“There was a lot of excellence in worship,” recalls Drew, “but we were pretty weak at making disciples. People would look at those leading from the front and say, ‘What could I possibly offer here? Everything is done so professionally.’ We had a congregation that saw themselves as an audience.”
St Andrews’ vicar, Mark Stibbe, was also troubled by this reality, and asked Drew to take charge of developing a new church strategy. Believing that the real mission of St. Andrews was to bring hope to those outside of the building and beyond the congregation, Drew started to think about how he might build a “go-to-them” church—one that would encourage the spiritual growth of its members while multiplying their impact in the community around them.
As he struggled with this challenge, Drew was hit with another realization. While St. Andrews had small groups (typically 3-4 believers who’d meet during the week to chat and pray), and a really big group (the entire congregation), it had no mid-sized groups—nothing that was the equivalent of an extended family—more than three but less than fifty. This struck Drew as odd since the early Christian church had been built around communities of just this size.
So Drew went out searching for some in-between models of church—and found one in Sheffield, England. There, Mike Breen, the vicar of St Thomas Crookes, had been experimenting with programs built around “mid-sized” groups of 20-50 members. Intrigued, Drew drove up to Sheffield and spent several hours interviewing Mike about his novel approach. During that conversation, Mike planted the seeds for what would become a bold experiment at St. Andrews.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wall Street Journal: Leadership from the inside out
This is a fascinating article (make sure you check out both parts I and II). I find it difficult to have the courage to try something different as a pastor, even when I believe that God is calling me to do that very thing: the reason? What if it doesn't work? What's really cool about the church studied in the article is that the change wasn't simply something to shake things up or just a surface change. It was a strategic move that had a particular result in mind: to get people to utilize their God-given gifts to do Kingdom work. How cool! And so many other things happened in addition to that. Take time to read both parts:
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