Many churches, just like many individuals, struggle with change. They’ve been doing things a certain way for so long, that it can be hard to convince them that there is another way—even if their current way of doing things isn’t working well for them.
At VitalChurch Ministry, our role is to help churches with a desire to change make the needed changes that will make their churches healthier, more vibrant bodies of believers. We don’t come in and attempt to make sweeping changes. Rather, we guide churches toward change by working with them to discover where God is leading them, and then we help them create a path to get there.
When an interim pastor from VitalChurch Ministry comes to a church, we ask the congregation and its leaders to be completely honest with themselves. One of the things we do early on is hold a series of “Congregational Summits,” which are part of our “Focusing the Church” process. Everyone who calls the church home is invited to participate. During the first of the three Congregational Summits, we ask the congregation to think about the church’s history—its significant events, ministries, and people. We ask them to consider times when they felt the Spirit moving powerfully in their church, but also think about when things were tough or when the church experienced pain. We also ask them to identify the values that they believe contributed to the events in their church’s history.
This process is often very enlightening to the congregations we work with. They start to see patterns that they may not have recognized before. Maybe it was a series of conflicts, each of which led to a large portion of the congregation leaving, or a number of pastors or ministry leaders who only lasted a short period of time with the church. As the church considers what led to those situations, they often start to see the need to break unhealthy patterns.
This process isn’t about beating a church up over their past mistakes. Instead, it’s about graciously helping them discover what has brought them to the place in which they currently find themselves.
While the first Congregational Summit answers the question, “How did we get here?”, the next two will help the church answer the questions “Where are we going?” and “How do we get there?”. We ask everyone to cover the process in prayer and fervently seek guidance from the Holy Spirit.
By bringing the entire congregation into the process, it helps everyone see their part in the church’s past struggles and encourages them to be a part of the solutions. They realize the need for change and get excited about where God is leading them as a church body.
At the end of our time at a church, we often get a lot of feedback from members of congregations about how impactful the Focusing the Church process was on them personally and on their church as a whole.
To learn more about how VitalChurch Ministry is impacting churches or to inquire about bringing one of our interim pastors to your church, we encourage you to reach out!