How to know when your church is drifting in maintenance mode.

May 20, 2011

Every living organism has a life-cycle, including a local church. Often, and without obvious warning, a church shifts from being a movement toward becoming a monument. The shift is subtle, but if you are careful to observe, you can see it happening. Here are 10 signs your church has drifted into maintenance mode.

1. Your board meetings focus more on calendars, budgets and managing internal relationships rather than mission. If you aren’t spending the vast majority of your time talking about being on mission with God, you are drifting.

2. Your budget doesn’t reflect a goal to reach the community. Rather it focuses on maintaining the building and paying the pastor/staff.

3.  Strategic planning means making sure everything you did last year is on next year’s calendar.

4. Vision centers on traditional programs and meeting the needs of those who already attend instead of how to reach those outside the walls.

5. Planning revolves around convenience and never pushes anyone outside their comfort zone.

6. You preserve programs, not because the work, but because they are tradition.

7. The bulk of the pastor’s energy revolves around visiting church members rather than winning people to Christ.

8. Those in your church are more interested in giving to missions rather than being on mission.

9. Church structures serve “the already saved” and neglect “the not yet saved”.

10. The church hasn’t seen a convert in the last year.

Posted 5/20/2011 in Stephen Gray | 0 Comments - Add Comment