George Bullard's Journey

Thomas Kleinert At Vine St. Christian Church Writes About a Spiritual Strategic Adventure

The weekend of April 4th-7th George Bullard will begin a Spiritual Strategic Journey process with Vine St. Christian Church in Nashville, TN. Pastor Thomas Kleinert has written about this upcoming adventure on his blog. To view his post Click Here. 

Is a Congregation Ever Too Small To Transform?

I am often asked if a congregation was once larger and then declines to a weekly average worship attendance of less than 75 if it has the capacity to transform. I am asked the same about a congregation that has always been less than 75 in attendance, but has lost its way in terms of engaging in life and ministry that is intentional.

My answers are several:

• Any congregation can transform if it can become captivated by vision and engage in intentional actions to live into that vision.
• Any congregation can transform if it is willing to focus on its emerging future rather than trying to maintain its past.
• Any congregation can transform if it is willing to place Christ above the culture of its congregation.
• Any congregation can transform if it is listening more to the voice of God than it does to the voice of control by those who choose not to change in response to God's leadership.
• Any congregation can transform if it is willing to place a higher value on discerning God's will for the congregation than it is on embracing organizational success.
• Any congregation can transform if it engages in effective actions that impact the spiritual, strategic, and social life of the congregation in response to God's leading.
• Any congregation can transform if it focuses more on deepening the relationships of people with God, one another, and the context in which God has placed them, than they do on programmatic and organizational success.
• Any congregation can transform if they balance actions that cost more resources than they produce and actions that renew the resources of congregations.

Changing Religious Traditions: Not New but Accelerating

While I am taking a break from regular observations on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, take a look at what Lovett H. Weems, Jr. of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary has to say about it with specific emphasis on a United Methodist perspective: http://www.churchleadership.com/leadingideas/leaddocs/2008/120308_article.html.

How Many Young Adults Are Unaffiliated?

Insight Three by George Bullard on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008. [Conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life at www.pewforum.org.]

Learning: "The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion." [5]

Implications for Congregations: 1. What we have suspected appears to be true--some children who grow up in church wander away from faith practice in a local congregation by the time they are adults. 2. Twentysomethings are especially unchurched. Congregations continue to find it difficult to provide true and relevant ministry to this age group. 3. New congregations or new ministry initiatives by existing congregations may be the best way to speak into the spiritual seeking of twentysomethings.

Implications for Denominations: 1. It is likely that smaller membership congregations are particularly impacted by children moving away from faith practice through a congregation. Local denominational judicatories can provide supportive services to these congregations that support their ability to continue to attract twentysomethings. 2. Helping congregations prepare for ministry to thirtysomethings when many young adults are returning to active church participation should also be an initiative of denominations. 3. Obviously support services for new congregations and new ministry initiatives targeting twentysomethings should be part of the programmatic initiatives of denominations--perhaps in cooperation with persons involved in ministry to students in colleges and universities.

When It Comes to Faith Many People Would Rather Switch Than Fight

Insight Two by George Bullard on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008. [Conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life at www.pewforum.org.]

Learning: "More that one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion--or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, roughly 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether." [5]

Implications for Congregations: 1. Even when you provide a strong faith and fellowship background for children who grow up in your congregation, you cannot expect them to be members and leaders of your congregation in adulthood not only because they move to another town, city, state, or country, but because 9 out of 20 of them are switching their religious affiliation or dropping out of public religious practice. You have to provide a strong faith and fellowship background because it is the right and loving thing to do. 2. An increasing number of your members and leaders will not have a lifelong orientation to your congregation, your denomination, or to the Christian faith. They will need basic and simple as well as advanced and complicated understandings of faith and practice. 3. Increasingly congregations will not be able to search for new members among people who are oriented to their denominational ethos. Congregations must be willing to cross various denominational, theological, cultural, religious, and demographic barriers to attract new members.

Implications for Denominations: 1. Many existing congregations are likely to lose more members to mobility of residence and religious affiliation than they are able to attract as new members and attendees. Denominations will need to focus on effective strategies for changing the focus of congregations on who they are trying to reach and how they are attempting to reach them. 2. Denominations must help congregations to understand the typical church seeker is not looking for a Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc. congregation that happens to offer great worship, fellowship, discipleship, and programs. They are look for a congregation that offers great worship, fellowship, discipleship, and programs that happens to be Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc. 3. Church planting efforts by denominations must increasingly be positioned to cross more theological, cultural, religious, and demographic barriers than ever before to bring truth and relevance to preChristians, unchurched, and dechurched people.

Religion is a High Priority in American Public Life

Insight One by George Bullard on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008. [Conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life at www.pewforum.org.]

Learning: "Despite predictions the United State would follow Europe's path towards widespread secularization, the U.S. population remains highly religious in its beliefs and practices, and religion continues to play a prominent role in American public life." [1]

Implications for Congregations: 1. U.S. society will continue for the foreseeable future to remain at least nominally a churched culture, which means congregations can assume at least some knowledge of spiritual principles and practices in many preChristians and unchurched persons. 2. However, the spiritual principles and practices of people in American society will be increasingly less like what Protestant congregations have known in past decades, and will call for Protestant churches to re-education its membership to the principles and practices of spiritual travelers in the 21st century. 3. Politicians will continue to want to use congregations to get their message across to their constituents, and be seen favorably among Protestants as persons of solid spiritual moorings.

Implications for Denominations: 1. Denominations need to anticipate that an increasing number of new congregations they launch will address the spiritual needs of people who are not from a churched culture. 2. It will be important to understand what trends and practices have allowed the U.S. to remain highly religious, and then to promote these within the ethos of denominations. 3. Denominations need to understand the unique contributions they can make to American public life, and find ways to champion issues and causes that fit their core values.

U. S. Religious Landscape Survey

February 2008 The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released the results of a representative survey of more than 35,000 Americans entitled U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. The survey, according to its sponsors, "includes reliable estimates of the size of religious groups in the United States as well as detailed information on their demographic characteristics, religious beliefs and practices, and basic social and political values." [1]

To connect with this survey go to the general web site of www.pewforum.org, or directly to the online presentation of the finds at religions.pewforum.org. 

The learnings from this survey are significant. The implications for congregations and denominations are far reaching. On my blog, www.BullardJournal.org, I will seek over the next several months to share some of the specific learnings, as well as specific implications for denominations and congregations. To receive these posts you may regularly connect with www.BullardJournal.org, subscribe to the RSS feed from the www.BullardJournal.org blog, or subscribe to the Bullard Journal e-zine for which a link is found on this same blog.

Consider Three Futures, Not One

As I have opportunities to work with congregations and denominational organizations on their future story of ministry, I always seek to work with them on developing three scenarios of their future as a religious organism. Why?

Several reasons:

• To avoid group think in the spirit of the famous business parable, The Abilene Paradox by Jerry Harvey, retired professor of management a George Washington University. It is too easy to embrace the first idea that comes along that may make the work quick and easy, may be dominated by one point of view, or may miss the opportunity to truly evaluate the merit of a desired future.
• To encourage the congregation to thoroughly consider various choices for the framework of their future ministry that may have been mentioned over the years, but never thoroughly embraced.
• To encourage congregations to relearn the art of dialogue around diverse issues that will assist them in dealing with the chaordic times as they transition and change in an attempt to transform.
• To generate a larger and more diverse number of ideas about the future story of their congregation.
• To engender passion in the broad-based group of people--known as the Enduring Visionary Leadership Community--about the future life and ministry of the congregation.

To learn more about the future storytelling process of congregations, see chapter eight of my book, Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation.

The Invisible Fence Never Existed? Oh, No!

The Wall Street Journal recently had a cartoon in its "Pepper . . . and Salt" series that showed a psychiatrist with a dog on the couch of the office. The psychiatrist is saying to the dog: "How did it feel to find out the invisible fence never really existed?"

I had to laugh.

My mind immediately went to a story I tell in Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation entitled Misty and the Invisible Fence as an Image of Controlling Your Congregation [pp.105-6]. The essence of this story is that seeking to achieve transition and change in a congregation often involves attaining the permission of the stakeholders of the congregation whose support is necessary to turn off the figurative invisible fence that keeps the congregation from going in some new directions. Further, what I sometimes discover is the pastor and other leaders still do not take the change actions because they do not trust that the stakeholders have actually turned off the invisible fence.

My suggestion is that at that point the pastor and other leaders become the controllers of the congregation rather than the stakeholders. Often leaders like to complain the stakeholders are keeping them from doing many good and loving things. The reality is some leaders just like to complain about the stakeholders because the leaders really do not have the courage to change the church.

What would be even worse is for the pastor and other leaders to discover one day that the invisible fence they thought was controlling the congregation never really existed.

Conflict Ministry Help is On the Way

Amazon has now posted my forthcoming book, Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict. It is scheduled for release in June. Click here to view book.

Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict

The premise of this book is that every congregation has conflict. In fact, every congregation needs a little conflict to give it the opportunity to learn how to address conflict in healthy ways. Doing so allows congregations to develop the capacity to deal with inevitable conflict situations. It also allows them to prepare themselves to possibly handle really big conflict without it becoming overly destructive.

Preorder the book now and you will receive an extra 5% off the purchase price, and a guarantee that if the price goes down before it is released that you will benefit from additional price savings. At the time of this post the book was available for $13.59 plus the additional 5% saving for preordering. What a deal!

While you are waiting for the full book to come out, an overview is already posted as an Amazon Shorts and is available for download at $0.49.

Every Congregation Needs a Little Conflict, an Amazon Shorts digital publication. 

In future months you will see information on conflict ministry training that will be available. Stay tuned.