Consultant Training with Thomas Bandy
Key ideas summarized by Christopher Walker
Denominations have less influence than they think. Most growing congregations are wanting to avoid the bureaucracy. Nevertheless if denominational leaders have spiritual depth and credibility then congregations will pay attention to them.
Consultants do best to work with clergy and selected lay leaders, rather than with congregations and councils, for that is where you have most leverage. The primary skill needed is not conflict resolution but control intervention. A harmonious declining church is not the goal but to disharmonise the church in ways that enable mission. There is the need to encourage congregations to clarify their own identity, their DNA, to guide their development rather than take their identity simply from the denomination.
There is a gap between theological colleges and the needs of local congregations for the colleges teach from an older ecclesiastical perspective rather than from a missiological perspective. The mission field is both local and global. There is the need to develop an entrepreneurial lay education training program. This can be done alongside the theological colleges who will cooperate with it if they are wise.
Church planting should be aimed at unchurched and dechurched people not churchy people. Otherwise there is the danger of replicating the declining church system. Most church planters are not ordained but are entrepreneurs.
What Bandy is getting at with his core question about Jesus is not just an individual experience of Jesus but a corporate experience of Jesus. It comes from individuals but also needs to be a team experience. This is a leadership issue. The core leaders have to be able to answer the question. It relates both to their own faith and being motivated to be at mission in the community.
A servant empowering organizational model is appealing to most as opposed to a top-down bureaucratic organizational model.
Bandy speaks about three levels of transformation.
Level 1 is church renewal. This involves lay empowerment, adult faith formation, demographic awareness and mission focus; defeating corporate addictions and coaching systemic change.
Level 2 is growing faith community. This includes experience and reflection about Jesus; clarity and consensus about core values, beliefs, vision and mission (DNA); tactical innovation and leveraging.
Level 3 is missional movement. This has sensitivity to cross-cultural experience; team based organization; empowered church planting; and building cross-disciplinary networks.
He says denominational intervention for church growth has two parallel paths.
1) Congregational transformation path: discern the track, network churches by DNA and /or context, broker a mentoring relationship with a church of the next track, partner with outside, cross-disciplinary consulting, intervene at each level of control, prioritize lay empowerment, model bottom-up ministry.
2) Leadership development path: recover contextual calling ("heartburst" for a micro-culture), recruit innovative leaders from beyond normal sources, establish non-traditional training methodologies, raise lifestyle and learning expectations, protect mavericks and reward risk, encourage long-term leadership, build clergy/lay teams.
Top tactics for denominational leaders
1. Broad strategies: from mission by agency to the congregation as the fundamental mission unit of the church.
Work with selected congregations.
Shift the agenda to measure success in a different way.
Old oversight questions: Money - are the assets increasing? Property - is property maintained and improved? Membership - are there more contributors? Staffing - are the clergy secure? Liturgy - is there "good" worship? Contentment - is there total harmony?
New oversight questions: Growth - are people growing? Leadership - are volunteers in ministry? Participation - are all publics included? DNA - is identity embedded? Experience - are lifestyles transformed? Change - is the world any different?
2. Education and training: from clergy certification and deployment to lay training and empowerment.
Prioritize lay training and adult spiritual growth and invest money in doing this.
Establish "teaching churches" that model the thriving church system and get others to visit and experience these innovative churches. Note the future is clergy and lay teams.
Train worship teams to design indigenous, alternative types of worship.
3. Capital pools and subsidies: from unified budgets and property to seed money and technology support.
Offer subsidies to upgrade technology in communications and worship.
Reduce subsidies for maintenance and seed mission targeted to micro-cultures. The onus is on performance. Note that a healthy church has mission driven debt not no debt.
Encourage vision driven amalgamations and closures.
4. Brokering, networking and partnering: from top-down mission agendas to customizing partnerships for spiritual entrepreneurs.
Train church boards in effective governance: policy needs consensus, delegate management matters.
Promote partnerships for prayer, resource development and leadership exchanges.
5. Climate control: from bureaucracy and administrative meetings to mission teams and high mobility.
Build and embed DNA in the denominational office.
Create proscriptive job descriptions (provide boundaries and permission giving).
Protect maverick congregations and church leaders.
Congregational Mission Assessment
Bandy identifies three major areas in the life of a church and 11 sub-systems of congregational life. These are as follows:
Foundational: Genetic CodeAbout the identity of the church
Core LeadershipAbout the seriousness for mission in the church
OrganizationAbout the structure of the church for mission
FunctionalChanging PeopleAbout how people experience God in the church
Growing ChristiansHow people grow in relationship to Jesus
Discerning CallHow people discover their place in God's plan
Equipping DisciplesHow people are trained for ministries
Deploying ServantsHow people are sent and supported in the world
FormalPropertyAbout the location, facility and technology
FinanceAbout stewardship, budget, debt-management
CommunicationAbout information, marketing, advertising
As a consultant he has a series of questions in relation to each of the 11 sub-systems.
He also asks for: 1) community demographic data, 2) a leadership readiness survey completed by the staff and church board and 3) a church stress test completed by the worshipping congregation, staff and church board. The differences in perception can be revealing. The gaps in the data can be significant indicators.
He notes that thriving churches are always looking for extra help. This is a post-modern approach. The modern approach assumes if you are healthy you do not need help. Coaching help, not fix-it help, is the post-modern approach. Thriving churches look for networks.
He talks about ministry mappingnot strategic planning. The strategic planning that he says is dying is long distance, linear, assumes a uniform context, emphasizes technicians, property and programs, and has a chain of command. Mission mapping is micro-macro in approach, explorational, opportunistic, based on the DNA of the organization and done in teams.
Effective teams have a mission attitude, a work ethic, a variable plan and a winning faith. Worship reinforces the congregational DNA.
Bandy says consultants can do three things.
1. You need to understand the flow of the thriving church system. In relation to worship it has welcoming and hospitality before and after worship. Worship is not stand alone. There are opportunities for becoming involved in small groups and mentoring offered to people after worship.
2. Focus on developing and recruiting leaders. Be intentional about this. This involves both clergy and lay people who will work in teams.
3. Work out what coaching is required to carry the church to the next steps. Mentor and counsel leaders who are prepared to adopt change, especially those willing to be mavericks.