hardly hormal

Here is part of the great post Phil Cooke wrote about strategy:

But I’m shocked at the number of people that just keep doing the same thing year after year as if the direction of the ministry, audience numbers, response, income – whatever, will magically change.   But getting from point A to point B doesn’t happen by accident.  It happens through a well thought out plan.

And by the way – when it comes to churches - changing graphics, cool music, lighting effects, or dumping the choir robes isn’t a strategy.  That’s just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.   You need a fundamental re-think of what story your church or ministry is trying to tell, what that means to your audience, how to connect with that audience, and why it’s absolutely urgent they respond right now.

I could not resist posting a comment. I am really getting the itch to blog again so even though I am not taking hn.com life just yet, I thought I would get a fix. Here is the comment. Please know this is not negative. It really is positive because if more people would actually have the courage to be honest then the church would become self-aware and actually be effective.

Personality driven church leaderships unconscious need for control always seems to override what is the right and quite possibly the most effective choice. They will say they want growth, yet in reality they just want to be the boss. More often than not these authoritarian style leaders hinder their own church growth.

It is not uncommon for the pastor’s wife to gather together a team of people who have no real experience in fundraising to sit around for an hour or more to “guess” out a strategy. No data is gathered and there is no research – just verbal guessing as to what may be effective. Everyone gets pumped up because they now feel important and heck, this stuff must work since they saw it used on TBN. The only real requirement to be included in the team is that the person will NOT be completely honest since the last thing leadership wants is the real truth. Even the selection of the team is a guessing game so several of the people chosen have no business being in a strategy meeting. A time and productivity waster all around!

Although a plan is made it really just sends the organization into busy mode wasting resources and time. If success happens it only is a result of the law of averages and luck. A proper strategy crafted by professionals would not only save time and money it would achieve the desired results quicker. Unless the desired result is to feed control issues than the ego would be bruised if a professional is consulted and Lord knows the King can’t have that.

It always amuses me that church leadership will contract an accounting firm because they see the worth in hiring a professional for those tasks, yet when it comes to marketing most believe they are “gifted” so they chose to shoot themselves in the foot. One pastor I know contracted a web designer and just told him to make the site. The designer lives in another state and has never been to this church. He is given no information at all yet instructed to make a “cutting edge” website. When I brought this up over dinner conversation the pastor said he didn’t have time and it was the web guy’s job anyway. I tried to explain the importance of a web presence and the ignorance in not giving the designer any direction or data, yet it fell on deaf ears. Another ministry I know sends out direct mail each month for two separate campaigns yet gives no information to the writer. The writer just guesses on content twice a month. Yup, true story. There is no strategy, no measuring effectiveness, and they continue to send out two mailings each month simply because “that is what ministries do”. Even though the ineffectiveness and the amount of money wasted has been brought up in the past they continue on as is. Same with TV, thousands of dollars spent each week for a show that has no direction. It is just there and the correct decision is either to put resources into the show or get off the air. Of course, the occasional ego boost the pastor receives in public keeps the show on the air. The sad part is this is not just one ministry but many.

Pride and ignorance don’t see themselves in the mirror. For the most part these are good men and women who are just blind. Can you just imagine how effective we could be if we had the courage to be completely honest with ourselves and became self-aware?