How Does Your Congregation Deal with The Illusion of Arrival?
Transformation is an Ongoing Journey and Not a Destination
In This Edition
How Does Your Congregation Deal with The Illusion of Arrival?
ICYMI: Essential Characteristics of Great FaithSoaring Churches
Recent Articles George wrote for The Baptist Paper
How Does Your Congregation Deal with The Illusion of Arrival?
Transformation is an Ongoing Journey and Not a Destination
One significant barrier in experiencing essential, ongoing transformation in a congregation is The Illusion of Arrival. This happens when the leadership feels its transformation goal is achieved. They have arrived.
This assumes that transformation is a destination rather than a mile marker along a much longer journey. That transformation is a short enough journey that you can see it from where your journey starts.
Enough transition and change occur to move a congregation from where it was to where it wants to be. But not nearly where God wants it to be.
Is limited transition and change all God’s Holy Spirit meant for you to achieve?
Limited transition and change perspectives are an illusion. False impressions or mistaken beliefs. They are a fantasy or figment of your imagination. At worst they can even be a trick, a deception, and a dishonest representation of God’s truth for your congregation.
The leaders of transition and change are often limited in their worldview concerning transformation’s significant nature. Although they understand the spiritual concept of transformation of individuals, they do not understand what it takes to transform congregational systems.
They are attached to cultural barnacles that attach themselves to the mission, purpose, core values, and vision of a congregation. They keep it from moving with agility along it spiritual and strategic journey.
The illusion of arrival is at times expressed in the statements “Good enough is good enough., “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it., or “We are so much better than we have ever been.”
In whatever way it is expressed in your congregation, the illusion can be a severe barrier to excellence. But you may not even realize it. You may have the illusion that you have arrived at your destination. You are doing the best you can. You are being faithful to your calling.
Seven Examples of Illusion in Congregations
Illusions are expressed in congregations in numerous ways. Here are seven.
Illusion One: It is an illusion to believe that being faithful to the past-to-present heritage of your congregation represents excellent ministry. The future of your ministry must also be a focus.
Illusion Two: It is an illusion to believe that a five percent increase in worship attendance over a three-year period is growth when the context the congregation serves has increased in population by more than 10 percent during the same three years. A five percent attendance increase is a decline in your congregation’s reach.
Illusion Three: It is an illusion to believe that the same worship style, quality, and pace the congregation experienced since the 1990s will appeal to the grandchildren of the current core leaders. What are you willing to change about your worship service to make it attractive to your grandchildren?
Illusion Four: It is an illusion to believe that reaching the church budget this past year means the congregation is doing well. It may or may not mean this. The meaning of budget fulfillment is different at different times in the life of a congregation.
Illusion Five: It is an illusion to believe that new families or households attracted to the congregation will want to fulfill the agendas of leaders connected with the congregation for 20 or more years. The new people have their own agendas and discipleship growth aspirations.
Illusion Six: It is an illusion to believe that calling a new pastor who will bring new vision will have any relationship to the future transformation of the congregation. Vision must emerge from the congregation’s response to God’s leadership.
Illusion Seven: It is an illusion to believe that developing a day care program or simply a weekday preschool will bring young families into the life of the congregation. Particularly in cosmopolitan settings the families in your day care or preschool may have radically different religious preferences.
What are other illusions you would name?
Seven Limiting Factors That Characterize the Illusion of Arrival
Congregations and their leaders who suffer from the illusion of arrival are impacted by many limiting factors. Here are seven.
Factor One: Focusing on a fix rather than a solution. Often congregations do not want to transform. They only want to diminish the pain they are experiencing due to the lack of progress. Once the pain is decreased to a bearable level, they halt transformation efforts.
Factor Two: Dreams are small, and ceilings are low. At times leadership does not have a transformational vision. They believe that small gains are transformation. They are not.
Factor Three: Lack of the long view. It is possible to believe that positive transition which raises the morale of the congregation is enough. The small changes that result are sufficient to propel the organization in a positive direction for the remainder of the tenure of the current leadership. They do not have a generational vision that takes the congregation past their own tenure.
Factor Four: Belief that transformation is a destination. This is a common mistake. Bounded, defined strategic plans are developed that take the congregation on a journey to achieve transformation. When the congregation arrives at its projected destination, transformation is no longer there. It is a moving target.
Factor Five: Desire for immediate gratification. Too many congregations and their leaders want immediate gratification. They cannot tolerate a transition and change journey that takes more than six to 18 months. They are so anxious to arrive that they either declare a shallow victory or declare the current efforts a failure and start a new effort.
Factor Six: Short attention span. Some congregations and their leaders cannot stay focused on a transformation journey. They leap from idea to idea, fad to fad, or new discovery to new discovery. They often do not make progress, but simply repeat the same patterns. Some prognosticators have called this a post-pandemic trend.
Factor Seven: Transformation is not the real goal. If true transformation occurs the group currently in control of the spiritual and strategic journey may no longer be in control. Rather than risking the loss of control, managers seek to contain the transition and change efforts within controllable boundaries. One of the most conservative, perhaps even reactionary, things an organization can do is to initiate short-term change that it can control.
Move Beyond the Illusion of Arrival
I urge congregational leaders to move beyond the illusion of arrival. In my personal ministry, I do this through urging congregations to continually move in the direction of their full Kingdom potential.
I urge you to discover what represents excellence in your ministry, pursue it, and then continually move forward to new understandings of excellence in which God’s Holy Spirit is leading you.
How are you moving beyond the illusion of arrival to your full Kingdom potential?
(Copyright 2023 by George W. Bullard Jr.)
ICYMI: Essential Characteristics of Great FaithSoaring Churches
In case you missed last week’s article you can access it on Facebook by clicking HERE or send an email request to BullardJournal@gmail.com.
Brilliant. Spot on. And exactly where I'm living now.
A compelling list of illusions, George, thank you.
This one may be of interest - it is an illusion to believe that the impact of COVID disruptions upon attendance patterns, stewardship, volunteerism, and spiritual growth will be surmounted by appealing to the way things the way they were done pre-COVID.