This may require a change for you. From my experience as a pastor and working with many pastors, I’ve noted that most are unaware of their leadership gifts, their strengths and their weaknesses. So we remain unsure as to why things aren’t happening the way they should.
Yes, stubborn and rebellious people fill some of our pews. But another component is the lack of pastoral leadership. Sometimes our people aren’t prepared to live on mission with an outward focus because we as leaders haven’t prepared them to do so. You cannot lead what you do not live.
You can say, “My church isn’t reaching people. It isn’t evangelistic.” But then I would ask you, “Are you personally evangelistic?” If you aren’t showing and sharing the love of Christ to your neighbor, then neither will your church. They’ll resemble you. People will follow your lead.
Real-life mission produces real-life examples and real-life conversations. So if you are faithfully engaging in a life of outward focus, it will open doors for you to teach and challenge your church in that lifestyle. Being on mission in your community, reaching out to the lost and sharing the message of hope and holiness will be a great help in getting your church back on mission.
4. Move Into the Community
Transformational churches build a good reputation within their town or city. This will probably involve moving into a totally different line of thinking. Churches should seek significance in a city, not signage.
This question needs your answer. If your church disappeared from its community, would the people in the community miss it? For many the sad but true answer is “no.” No one in the community would miss the church because the church has never impacted the community.
Your church should be essential to the community. For this to happen your church must move outside the building; it must be outward focused.
Many churches in transitional communities, rather than reorienting themselves, move out of the town. God’s call is for us to reach our host communities. Healthy churches do that. We should want to be near the people God wants to reach. You cannot transform people you are avoiding.
God doesn’t just reach out to communities. God reaches into communities. Isn’t that precisely what the incarnation was all about?
5. Celebrate the Wins
Healthy transforming churches celebrate people who engage in the community through service. What you celebrate, you become. So for you, standing before your church and saying “We are so thankful for what God is doing. Alicia has gone out and she’s been serving the poor and the hurting. She is making a Kingdom difference in the lives of people in our community.”
Celebrate that activity. Why wouldn’t we? Partly because we tend to celebrate what is going on inside the church, we forget to celebrate those who serve outside.
People regularly become Christians when we serve. Service opens doors for proclamation of the gospel.
Jesus said we are a light in darkness, and we should let our light so shine among people that they see our good works and glorify our Father who is in Heaven (Matthew 5:16). Our churches shouldn’t have an outward focus simply so we can do good works for people, but rather to glorify God.
Ed Stetzer holds the Billy Graham distinguished chair of church, mission and evangelism at Wheaton College and the Wheaton Grad School, where he also oversees the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism.