Pastor Jeff Fisher
November 2005
At every Classis meeting there is a teaching session before the actual business meeting takes place. This past September I went to Classis with pretty low expectations for this teaching session. I’m not exactly sure why. Part of it may have been that we had just had Henry Wildeboer out for our Leadership Conference, and there was so much truth and necessity in what he had to say that I wasn’t ready for more information on leadership. We hadn’t even had time to begin implementing what Henry had said just a few weeks earlier, and now we were going to pile on more leadership stuff. I was frustrated and expecting to hear what I’d just heard.
Thankfully, though, I was very pleasantly surprised (as you should have guessed or I would not be writing an article about it). The speaker, Dan Ackerman from Home Missions, offered some wonderful insights that really helped me see some of the reasons why it is growing more and more difficult for the church to remain relevant and to have an impact on society and the people it is trying to reach. The most dominant factors in the ever-decreasing impact of the local church are the ever-increasing expectations of its leaders and the ever-increasing demand on its members from numerous directions. Dan went through an entire series of issues related to the church and talked about the differences in the expectations of twenty years ago from those of today. Then he went through how each of these new realities brings a new challenge to the church. There is a chart called New Realities that Challenge the Church to New Forms of Leadership on the following page. This breakdown really helped me gain a clearer perspective on where the church is going and what we as leaders should be doing to get it there.
Dan compared great leadership to how “The Great One,” Wayne Gretzky, played hockey (with many Canadian churches represented, it was a fitting analogy). When people would ask Wayne Gretzky why he was so much better than all the other players on the ice, his response was, “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be… Skate to where the puck is going, not where it's been.” That is true of all great leaders. They can see where the puck is going and time it out just right so they are in the right spot at the right time to make the best pass or take the best shot that will set up the team for victory. Wayne Gretzky did this in hockey. Michael Jordan did it in basketball. And numerous other people have done it in businesses, schools, and churches. And while in hockey or basketball it is perfectly alright for one player to be able to go to where the puck or ball will be, and score most of the points, in the church it is not enough for the pastor or leadership to be able to go to where the puck will be. We have to get the whole church there. And that is not easy. We as leaders not only have to see where the puck will be and go there, we have to make sure everyone is going there with us.
As I listened to Dan and reflected on this analogy, I thought, “I wonder if anyone ever asked Gretzky, ‘What if the puck doesn’t go there?’ What if you think you know where the puck is going to be, skate there, and it ends up somewhere else and you’re out of position?” I’m sure that had to happen once in awhile – even for “The Great One.” But as I thought about that, I realized that he would simply reassess the situation and see where the puck would go next and skate there. And more often than not, he was right. That’s why he scored 2857 points (almost 1000 more than any other player ever), holds 61 NHL records, won four championships, and has been identified as the greatest hockey player ever.
But we can’t all be Wayne Gretzky. And that’s why the question that seems to be asked the most is, “What if the puck doesn’t go where we think it is going?” What if we think we know where God is taking us, but we’re wrong? Isn’t it easier to just play it safe and skate to where the puck is right now? Isn’t it better to wait and see what happens before we take any action? Certainly there is far less risk – isn’t there? It’s true that, in hockey, you run the risk of being out of position if you think you know where the puck is going and you’re wrong. But the risk of not trying is losing! It may be “safer” at the moment to always play where the puck is, but over the course of the game, you have significantly reduced your chances of winning. You’re playing not to lose, rather than to win. Unfortunately, playing it safe is often the recipe for failure.
I believe the same is true in the church. When we just “play it safe,” we often set ourselves up for failure – or at least greatly reduce our chances for success. Now, that doesn’t mean we go chasing after every new idea, skating to where we hope the puck will be. It took years of experience, risk, reflection, courage, and dedication for Gretzky to be able to be right more often than not about where the puck would be. Every church has these same advantages: years and decades of the experiences, risks, reflection, courage, and dedication not only of our own body, but also of other churches who have gone before and attempted similar ventures. We have the ability to watch trends and tendencies, evaluate past activities and ideas, and get a pretty good idea of where our church is going. Where most churches typically slip up (or fall down) is in the implementation of getting to where the puck is going to be. We can see where the puck will be, but we’re not sure we’re ready to go there, particularly when the puck is somewhere else. That’s when churches often slow down, lose sight of where they’re going, lose momentum, or just plain get distracted. As my coaches always said, we’ve got to “keep our heads in the game!” Once we see it, we have to go for it.
The beauty of Gretzky was that he didn’t have to go after the puck, the puck came to him! And when he was right, he didn’t second guess it. He’d pull back his stick, aim his shot, and let it rip. And for 20 years he was the most dominant player in hockey. When we get to the point where we have skated to where the puck is going, and it comes, we’ve got to take the shot! I believe that as a church we have “skated to the where the puck will be.” Five years ago, as a body we envisioned what this church would look like and where we would be. Much of that is coming true. In a very real sense, God has brought the puck to us and we set ourselves up in the right position to take the shot. It is time to fire away! Because as Gretzky also said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.” We’ve got to take the shot, score the goal, and then get ready to look ahead to where the puck is going next.
New Realities that Challenge the Church to New Forms of Leadership
New Reality: Faster Lifestyle Pace
1. Many of life’s activities happen at a faster pace than before.
2. Multiple commitments cause us to say “no” more often than “yes”
3. Preparation time for any of these commitments is decreased
Challenge to the Church: Decrease in Volunteerism forces Staff Ministry
1. Staff has to become the cornerstone of ministry because volunteers are less available
2. The role of the staff is to “set the table” (do the preparation) for the volunteers to do ministry
3. The tasks of the staff should be to recruit, develop, and deploy the people for ministry
New Reality: Relationally Starved Society
1. People are craving authentic relationships
2. don’t have time to develop relationships and still volunteer their time
3. Relationship will be chosen over task in most cases
Challenge to the Church: Relationships as Catalysts for Ministry Structure
1. Ministry Teams are developed for and with relationships, as well as getting the work done
2. When seeking to develop ministries, we need to ask groups rather than individuals
3. People are more likely to volunteer because of a person they trust than because of what the task actually is
New Reality: Mobile Social Environment
1. People are far more mobile today than ever before
2. Changes in economics have made new opportunities possible
3. Changes in societal values have made the church a much less desirable place for social activities
Challenge to the Church: Leadership rather than Administration has to be the primary activity of the Council and leadership
1. Leadership focuses on the big picture. Administration focuses on the details.
2. The Council empowers, equips and holds the staff accountable for intended outcomes
3. Leadership looks ahead to who will fill their roles next – training, equipping, mentoring
New Reality: Training Environments
1. Trained to look for a win/win solution where everyone is happy
2. Move toward team orientation
3. Problem-solving mentality leads to focus on tasks
Challenge to the Church: Teams need to have specific mandates and power
1. No more committees with generalized tasks
2. Ministry teams need to be given ownership of their work: freedom, decisions, money
3. Part of the team mandate has to be developing leaders for the future
New Reality: Choice of Service Options
1. Increasing multiplicity of NPO’s and para-church ministries
2. All of these utilize volunteers
3. Attraction to legacy stories
Challenge to the Church: People want to leave a legacy
1. People want to add value, be of value, and be part of something bigger than themselves
2. People want a sense of being valuable
3. Need to cultivate stories of success
New Reality: Touch of Technology
1. Everything is changed by it
2. Immediacy, but also distance
3. Mixed emotions toward it
Challenge to the Church: Technology must be used to support ministry
1. Cannot replace ministry
2. Should not overshadow ministry
3. A means to achieving an end, not an end itself
New Reality: View of Time
1. Time is now a commodity
2. A limited resource that we choose to spend
3. My “gift” of time is valuable
Challenge to the Church: Time is a gift from those in the church
1. Need structures to utilize people’s time most effectively
2. Connect the time people spend to God’s blessing on ministry
