I remember a time very early in my ministry when I asked what were considered to be silly questions. This happened at the first board meeting at a new church. The conference leaders had encouraged pastors to lead their churches in goal setting and strategic planning, so I asked the obvious questions. “What evangelistic plans do you have as a church? What baptismal goals do you think our church should set?”
I was certainly not expecting their reaction. They told me, in no uncertain terms, that they considered such things as goal setting and strategic planning to be the pastor’s responsibility. Responses such as “That’s what you are paid to do,” convinced me that it would take more than that first meeting to convince these folk of the need for them to take some responsibility in this most vital area of church life.
Over the next few years, as I moved to new pastorates, I noticed what appeared to be a widespread mind-set among church members. Most of the churches had not organized anything at all in regard to outreach and evangelism for the ensuing year. When asked to explain why nothing had been planned, the usual answer was something like this: “Well we didn’t know what you would want to do, so we left it until you arrived.”
Several years ago, I was challenged to consider this situation from a conference personal ministries director’s perspective. Part of my responsibility, as director of personal ministries, was to allocate evangelism funds to churches that sent in evangelism strategies and budget requests. A church that was waiting for their pastor to arrive sent in a letter requesting that some money be reserved for them. There was no accompanying proposed evangelism strategy because, as they wrote, “Our pastor has not arrived yet, and we don’t know what he will want to do.”
Encouraging your church to act
In light of the above mentioned issues, there are a number of points on which we, as pastors, would do well to refocus. While the following points are by no means an exhaustive list and we are all aware that one size does not fit all, they are suggested as possible ways to encourage local churches to understand their responsibility in the areas of evangelistic planning and goal setting.
1. Be certain of your role. Although, as pastors, we have a significant part to play in the plans and programs of the church, do not let the church members convince you that this work belongs totally to you. It’s easy, especially for those new to ministry, to have their ministry molded by the attitudes and expectations of the congregation. The church and pastor somehow enter into a circular journey. The church expects the pastor to do the work, which is what happens because things will not get going if the pastor does not do it. The cycle continues as the church comes to believe that the pastor wants to do everything, and the pastor laments the fact that the church members will not take the initiative in planning and goal setting.
This arrangement then becomes part of the way the church does things. Over time, as the cycle continues through a number of pastors, the church becomes what is called “pastor dependent” and is unwilling to make even relatively simple decisions if the pastor is not present.
Help members understand that they are the best ones to organize the church’s evangelistic endeavors. Explain that they are the ones who know what has been done previously and with what results. They know the town or district better than the new pastor. Those who have lived in the district for most or all of their lives will know it even better than the pastor who has been there for a few years. Locals know the people, their prejudices, concerns, and, most important, many of their needs.
2. Listen and learn. There is much to learn after seminary, and there are a few ways of learning. Continual upgrading through events, such as ministers’ meetings and seminars, are good. Keeping abreast of issues through serious reading is also good. However, learning through interaction with church members is a most vital learning experience, the benefits of which are often not realized.
While most members would not presume to tell the pastor how he or she should do ministry, they will most often share their concerns, ideas, and interests when asked. The key includes asking the right questions with the right attitude. Rather than telling the church members what you think should be done, and how, ask for their thoughts and suggestions. Learn from their experiences.
Building commitment through involvement is an important principle in anyone’s ministry. We often hear people speak of how the church needs to work with the pastor, but the pastor also needs to work with the church and not just do things for the church. People experience a sense of ownership, with its ensuing responsibility and accountability, when they are involved in making the decisions.
3. Be willing to fit in. We cannot expect a church’s involvement in setting goals and formulating strategies to continue very long if the pastor, especially the newly arrived, immediately sets about overriding the plans the church has formulated. The members must be allowed to learn from their experiences. Even though the pastor may make changes with the best of intentions, the message received may be that the church has not done the right thing or performed it well enough. One extreme result may be that the church will consider that the pastors think they know everything, so let them do everything.
In all evangelistic planning and implementation, the pastor should recognize the importance of creating a team approach where the pastor and members function as a unit and all feel to be a valued part of the team. Together the team will plan, implement, evaluate, adjust, learn, communicate, and problem solve. The pastor will be committed to helping each team member succeed, giving assistance where needed but not taking over. Trust the team members with the tasks you have given them.
4. Make all evangelistic planning a part of church board deliberations. In most churches, much of the evangelistic planning will be done by the members of the personal ministries committee. Even if this is the case, proposals should be presented to the church board. This ensures that the planning has become a part of the overall church strategy and is owned by more than the personal ministries committee and the pastor. This also provides an opportunity to counteract pastor dependence by teaching the members that they can work on plans and strategies through a team ministry whether or not the pastor is present.
Remind church members of the important implications of Matthew 28:19, 20. The call to make disciples surely follows the call to be a disciple, and discipleship involves winning people for Jesus.
5. Have goals and strategies. The pastor should have short, medium, and long term evangelistic goals and strategies by which to reach them. Having no plans for the future will ensure that not much gets done and will cause the church to rely upon the new pastor for day by day direction.
Some people shy away from goal setting and strategic planning because they feel they are a failure if, for some reason, the plans go astray and the goals are not reached. The pastor should know the importance of understanding that setting goals does not mean that your church is locked into them, regardless, or that only one way exists to achieve them.
As a pastor learns from both the congregation and the community, it may become evident that what at first seemed a good plan needs to be modified or adjusted somewhat. In turn, the need for change may reveal some emergent strategies that, if adopted, will help the church reach its goals.
The size of a congregation does not matter when it comes to evangelistic planning. Some smaller congregations shy away from goal setting and strategic planning because they wonder what they can accomplish with so few people. Reality says that goal setting and strategic planning is vital to any size church if they are to effectively reach out to their community.
A church’s evangelistic plans must be both realistic and achievable. Make sure your dreams are not bigger than your abilities. They must be affordable. Can you build it into your budget? They must be sustainable. Can we support this strategy with money, people, time, expertise, and other resources? Can we share this program with other sister churches? They must be flexible. Be on the lookout for needed adjustments and consider emergent strategies. They must be able to be evaluated: What did we achieve? Do we increase funding, effort, time allocation, or not? They must have a time frame—not just a starting date but ongoing times for specific tasks (set times for evaluation, for example). They must be owned by the church. Work through the church board or leadership group. Show benefits, show affordability, show how spiritual needs will be met.
6. Use evangelistic gifts wisely. Most pastors would have read at some time the percentages of members with particular spiritual gifts. Usually the gift of evangelism is considered the realm of only a few people, a small percentage of the members. How can the church be expected to do great things in the area of evangelism when most members see that their giftedness rests in other ministry areas?
Two points need to be made here. The first point is that a church needs to identify those people with evangelistic gifts, interests, and enthusiasm. As pastor, you should intentionally seek out these people and perhaps even tailor your evangelism around their giftedness and expertise. It is far better to undertake a program that your church is equipped to handle rather than planning programs and strategies that necessitate the pressuring of people into areas in which they have no giftedness or great interest to perform.
The second point has to do with rightly using those with an evangelistic gift. How many times have we seen people who have a definite interest and flair for evangelism get bogged down in some other major leadership task or in multiple support roles? Perhaps churches should consider their evangelistic strategies before they commence their nominating committee deliberations. As important as it is to put the best leaders in the right positions of church leadership, we must also give those with evangelistic enthusiasm and giftedness the room to be involved in the outreach mission of the church.
If we don’t, we may find that all evangelistic talents are tied up in church maintenance—and we are just treading water.
Once again, small churches may consider that they do not have a choice in this area; that if the best leaders are the ones who would do evangelism we must give them leadership positions first. I suggest that we would be pleasantly surprised if we focused upon evangelism first, and allowed the Lord to impress others to do leadership tasks.
7. Identify evangelism support groups. Be careful not to separate the evangelistic thrust of the church from all other church functions. When we see all aspects of church life as part of the whole, we begin to see where each can support the other for the common good.
Each sub-group in the church can have an evangelistic focus. Show the treasury team that they are not just allocating money to projects, but that they are a part of the team that supports the evangelism programs. As mentioned already the church board is a vital support group. Always keep the support groups informed of progress, and involve them in the decision processes.
Conclusion
Above all, remember that the Lord is with us in our efforts to win souls for His kingdom. We can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that our training, or reading, gives us all the necessary skills to perform the task. While training and educational reading is vital in the process of equipping people for professional or lay ministry, the blessing and power of God makes all the difference. That is the difference between just preaching and preaching with power. That is the difference between reaching out to the community through our concern and reaching out with God’s love.