One of the great challenges of ministry is to understand what our purpose is and try to find ways to measure our progress. In other words, figuring out what business we are in and asking, “How’s business?” Bert Waggoner has spent decades helping pastors develop healthy ministries and think about their growth. We asked him about how to assess growth and set helpful goals for the future.
In your opinion is there an ideal size for a church? Is there a church that’s too big? Is there a church that’s too small? How big should a church want to be in terms of number of attendees?
A church needs to be big enough to care for people. The issue is not the size of a church; the issue is church health. Healthy churches grow. This does not mean they are always expanding in size. They may be aggressively planting churches and, thus, limiting their own growth. If a church is structured for health, it will have multiple small groups and opportunities for relationships. A church is too big if it does not provide opportunities for people to grow in relationship. If it is structured in the right way, it can be healthy regardless of its size. There are very healthy large churches and very healthy small churches. Size does not matter.
[bctt tweet=”The issue is not the size of a church; the issue is church health. – Bert Waggoner” quote=”The issue is not the size of a church; the issue is church health.”]
There are certain situations in which a healthy church does not grow either by planting churches or by increasing numerically. For instance, we have a few churches in the Vineyard that have seasonal or very mobile communities. I would back down from the statement that all healthy churches grow in these situations. Here I would ask whether people are coming to Christ, and what is happening to the people while they are in those churches? In this case, the important thing is not how big the churches become or how long people stay. The question is “what happens to the congregants while they are in the church.”
What are the different ways that we can measure how we’re doing: number of attendees, numbers of baptisms, Natural Church Development, things like that? What are good ways for pastors to think and measure how effective they are being in their ministry?
First of all, pastors have got to look at themselves because ultimately their ministries are a product of who they are. If they are not growing, if they are stalemating in their spiritual growth, their intellectual growth, or their emotional growth, regardless of what they’re doing I doubt that they are going to be successful. Ministry flows out of who we are and what we are. Only then does it have integrity.
The most important growth in the church is what happens in the senior pastor’s heart. Churches are not going to be much better than the people who are leading them.
[bctt tweet=”Leaders must be growing if they are going to grow healthy churches.” quote=”Leaders must be growing if they are going to grow healthy churches.”]
I just talked with our staff at the Sugar Land Vineyard about this. My questions to them were: “Where are you growing? What is the Lord doing in your life now? What is He challenging you on at this point in your life?” I want them to always be growing because ministry flows out of who we are.
The second thing a pastor must do for church health is to lay out a clear statement about who the church is and what God has called that church to do. They need to put it in writing in public. Pastors are never going to lead successful churches if they are not willing to put their vision in place, including clear objectives, goals and strategies, and then commit to carrying them out.
So a helpful practice for a pastor would be a time with God followed by an outward expression to a board or elders or somebody, “Here’s where I think God is taking us.” And there is almost something in that public announcement that then creates a kind of accountability that can be really healthy.
Yes. Institutionalism is one of the greatest dangers we face in ministry. I like the definition of fanaticism that says “a fanatic is a person who loses sight of his goals and doubles his efforts.” So I think it is very important that people be willing to take the risk of stating where they believe God is taking them.
I know some pastors and churches within the Vineyard that change their plans and redefine themselves with every trend or movement that comes along. They don’t stick with what God called them to do. They are always changing. A common problem with younger pastors is that when a new person or family comes into the church they are desperate to keep them in the church, so they change the direction of the church to keep people. We fail so often because we don’t have confidence in what God has called us to do, and therefore, we are caught up by every shifting trend that comes along.
You read deeply and widely. Particularly for young pastors just starting out in a church, how would you advise people to choose what they read: which magazines, which theologians, which practitioners?
Find the people that you want to be like and ask them to give you a reading list. Secondly, find out what your community is reading and read those things. One of the most common problems in a movement that does not have a long tradition is that leaders think that they’ve got to work out their own theologies. They don’t have anyone they are following. Everyone needs to be following somebody and identify who that is. Everybody needs to have a community that is their context for learning.
You’re speaking both to relationship with other pastors and to reading things.
Leaders need four relationships. They need relationships with the unchurched or unbelievers, with people who are following them, with peers, and with a person they are following.
The person they follow (mentor) is extremely vital to their growth. They don’t have to have someone that meets with them every week. A mentor could be someone that the leader has read or heard speak but has never met. Jack Hayford was one example in my own life. I never had the privilege of meeting Jack until about ten years ago. Long before we met, he was having a shaping influence on my life. There have been several other people who have mentored me at various stages of my life. Most of them I had never met. They had no idea they were mentoring me. So, if leaders know someone they want to be like and who has spent years working through issues, why not become their disciple?
Would you say it’s the responsibility of a pastor to find that mentor, not the responsibility of that mentor to find the pastor?
Yes. It’s the responsibility of the person who wants the help. I have tried to assign people to a mentor or to structured relationships, but it has seldom worked. Ultimately, mentoring relationships require that the persons wanting to be mentored trust the mentor, see him/her as important in their life, and are willing to follow him/her.
This means going into the mentor’s world. Through the years I’ve had many people come to me and say, “I’d really like for you to disciple me”. Then I usually say something to the effect of, “Okay I’ll be teaching the healing model next Saturday; come and join the class.” Often they don’t want to do that. What they want is for me to personally mentor them one on one. They don’t want to join me; they want me to join them. Of course, that is impossible for me to do. Through the years there are probably 25 pastors that I’ve mentored. They are all leading churches that are pretty healthy. Some of them are now peers, but they’re ones that sought me out, hung around with me, and were always anxious to find out what I was reading and that type of thing. I’m very proud of these men and women.
So let’s just say that somebody does what you suggested: really prayerfully thought about what God was calling them to, set out some goals and objectives and the time has kind of come and gone and they just haven’t met those goals at all. Maybe it was a numerical goal of so many attendees or a goal of so many people coming to Christ. How should a pastor process what feels like failure?
They need to ask a lot of questions from experienced leaders. I am somewhat informed and I have forty-five years experience in ministry and leadership. But I’ve visited churches where the leaders never ask me one question about what I see in their church or for any suggestions I might have to make their church better. Instead, they want to impress me with what they’ve done. It’s important to have an outsider come and look at what we’re doing and make recommendation for change. Take advantage of the experts. Get all the free advice you can. Keep asking questions. This is the attitude of a learner.
Sometimes the change that is needed is in the attitude of the leader. I was in a hotel room with John Wimber, and in the course of our conversation I said something negative about another brother. He asked me if I was negative towards the person by asking something like, “How’s that working in your heart?” I told him I was hurt by the person. John responded very directly and without hesitation, “Well, your attitude is sinful and you need to repent of it.” I found a true friend and mentor that day. He spoke the truth to me. I can remember few times in my life that I felt more loved than I did that day he challenged my attitude.
I would occasionally call John after I’d been in a meeting with him or had spent time with him and ask, “John, what did you see in me in our time together?” His comments were extremely valuable. This is simply utilizing the body of Christ and getting others that are significant persons in your life to look at you. Then be willing to receive the counsel.
I’ve heard from numerous people that when things in church or ministry aren’t going well what we really want to do sometimes is look at the ministry, but so often we have to look back at ourselves and ask “What’s going on in my heart and my life?”
Well, that’s the reason I said earlier that I think it’s important that we are constantly growing and dealing with our stuff. That’s the highest priority in a leader’s life, and ministry flows out of who we are. Two years ago Evelyn and I went for counseling. It was one of the best things we have ever done. We don’t ever get too old for this.
If somebody has set some goals, sought the Lord about them, and then achieved or exceeded them, it seems to me the challenge there is pride. How can pastors who are being successful guard against being prideful?
It is so good to have someone in our lives that is willing to challenge us. We desperately need this to protect us from pride. This requires living in relationships and asking others, “What are you seeing in me? What attitudes do I need to work on?” Ask specifically about pride because pride is one of the most destructive things in ministry especially by the multi-gifted. If we’re spending time with the Lord, He will usually address the issue of pride and it is a primary focus of his discipline.
I keep coming back to the issue of relationships. Most people that I know who have been destroyed by their pride are people who are successful but isolated. That is dangerous. We need others to be our eyes. John Wimber used to say that after a great meeting Carol would bring him back to earth by asking him to clean the toilets. Perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but I am confident Carol knew pride when she saw it and loved John enough to challenge him on it when she saw it in him. We all need a Carol in our lives.
Is there anything else you’d like to say in regards to this issue of gathering people and developing ministry?
First I just want one more time to encourage leaders to grow. Church growth comes out of a leader’s growth. I cannot say this too often.
Next, I encourage leaders to guard against the spirit of technology. The technological spirit in church growth is the idea that we can grow the church if we can find the right technique. We can develop an aptitude that says, “We don’t need God.” Techniques are good, but apart from God’s presence they produce little fruit for righteousness. We can grow huge churches that look good that are very sick. Without reliance on the Holy Spirit, regardless of apparent success, our efforts are vain. The only healthy churches are those that are built with utter dependence on God.
Finally, healthy churches must be missional – outward focused. Some churches are prone to spiritual naval gazing or looking for a bigger and better experience. They are not outward focused. God has given every church a mission. Growing healthy churches know that mission and give themselves to it.
