Had a conversation yesterday to explain to someone why we don’t have a certain event anymore.
It’s hard to explain to people why we change things at church.
All the things we did in the past are good. So why change? Why eliminate it?
I’m writing this out so I can clarify in my own mind the vision we are trying to achieve.
The kind of culture we want to build is based on our vision of Biblical, Intergenerational, Missional (BIM).
The kind of culture currently in our church that we want to eliminate is – program focused (plan an event that requires a lot of manpower and they will come), silo mentality (you do your thing with your people, I’ll do mine with my people), and consumer attitude (the thing is good if we like it and benefits us).
Not only does a pathway have to be crafted for the vision to have practical onramps for people to live the vision, but the mindset has to shift to WANT to be on that pathway and the willingness to change the things that contribute to the current culture (“Everything was good before, why are we changing things? How is the new way any better?”).
I don’t even know what it all entails to make this happen. We are working on it one step at a time. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like we are getting anywhere.
If we evaluate a single program – is it glorifying God and accomplishing something good? – the answer can always be justified to be a yes.
We must ask – is it on the pathway of being BIM? Is it contributing to the mindset of the current culture that needs to change?
We want to replace program focused with programs that are vision and relationship focused; replace silo mentality with collaboration. We are are vision and relationship focused and approach everything with humble collaboration, then the consumer attitude will change.
As I write this, I’m not even sure if my thinking is correct. I think of basic Body life of a church, of the first century church, of what Jesus said how the Body functions and what Church is to be.
Sometimes it seems like church has gotten too complicated. I’m not smart enough.