Element Church Insider

Please read the previous posts HERE and HERE!  These are just scribbles in my journal at this point and thought that blogging it would help me process it more.  The first two stages are Establish and Enhance.  The established church basically “made it” to the point that they could continue doing the exact same thing and ALWAYS exist just as they are.  The enhancing church is taking what is established and making ALL of it better.  Becoming more efficient and excellent in how they are doing ministry.  It leads to stage #3.

Stage #3 is Expand:  When a church begins to expand, they are going beyond making it better.  The expanding church wants to make sure they are reaching FULL impact in ALL areas of ministry for their community.

The biggest statement is “Whatever makes it bigger”:  Now that things are better, how do we make them bigger?  How do we reach MORE people?  How do we serve in MORE places?  How can we give MORE to missions?  How can we do MORE in our city?  Impact, influence, the SCOPE of the ministry is ready to go BIG but how do we do it?  The enhancing church, if they aren’t careful, can keep making things better without ever using better to be bigger.  I’m not JUST talking about “How many come to church”.  I’m talking about “How big of a stinkin’ dent can we put in hell?”  “How can we help meet REAL needs of REAL people in our community?”  How can our church of 200 make the BIGGEST impact?  What about 500?  1000?  2000?  I DO think that if a church makes it to the third stage, the results WILL be more people “coming” to church but that isn’t necessarily the goal.

The biggest question is “What more can we do?”:  Where else can we serve?  Can we take our existing serving opportunities and make them bigger?  What else does the city need?  What can we add to our experience to make it bigger?  Expansion mode, keeps the church in establish and enhance mentality ALL the time.  When you’re expanding, you’re constantly trying to establish  new things, enhance them then expand again.  Establish, enhance and expand again.  You’re ALWAYS willing to “do whatever it takes” and “make it better”.  Your consistently wondering “will we make it?” because expansion STRETCHES the church like nothing else.  It keeps the church ADVANCING!  It is risky and scary. But there is no better place to be.  If expansion doesn’t happen, a church will enhance itself to death and eventually just establish.

The biggest danger is “Let’s stay here!”:  “We’ve always done this so why would we change it, add to it, or take it away?”  Most churches are GREAT at getting here, and then they stay.  Keep everything running smoothly and efficiently, WHY ROCK THE BOAT?  “We don’t mind enhancing what we already have, but lets not go beyond that.”  It’s at this point where churches are in danger if being “ABOUT” the building and not use the building to be “ABOUT” the city, people or Kingdom.  There is NOTHING wrong with having a building, as long as you’re not ABOUT the building.  It’s at this stage that we are VERY comfortable.  We like where we are at.  We like who we are with.  And we like what we already do.  It’s just easier to stay here!  What we end up with is we keep enhancing OUR STUFF but our impact on the city stays the same.

I’ll tell you, THIS is where I am challenged the most as Lead Pastor of Element Church right now.  HOW do we expand our impact.  It’s our vision!  That GOD would so impact the Cheyenne area through Element Church that if it were gone the community would miss it.

Processing,

Jeff

This is something I worked through a few weeks ago, and I shared with the Lead Team as well.  It isn’t completely formulated beyond the pages of my journal yet so I thought I’d get it up on the blog to keep processing it.  Since it’s not fully processed it’s a bit random.  I started thinking about Element Church.  We’re 16 months old, but we’ve already gone through several “stages” of church life.  It got me thinking about where we were going, and what we would be doing 16 months from now.  Then I started thinking about the fact that EVERY church, at some point, was a church plant.  Whether your 16 weeks, 16 months, 16 years or 160 years old, you started and ground zero.  LAUNCH SUNDAY!  So I began jotting down what I thought were the four stages of the church.  I’ll start with stage #1 today.

Stage #1 “Establish”: In the establish stage of the church you are concerned with very few things.  There are probably more but here are three

1.  Money  2. Consistency and 3.  Critical Mass.

Money is HUGE in the start up of a church.  It is not the ONLY factor, but it definitely helps in being able to launch big.  People have started churches with lots of money and failed miserably.  People have started churches with little to NO money and were HUGE successes.  Lots of variables go into that, I just know for us, and talking to other church planters, that when you are trying to get established it just simply takes money.  WHEN Element decides to plan another church or campus, one of my HIGHEST priorities is to resource that church plant team properly with finances.  Being a church plant that was properly resourced enabled us to do things that I think were a HUGE factor in the strong start we had.  Two paid pastoral staff, office assistant, office rental, marketing, outreach, equipment ALL were a part of our beginning because of money.

Consistency was one of my BIGGEST frustrations and concerns when we were being established.  Church doesn’t work without consistently committed people.  I was surprised (not sure why) at how many “AWESOME, we’ll be there!” responses we got from people that were at BEST hit and miss.  Mostly no shows.  In fact the people who became consistent were the biggest surprises for us.  You CANNOT become established until you have consistency.  Bible studies, service projects, prayer meetings, worship times DON’T WORK without consistency.  We started doing Unplugged services each Sunday in the Summer of 07 to start developing these consistently committed people.  Unplugged made the beginning of Element Church.  That leads to the other part of the Establish stage.

Critical Mass.  I don’t know what the magic # is, but there is something about a certain # of people that make a service “feel” better to people.  If you come to a church 0f 15, compared to a church of 50, something just “feels” different.  Critical mass is huge in the success of an early church.  It helps first time guests feel as if they don’t stand out as much.  It brings more enthusiasm and energy into worship.  It creates a greater sense that “something is happening”.

The biggest statement is:  “Whatever it takes!” When it is LITERALLY “This thing works or we move somewhere else”, you will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to make sure it works.  Sacrifice, time, work, money, effort, WHATEVER.  You work as if it depends on you and PRAY as if it depends on God.  UTTER DEPENDANCY ON GOD!  You realize the GRAVITY of what you are trying to do.  By the way, why do we lose that the longer our church is “established”?

The biggest question is: “Will we make it?” A great sense of wonder fills the establish part of church life.

The biggest danger is: “We’ll give in” Giving in to someone elses vision.  People WILL come to a new church to try and push their vision and agenda.  New churches attract disgruntled church goers who want to make THIS church what THEY think it should be.  This NEVER goes away in ANY stage.  DON’T GIVE IN!  Giving in to someone who has money.  “What if they stop giving?”  Who gives a crap?   Did they call you to do this or God?  Trying to be “another” church and not who God called you to be.  Just because it worked for… doesn’t mean it will work for you!

EVERYTHING in the first stage of a church is about “making it”.  Getting to a place where the church is sustainable.  Money is coming in.  Ministries are being performed.  People are being reached.  I remember the anxiety of the unknown.  SO MANY variables to getting established.  SO MANY expectations, whether realistic or not.  MAN, what is sad to me is that the next three stages are so often avoided by churches.  Establish is all they ever make it to.  It’s a danger for all of us.  Stage 2 – 4 coming.

Processing,

Jeff