Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JIM HERRINGTON is executive director of Mission Houston, an interdenominational, multicultural pastoral effort to transform the city of Houston. MIKE BONEM is president and cofounder of Kingdom Transformation Partners, a church consulting and training firm based in Houston. JAMES H. FURR is senior church consultant with Union Baptist Association and adjunct professor of sociology at Houston Baptist University.

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Leading Congregational Change

Jossey-Bass

Chapter One

Many Christian congregations in America today need to experience life-giving transformation. If the need is so compelling, why are these congregations not embracing and initiating change? In fact, many have attempted to make adjustments. But their efforts often run into resistance or produce marginal results. When this happens, they may conclude that "we can't change-we'll just have to make the best of it."

There's good news! God is still eager and able to re-create both people and congregations. Furthermore, the principles of leading transformation can be learned by most church leaders in ordinary congregations.

Over the past decade, a group of churches in Houston, Texas, has passionately engaged the question, "How do we transform declining congregations into Christ-like bodies that display the power of the Gospel in our communities?" Today congregations everywhere are struggling with the rapid-fire changes in our world and the impact these changes are having on their ministries. How do churches respond to these changes and remain true to the core teachings of the Scripture?

These are questions that the churches of Union Baptist Association (UBA) have been addressing for more than a decade. This book presents the model and principles for congregational transformation that emerged from their journey. In sharing the lessons from our experience, we hope to encourage other congregations and to help them navigate their own tumultuous environments.

In this chapter, we relate the story of the model's development in UBA. The story actually unfolds on two levels-the transformation of a local judicatory and of many individual congregations. With the benefit of hindsight, we are able to tell the story in an orderly fashion. As we lived it, the actual experience was anything but orderly. Fueled by a passion for the local church, pastors and judicatory leaders prayed, studied, dialogued, and experimented. We learned as much from our failures as we did from our successes. We experienced conflict at many different levels. The process was both humbling and rewarding, two emotions that any change leader will ultimately experience.

How successful has the journey been? In the 1980s, Southern Baptist congregations lost ground, when compared to the overall growth of the population, in every county in the country. From 1990 to 1995, the Southern Baptist churches in Houston grew by 19.2 percent while the county grew by an estimated 12.9 percent. Baptisms increased by nearly 50 percent, and giving to the association increased dramatically. A clear and compelling vision is shared among this group of denominational churches in a day that proclaims the death of denominational loyalties. This book is not about denominational revitalization, but we do advocate that congregational leaders learn and draw support from others to navigate the waters of change successfully.

The church in America is at a crossroads. We share our story to offer hope to churches across the country-hope in a practical, proven process that can help create a renewed sense of vitality and impact. Though it is written by three church consultants, this is the story of courageous pastors and congregational leaders who allowed us to learn with them as they embraced the journey of change.

Two Defining Moments: Catalysts for Change

Our story begins in the fall of 1989. The UBA staff team experienced two clarifying moments that set the course for a decade of learning about change leadership. The previous spring, I (Jim Herrington) was called to serve as the director of this association of five hundred Southern Baptist churches in the Houston area. The two colleagues who coauthor this book joined the team almost immediately. James Furr became a member of the staff team, serving as a consultant to local congregations. Mike Bonem served as my personal consultant in the effort to clarify UBA's mission and vision for the future.

A Fresh Look at the Trends

The first defining moment grew out of a statistical analysis. James profiled the membership, attendance, and giving trends for all our churches as a group from 1950 through 1989. The graphs reflected generally positive growth in all the categories. My immediate response to this picture was "This looks good. We've done well over the past forty years."

Then James finished the story. On top of the trend lines for the association, he laid a graph of the growth of the city for the same period. The message was startling. It showed a gap between the growth of the churches and the growth of the city that grew wider every year. In business terms, we had been losing market share for forty years. At the annual meeting of our churches each fall, we would congratulate ourselves for an increase in resident membership, while failing to acknowledge that the city had grown significantly faster during the same year. We had actually lost ground. With few exceptions, this pattern had repeated itself for forty years.

Feedback from the Front Lines

Determined to discover the causes of this trend, we convened a series of seventeen listening sessions with pastors around the city. This produced the second defining moment. A total of 176 pastors participated. They represented congregations of all sizes, of the inner city and the suburbs, and of eight different cultures.

On a Tuesday night in September 1989, we convened a listening session at Faith Memorial Baptist Church. Sixteen pastors attended, and several brought their spouses. As the meeting unfolded, a pastor named Dave decided to give us some painfully honest feedback. "I never open any mail that comes from the denomination. You guys don't have a clue what my world is like. You keep sending me standardized programs with promises that my church will successfully reach the community, if I just use the program the way you designed it. When I say that it's not working, you tell me that I'm either doing something wrong or that I'm not working hard enough."

He paused and looked at the floor. When he looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. "I'm working harder than I've ever worked, for less results than I've ever gotten. My health is failing and my family is falling apart. And I feel abandoned by my denomination. I want nothing more than to see my community embrace the Gospel. But one thing is clear to me. Working harder at what we've been doing is simply not the answer."

That night we gathered around Dave and prayed for him. I thanked him for the courage to be honest. Then came the clarifying moment. I looked at the other pastors and said, "It would help me to know how much Dave's experiences mirror your own."

We did not leave the room until after midnight. These men and women poured out hearts of frustration and confusion. They knew, long before we did a statistical analysis, that we were losing the city. They knew that their best efforts were not producing the results that they desired and that their communities needed. They were brokenhearted over the lack of impact their churches were having. And they were frustrated that their training had not prepared them for this world. It was clear that they were looking for credible guides to share the risks of navigating this new world, and none were to be found.

As I drove home that night, I found myself talking out loud to God. I asked him for wisdom. I made a promise that if he would show the way to help pastors and...