10 Stupid Things

Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing

Many of my readers already know who Geoff Surratt is. He's the Pastor of Ministries at Seacoast Church (a growing multi-site church), an author, a blogger, he's on Facebook and yep - he's on Twitter too. This guy is everywhere! His new book, Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing: How Leaders Can Overcome Costly ! Mistakes, came out last May and is a helpful word to those seeking to lead the church to be effective in reaching the unchurched.

I had a chance to ask Geoff a few questions about the book. He'll be around on the blog today to answer any follow up questions you may have.

You talk a lot in the book about mistakes that will keep an existing church from growing, but what advice would you give to a pastor planting a new church?

1. Don't plant a church unless there is nothing else you can do. If you could be happy pastoring an existing church or working on staff at a church or researching other churches, then that is what you should do. Church planting is incredibly hard and should only be attempted by people so passionate that they can't imagine doing anything else.

2. Partner with a church planting group. Church planting is a lonely business and you need people cheering you on from the sidelines. Seacoast helps plant churches through the Association of Related Churches, Mars Hill founded the Acts 29 Church Planting Network and Community Christian Church in Chicago leads the NewThing Network. Each of these organizations is always on the lookout for sharp new church planters. They each provide training, funding and support. Only a crazy person would plant alone.

3. Make sure your spouse and kids are 110% on board before you plant. One of the mistakes I talk about in the book is the wron! g role for the pastor's family. Church planting will take a huge toll on your spouse and your children; if they are not behind you heart and soul you may destroy what is most precious to you in life. When you get to Heaven God is not going to say, "Hey, too bad about your family. But awesome job growing a great big church. Fist bump, Dude!"

How do you strike a good balance with the pursuit of excellence and the willingness to get your hands dirty in order to help someone who's in need?

I think this question goes to the very heart of what it means to grow a church. As pastors we can focus all of our time and energy on excellence and grow a great big church that isn't serving the real needs of the commu! nity. That might be a lot of fun, but it flies in the face of ! everythi ng Jesus taught about servanthood and love. On the other hand we can focus exclusively on serving the last and the least without paying attention to excellence and wind up ministering to only a handful of people. While we are being servants, we aren't fulfilling the charge to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. There has to be a balance.

I think the balance is in the word effectiveness. Two key questions flow from that question:

1. In pursuing excellence are we effectively serving the people in our community? Will the new sound system, video projector or moving lights help us serve the least and the lost more effectively? Will we reach more people for Jesus with a four color brochure than with a black and white photocopy? There is a delicate balance of excellence below which we become ineffective and above which we are just showing off. That is a balance every church should check on a frequent basis.

2. In focusing on serving are we effectively le! veraging the gifts God has given us? We can become so head down trying to meet needs that we lose perspective on the effectiveness of our outreach. The most compassionate, helpful act of kindness wrapped in an unappealing package will often go unopened. Service should be done from the heart with a level of excellence that honors God and compels people toward the Gospel, anything short of that is just laziness.

Your ministry background includes 27 years of ministry in churches ranging in size from 11 members to now over 10,000 attendees at Seacoast. Based on your experience, if you were to go back to that small church in Texas to how would your approach to ministry than it was the first time?

Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing is based on the mistakes I have made through 27 years of ministry and how to recover from those errors. If I went back to pastor the little church in Texas that I left 15 years ago my hope would be that I hav! e learned to avoid at least some of these mistakes. With that ! in mind I would approach pastoring with the following ten priorities:

1. Preparing others to do the work of the ministry rather than trying to do most of the ministry myself.
2. Finding the right balance between family and ministry
3. Focusing on having an outstanding weekend worship experience
4. Creating compelling environments for children's ministry
5. Emphasizing integrity rather than just talent in developing new leaders
6. Being willing to move the church if it wasn't in the right location for the mission of that local congregation
7. Finding God's unique expression of ministry rather than closely copying what another successful church is doing
8. Always working for reconciliation in conflict rather than defaulting to discipline
9. Avoiding any conflict of interest when pursuing any business opportunities outside of the church
10. Building healthy teams rather than getting bogged down with endless committees

You mention in your book that "in spite of the megachurch movement of the last twenty years, more and more Americans are walking away from church and away from a relationship with Jesus." Besides your idea of strategic partnerships between churches, what are some other ideas you have for increasing the fruit of the local church and not just the growth?

First, I think that every pastor, whether they are leading a church of 50, 500 or 5000, should constantly re-evaluate how they can better lead through others. A church built around the personality or skills of just one leader may attract large crowds, but the fruit of that ministry will be short-lived. Every pastor should be giving away ministry on a daily basis. From decision making, to weekend preaching, to oversight of major ministries I believe pastors need to be looking at how they can develop new leaders to carry on the vision of the church. one of Jesus' main focuses while he was on earth was giving ! away ministry to his 12 disciples. If he had not trained those! leaders and entrusted them with ministry Christianity might never have taken off. Nothing will increase the fruit of the local church like investing in the lives of leaders to do the work of the ministry.

The second thing I believe that churches need to do is to get people focused on mission. For too long the church has been about people learning and growing and experiencing. Without mission there is no point in growing disciples. My question when I hear about people being equipped is "What are they being equipped to do?" If there is no mission there is no reason to be equipped. I believe we need to cancel Bible studies, discipleship courses and training events that aren't directly tied to people on being mission in the world to bring the Good News to a dying generation.

Finally, fruit will be increased when churches lower their force shields and begin to work together. At one of our Seacoast locations we go out into the very tough neighborhood once a month to be a bles! sing to people who have very little in life. We take them clothes, food, work in their yards, pick up their trash, anything that will show the love of Jesus in a tangible way. The cool part of the deal is that we have several churches who join together every month to minister to this neighborhood. We aren't worried about where the people go to church or if we can win them for our scorecard; we're all just trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus. There is powerful fruit in dropping our defenses and joining hands to make Jesus famous.