What Keeps Sincere Leaders From Collaborating With Other Churches

We're all in the same body of Christ, on the same team, right? Our churches are facing the same cultural challenges, all working for the same goal--spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and bringing glory to God. So why are churches collaborating with each other?

Think about it. How many of your church's ministries include another church? How many of the food drives? How many of the evangelism efforts? How many of the youth events or Christmas programs involve Christians in your area that are members of another church?

The answer for the vast majority of churches in America is: NONE. Not a single ministry effort includes cooperation with another church. (By the way, I'm very curious to see if this problem happens in other countries.)

Think about how many times churches duplicate the efforts of other churches; how many extra items are purchased when they could be shared; how many times churches are struggling to have enough people or money to make an event happen. And think about the powerful message to a community when churches do collaborate. It elevates the attention to Christ, not our particular congregation or our particular pastor.

So why aren't churches in America doing this?

Some churches disagree strongly over doctrine, including substantial biblical issues. That does make it harder to work together. But that still doesn't explain the lack of collaboration. Most churches in the same denomination in the same town do only the required minimum of collaboration. And that's usually giving a portion of their income to the denomination at large and attending an annual gathering of leaders--not actually doing any ministry together.

I've don't ministry in a town with a 1st Baptist Church, 2nd Baptist Church, and 3rd Baptist Church--all within 10 minutes drive of each other, none of whom collaborated on a single ministry event. And don't think it's limited to Baptists. I led a parachurch youth ministry project in another town and on a major intersection found four churches--one on each corner. These churches were all fairly large and successful. And not one staff member at any of the churches had ever even met another staff member from any of the other churches. They could see each other from their front door and didn't meet. Oh, and while they weren't all the same denomination, they were all from mainline denominations with very few doctrinal differences.

They weren't enemies of each other. It just hadn't occurred to them to meet the other church people, let alone work together.

In fact, what's much more likely is for a typical church to be in active competition with other churches. Their leaders work to convince their people that their church is the best church in this area, trying to get their attendees to commit to their church as their church home (and not any of the others).

Think about the mailers you get (or the ones you just sent out). Boil the advertising down and here's what the vast majority of churches are saying to their communities:

Our church isn't like all the other churches you've been to--we're better (i.e. more casual, more open to non-believers, or more spiritual, or more friendly, etc)

I don't think churches compete (vs. collaborate) because their leaders don't love Jesus or are a bunch of hypocrites. In fact, in my encounters with hundreds of church leaders across dozens of denominations I find church leaders to be overwhelmingly sincere and truly committed to serving God.

So why are these sincere followers of Jesus not working together? I think it's actually driven by the system of modern church life--and the economics built into the system.

Typical churches are dominated and defined by their Sunday services. Not only is it the central element of their Christian duty ("being a Christian means attending church"), Sunday services are the venue for collecting income (call it "tithing" if you like, it's still the income stream for the church). And no matter how much we believe in the abstract that we're all in the body of Christ, the typical church measures it success by: 1) how many people come on Sunday morning;  and 2) how much those people give during the Sunday services.

And that creates a zero-sum game for churches. If a person goes to another church on Sunday morning at 9am, then they can't also be at your church at the same time. If they give their tithe to that church, they can't also give it to your church. One church's gain is another church's loss. So collaboration is dangerous because the attendance and giving get muddled. If you hold a joint service, how do you split the offerings received? If you hold a joint community outreach program, where do you tell the new believers to come to on Sunday morning--and who will get the tithe we will tell them God requires?

As long as Sunday service attendance and 10% tithes are the core definition of being a Christian, then churches will always be driven to compete with the other churches in their area. In this environment, the ministries you offer aren't just a method for reaching the world (though they are that, too). They are also your unique features that are used to convince customers to plug into your church--and not the others.

It's just the natural consequence of their system.

However, when you don't have services at the same time and don't require a tithe to a general fund (see my earlier posts on tithing and a simple weekly schedule) the freedom to truly collaborate is amazing. Our church has done this from the start. The amount of shared ministry projects has gone up or down over the years, but we've never had a time when we didn't have at least one shared project--where we were either sending people and money to support another church's ministry efforts or having them join something we were leading.

It's not because I am more holy than the other leaders. Not even close. It's because I didn't have anything to lose--no money I was counting on. We've had members attending multiple churches (our and another) almost continuously since our founding. Because our system makes it easier to do.

What does your church system encourage? How dependent are you on the tithes of your members? What if you weren't?

Your Church Is Probably Not As Different As You Think It Is

When I lived in Little Rock, AR, working for a national youth ministry (K-Life), I tried to get to know the local church leaders--to see if we could collaborate  on mission for Jesus together. A few blocks from my house I found four churches occupying the four corners of a major intersection. I walked into each, met their staff, and found that none of them knew each other personally. They all could describe what made them so very different (and better) than the other churches in their intersection.

But when I thought I about it, I realized they weren't as different as they thought they were. In fact, almost all of the churches who I've heard proclaim how they were different and radical and unique--they weren't that at all. We focus on the micro-differences and miss the fact that on a macro-level most churches are virtually identical.

[From the book: Awake From Atrophy. Note, Drew & Jessica are married, Randall & Laura are married...both couples are at a workshop led by Jacob learning about the member-driven church.]

 "But before I begin explaining what makes a member-driven church different, it will help a lot to overview the practices of a typical church service. And I could use your help for this. What are the usual practices in a typical church service?" Jacob asked the room.

He stepped over and wrote “Typical Service Elements” on the top of a flipchart. Then he waited.

“Do you mean stuff like what songs we sing--like sermons or contemporary music? Or are you asking about things like taking an offering?” Randall asked.

“Yeah, sort of,” Jacob answered, picking up the blue marker again. “We don’t need to name the particular songs or even the style of the music for our purposes. But I am going to write down ‘sing together’ and ‘collect offering’ on here.”

“You mean the service elements,” Drew offered.

“Yep,” Jacob confirmed.

“Okay, well another obvious element is the sermon,” Drew added.

“Great,” Jacob said, writing ‘sermon’ on the flip chart. “What are other elements?”

“There’s prayer,” Jessica said.

Jacob nodded and wrote ‘group prayer’ on the page. “Several different approaches to prayer can be found in a service, depending on your denominational tradition, but it’s definitely a regular part.”

“Some churches perform dramatic skits,” Laura ventured.

“And I’ve seen dancing, both on and off the stage,” Randall said with a smile.

“Announcements,” Drew added.

“We used to turn and shake hands with other people,” Laura said. “I don’t know what you call that part.”

Jacob was rapidly writing it all down. “Let’s call those ‘art presentations (drama, etc)’ ‘announcements’ and ‘greet your neighbor’. What else?” he probed.

“How about communion?” Randall proposed.

“Of course,” Jacob said as he added that to his growing list. “Anything else?”

No one spoke up. Randall shook his head no. Drew just waited, curious where Jacob was headed. This was really obvious, so far.

He had compiled the list on the top of the big, white page:

“That’s a good list,” Jacob said. “It’s pretty much the same list I created when I was hunting for answers on what the church was supposed to look like versus what was typically done. And when I looked at these service elements, I realized two things.

“First, the differences from one typical church to another are very small. They disagree over what kind of songs to sing, but not that songs should be sung—or even that songs should come at the beginning of the service.”

“Wouldn’t that mean these elements are the right elements? I mean, if everyone is doing them, doesn’t that say something?” Drew couldn’t help asking.

“Not necessarily,” Jacob asserted. “In the dark ages the whole of Europe followed some pretty unbiblical practices. Since everyone was doing it, no one even considered other options. Just because everyone had a similar viewpoint at that time in history doesn’t mean it was God’s viewpoint. Whole generations of Israelites forgot the Law God gave to them and whole centuries of Christians throughout history missed the mark on some topics. If they were vulnerable to culture-wide blind spots what makes us think we aren’t?”

There wasn’t really a good answer to that and Drew knew enough to keep silent.

Jacob continued. “The second thing I noticed when I looked at the elements of a typical church service was a theme to the structure. The typical Western church service, as I see it,” Jacob said, gesturing roundly, “is structured around one basic concept. An elite few stand on a stage and offer performances to inspire the members to greater godliness while the members sit in rows of seats facing the stage and passively participate.”

Drew interrupted again. “Many people don’t think of it as a stage—certainly not like an entertainment stage. I think you’re misrepresenting many typical churches by using that term.”

“True, they usually give it a different name than a stage, but functionally, it’s the same thing. It’s a raised platform allowing a large group to easily see and hear what a few performers are doing. Can you bear with me on this for a minute? I think it brings a little more clarity to talk about this without the semi-theological terms that we give to our church elements, like calling the stage the altar or the podium the pulpit.”

He directed his comments to Drew, so Drew nodded, though a little grudgingly.

“In a typical church,” Jacob continued, “I see three categories of activities.”

He turned back to the flipchart and wrote while he talked:

“The first category is music and arts presentations—with the bulk of that time dedicated to singing together. Second is the public speaking category. Certainly, this means the sermon, but if you think about it, even the praying usually works more like public presentations than private prayer time. The third category I call the crowd response. Depending on the denomination, the leaders on the stage call the congregation to respond as a crowd in various ways, such as taking communion or giving an offering. And, of course, there’s the thirty-seconds-to-greet-someone-near-you portion.”

He stepped back to look at the list. “These practices are what I call the assumed elements of the typical church service.”

Jacob turned to face the rest of them and began pacing in his excitement.

“Different denominations change the frequency and placement of the crowd responses, but the music almost always precedes the sermon. Usually they spend close to 50% of the total service time singing together, roughly 45% of the time dedicated to the public speaking, including the sermon and the arts presentations. Often, the arts serve as illustrations to the sermon, so they sometimes function as one whole section. That leaves something like 5% of the service for the congregation to shake hands, put money in some type of container, and maybe take communion together. In the end, the typical church elements come down to this: music, public speaking, and a small amount of crowd response.

“The typical strategy for delivering these experiences is for the professional few to get on the stage and inspire the passive many who are seated in rows. The leaders on the stage do the work and members watch and are asked to do very little. This combination of elements and methods has been widely used for so long no one thinks about whether this is the right plan or not. People debate and explore how to execute this model better, but not about the model itself. I think it’s time to reconsider which elements should be included as well our methods for delivering them. As a mentor of mine has often said, ‘We don’t get any points for doing the wrong things well.’”

My "List of 30" - a lesson from Mensa Mind Games

I'm sitting in the airport, heading home from Mensa Mind Games 2012, a national event where Mensans evaluate newly released board/card games and select five to give a Mensa Seal of Approval. While it was fun (the best way to  understand a game is to play it, after all), reflecting on how they organized the weekend reveals a powerful way to improve our thinking on any topic.

Each "judge" (i.e. me and 313 others) was given a "List of 30" games to play--I mean, evaluate--in less than 2 days. Yes, that's a lot. And at first I resisted. Couldn't I just play the ones I liked the most--that looked most interesting to me? But they stressed playing your entire list of 30, though. And now, having done it, I understand why.

Playing such a large number of games equips you to think and talk about games at a whole other level. Rather than discuss whether you like a particular rule, you end up talking about the overall purpose and structure of the game. It gives you a much broader perspective.

It makes me think of the quote, "He who knows only one culture understands not even his own culture." Those of you who've traveled internationally (or even to a radically different culture in your own country) know what I mean. Seeing a totally different way of living uncovers insights into your own way of life you'll never see from within it.

I know my understanding about what it was like to live in America really began when I took my first mission trip to another country (Nicaragua). And again when I took another trip, and another--each time expanding my understanding further.

 

And it's the same for thinking about church. In fact, I think one of the main reasons that I grasped this member-driven church thing (after accounting for God's revelation & grace) is that I had the chance to attend an unusually wide variety of churches growing up.  My family changed churches a few times when we moved and chose very different denominations. And I also got to be a part of a boys choir that sang in a wide variety of churches. I've experienced Charismatic Catholic Mass, African-American Baptist Preaching, and Korean Presbyterian After-the-Service-Kimchee, in addition to the "usual" denominations in the States.

In fact, it was so good for me that when my kids get older (my oldest is only six), I plan to take them with me to totally different churches a few times each year and discuss what they just experienced.

So the big idea is this: if you want to really think well about a topic, then you the more variations on that topic that you can experience the more you truly understand that topic. And to do this well, the more different the topic the better. I wanted to only play the military or empire building strategy games. But playing the make-your-partner-laugh party game, the ocean-themed puzzle book, and the 3D Tetris Tower (one of the overall winners this year) stretched me further and taught me more than playing only the game types I already knew well.

Want to make your church better? Visit 30 radically different churches this year.

Interested in improving your organization? Visit and interview 30 leaders in totally different industries.

What's the topic you want to think better on? And what's your accompanying "List of 30" mind-stretching experiences?

Blog Post: What is a "Member-Driven" Church?

I ought to define the phrase I use so often. It's the name of the model my church uses (collagechurch.com) and it's what my book Awake From Atrophy is about. What does it mean?

First, it's NOT:
a new denomination
a new theological approach
a house church movement (you can be member-driven with few OR many)

We're probably very similar to you in our doctrines. And if we differ on an issue, it's probably has nothing to with us being member-driven.

It's a new (based on ancient) leadership structure and liturgy.

Our Core Values (foundational truths that shape us):

Biblical Foundation--what it sounds like
Relationship with Jesus--it's not just knowledge about God
Authentic Community--the platform for all the other purposes
Growth Through Practice--information by itself isn't enough
Every Member Ministers--not just an abstract identity, but a weekly behavior
More Than Stage Ministry--giving honor and time on Sun to more than group presentation ministry methods

Our Defining Practices (our best guess for practicing our values):

Eating Meals Together--our primary community building time
Bible Study--every other week small group discussions (not sermons)
Open Ministry--every other week each member comes prepared to minister to others based on their spiritual gifts (music usually fits in here)
Ministry Beyond Our Members--each member finds a way to make a difference in the world based on their gifts & resources
Member-Driven Funding--members don't mindlessly give 10% to a general church fund, but ask God how much to give to whom (leaders make members aware of needs rather than decide for them)
Simple Schedule--only one official gathering each week leaving time for our members to be in community as well as be salt and light to the world

For multiple years I studied the New Testament and church history, asking, "If I could remove all my cultural assumptions, what would the Bible say church is supposed to look like?" I discovered a lot of what I call "extra-biblical" ideas shaping our church practices. When you remove our cultural additions over the centuries (who says sermons are the required/best teaching format?) the above list of values and practices is what I found in the Bible.

After doing church like this since 2006, I can tell you that not only does it work, but it's the most spiritually stimulating and refreshing way to do church I know. It's not duty because it's biblical. It's wonderful!