The Challenge of Being Purpose-Driven Church Presbyterians
At first glance, the purpose-driven concept may seem to reflect the values and expectations of the typical congregation, just with a different vocabulary. Wouldn’t most churches claim that they already nurture mission, worship, fellowship, discipleship, and ministry?
The key difference is that in the purpose-driven paradigm, church leaders insist that the accomplishment of the five purposes drive the process of making difficult decisions about priorities and the allocation of resources. All too often, factors other than the five biblically-based purposes determine the outcome of important decisions, with the effect that the faithfulness and effectiveness of the congregation is compromised.
All too often, congregational or denominational traditions drive decision-making. It’s been said that the epitaph on the tombstone of many dying churches will be, “We never did it that way before!” Obviously, many traditions are essential. The Bible is a written tradition! And, many non-essential traditions remain valuable and meaningful. For example, many persons, even younger persons, don’t find that contemporary music facilitates their own worship of God. The key in evaluating traditions is to strive to be good theologians, always listening to God speaking through scripture in order to discern what cannot change, as we seek to discern whether faithfulness to Christ compels us to change a cultural tradition when it serves as a barrier in the quest to fulfill the church’s purpose. Among the traditions that faithful congregations should continually evaluate are the musical selections, the scheduling of services and activities, our dependence on long-time programs like “Sunday School”, and the church’s manner of organizing and empowering leaders.
All too often, churches are personality-driven. It’s what a particular leader or family prefers, or what a popular staff person likes to do, that remains the programmatic priority, siphoning off precious resources of time, people, and money from what might best accomplish the biblical purpose.
All too often, churches are program-driven. Instead of being evaluated and modified, or even replaced, programs most suited to a past culture or schedules are continued merely because of inertia and/or nostalgia.
Many congregations are in fact, tradition, program, or personality-driven, regardless of claims to the contrary. The remedy is to be intentional in naming the church’s core values, and asking persons to embrace those values as God makes them ready.
Our commitment to engage in evangelistic Mission means that we seek to prepare each member for the joyful experience of leading persons into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It means that we seek to develop a small number of large-scale “bridge events”, which, because they respond to the perceived needs of our unchurched neighbors, tend to connect them to the Trinity church family. It also means that we shall seek to develop significant mission projects, locally and globally, which not only share Christ’s love, but also develop greater awareness and depth within the participants.
Our commitment to nurture genuine Worship has led us to continue offering services that blend contemporary and traditional music, as well as a service which features contemporary music only, to facilitate many persons into the whole-hearted worship of God. Not only is such worship meaningful for members, it helps seekers to grow in their awareness of God, and prepares them to enter an authentic relationship with Christ and the church. We’ve also become more purposeful in the way we craft messages. We often include bulletin inserts for note taking during sermons, and utilize a video-projector for illustrations, video-clips and Power Point note taking guides.
Our commitment to develop a authentic experience of Fellowship means that membership classes emphasize the need for persons to make a commitment to having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and relating to other Christians in a small group or class. Joining the church involves the embrace of a “Membership Covenant” which lists Trinity’s expectations for her members. By focusing our energies on developing meaningful small group options (called Life Groups), the majority of members now experience authentic Christian fellowship on a regular basis.
Our commitment to nurture meaningful Discipleship led us to phase out traditional Sunday School classes for adults. In as much as Life Groups (small groups) have become a more meaningful experience of membership, Trinity’s classes now focus on teaching biblical and theological truth without the distractions inherent when traditional Sunday School classes attempt to nurture fellowship. Trinity’s stewardship programs are now focused on the individual’s need to give, rather than the church’s need for money.
Our commitment to equip members for Ministry means that we take the time to help them discover their own call to ministry, and when they discern it, to ask these person to embrace a ministry covenant, which gives clear expectations and guidelines for their work. Without apology we ask member-ministers to cultivate a “servant’s-heart”, an attitude of humility that welcomes the opportunity to be trained and coached for improved effectiveness. Because we seek to equip hundreds of ministers for dozens of vital ministries, it’s necessary that Trinity’s ministers agree to a shared set of values and boundaries, so that growth isn’t slowed by confusion or conflict.
Purpose-Driven staffing means that those of us who are ministry staff see our primary task is to create ministry networks, train newly emerging member ministers, and coach them in their work. With such a philosophy, the church can, as Rick Warren claims, “grow larger and smaller, at the same time.” All of Trinity’s ministry staff members strive to develop their ministries according to Trinity’s “purpose driven Presbyterian” philosophy. For example, the Director of Children’s Ministries and the Director of Student Ministries have organized their areas according to the purpose-driven paradigm.
In the article entitled “Why Change a Good Church”, the story is told of how Trinity came to make the decision to pursue a purpose driven ministry. Here’s a brief summary of what happened over the next two years of transition. In the summer of 1998, while enduring the challenge of a massive construction program, the staff coordinated the re-construction of Trinity’s programs from temporary office space! We purchased Saddleback Church’s C.L.A.S.S. materials, and with them the right to edit our own versions. In August, the Spiritual Growth Seminar (C.L.A.S.S. 201) was offered for existing members; 100 persons attended and made a covenant to embrace the spiritual disciples appropriate for committed disciples. In September we began offering the Newcomers Seminar (C.L.A.S.S. 101) on a regular basis. In October we offered the Spiritual Growth Seminar again, and in January of 1999 we offered the Discovering Your Ministry Seminar (C.L.A.S.S. 301) for the first time.
In February of 1999 we began offering a Saturday Night Service, which was designed to be a “bridge” to connect us to the un-churched community. That fall, in our second year of transition, we begin making significant changes in the way we offered adult Sunday School classes, by developing seven rigorous “second base” classes, while continuing to strengthen fellowship-oriented classes. The re-tooling of our “minister-making” structures received great attention in the third year of transition. One modification was that instead of electing deacons to serve on an administrative board, deacons were ordained to focus on the leadership of specialized ministry or mission teams in partnership with other leaders who seek to accomplish the same biblical purpose.
In our fourth year of transition, we invested great attention to helping members find meaningful Life Groups. By devoting more staff time to this process, and by recognizing the wisdom of creating groups based on common life experience, the number of groups grew from 10 to 30 in one year – over 250 persons active in Life Groups. When we counted the additional numbers of folks who attended 200 level classes, we discovered that about 400 different persons were involved in fellowship and/or discipleship growth.
During our fifth year of transition, we moved the contemporary worship service from Saturday night to Sunday morning at 9:30. When moved to Sunday morning and simultaneously offering the children’s ministry program, it has become the largest service. Saturday nights were problematic for those we were trying to reach.
Knowing that ending the Saturday Night Service would be an unpopular decision with several folks, we reminded them of our purpose-driven commitment, which helped us develop a consensus for making the change. The decision's rightness was confirmed when the contemporary service attendance doubled within weeks. Before a year had gone by, the 9:30 service became the most well-attended.
After emerging from a season of vision discernment, we wondered what it would mean for us to become a "Well-Spring of Living Water" in this community. During the fall of that sixth year of transition, (2002) we did the "40 Days of Purpose", and discovered that our transformation into a life-changing church was just getting started. Almost 500 adults participated in reading Rick Warren's best-selling book, Purpose-Driven Life, out of 700 active members. That such a high percentage of were involved is an indication of how years of intentional disciple-making through C.L.A.S.S.es 101, 201, 301 have resulted in the majority of the congregation having a yearning for deeper spiritual growth. The "40 Days of Purpose" brought many more members into Life Groups, and motivated many disciples to make the commitment to a significant ministry. In the wake of this renewal, Trinity's Celebrate Recovery program was launched by twenty enthusiastic member-ministers.
Being purpose-driven has in many ways simplified our church planning. Instead of lurching out in new directions, each year we just try to do the same things in better ways, for many more people. For example, when Trinity's associate pastor left in 2003 to take a senior pastor position, other staff and lay leaders were able to continue his work of starting new Life Groups and strengthening existing groups, so that by the spring of 2004, there were 41 groups, a 30% increase. By using a new Saddleback program, "40 Days of Community", we reached the level of having 55 Life Groups in the fall of 2004, a 77% increase in a year!
In this seventh year of transition, we've also have seen a great increase in the number of members doing hands-on mission in local and global contexts. Significant numbers of youth and adults are crossing socio-economic and racial boundaries through a "sidewalk Sunday School", a soup kitchen, and an after-school mentoring center. We're developing partnerships in Haiti, looking forward to the day when members travel to that island on a regular basis, and anticipating exponential growth in giving to global mission projects. Before becoming purpose-driven, Trinity was not strong in the mission arena. Now our disciple-making process is yielding hundreds of members who are seeking to discern their calling as missionaries--how God wants to use their business, their professional experience, their vacation time, or their retirement to manifest His Kingdom of love, justice, and peace.
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