When It Stops Working
I’ve had the opportunity to spend a lot of time among the cool churches (you know…Willow Creek and Saddleback and North Point and all their buddies who make fun of churches like yours). I’ve gone to their conferences and listened to their pastors. Some of those guys are my friends even.
And, while I have some pretty serious reservations about some of what they’re doing (especially video church), you can’t deny the fact that they do evangelism pretty well. These churches baptize hundreds of people each year by creating a safe place for people to bring their spiritual questions and explore their faith. They’ve figured out ways of presenting timeless, biblical truths to people in timely and relevant ways.
But I’ve never one time heard anyone in a church that’s really evangelizing the lost say, “It was Vacation Bible School that really put us over the top.”
Can we be honest about something? You may (like Jeff told about in his comment) have gotten saved at a VBS in the 70s, but it rarely works like that anymore. More often than not, (like Iz said in his comment) VBS is just free babysitting for people who already attend church somewhere.
I’m not saying it’s wrong or bad or evil. I’m just saying it’s not outreach. Or, if it is, it ain’t working because these churches have been teaching kids the motions to Father Abraham the whole time while the percentage of Americans who self-identify as “Christian” has steadily declined.
In the past quarter century, the combined membership of all Protestant denominations declined by 10 percent, while the national population increased by nearly 30 percent. In that same time period, the average size of the average church in America dropped 10 people. In an average year, half of all churches do not add one new member through conversion growth. Most churches average one new convert per year for every 85-90 regular adult attendees.
I may never ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery or fly o’er the enemy, but I know the Lord’s army (“Yes, sir!”) isn’t making much progress here at home. At some point, don’t you think we ought to look at this honestly and say, “Maybe we should stop what we’re doing that isn’t working and try something else”?
This is a consistent problem that isn’t just limited to VBS. It applies to Sunday School and door knocking and a whole host of other things that used to work but don’t anymore. Why do we have such a hard time admitting that something doesn’t work anymore? And what do we do when it stops working?
November 17th, 2009 at 11:53 am
I had a long conversation with my wife last night. She is not the biggest fan of VBS and did remind me that for many of our church friends it is glorified babysitting and that many of our church friends will have their kids in multiple VBS’s through the summer for just that reason.
At the same time she did note that (at our church at least) there are families that began attending because they were introduced to the church through VBS. Some of those were people who were not church attenders previously. So there is a remnant of outreach.
And again I will say that every year children accept Christ during / after our church’s VBS. That is sort of the point of evangelistic outreach, right? So I remain firmly pro-VBS.
My wife and I also teach 10th grade sunday school weekly so we see and face the difficulties of maintaining students interest over the year and then watch as they progress through the remainder of high school and go off to college.
So far, of all the things we’ve done, the one that has had the most impact was not in the U.S. at all. This past summer our youth ministry took 40 9th – 12th graders (and 15 adult sponsers) to Israel. We toured the country then divided into teams to work with different ministries throughout the country. My wife and I led a team of six students to work with a Israeli church youth group. The students in that youth group were so passionate for Jesus despite making some real sacrifices to be his follower. They knew that to be a believer meant the possibility of real persecution. So if you said yes to Jesus you were truly going to follow him full out – there was no half way. It impacted our students greatly.
In America we know no such risk. People make almost no sacrifice to be a believer. You don’t like your church, it offends you, just church shop. Or stop completely.
Our current church is a small mega-church (around 2,000 each weekend). Before that we attended a mega-mega-church (Second Baptist in Houston). I would say a primary difference between the two is Second was very very focused on evangelism while our current church is much more about ministering to the body of believers. That difference in focus also greatly impacts the statistics you note above.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
As a VBS worker and as one who sends her children to VBS and makes them work when they become “of age”, I also wonder if it is a good use of our resourdes and time. I do hope and pray that we have “planted” enough “good seeds” so that when a child can atttend church they will remember it as a safe place, where people were ind to them. We have to believe that God waters all the seeds we plant and hope and pray we are planitng on good soil. It may be a better idea to spread the $$$ around and have a monthly out reachg to the community…movie night, concert, teen night. An idea worht exploring.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Seth Godin in his great quick read “The Dip” writes the following: Most of the time we deal with obstacles by persevering. Sometimes we get discouraged and turn to inspirational writing, like stuff by Vince Lombardi. “Quiters never win and winners never quit.” Bad advice! Winners (& winning Churches) quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.
Tonight Heaven is serving gourmet burgers from our sacred cows.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Curious as to why you say Sunday school doesn’t work. In a country where there is virtually no Biblical education I’m not sure why we would want to give up that weekly opportunity to teach God’s word. Isn’t the statistic that something like only 1% of believers have a Biblical worldview? Sure Sunday school is not well attended by the general church populous but I could give you story after story of adults greatly impacted in Sunday school Bible study who have gone on to become church workers, teachers and missionaries.
I know some churches have gone to home groups but my experience is those are even more poorly attended than Sunday morning Sunday school. And it strikes me as terribly arrogant for any pastor to believe that his teaching is so good that his church can learn God’s word from his 30 minute weekly sermon alone.
I don’t think of these things as sacred cows, its just that I’ve seen them work. What I would like to know is how is ‘effective’ defined? Is it one person accepting Christ, or ten, or a hundred?
November 17th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Jeff,
I think you answered your own question, didn’t you? I say Sunday School doesn’t work because as churches have been doing it the biblical literacy in our nation has actually gone down. I’d say that means it doesn’t work — at least not the way we’re doing it.
I’ve talked about this before, but I think the problem may actually be that church people are often overfed these days. Between Sunday School, a sermon a small group and a midweek gathering, most people have as many as four Bible lessons each week. Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point suggests that this much information may actually have a canceling effect.
Maybe instead of feeding the people more Bible, we ought to exercise them with a little service. Spurgeon used to say people can get, “Word fat and obedience thin.”
November 17th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
I’ll respectfully say I disagree with your premise. The idea that church people are overfed and that is why we are Biblically illiterate makes no sense on multiple levels.
That is the equivalent of saying that Peyton Manning throws interceptions because he spends hours on end weekly studying film of the opposing defense and just gets overwhelmed by to much information on what the other team might do.
I’ve no idea of the statistics but I would think that the majority of believers get no more than 1-hour of Bible study a week (the worship service), a much smaller percentage also attend Sunday school, and a much, much smaller percentage also attend mid-week services / home groups.
I have six tenth graders in my small group for Sunday school. The majority are in strong Christian families. It is like pulling teeth to get them to do some type of additional study of the Bible during the week. Its a miracle and a huge victory to have a kid say he does daily study. And in almost every instance the other kids think of that kid as a bit of a Jesus Freak because he does so.
Should we be doing service? Absolutely. But if we don’t know why from God’s word we are to serve then we are no different than people doing Habitat for Humanity – its great but doesn’t end up with God getting the glory.
November 17th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Jeff,
First of all, thanks for your respectful attitude. Around here we’re just batting ideas around, and no one really has a silver bullet.
Having said that, I’ll quote Dallas Willard who says, “The system we’ve created is perfectly designed to produce the results we are getting.” In other words, the lack of discipleship isn’t in spite of what we’ve been doing but — at least to some extent — precisely because of what we’ve been doing.
So, if you want to change the results, change the system. To my mind, that means ditching Sunday School in favor of something different. It’s a relatively recent invention — certainly not divinely inspired — and was a good, temporary tool that simply does not work any more. None of the studies I’ve seen indicate long term positive results. It’s got to be deconstructed and reconstructed if true discipleship is going to occur.
The idea that overfeeding can lead to malnourishment may be counter-intuitive, but that doesn’t mean it makes no sense. In fact, it’s an increasingly common physical diagnosis now — especially among children. They’re eating plenty of calories, but they’re not eating the right things. Eventually, your body’s ability to absorb nutrients can actually become diminished.
The treatment for undernourished kids isn’t always to feed them more; it’s usually to feed them different food.
I think this can be a good picture for what’s happening in a lot of American churches these days. We’re feeding them a lot of stuff (granted a lot of it is pretty shallow and topical). We’re not feeding them the right stuff.
Bible intake is only one way God uses to shape us. He also uses spiritual friendships, disciplines like prayer and worship, discovering and using our spiritual gifts — the kind of stuff that isn’t likely to happen in a traditional Sunday School environment. You said yourself that the most formative activity you’ve done with those teens is taking them off church property to get involved in the lives of people who know hardship and sacrifice.
They learned lessons you can’t teach in a classroom.
One final thing: I am not opposed to good Bible teaching. It is, after all, what I do for a living. But I fear we’ve trained people to be too reliant upon professional teachers like myself. We ought to put more effort into helping people read and study the Word on their own. There are so many great tools available for regular folks now — online resources, really solid commentaries that don’t require a graduate degree to understand. More people studying on their own might go a long way towards solving that biblical literacy issue.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:02 am
It’s an interesting dilemma. Sunday School does not seem to be effective as it once was, but for many Christians it’s the only exposure they will get to God’s word during the week. We are attempting to get people into the word during the week by emphasizing the resources you have cited, but it’s a difficult struggle. Lack of time seems to be the consistent excuse. Which also leads to the dilemma of service instead of Sunday School. Our families are time pressured (or so they believe). Sunday School is 45 minutes to 1 hour. What service opportunity can you do for that length of time that will have great impact? If you leave campus and go out into the community with travel time etc; you’ve already exceeded that time frame. For many families, they will claim they simply don’t have the time.
I think it goes back to priorities. Immersing ourselves in God’s word, prayer and meditation takes time and commitment. Serving others takes time and commitment. Spiritual transformation is a Spirit-led process that takes time and commitment. Until we are willing to free ourselves and schedules and commit to Christ we will also have this struggle.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:14 am
It’s my opinion, though I don’t know a thing about the success of the large churches you mentioned, that our problem is not VBS or Sunday School or “Trunk-or-Treat” or coffee shops or giving away cash at the door — nor are any of those the answer to our problem. It seems we are doing everything we can to attract people to our churches for another program or event — while also doing everything we can to not be forced to uncomfortably live Christ into our communities.
We enjoy hosting a band and drinking coffee in our own sterile environment, hoping people will think that’s more cool than a Super Bowl Party or VBS, and come to our event instead of the church’s down the street. What if we invested just some of the time we spend on VBS in helping soccer dads learn how to effectively share the gospel with the parents of the team he coaches — and then praying for him in that ministry? Or we could actually go to a real coffee shop, and be intentionally spiritual there? If we lived obedient lives of service IN our communities, and not in our church buildings, then I really believe we would see a marked difference.
And not only in evangelism — but in vibrant, joy-filled lives bursting with the glory of God and his goodness and love.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:04 am
As a “product” of Northpoint, this article is especially timely. I woke up to Jesus in April of 2000 and in May, moved to Alpharetta and began attending Northpoint. At first I hated it, even though I had no experience in what church should be. It seemed to go against some preconceived notion of churchy stuff.
Then one of Andy’s sermons hooked me and I got it.
Knowing all the warts and roses that come with the big churches, we are now in a smaller city in the hunt for a church home. My perspective is now very different about what church should be. It seems to me that this article’s perspective speaks to a number of ideas about what church should be, how is should to be measured, effectiveness vs. biblical mandate, etc.
I now realize that what I want to see in a church is God alive in the leadership and the congregation. Not measured by how effective their serving is, or outreach is, but in how I feel when I walk in the doors based on the people I meet. Surprising to me is how little weight the environment carries given what we are accustomed to.
Numerous times Paul showed up to tell the religious elite that their way was wrong but he had the ultimate answer. If we, as a gathering of believers, are focused on the ultimately answer, and living it out, then the rest of this conversation is structure and process. Not to say God is not interested in us applying it, but recognizing that at it’s core the church rests in the heart of it’s people…
Sorry, I realized I’m rambling and lost the central tenant.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:05 am
As a “lurker” who usually keeps his opinions to himself, I’ve gotta say I agree with JamesBrett. I have two friends who are right now in the middle of the biggest crisis in their lives. They have premature twin girls in the hospital and don’t know whether they will ever make it out or what their long term prognosis will be. The most involved people in ministering to these people have been the regulars who hang out in the bar at the restaurant the father manages. They have donated money, brought food, and given hugs and encouragement when it is needed. All the things a church should be doing. But my friends are not “members” so they apparently do not qualify for “membership priveliges” at any of our local churches. I called one local megachurch to try and help connect them with a pastor who would come by and pray with them and was told, “Our pastors don’t do that.” Huh? Truthfully there is nothing inherently evil or wrong with Sunday School or VBS or coffee shops or whatever in themselves. But the point may be have we become so invested in the programs that we’ve forgotten about people?
November 18th, 2009 at 11:47 am
jenksym-
agree
it’s about people, not programs
may we seek relationships (w/ Abba & others) over religion
November 18th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Lance,
Growing up we heard it hundreds of times, didn’t we? We don’t go to church; we are the church. I think we do too much on campus. Worse, we give people the impression that whatever they do off campus doesn’t really count b/c it hasn’t been officially sanctioned as ministry.
Decentralize ministry, I say! Do fewer things on campus. Do fewer things that must be overseen by ministry professionals. Do more in your neighborhood, more informal things. It all counts.
And teach people to study the Bible themselves. If they choose not to, it’s on them. But church leaders can’t continue to cut folks’ meat for them and expect them to ever grow up. I sometimes wonder if many of our programs just end up stunting a person’s growth.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
JamesBrett,
I think you’re right on, but I can’t live like that if I’m always at the church building or busy doing “church” stuff. Sunday School, Sunday morning service, Sunday night small group, Monday night softball game, Tuesday night visitation, Wednesday night class, Thursday morning men’s prayer breakfast, Friday night youth event, Saturday morning missions fundraiser.
We’ve scheduled our people out of ever having to live incarnationally in their own neighborhoods.
We must begin taking a lesson from successful businesses who are learning that sometimes less is more.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Walt,
Thanks so much for adding your perspective here. That Andy Stanley is the most consistently good communicator I’ve ever heard (and I’m not just saying that b/c I hope he leaves a comment here and makes my blog the most popular site this side of Scot McKnight’s — though if he wanted to, I wouldn’t object and would probably send him a nice fruit basket as a way of expressing my gratitude), and North Point has created a wonderful place where people like you can come and hear God’s message in clear and applicable terms.
You’re right on about keeping focused on the Ultimate Answer (which is Jesus himself and the life-giving message of redemption he brings). That’s always got to be the center of the target.
Let me know where you’re living now. I may be able to help connect you w/ a good, healthy, full-of-God’s-life church where you are.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Jenksym,
I can’t speak for the church you called, but I know that’s a fairly common response — and there are reasons (good and bad) for it. Obviously, the pastors of a local church see their calling first and foremost to equip members for works of service. In a large church — particularly if they are understaffed due to budget cuts like so many churches are currently experiencing — it is a difficult but necessary thing to maintain healthy boundaries between work and rest or church and family. In most large churches they rely on small groups to do things like hospital visits and only attend to the most critical or the most “inside” of insiders.
That’s just a reality in most large churches, and, personally, I think it reflects a healthy restoration of the priesthood of the believers. We shouldn’t have grown so reliant upon professional clergy to do those kinds of things for us.
Having said that, I think large churches still ought to have some sort of “care ministry” for people like you’ve mentioned — those who aren’t connected to church and don’t have a small group of folks they’re doing life with (except for the kind people in their neighborhood bar).
People vs. Programs. Seems like you and I have been having that conversation for a decade now, eh? Programs are important, but they’re not created to live forever. People, on the other hand, are. So, it seems the Sabbath was made for man and not the other way ’round. I read that somewhere. Now how exactly to live that out….
November 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
“I now realize that what I want to see in a church is God alive in the leadership and the congregation. Not measured by how effective their serving is, or outreach is, but in how I feel when I walk in the doors based on the people I meet.”
Walt,
I’m with you completely in that what I want to see in any church is God living in his disciples. And I’m with you, too, that we need to be living out our faith. But that’s my problem, I think. I mean this as respectfully as possible, but it’s a very strong conviction that I hold, so I’m afraid I’ll say it poorly: Living out my faith takes place OUTSIDE the walls of the church building, not in programs or in how friendly people are, or even in how much they feel like a family while they’re inside those doors.
And I’m not suggesting that we go from church to church measuring how effective each’s service is in the community or how far their outreach extends to non-Christans. But I am saying this seems to be how God measures our faith and love. Faith exhibits itself in a Spirit-empowered, obedient life. God expects his children to be fruitful. Jesus expects those that love him to be obedient to the father. I would suggest that worship is what we do in our everyday lives in our communities — and that what we ought to be doing when we come together on Sundays is bringing our lives of worship and obedience to lay before God, as we encourage one another in that process of worship and obedience.
I don’t want to sound like a works guy, and by no means is that who I am. It’s just that our churches seem to be so inward-focused and attractional in what we do, asking others to come to us because we’ve got Jesus. I just think God must be sad that we’re not living Jesus into the lives of those he loves — who may never dim the the doors of our Sunday “worship” or even our Friday night coffee shop.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:51 am
James.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. In my attempt at brevity (very very hard for me), I did not expand on the “feeling I get from the people” vs “what the church is DOING” point. So, I’ll give it a go and expect you’ll weigh in.
Not having any experience with church before Northpoint I realized that moving to a new city (Savannah) would require I really dig down into what we (wife and I) thought about church. Which meant how do we best define the crossroads between my family leadership responsibility / desire to be fed and where a church shows up to both meet my needs as well as provide a structure through which we can be part of God’s body (serving). With this ongoing analysis I’ve been struck by how Program-oriented so many churches here appear to be. Of course I’m dancing a line here in my attempt to not pass judgement but for us, a basketball team, VBS, etc etc. is not in the top 3-4 criteria as we go about assessing a church. I think I’m focused more on the sacrifice of the leadership and congregation. Sacrifice from the top down, where the leadership has laid down their pride and assumption of control (“success rests in our hands”), the congregation seems to follow, and the Holy Spirit is alive and palpable to the outsider that walks through the doors. Measuring how many meals served, games won, baptisms, etc. seems to be a trap to me.
CAVEAT WARNING- Before Jesus rescued me and His truth broke me of my intellectual dishonsety and pride, I gleefully engaged Christians in a debate to deflate, or seriously challenge, what they believed. Not that I am that smart, simply that most of the people I talked to had little Biblical knowledge to defend against my straw men, open ended questions, etc. Just debate strategy…so, I’m far from a scholar in this realm, I’m only offering a perspective, based in lots of prayer and wonder. /CAVEAT WARNING.
I do, periodically, succumb to the desire for measurement in some capacity but for our search, I’m intentionally resisting it. This is not about Works, it’s about spirit (little s). Is the spirit among the folks we meet in the first 30 seconds reflecting what’s going on in their hearts? Are they the Light on the stand? Do they believe and live out that Jesus is enough? Yes these are stringent limiting questions and I know there are many facets to that moment when I walk through the church doors but that’s where the gut check thing comes in. What the church is doing, IMO, from the spirit perspective, is inevitably Works because it’s born out of the fruit of the Spirit (big S). God promises that the logical product of an indwelling of the Holy Spirit is Works. Horse, then Cart.
(A reread shows me how disjointed this is but I hope I’m making the point.) This is about the quality of servitude, not the quantity. At the end of the day, for me, it’s about the depth of my relationships not the breadth.
In Reggie Joiner’s book Mentor Like Jesus he makes a statement about the finite amount of time he has to spend with mentorees, to paraphrase:” I realized I wanted to spend more time with fewer people”.
If I were running a church, and doing the math on how to support the church (and draw a paycheck), a numbers game wins. % of givers x # of people showing up….
As opposed to focusing on an assembly that is drawn and growing due to the quality of the people, as shown by the quality of their servitude, and trusting God to keep that momentum going. That product, I think, is a function of the quality of the congregation’s relationships with God and each other. Of course there is still a need for discipleship and Biblical training, but imagine how much more effective each of those disciples is when there is a person, invested in them, that knows the right approach because they have a relationship with them. IMO, again, no church-going history other than 9 years at NPCC and Buckhead, that depth is going to make wonderful Jesus loving people. That can, in real time, be investing in others. VBS seems like a factory approach vs. craftsman approach. I know Jesus taught groups and gatherings, but they were gathered typically due to religious or political reasons. Of course His best work seemed to be in conversation with another person…okay, it’s all His best work but you get my point.
Wow, you just burned 4 minutes reading all of this. As my wife says “Honey, land the plane”. I hope it landed…thanks for listening.
November 19th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Four minutes? Walt, I had to read it twice. But it was a pleasant ten minutes — double four and add two for my being a slow reader. You know, never once did I finish in its entirety the reading section of the ACT in high school — and I took it three times. But I do understand better now what you meant before — and I think I had misunderstood a bit. I was making your comment more about the importance of how a community of believers act when together on Sunday, over how they live in their communities during the week. But like you I am saddened a bit (is it fair to say you are saddened) by program-oriented churches — especially when programs are attractional in nature. Thanks for your comments and discussion.