Why Church Turn-Arounds Fail
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 5:00AM Here's a typical scenario. A young pastor graduates from seminary. He begins looking for a church. He submits his profile and interviews with a number of churches looking for a pastor. Eventually, a church calls him. The church is small and has been in decline for many years. They are confident that, with a young and promising pastor, things will begin to turn around.
Sometimes things do turn around. More often than not, the pastor is unable to bring about the change that the church really needs.
What's the problem? Is it the pastor? Many would say yes. In fact, many pastors have repeated this pattern in their ministry and retire feeling that they have failed. This is made even worse by the knowledge that some pastors manage to go into a struggling church and see things change.
I think it's more complicated than that.
Systems resist change. I'm convinced that the challenges of turning around a church are far more significant than we realize. If you have any interest in this at all, I really encourage you to listen to the episode of This American Life that I mentioned the other day. I know it's talking about car plants, but as I listened I couldn't help but see the parallels to churches. Even when you have the right knowledge, it's often next to impossible to transform an existing congregation without significant intervention.
Shallow change isn't enough. Hiring a new pastor is often seen as the answer. This can reflect the belief that a minor tweak is all that it will take to turn things around. When things don't change, it's easy to blame the pastor. In many cases the pastor never had a chance. The problem goes much deeper.
Pastors in church turn-arounds often aren't given the support they need. Church planters are assessed and trained. They conduct studies on strategic locations. They launch churches with a strategy, and receive coaching and support for years. In contrast, pastors are often sent into church turn-arounds with no assessment, training, strategy, or support. Yet all of these are needed just as much as in a church plant.
In short, we need to be a lot more strategic about churches that need turn-around. This is especially important because cities are littered with churches that are in desperate need of turnaround, and I don't think we've been as strategic as we need to be in meeting this challenge.
We need more church plants. We also need to relaunch a lot of churches, which is essentially church planting using the resources of a previously existing church. But when it comes to turning around churches, we have to do better than sending a solo pastor in alone hoping that things will change. We need to be just as strategic as we are in church planting.
Reader Comments (6)
What I sense you are talking about implicitly is the fact that a church actually needs a desire to "turn around" in more than a superficial way. I can't count the number of times I've heard churches talk about "getting a young pastor because he'll bring the young families back". Sometimes this works in the short term, but if bigger systemic changes (which you do talk about) don't happen neither the pastor or the young families will last. I would go so far as saying that most churches want the grow again by doing the same things they've done for decades (what was Einstein's definition of insanity??), just with a younger leader and maybe a more contemporary style. Honestly...I've met many a pastor who was raised in church culture who believes the same thing. When this way of thinking fails the church blames the pastor (and proceeds to find another pastor who will fail, too)...the pastor blames the church (and proceeds to another church that will fail, too) and no one stops to check the deeply rooted assumptions that were the real source of failure.A replant requires a church that's willing to die in order to bring life. I'm not sure there's a clear formulae for turning a church around, but one requirement is a church getting to the point where they are truly willing to think and act differently. It can take a special leader (perhaps an intentional interim) with a lot of patience to help a church get to this place.
It is one thing to talk about change. It is another thing entirely to actually do it. I think the people who are hanging on at a church and hoping it will turn around are often the people who resist change the most.
I totally agree with your comment on systems. Edgar Schein has written extensively on the culture of organizations and how very difficult it is to change the culture of a church. Even if a church says it wants to change or has a willingness to change doesn't mean that it can. The significant intervention will almost always revolve around values and assumptions and those are not easily identified. Being present for a long period of time will give you greater understanding but you will need to fight the challenge of becoming part of the culture (it shaping you too much) while you are attempting to understand it.I do think a huge factor is that most pastors who are being asked to be agents of change don't have the first clue as to what that means. Knowledge, ability and support are all important. We may be able to exegete a biblical text but how many of us know how to exegete a church culture?
Amen on systems; that in itself is ample reason for a new pastor to come a cropper.We ought not just remain silent, though, about another factor: the churches tend to suppress excellence in ministry (in favor of chumminess, system-affirming behaviour, good looks, energy, "coolness," or other traits), and where we recognise excellence we tend to route it away from situations such as turn-around congregations. As a result, less-gifted ministers who have some of the alternative semi-qualifications take on jobs that are too big for them. Then they as though they've been wronged, and carry scars with them to further calls (if any); or they feel like failures (likewise).And with due respect to Earl, I wish more eager young pastors were even just good at exegesis.Systems are tough and persistent; unless we bring to bear seasoned wisdom, excellence in the work of ministry, and substantial, manifest support, we ought not expect much when we and others try to dislodge what malignant systems have embedded deeply.
The problem with putting "young" pastors into situations like this is the overarching attitude that "the rookies get the rejects" and there is no support from within the church itself or whatever organization the church is a part of. Sad but true.
Dear Dash,
I am happy to add a few comments on The Turnaround Church. I just started my own blog on the same topic. Please visit me at "the turnaround church". I am the pastor of a "turnaround" church in Quincy, MA at the Wollaston Congregational Church United Church of Christ. I will soon begin my tenth year as solo pastor. The church once had 900 members back in the day, but when I came in 2003, they had declined in membership to about 25 active people. This dramatic decline took place over about 30 years.
The focus of my turnaround ministry has been worship, leadership, stewardship, and mission. I have written the story of the first five years of our turnaround in my book, "The Turnaround Church; Inspirations and Tools for Life-Sustaining Change" (Alban Institute 2009), and am currently writing the sequel., which covers the subsequent years.
I would like to comment on training new ministers to engage in this specialty of turnaround ministry. I started and developed a program called, "Pastoral Residency for Turnaround Ministry" at our church. So far, we have trained two young people to do this work of both "grit and grace". I was able to find grant funding for only two years. Now, I am still filled with the desire to teach others this work, but without funds, I am stalled. I am a supervisor for seminarians in the Boston area, and offer a similar training for them as they become immersed in the culture of the church.
I agree with the comments above. We called ourselves "a new church start in an old church building". I would think that might qualify us for some new church funding, but no such luck there. Although our church is vibrant and exciting now with close to 100 members and lots of children as well, our main challenges remain financial and taking care of our old building.