future than you have been in the past.

In a culture of constant change and uncertainty, agility is ability, and flexibility is a superpower.

If you’re curious as to how well-positioned you are to thrive in the new normal, I have a new, short Agility Quiz that can help you assess whether you’re likely to survive, thrive or struggle in the new normal.

It’s just 14 question and results will be sent to you immediately. Here’s the link.

The bottom line is this: the more agile you are heading into the future, the better you’ll be able to realize (and even advance) your mission.

In a culture of constant change and uncertainty, agility is ability, and flexibility is a superpower. Click To Tweet

2. Remember That You’ve Already Reached New People

The last few months haven’t been all loss. In fact, for many churches, that’s hardly the case.

You’ve likely reached new people online, including many you haven’t yet met.

The challenge with ministry online is a little like the challenge with new people who attend your church. It can be hard to get to know them.

Even with physical attendance, countless churches have new people who attend, sit in the back row and don’t connect with anyone.

Online just amplifies that, which is good and bad. You’re reaching new people…you just don’t know who.

The key is to move toward engagement, encouraging online attenders to:

Fill out an online welcome card or text their info in
Like, comment or follow so you can connect more personally
Take a step into an orientation group, small group or some kind of movement beyond attending service
Join your email list

Engagement is a sign of openness and a desire to connect.

Just because you can’t see an online attender doesn’t mean they aren’t real. So don’t give up on the progress you’ve made.

Just because you can’t see an online attender doesn’t mean they aren’t real.Click To Tweet

3. Realize Some Online Attenders Will Stay Online for a Long Time (and that has nothing to do with COVID)

As we’ve already seen, even as your buildings reopen, not everyone will rush into church. Some of that is COVID related, but it’s actually much deeper than that.

For years now, the trend has been for new people to watch online for weeks, months or even a year before they venture into a church’s physical building.

That trend will not only continue, it will accelerate.

Digital is the new default for our culture, and the current crisis only accelerated that.

Digital is the new default for our culture, and the current crisis only accelerated that. Click To Tweet

Church leaders who take all the resources they have been spending and investing in online church and move them back into physical ministry locations risk losing any online traction they’ve picked up as well as the audience that’s still watching.

In the future, churches that have the largest impact will think of themselves as digital organizations with physical expressions rather than physical organizations with digital presences.

So don’t let your foot off the digital pedal.

In the future, churches that have the largest impact will think of themselves as digital organizations with physical expressions rather than physical organizations with digital presences. Click To Tweet

4. Resist the Urge to Make Online Attenders or Non-Attenders Second-class Citizens

The church has enough dividing lines and judgmentalism already. We don’t need any more, and we should actively eliminate what we have.

But it’s not that hard to imagine that both church leaders and church members would start to divide themselves into two categories

The truly faithful, risk-taking, trusting, in-person attenders who are loyal and deeply Christian

Everybody else

That’s not just sinful, it’s stupid (as well as unstrategic).

Church leaders, if you stand there with a scowl on your face every Sunday angry about empty seats, why would anyone want to sit in one?

When you devalue people—curious people, frightened people, anxious people, cautious people, new people, hurt people—you sabotage the very mission you’re trying to accomplish.

People can smell judgment a mile away. So, church leaders, stop judging.

People can smell judgment a mile away. So, church leaders, stop judging.Click To Tweet

This is a very critical moment for the church moving forward.

Church leaders who embrace infrequent attenders, online attenders and non-attenders will eventually have more attenders.

Those who don’t, won’t.

Church leaders who embrace infrequent attenders, online attenders and non-attenders will eventually have more attenders.Click To Tweet

5. Be Less Controlling: Being Controlling and Being Effective are Usually Mutually Exclusive

I know this sounds axiomatic, but the truth is God is still in control.

Every leader is struggling with a loss of control. I am.

The truth is you can’t control:

The economy
Whether people return to church
When people return to church
Your numbers
Human behaviour
The future

And that’s massively frightening for a lot of leaders.

You had a system that worked…and now, it’s gone.

But that’s okay. God is still in control. You aren’t. You never were.

So what do you do?

For starters, focus on what you can control, not on what you can’t.

You and I can’t manipulate events or people, but you can respond to what’s happening and try to help people in the midst of it.

Second, look for the opportunity instead of the obstacle. My favorite question to ask during the crisis is the simple question “What does this make possible?”

The church has always been at its best when it’s under pressure.

It’s one thing to preach that God is doing a new thing. It’s another thing to embrace it.

I imagine that God is reforming and reshaping the church for the future. You resist that, or you can embrace it.

Here’s a principle I’m reminding myself of these days: Being highly controlling and highly effective are mutually exclusive.

In your desire to control things and get back to ‘normal,’ are you squeezing out new things God may want to do in you and through you?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I sense the question is important. I’m asking it personally.

Being highly controlling and highly effective are mutually exclusive.Click To Tweet

You Don’t Have to Guess How Your Church Feels. Poll Your Church For Free

For sure there are ways to track where your church is at.

The easiest way to get real-time information on your church reopening is to poll your congregation directly.

I’ve partnered with Gloo, a US-based platform and technology firm, to give leaders access to the Returning to Church Check-In, a way to directly survey your congregation on how they are feeling about a return to church.

There are about a dozen standard questions that will help you benchmark your congregation’s responses against national averages and the check-in allows you to ask your own questions as well, so you don’t have to guess.

You can access the Returning to Church Check-In for free here.

Data-informed decisions are simply better decisions.

Data-informed decisions are simply better decisions. Click To Tweet

The Future is Uncertain. How Agile Are You? Take The Agility Quiz.

Some organizations will thrive in the new normal. Others won’t.

Over 70% of the 700+ leaders who took a recent survey predict that the future for their organization is going to look very different than before the global crisis.

While the future is uncertain, there are clear indicators and characteristics of which organizations will fail which ones will thrive in the new normal.

So, let’s see how you and your organization are positioned.

Take the free, 14 question assessment and have results sent to you immediately.

Take the quiz now.

What Do You See?

What issues are you grappling with as your church reopens or considers reopening?

Scroll down and leave a comment.

The post When Your Church ReOpens, What Will Be Left and Who Will Still Come? Some Thoughts. appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: When Your Church ReOpens, What Will Be Left and Who Will Still Come? Some Thoughts.

The post When Your Church ReOpens, What Will Be Left and Who Will Still Come? Some Thoughts. appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Bobby Harrington: Our goal is to help you find the best guides out there so you can become a more effective disciple maker. That’s why we’re going to be introducing our disciple-making partners to you, our Discipleship-First Tribe.

This week we want you to meet Jason Henderson, Chief Operations Officer at Renew.

We interviewed Jason about his ministry, and here’s what he said:

Tell us about the name of your ministry.

Renew does what you might imagine: we renew the teachings of Jesus to fuel disciple making. We champion all of Jesus’ teachings leading to obedience-based discipleship.

What is your unique disciple-making emphasis?

We take to heart Dallas Willard and Bill Hull’s maxim: The Jesus you preach and the gospel you uphold will determine the disciple you get. We came out of the Restoration Movement (Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ) and seek to champion the best biblical theology of that heritage as a foundation for a disciple-making movement.

We help people see that true discipleship is based first upon the power of the Holy Spirit, second on a robust understanding of the gospel of the kingdom, and third on an understanding that saving faith is a faithful faith, an allegiance—it is both trusting and following Jesus.

Our seven values spell out our broader values:

Responding to God’s Spirit
Following God’s Reliable Word
Surrendering to Jesus as King
Championing Disciple Making
Loving Like Jesus
Living in Holiness
Leading Courageously

Picking up from the email link . . .

How do you help Everyday Disciples who aspire to be Disciple Makers?

We are a brand new network, still in the early phase. The next twelve months, we are focusing on helping everyday disciples in four key ways.

We have a new website – renew.org – where we champion all aspects of Jesus’ teachings. We focus on helping disciples articulate and gain clarity on biblical teachings. This includes advocacy for biblical truth on hot cultural topics – LGBTQ, environment, gender, etc. – and the substantive issues like apologetics, world religions, the inspiration and authority of the Bible, etc. Mixed in with these substantive issues are practical posts about how to make disciples and how to love your neighbor.
We have created specific models and specific material for disciple makers. Our Quick Start Guide: Starting a Discipleship Group is a good example – it gives you a specific model and material that you can use to start a group tomorrow (ask for your copy at info@renew.org).
We provide individual six-month coaching for church leaders based upon promoting our theology and one of our methods.
We have an annual pre-conference the day before the National Disciple Making Forum.

Who are the Key Leaders in your Network?

We are blessed with some effective leaders. They are drawn from and continue to help lead their own tribes, but they are also aligned with our theology and focus, so they help us also. Bobby Harrington is one of our leaders, along with men like Jim Putman, Dave Clayton, Shodankeh Johnson, and David Young.

How can people Connect with You?

Check out our website renew.org. If you are interested in individual six month coaching for a fee (we do not coach churches) contact info@renew.org. Join us at the forum and we would love you to join our pre-conference the day before the Forum click here for more information.

For King Jesus,

Bobby Harrington, Point Leader, Discipleship.org

Join us at our National Disciple Making Forum!

November 7th- 8th in Nashville, TN

Sign up Today!

New Blogs

“#44: The Number One Question We Get at Replicate”

by Replicate Ministries

READ THE BLOG

“Nobody Saw It Coming”

by Radical Mentoring

READ THE BLOG

“My Top 5 Recent Reflections on American Disciple Making”

by Bobby Harrington

READ THE BLOG

New Podcast Episodes

LISTEN NOW

S6 Episode 34: Discipleship – Who’s Got Time For That? (Joni Sobels)

S6 Episode 33: Discipling Debbie Doubter (Teasi Cannon)

S6 Episode 32: Friendship Discipleship: Turning Good Conversations into God Conversations (Kim Aldrich)

The post Learning from Disciple Making Leaders: Renew Network appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: Learning from Disciple Making Leaders: Renew Network

The post Learning from Disciple Making Leaders: Renew Network appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof: Every week you host services at your church hoping to reach more people, which is admirable and appropriate.

The problem is that the culture is changing and never bothered to ask you permission.

In many ways, preachers are using a method that’s been around for centuries…if not millennia…which on the one hand is wonderful. The challenge is that culture is changing so rapidly, fewer and fewer people are hearing the message every year. At least that’s the case in many, if not most churches.

If you think that the cultural change is over, fasten your seat belts. It’s not showing any sign of decelerating any time soon.

Here are 7 things that are changing right now.

Wise leaders will see the change and respond. As we’ve said before, leaders who see the future can seize the future.

The problem for most preachers is that the culture is changing and never bothered to ask you…Click To Tweet

1. People Aren’t Automatically Coming to The Message Anymore

It’s almost singularly true that throughout human history to date, the only way to get the message was for people to assemble to hear it.

Just think about Jesus’ day: the crowds assembled to hear him. And in every century since then, that’s how it worked…

The post Declining Attendance and 7 Preaching Shifts That Are Happening Right Now appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: Declining Attendance and 7 Preaching Shifts That Are Happening Right Now

The post Declining Attendance and 7 Preaching Shifts That Are Happening Right Now appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof: If you track attendance at your church (and who doesn’t), the vast majority of church leaders are tracking numbers that probably bother them.

That can lead into a death spiral of trying to drive greater attendance, only to discover more disappointment down the road.

The mission of the church is the same in every generation. But the methods we use—our strategy—has to change, as I outlined here.

So what’s one of the biggest changes we’re going to see?

Simple. If you want to see your church grow, stop trying to attract people and start trying to engage people.

In the future church, engagement is the new attendance.

Engagement is the new church attendance.Click To Tweet

If church leaders put as much effort into trying to engage people in the mission of the church as they used to (or still) put into trying to drive attendance, they would see a huge spike in both engagement and attendance.

Conversely, leaders who focused solely on attendance or misconstrue what engagement is will continue to see declining attendance.

At Connexus Church, where I serve as Founding and Teaching pastor, we’re seeing encouraging spikes in physical and online attendance (the two are not mutually exclusive) at established locations, our online campus and our new location.

The growth in the number of new unchurched people has come for sure by the grace of God, but also after almost five years of focusing on increasing engagement in these 7 ways. I also outlined why we made the shift and many people have made the shift in my book, Lasting Impact.

Church leaders, if you cared as much about engagement as you did about attendance, you’d likely see a spike in attendance as your mission grows and expands.

If you want your church to grow, stop trying to attract people. Start trying to engage people.Click To Tweet

So why is engagement the new attendance?

Here are 5 reasons.

1. Attendance Was Never the Goal

When did we get the idea that church attendance was the ultimate goal?

Flip back to New Testament days.

Jesus never said ‘Attend me.’ He said ‘Follow me.’

The only reason you would follow Jesus (in Jesus’ day) is because you were either intrigued by who he was and what he did, or because you had come to believe that he was who he said he was.

In other words, you were engaged.

You didn’t attend Jesus. You followed him.

Jesus didn’t say “Attend me.” He said “Follow me.”Click To Tweet

A similar dynamic emerged in the first-century church.

Early Christians didn’t attend church. They were the church.

If you look back at the genesis of the Jesus movement, the idea of attendance as a hallmark would have been completely foreign.

You only attended because you were engaged. Period.

Early Christians didn’t attend church. They were the church.Click To Tweet

2. Attendance Grows Out Of Engagement Anyway

As the Christian movement grew and it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, mere church ‘attendance’ became an option.

Fast forward to our lifetime, and even in growing, effective churches,  attendance had become an established path to engagement.

The big idea was this: come, and eventually you’ll get engaged.

That worked (quite effectively, actually) when people used to flock to church.

But in an era when the number of unchurched is constantly on the rise and even Christians don’t attend church as often anymore (here are 10 reasons for that), that strategy is becoming less and less effective.

Yet, many churches (even growing churches) are still counting on getting people to attend, hoping it drives engagement.

The shelf life of that strategy is limited because the number of people who want to attend church drops every year.

To say it clearly one more timne, in the future church attendance won’t drive engagement; engagement will drive attendance.

In the future church attendance won’t drive engagement; engagement will drive attendance.Click To Tweet

The new gooal is to get people engaged faster and to engage people more deeply in the true mission of the church.

In the future, the engaged will attend because, in large measure, only the engaged will remain.

In the future church, only the engaged will attend because only the engaged will remain.Click To Tweet

3. Trying To Attract People In A Post-Christian Culture Can Work Against The Mission

I am all for making church as attractive and accessible as possible.

But in the future if that’s your only approach (better lights, cooler vibe, hoping people will come), you will get diminishing results. (I wrote on the death and rebirth of cool church here.)

Why is that?

Well, as outlined above, when attendance was more normative and in some senses ‘automatic’ in our culture, attraction was a decent strategy.

Because people would go to church, creating a better church was a good approach.

But (and here’s the underbelly), it also fed into consumerism.

Consumerism has defined the last century of North American and Western culture.

To some extent, the attractional church has played into consumerism. Build something attractive and people will come.

Again, that strategy was very effective when people instinctively flocked to churches, not just in terms of numbers, but also in terms of baptisms and authentic faith-building. And you shouldn’t make your church inaccessible or unattractive on purpose. That’s just…weird.

But in the process, building attractive, relevant churches has had an unintended side-effect: people have come to evaluate church by what they get out of it, not by what they put into it.

That’s a mistake.

Along the way, discipleship has even been redefined in many circles to mean consumption of knowledge. The more you know, the more mature you are. I believe that’s a flawed approach (here’s why).

Authentic discipleship has always been about dying to self.  It’s about giving far more than it is about getting.

Again, I’m not slamming the attractional church. I’m all for building bridges to the culture, not erecting barriers.

Anyone who knows church knows that at the heart of every attractional church is a core of Christians who sacrifice—who give, who serve and who invite.

What’s exciting is that selflessness will move to the forefront in the future church because those who remain will be engaged in the mission.

It’s a mistake to evaluate church by what you get out of it, not what you put into it.Click To Tweet

4. Our Culture Is Ripe For An Alternative To Consuming

One of the frequent criticisms non-Christians levy at Christians is that we’re self-indulgent and hypocritical.

Those critiques are not without warrant.

As a more selfless church emerges (even excellent, selfless churches), that will drive more curiosity and interest from unchurched people.

While you can debate what Millennials really want out of life, there appears to be a growing attraction in our culture to rebel against consumerism,

People are longing for an alternative to life as they know it. The church is that alternative.

In the future church, Christians obsessed with giving away their lives will eclipse Christians obsessed with themselves and their preferences.

People are longing for an alternative to life as they know it. The church is that alternative.Click To Tweet

5. People Become The Most Passionate About The Things With Which They’re Most Involved

A final reason that engagement will drive future church growth is simply this: people become most passionate about the things with which they’re most involved.

Just talk to a football dad or a baseball mom. Or your foodie friend who just found yet another recipe. Or your triathlete friend who set another personal best.

People become most passionate about the things with which they’re most involved.Click To Tweet

Engagement fuels involvement. Involvement fuels passion. Passion fuels invitation.

That’s why your friend wants you to try that recipe, to watch the game with them and at least attempt a 5k.

Engagement leads to invitation. Invitation leads to unchurched people following Jesus.

In many ways, this can only be a good thing.

Engagement fuels involvement. Involvement fuels passion. Passion fuels invitation.Click To Tweet

Last Day for The High Impact Leader Course

Just a personal note to help you lead like never before.

The #1 question other leaders ask me is this: How do you get it all done (write a blog, host a major podcast, work full time, speak and write books AND have a decent family life with some actual hobbies).

I answered that question by creating The High Impact Leader Course.

In it, I’ll show you 100% customizable principles that will help you reach your highest level of leadership at work AND help you spend more time with your family.

The course can also help you thrive by helping you find healthy, sustainable rhythms that move your life and leadership to a new level.

Check it out here—encrollment closes TONIGHT (March 8, 2018) and this is the last time the course will be offered at this price point.

What Will You Get?

This 10-session online course will show you highly practical, proven strategies on how to finally get time, energy and priorities working in your favor. It includes 10 videos, an online workbook and 10 specific exercises that will help you create a personalized plan. Once you have that, you’ll be far more productive and accomplish the things you know are most important, but rarely have time for.

The course, which proceeds at your personal pace whenever you’re ready to tackle a unit, is designed to help you:

Get your most important priorities done early in the week, every week.

Spend more of your time at work doing the things that energize you. Spend less time doing the things that drain you.

Invest more of your time with the people who energize you and less time with the people who drain you.

Discover time to finally exercise, pursue a hobby,  launch a blog, start a podcast or write that book.

Actually be OFF when you have a day off.

Be far more focused on your family when you’re with your family.

Learn how to say no nicely, so you can free up time for the things you’re truly called to do.

In short, it’s designed to help get your life and leadership back, or maybe find them for the very first time. Plus we have a Facebook Group, calendar templates, a bonus time hacking resource and other extras that can help you get the most of it all.

Don’t miss out.

What Do You See?

What are you seeing about the decade’s old use-attendance-to-drive-engagement strategy?

Scroll down and leave a comment!

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The post 5 Reasons Why Engagement is the New Church Attendance appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 5 Reasons Why Engagement is the New Church Attendance

The post 5 Reasons Why Engagement is the New Church Attendance appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof: 

When was the last time you had a productive conversation about the pace of change?

In many businesses, that conversation happens all the time. In church world….it rarely happens.

Instead, church leaders will talk about how hard it is to change and how slow the pace of change is. Other they bemoan the reality that their church will never change (here are 7 signs that’s likely the case at your church).

What if there’s far more at stake in the conversation around change than you think?

Like irrelevance, for starters.

What’s the fastest path to irrelevance? Simple. Don’t change.

Why are change and relevance connected? It has everything to do with speed and currency.

Rick Warren said it well in his Tedx Talk: when the speed of change around an organization is faster than the speed of change within the organization, the organization becomes irrelevant.

The fastest path to irrelevance? Simple. Don’t change. Click To Tweet

Here are 3 truths about the accelerating pace of change and church leadership.

1. Culture never asks permission to change. It just changes.

Ever notice that culture never asks permission to change? It just changes.

In the last decade and a bit, think about the change we’ve seen.

Long distance calls used to cost money. Now they don’t.  Weekday minutes were expensive.  Evening and weekend minutes were cheap. Remember telling your friends you’d call them after 6 p.m. or on Saturday? Now that’s irrelevant.

Payphones are gone. So have video stores. Record stores are almost extinct except for vintage vinyl places. Ditto with phone books, and even calling 411 (anyone remember when you used to call a number for information?).

What do all of these changes have in common? None of these changes asked for anyone’s permission…they just happened.

One of the reasons change will continue to be hard is because culture never asks permission to change. It just changes.

Culture never asks permission to change. It just changes.Click To Tweet

2. Culture will change faster than you

So let me ask you…what’s changing faster, the culture or the church?

Exactly.

The pace of cultural change has accelerated significantly in the last few decades for at least one key reason: everyone moved online and all delay was taken out of communication.

Social media has accelerated the pace of change even further, because trends catch on almost instantly now.

Think of fashion and design. Trends come and go faster than you post a selfie.

But it’s more than just preferences that are changing. Netflix killed video stores. Uber and Lyft have disrupted the taxi industry. Amazon and online shopping are making retail malls look like ghost towns.

As a result, culture is changing faster than many organizations, let alone churches.

So what’s the point here? Great question.

It’s simple: self-awareness.

Many churches have implemented some level of change and proudly proclaim themselves as up to date and current.

The truth is, the church might no longer feel like 1968. Instead, it feels like 1996 or 2004.

The church is contemporary compared to what it used to be, but it’s not at all current with the culture.

Add to that the reality that the change was painful enough that the leaders don’t want to change any more.

Want a quick test to see how current your church is? Check the copyright dates on the songs you sing most. Many ‘contemporary’ churches are at least a decade behind.

Then check the average age of your musicians and worship leaders.

I know, not a fun exercise. But it simply reveals this: what you think is contemporary isn’t.

What many churches think is contemporary, isn’t.Click To Tweet

3. Leaders who don’t understand the culture will never be able to speak into it

I fully understand that more than a few readers of this post will feel their blood pressure rising and anger growing.

After all, what’s the goal of this all? To mimic culture? Aren’t we supposed to be in the world but not of it? And isn’t the church an alternative to culture.

Well, the goal of the church is not to mimic culture. Our goal is to lead people into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

But those people live in a culture that we often don’t understand.

And here’s the hard news: leaders who don’t understand the culture will never be able to speak into it.

Leaders who don’t understand the culture will never be able to speak into it.Click To Tweet

You become like the older adult who can’t communicate with anyone under 40 because you only call people, never text, don’t do social media and think all of that is unnecessary.

You become like the carriage maker in the age of the Model T who can’t understand why no one wants to hitch wagons to their horses anymore.

Leaders who lose touch with the culture won’t be able to reach it.

Leaders who lose touch with the culture won’t be able to reach it.Click To Tweet

So What Do You Do?

So what do you do if you find both you and your church out of touch and ineffective at speaking into the lives of people living in 2017?

A few things.

1. Become a student of culture

My personal musical tastes don’t exactly run as current or mainstream as a 25 year old any more. But every month I’ll jump on Apple Music or Spotify and listen to a current Top 40 playlist to listen just to hear what others are listening to.

Ditto with film and TV. Staying on top of culture by growing sites like Entertainment Weekly or even People can help you stay on top of what’s current. Sure, they’re not exactly the literature of champions, but if you don’t understand the culture, you’ll have a harder time reaching it.

2. Surround yourself with younger leaders

Wise older leaders surround themselves with younger leaders. Personally, I love being around young leaders. They bring a fresh energy, perspective and joy to life and leadership that I value so much.

In addition, people under 30 are cultural natives. They get trends because they make them.

Having young thinkers, dreamers and leaders around your table in leadership and having them a part of your life will keep you fresh and in tune with what’s happening.

Better yet…let them lead.

Young leaders understand trends because they make them.Click To Tweet

3. Don’t freeze

The biggest challenge with change is most of us think at some point we’ll be done.

That’s just not true.

Most churches stop changing at some point. Walking into a church, you can usually smell a year. Some churches smell like 1977, some like 1989, others like 2010. You smell like the year you stopped changing. Churches freeze in particular years because the leaders stopped innovating.

So…don’t freeze. Keep morphing. Keep changing. Stay current, and you’ll always be relevant to the culture.

Every church starts to smell like the year in which it stopped changing.Click To Tweet

What Helps You Stay Current?

Want more on change?

I wrote about how to lead change in my book, Leading Change Without Losing It.

I wrote about the cultural and strategic issues churches need to engage to grow in my latest book, Lasting Impact: Seven Powerful Conversations That Can Help Your Church Grow. I even created a Team Edition video series for Lasting Impact so you could discuss it with your staff, board or team.

So…what helps you stay current?

Scroll down and leave a comment!

The post 3 Truths About The Accelerating Pace of Change and Leadership appeared first on Carey Nieuwhof.

Source: 3 Truths About The Accelerating Pace of Change and Leadership

The post 3 Truths About The Accelerating Pace of Change and Leadership appeared first on Passion for Planting.