Congregations Who Soar with Faith Intentionally Align Their Ministry
A Post in the Congregations Who Soar with Faith Series
Rundown:
FTI Blog Post 104 is an article in a new periodic series called Soaring with Faith: The Difference Maker for Congregations. This post includes—the Article, personal Reflections from George, and questions for your Reaction.
Background: Who Are Congregations Who Soar with Faith
Congregations who Soar with Faith have exceptional clarity about their mission, purpose, and core values. Of great importance, they are captured by God’s empowering vision for their full Kingdom potential. Clearly present are substantive vitality and vibrancy, leadership competency and trust, an external local and global missional focus, effective disciplemaking processes, and creative ministry innovations.
Congregations Who Soar with Faith Have Intentional Alignment
By George Bullard
Congregations who Soar with Faith intentionally align their programs, ministries, and activities with their clarity as they seek to achieve and maintain exceptional ministry. They make sure budgeting, calendars, staffing, and facilities support their clarity. They address their alignment with great frequency. Not to change for change sake, but to keep their actions in great alignment with and responsive to any regular freshening of their clarity.
What is “Not Much”?
It is the answer to the question – “George, how much do you understand about cars, and how to fix them?”
Mechanical things are not a skill area for me. Yet, in almost six decades of driving cars I figured out how to keep my cars running. At least I figured out when something may not be right, what it might be, and the importance to get it fixed.
With my naïveté about cars, I have done two things. Whenever possible I buy new cars and keep them for a long time. I always take my cars to the same place for service.
It took me a while to figure out when cars needed tire balancing, a wheel alignment, or both. Also, how not to be taken in by a repair shop. I solved the problem by having all work done by my dealership on the schedule in the car’s handbook.
I finally learned when the tires were out of balance. Alignment would still sneak up on me as the signs—pulling to the left or the right or uneven tire wear—were not as obvious to me as they should have been.
Congregational Alignment
Alignment which is not as obvious as it should be is also a challenge for many congregations. Even those who otherwise are great congregations.
Their paradigm of ministry does not allow them to see their programs, ministries, and activities are unaligned with their mission, purpose, core values, and vision.
More simply—with their clarity.
Additionally, their arrangement, positioning, sequencing, and implementation are unaligned to achieve the best possible impact. They do not think and act systemically. Coordination and collaboration are missing. Regular evaluation by a set of fresh eyes does not happen.
As difficult as it is for a congregation to become fully captured by God’s empowering vision, it is more difficult for them to align everything they do to fulfill their vision.
Clarity of direction does not guarantee alignment of actions.
The most difficult task for many congregations is the alignment of their eternal mission, everlasting purpose, enduring core values, and empowering vision with the actions they take. Too often there is a disconnect between clarity and how congregation spend their time and other resources.
Congregations with great clarity may be so unaligned they declare their vision is not working. They are clear but clueless. They love the idealism of their clarity while having no idea they must engage in major realignment to make it a reality.
Too often congregations are looking for alignment in all the wrong places. They are looking at the things they like to do, rather than the things they ought to do to fulfill God’s empowering vision for them.
Clarity is the key idea motivating alignment. Congregations—like tires—begin wearing unevenly. Alignment involves a change in behaviors, traditions, practices, and culture. No easy simple fixes. No ignoring their unalignment in favor of what they would prefer to do.
Rather than addressing the great opportunities God provides for them to focus on the people who need to receive their love and compassion, congregations too often focus on places and people familiar to them. They choose where it is easy to serve and minister.
They do not address the issues that can bring about fulfillment to the opportunities presented to them and solutions to the challenges they face. Rather they do what is easy. What will not offend anyone. What will avoid conflict. And what will continue the culture they love.
What Does It Take to Achieve Alignment?
Exceptional alignment is when little or no distance exists between the clarity a congregation has about who it is and where it is headed under God’s leadership, and how the congregation aligns programs, ministries, and activities to get there.
They also must support these programs, ministries, and activities with their budget, calendar events, staffing, and facilities. All aligned for Kingdom progress.
The greater distance between clarity and alignment, the less the alignment, and the less empowerment of God’s spiritual and strategic direction takes place.
Reflections by George:
A congregation approached me about helping them figure out why they were not making progress in living into the clarity they had developed around their contextual mission. They shared with me their statements of contextual missional strategy. They were clear, focused, and implied potential transformation. Still there was no real progress.
I asked them to share with me the specific strategies and tactics in which they were engaged to fulfill their empowering future vision. What they shared looked like the traditional programming of a plateaued and declining congregation. In a video conference with them I expressed appreciation for what they had sent me. I then asked them to share with me the specific things they do which help them fulfill their empowering vision.
They said the plans they had shared with me were the things they were doing to fulfill their vision. I inquired how these are different from what the congregation had previously been doing. They replied these were the same things.
I asked if they had changed the way they engaged in these programs using new methods, approaches, or leaders. Their response was negative. They were doing the same things, but now had in their contextual missional clarity a new understanding of why.
Trying again, I asked how they were targeting new and different people than before. Again, their answer was negative. They admitted they were simply doing the same things in the same ways with the same leaders targeting the same people.
They did have one wish. It was that doing this would somehow attract younger families with children so their church would have a future.
Should I risk one more question? I wondered? That added question was to know what their community demographics showed about the presence of young adult families with children. I took the risk. Their response was that their community was almost exclusively composed of empty nester and retirement households.
With this last piece of information my pain as a strategist was almost too much to bear. What I met was a misalignment. Lack of leadership. Ignorance. And for me – frustration.
They had wonderfully worded statements of mission, purpose, core values, and vision, but they were not at all captured by God’s empowering vision. They had been through a planning exercise but never been on a transformational journey.
They suffered from the If We Plan It, They Will Come Syndrome. Fortunately, they had not taken actions to also suffer from the If We Build It, They Will Come Syndrome and spent precious Kingdom resources on new facilities for a clarity that lacks alignment.
Reactions:
You are invited to share some reactions (comments)—using the link below—to this article and my reflections. Here are three questions to guide your reaction:
Is your congregation soaring with faith? If so, what is the evidence you would offer?
Does you congregation have alignment of its programs, ministries and activities with its clarity of mission, purpose, core values, and vision? If so, how would you describe this alignment?
Or do you see alignment for your congregation in a different way and would be willing to share it below as a comment?