The Nitty Gritty

OK, let's get down to business. Enough skirting around the real issues. What do churches need to do to survive? What do they need to grow in the 21st century? These are the tough questions and they have answers that I imagine most churches don't want to hear.

1. CHANGE

I managed and coached a basketball team in the Canterbury men's league once. We beat everyone and were playing the equal first placed team in the league in the last regular season game. They were good and we were getting hammered. After a whole season of victories, it was unusual for us to be behind, and by so much (20 points from memory).

I called a time out with five minutes to go and said to the guys, "We've got to change the way we're playing. Let's do something crazy, something they won't expect."

Their answer was, "But Steve, we'll just end up losing by even more."

They were more content to play as they were and lose by 20 than change the way we played and risk losing by 40, but giving ourselves a small chance at winning.

I'm not sure that they realised that losing by 40 or 20 is the same thing. You lose.

Churches seem to think they can carry on as they have been for 50 years doing the same thing in the hope that people will change and 'come back'. Services are the same today as when I was a kid. Nothing has changed except we now use a projector rather than an OHP.

Change the structure of the service. Vary it up. Throw out some elements and get some new ones. How about couch testimony time? How about getting church goers to make a video diary of their week with God for show in the service? How about watching a Nooma DVD for discussion instead of the usual sermon? Whatever, just change.

People expect change and variety. It's the way the world works.

More in this series to come later.