I found the following on Willimon’s blog. It was written by Harold Percy. I forwarded it to our staff and it’s generated some great conversation. The consensus is that it does a pretty good job of describing the transition (and the pain brought on by such a transition) that we’re experiencing at Garnett.
MAINTENANCE OR MISSION?
1. In measuring the effectiveness, the maintenance congregation asks, “How many pastoral visits are being made? The mission congregation asks, “How many disciples are being made?”
2. When contemplating some form of change, the maintenance congregation says, “If this proves upsetting to any of our members, we won’t do it.” The mission congregation says, “If this will help us reach someone on the outside, we will take the risk and do it.”
3. When thinking about change, the majority of members in a maintenance congregation ask, “How will this affect me?” The majority of members in the mission congregation ask, “Will this increase our ability to reach those outside?”
4. When thinking of its vision for ministry, the maintenance congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our past.” The mission congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our future.”
5. The pastor in the maintenance congregation says to the newcomer, “I’d like to introduce you to some of our members.” In the mission congregation the members say, “We’d like to introduce you to our pastor.”
6. When confronted with a legitimate pastoral concern, the pastor in the maintenance congregation asks, “How can I meet this need?” The pastor in the mission congregation asks, “How can this need be met?”
7. The maintenance congregation seeks to avoid conflict at any cost (but rarely succeeds). The mission congregation understands that conflict is the price of progress, and is willing to pay the price. It understands that it cannot take everyone with it. This causes some grief, but it does not keep it from doing what needs to be done.
8. The leadership style in the maintenance congregation is primarily managerial, where leaders try to keep everything in order and running smoothly. The leadership style in a mission congregation is primarily transformational, casting a vision of what can be, and marching off the map in order to bring the vision into reality.
9. The maintenance congregation is concerned with their congregation, its organizations and structure, its constitutions and committees. The mission congregation is concerned with the culture, with understanding how secular people think and what makes them tick. It tries to determine their needs and their points of accessibility to the Gospel.
10. When thinking about growth, the maintenance congregations asks, “How many Lutherans live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?” The mission congregation asks, “How many unchurched people live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?”
11. The maintenance congregation looks at the community and asks, “How can we get these people to support our congregation?” The mission congregation asks, “How can the Church support these people?”
12. The maintenance congregation thinks about how to save their congregation. The mission congregation thinks about how to reach the world.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Wow, so rich and practical. This should be passed around.
Wade, thank you for sharing this. It is greatly needed. You are right in saying that the transition in sometimes painful. I know that this world needs more missional churches. Thank you again.
Wade,
Is Garnett really the place to try to make these kind of changes? It’s probably a little late to bring this up but, you wrote a few posts ago about moving from an event driven, personality centered ministry to a missional type of ministry. But you are not just talking about any church, if ever there was a church that was event driven and personality driven it is this church. And you are not talking about any event, you are talking about the event. And you are not talking about any personality you are talking about the biggest personality I have ever known or ran across. When I was a kid I remember we would have about 5 miniute sermons because half the time was spent telling about what we coming up or the 20 people who were baptized that week. I have read most of Brian McLaren’s books, He has made the statement many times that it is better to plant new churches rather than change existing churches. I think this is a valid question considering the pain you talked about. What do you think?
Tom
I agree this is some neat stuff. But #5 has me scratching my head. It seems backwards to me.
Tom–you’ve described Garnett’s situation well. That’s one of the reasons why Garnett has to make the transition if it wants to survive. (As pt. #12 above indicates, “survival” is not the best reason to make the transition). The glory days are long gone and they’re not coming back. Garnett was dying a slow death before and now that the transition is being made, that death is either being mercifully hastened or something new is emerging. Either way, the Garnett of old is no more.
While I can’t speak to anything about Garnett, I would like to respond to this post of yours, Wade. It’s excellent. It describes so many churches (both maintaining and missional) quite well.
As far as #5 goes, it makes sense to be, considering some background. For the mission side to occur, the pastor would have had to equip the people to be great inviters of friends, family, co-workers, etc… and helped to provide something worth bringing them to. In this statement, Harold Percy speaks about the church where the pastor is responsible for bringing new people in, and also about the church where the people are excited about bringing people in. it makes sense to me.
Thanks for sharing this, Wade.
As a minister, number 5 makes sense to me as well. It’s an emphasis on the priesthood of all believers and the responsibility of everyone to share in the mission.
Maybe it could be re-written, “The pastor in the mission congregation says to the newcomer, “I?d like to introduce you to some of our missionaries.”
Wade,
Thanks for the response, sorry for all the spelling errors.
Ah, I get it now. I was just reading it kind of backwards, as if in maintenance, the people were doing all the reaching out; and in missional, the pastor was the one doing all the work. Not what it meant, I see.
I can’t put my finger on this. but something about this bugs me….
I need some more thought on this….
Wow that was very eye opening and fits what we have going on right now….if we can get the community to see us as missional we can move forward….but with out the resolve to stand fast and endure the anger from some and pray for them, we can not get there..
Thanks for the post Wade. I agree with a lot of this, however, in these 12 comparisons the missional church seems so “outward” focused that it sacrifices the identity and love that should be experienced within the Christian community. Specifically #7 states, “conflict is the price of progress.” I might add to this statement: conflict is the price of progress and submission is the price of conflict. When we experience real conflict in the church (and we do all the time) we are taught to submit to each other out of love for Jesus. Without this kind of internal identity that is so counter-cultural to our world, we have little to offer the communities within which we own property, worship and hold yard sales. So for me, missional thinking raises the bar not only on “outward” love for our neighbor but also on “inward” love for members of our own family (who may be hard to love at times). Just think how frustrating it must have been for Jesus to have those 12 disciples in-tow all the time. But amazingly he always maintained this internal community while still achieving his mission – one couldn’t happen without the other. Missional thinking gives new meaning and purpose to the inward maintenance (or shepherding) of a community as well as to the outward purpose of being a blessing to the world. Both aspects are honored and given new value.
Great thoughts! Thanks for sharing this Wade
Wade, thanks for posting this. I will share it with our leaders. I think it says clearly some things I’ve been muddling around with in the past three posts of mine … we have choices to make … and they are hard ones. The answers are not easy. I used the idea of architecture and how we build for comfort, not for mission. Anyhoo…thanks.
Russ,
I think you really hit the nail on the head. I have gotten so frustrated with church leaders who think that they have a carte blanch to tell any dessenter to take a hike. I have seen so many godly people just destroyed by this attitude of “if you don’t like it then leave.” I think that on occasion such action might be necessary, but in some churches the end result is a church who has broken good people’s lives. I am not speaking to Garnett. I am an east of the Mississippi guy and know almost nothing about Garnett. I wish Wade only the best in what seems to be a difficult situation he is facing. I am addressing a general trend I see. I am from Memphis and there was a large church which ended up with a split eldership, five progressives and five traditionalist. I know I am oversimplifying, but I think you can follow me. When the dust settled this church which once had an attendance of over 700 was no more. I think it could have been avoided. I don’t have the answers, but in my opinion our churches are in a mess right now and there is more than enough blame to go around, and we had better start talking to each other face to face, and quit adopting the attitude that if you don’t like it then take a hike.
Wade,
Great post! I’ve sent it along to my Kindred Spirits email list. Do you have other good resources on setting a theme, goal setting for churches? (Email me if you do and have time smpuckster@mac.com) We are in the planning stages for 2007 now with our leadership group.
Peace.
Steve
There are certainly some good things to be taken from this post; however, I don’t like the implication that “mission” must exist to the exclusion of “maintenance” (or vice versa). Both are fundamental concerns and – like most issues in the kingdom – must be balanced. Did anyone else get this either/or vibe, or am I misreading it?
I’ll tell you what bugs me about this, riddle, and that is its presupposition that there is only one right way to do church. In fact, that bugs me about virtually every comparison that people blog about.
Whatever happened to the wisdom of Solomon?
Is there not a time to maintain, and a time to be missional?
Are there not people who are gifted at maintaining, at pastoral care, at keeping things running smoothly, at – not avoiding, but – helping manage or resolve conflict, at comforting the afflicted? Are there not also people who are gifted at mission, at evangelism, at innovation, at afflicting the comfortable?
Is there room in Christ’s body for only one of these kinds of people?
I have to agree with Jacob. The heart of the post is divisive to its core, and I can’t admire its spirit.
Progress and unity can go hand-in-hand where there is love.
Not where there is an “only one right way to do it” mentality.
Good responses one and all.
Of course Percy’s list is unbalanced and too either/or. That’s why it generates conversation and passionate responses that are either for or against. I’m as committed to both/and answers as anybody, but the truth is both/and answers don’t generate much conversation.
The more interesting question to me is where are the passionate responses coming from?
Is it because you find yourself stuck in a maintenance congregation that is never going to change and this guy is saying what you wish you could say?
Is it because he’s described what you’re already doing.
Is it because you’re threatened by it?
Is it because you’ve already been down this road and it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be?
Is it because you think he’s picking on people that you love so you’re coming to their defense?
We are currently trying to add into our church the maintenance aspect. I am thankful that we are outwardly focused because I think it is harder to go the other way but I do agree that without maintenance you will not have mission.
We get people who are either new to the community or who have been outside of church and they are looking for community and that takes maintenance. So we try to connect them to a community. The beauty is our community is a community that is outward focused so we get these people connected by getting them involved in outward ministry, our mission.
This is a good discussion and an important one.
I think you have to have, as Keith B. put it, both maintenance, mission, and additionally margin (as in a positive margin). I also like the idea of there is more than one way to do church. Learning to loving each other for the sake of the kingdom can go along way even with the unchurched. Lynn