Tag: John O’Keefe

DYING Churches: "The boneYARD" interview with John O'Keefe

boneYARD, by John O'Keefe

In his new book, boneYARD: creatives will change the way we lead in the church, John O’Keefe tackles an issue rampant in the United States: the overwhelming trend of dying and dead churches. He also speaks to a pet topic of mine: the prevalent misguided practices that give churches supposed membership growth. [What I’ve called, “Poaching from the Choir”.]

You may know of John through his creative project ginkworld.

Here are his interesting answers to 6 questions about the issues discussed in boneYARD. Your comments or questions are welcome.

1. John, you use the terms “industrial church” and “conceptual church”, and so on, referring to eras. Can you briefly explain the terms you use; and -Do you think most churches are caught somewhere in the middle, or have they been fallen behind?

The industrial church is a church that centers on the principles of “Maxwellian Leadership.”  The ideas that grew out of the Industrial Revolution, where there needs to be a “CEO” (Pastor) and “Vice-CEO” (Associate Pastors) to control the organization.  The central motive of this style of leadership is to see the church as a business, and everything the leader does centers on benefiting the organization.  People are seen as assets and they are used to benefit the organization – “what will help the church.”  They are very logical, linear, and focused on profit.  For them, profit is defined in terms of the offering and getting people in the pews.  But, if the attendance is going down, and offerings are going up they do not see a problem.  I read an article earlier where it explained how the Evangelical Lutherans are declining in numbers (most churches are), but that there was no reason to fear because giving was on an increase.

The conceptual church is forming today.  Leadership (if that is even a valid term in a Conceptual Age) focuses on the organism; the organization holds little value.  Everything a conceptual leader does focuses on the person, the organism, and centers on how we relate to others.  In the Conceptual Age we think in terms of personality traits of a conceptual leader; people have personalities, machines have qualities.

While some are in the middle, struggling to find their voice, even fewer are in front of the curve, in my research I have found most churches are far behind the curve.  They are stuck in the idea that they need to keep doing what they have always done, and those outside the church need to change to fit into their world.

2. Do you think it’s apt to say that for a great many churches, an increase in membership has more to do with (as I like to say) “poaching believers from other churches”? (Or poaching from the choir.)

I love the visual of “poaching.”  Sometime back I wrote an article entitled “Three Kinds of Fishing” where I saw the possibilities as pole fishing, net fishing, or tank fishing, but I love the visual of poaching.   I believe most churches are growing because of poaching.  Poaching is easy for the church.  I love churches that advertise on Christian Radio; the question we need to ask is “Who are they trying to reach?”  I don’t know any “non-follower” listening to Christian Radio.  Churches that advertise on Christian Radio prove the point.  Their ads are targeted to those already going to church and say, “Come to our church, our pastor is cooler, our music is better, our service is exciting, and we will not bug you to get involved.”

Some churches even go as far as to count people who come from other traditions as “new believers.”  The Baptists and the Non-Denominational Church of Christ are the ones who do this the best.  I use to attend a church is Las Vegas called Central Christian (Currently about 15,000 people), when it was just over 300 people.  One of my family members was attending the church also and he was required to be “re-baptized” in order to become a leader in the church.  Even though he had been a follower for years before he attended the church.  They counted him as a “new believer.”  Soon, he left Central and started to attend a Southern Baptist Church in the area, and was required to be “re-baptized” and was counted as a “new believer.”  These churches count everyone who was not baptized in their method as a “new believer.”  This inflates numbers, sure – but more than that, it tells everyone who is not “one of them” you are wrong and we are right.

3. What’s the difference between church growth and kingdom growth? and, What is your best nugget of advise for those in ministry regarding church growth and kingdom growth?

Church growth centers on growing an individual church, so taking from another church is seen as an easy form of church growth.  Kingdom growth centers on growing the Kingdom, and sees people in other traditions as part of the church universal.  Kingdom growth centers on not caring what church the person is involved with, but that they understand the love and grace of God.  When I was at 247 we use to have teens coming to all our events, and many times those teens would ask about our services.  I would encourage them to get connected to the churches their parents attended and go as a family.

I think the best thing I can share with churches today is to not concern yourself with growing your church, center on growing God’s Kingdom.  When we focus on growing God’s Kingdom we move out from the walls of the church, and into the communities we are called to serve.  We desire to share the message of hope with people, who need to know the love of God through Christ, and we are avatars of Christ to the world around us – we are the incarnation of Christ to the world.  Our care is more for inviting people into God, and not into our church.

4. There will always be left-brained thinkers. If the new era of leadership is right-brained, as you say, what should these people do?

Change, embrace their right side.  Keep in mind, being right brain dominate does not ignore those who are left brain dominate.  The idea in a Conceptual Age is that right brains will be the dominate side and left brains will play a subordinate role.  In my research I came upon a study I mention in the book that says 98% of us are born right brain dominate and creative, while 2% are born left brain dominate.  Over time, our educational system causes those numbers to flip, causing 2% to be right brain dominate and 98% left brain dominate.  It is amazing that our educational system flips the numbers to left brain dominance.   This is because, in an Industrial Age, we need more left brain thinkers to “oversee” others.

5. In your opinion, does the “bone yard phenomenon” (of vast numbers of churches closing) have anything to do with apprehending church and/or the church building from a materialist and modernist vantage point? And how can we do better?

While I believe it matters little where a community of faith gathers, for the industrial church the building has become an albatross.  Some churches spend more on building upkeep then they do on ministry and care.   Between salaries, mortgage payments, utility bills and upkeep a major part of the budget is spent just to keep things going.  Because of that, the leadership focuses on keeping the building afloat, and less on reaching those who are not followers of Christ.  So, they strive and strive to increase the numbers in their pews to fill their coffers and less on bringing people into a life changing reality that Christ offers all people.  This is one of the reasons I believe the church is comfortable with poaching.  If they are poaching they are attracting givers who will help keep the building going.

6. With all the churches closing, and new ones not meeting the needs, is there any way out of the boneyard?

You bet there is.  I see all the churches closing as a good thing, not a bad thing.  I see the churches failure to reach a new generation as a good thing as well.  Why?  Because it is causing us to wake-up, and move out of the church.  Many churches are waking up to the realization that what they are doing is not working, so they are now open to change.  The only thing that is holding them back is that they do not know how to make the change.  Keep in mind, deciding to change and actually changing are two different things.

Conversation about change is a waste of time, we simply need to change.  The future looks bright for the church willing to make the change and reach a conceptual mindset.  While boneYARD is not a program, I believe it is a good starting point to make those changes.

Thank you, John.

If you would like to try for a free signed copy of boneYARD, leave a comment, and tell us if you’ve seen churches closing in your region, Or, tell us the approximate % of worshipers per Sunday in your church that may be the product of poaching.

Featured Guest Writer- Professor Doug Jackson (not a futurist)

Professor Doug Jackson

Today’s Featured Writer has something to say about the future of the church. But, he has an altogether different perspective, than our previous guest writer, John O’Keefe, and actually, most people. And this, in a nutshell, is Doug Jackson. But you could ever squeeze him into a nutshell, so never mind. He is a thoughtful and gifted thinker, a searching pilgrim, a devoted Christian, and a baking whiz. And, he’s topped with more than a modest dollop of wisecrackiness.

Please enjoy and interact with Doug’s contribution.

Mini-Bio: Doug Jackson

Director of Logsdon Programs, Instructor of Spiritual Formation at South Texas School of Christian Studies, in Corpus Christi, TX.

  • D.Min. – Truett Seminary ( 2006)
  • M.Div. – Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1985)
  • B.A. – English Literature, Grand Canyon College (1982)

The Church with a Future

-Doug Jackson

John O’Keefe is a futurist.  I find that intimidating as heck.  Personally, I’m a traditionalist.  I can quantify the difference.  Tramping through the jungle, a futurist and a traditionalist happen on some tiger tracks.  “You track him,” suggests the traditionalist, “and find out where he’s going.  I’ll backtrack and find out where he’s been.”

There isn’t even a cool name for the preferred direction for my arrow of time.  “Futurist” conjures up images of, well, guys with shaven heads and soul patches.  “Traditoinalist” calls up images of guys with bald heads (which is SO not the same thing) and no soul at all.  This part I can at least work on.  I think from now on instead of “traditionalist,” I’ll call myself a “past-er.”

So what can a past-er say to the church’s future?  If there is, in the words of T. S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock, “time for a hundred visions and revisions” of the people of God in community, how much time do we have (and should we allow) for a rear-vision?  Not too much, I don’t guess.  Accordingly, I want to state a thesis and offer three theories.  My thesis is that, whatever the church OF the future looks like, the church WITH a future will be the one with a past.

To speak of the church OF the future is simply to make a chronological observation.  It means “the church that isn’t here yet.”  It doesn’t tell us much about what this church will do or how long it will last.  By the church WITH a future I mean the local community with staying power.  And this church, I believe, has a future precisely because it has a past.  Which leaves my three notions of what such a church looks like.

First, I believe that the church with a future cares less about the draft of its craft than the depth of its ocean.  In his eightieth sonnet, Shakespeare admits to his chick that other poets can praise her better.  So why should he keep scribbling?  Then the bard continues:

But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,

The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy bark inferior far to his

On your broad main doth willfully appear.

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride.

In other words, what matters is that her merit can bear the burden of grand praises and meager ones. I come from a generation of ministers who learned that good meant big so bigger meant better.  I think the church with a future looks back on the mighty acts of God in history and realizes that the Queen Mary of the megachurch and the rowboat dinghy of the corner congregation all float on the vast sea of God’s greatness, and that plumbing this depth, not scaling our own impressive rigging, is what counts.

Second, I believe that the church with a future cares more about reading its story than writing its narrative.  “Narrative” seems to be a big word in church these days.  As far as I can tell, it has a lot to do with composing our own future in a compelling way that attaches single acts of worship or service to a greater purpose.  I’m all for that, but I think it is important to remember that, at best, we’re writing one chapter in a very long book whose plot is already clearly laid out.  This even works at the local church level.  Eugene Peterson warns us in The Contemplative Pastor that, “the cure of souls takes time to read the minutes of the previous meeting, a meeting more likely than not at which I was not present.”

We find those minutes recorded in church history and church hymnals, two documents which have fallen from favor in my own denomination, where we seem to believe that the church poll-vaulted from Pentecost over several regrettable centuries until she landed safely in our own generation.  That’s why we jettisoned a songbook that came to us polished by millennia of theological mulling on the part of the worldwide body of Christ and opted instead for toe-tappers and hand-clappers that can give us no idea of who we are.

I’m not knocking contemporary music, nor do I believe the Spirit quit inspiring songwriters somewhere around the time Fanny Crosby died.  But because more recent music has not had the advantage of the filtering years, I would like to apply C. S. Lewis’ dictum about books to the business of congregational singing:  “After (singing) a new (song), never allow yourself another new one till you have (sung) an old one in between.  If that is too much, you should at least (sing) one old one to every three new ones.”  (I should admit here that Lewis disliked ALL hymns because he thought the poetry was bad.  He’s probably right, but to me it seems that their theology is rather good.)

Finally, I believe that the church with a future cares more about present faithfulness than future viability.  Because the church of the future will be a mess.  Do what we will (and I hope we will), she will remain a morass of carnality and littleness and arguments over service times and carpet samples for the new fellowship hall.  And she will be the Body of Christ, the one institution Jesus ever promised to care about, and one which he said would sit on an unshakable foundation.

So the church with a future doesn’t spend too much time reading the chicken guts of the changing culture and dealing a Tarot deck of trends.  She doesn’t cross with sliver the grasping palms of earringed “consultants” ensconced in dark tents of occult insider info.

Lewis’ Screwtape rightly warns his protégé Wormwood that the proper focus of human endeavor is the junction of Right Now and Forever which leads us to ask what we need to do in the former in order to serve the latter.  But “the future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity.”

The beauty of futurists like John is that they won’t let us rest in Merlin’s tower forever gazing at some ecclesiastical zodiac; they keep demanding that we do something about this stuff.  They refuse to let us fall into Screwtape’s trap of forgetting that the future is not (Screwtape again) “a promised land which favoured heroes attain,” but rather “something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

In short, I should simply say that the Church is the church with a future.  For two thousand years we have hijacked her with our high-handedness, betrayed, bureaucratized, bushwhacked and bamboozled her, tarted her up, sold her out, locked her in and dragged her down.  We have made her impertinent, irrelevant, irreverent and irritating.  We have used her to camouflage our carnality and let the slimming stripes of the martyrs’ scars hide the midriff bulge of our overfed carnality.  “And for all this,” the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins reminds us (if I may take a large liberty), Christ’s church

. . . is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over Christ’s bent
(Bride) broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

What feedback do you have for Doug?

Featured Guest Writer – John O'Keefe !

I’m thrilled to have John O’Keefe as our featured guest writer. John is at the tail end of finishing his dissertation, and is writing a book about vision for Christian ministry and leadership in this century. Some exciting times are just around the corner, and I do believe John has some valuable insights to share. Below is a brief bio, and then his post. It’s sure to whet your appetite for what’s to come. Feel free to ask him more about it, contribute your thoughts, and give John a shout out.

Bio:

John  is a doctoral candidate at George Fox Seminary, and has been called a “creative futurist ,” by people other than his mom. For 15 years has been an active voice in the emerging/evolving conversation regarding Christian Spirituality. As Senior Pastor and Church Planter with 15 years experience, he is leader, and a dynamic, honest, up front speaker and consultant. 

Besides being the founder of ginkworld, John has written for a number of other ezines: the Ooze , dtour , Next-Wave , and others. John has also written for homiletics and other publications. He likes to take pictures of himself driving, such as you see here.

John O'Keefe

 

The Conceptual Church: A Vision

-by John O’Keefe

When I was asked by Lisa to be a guest blogger, I was excited.  I was excited because in her request she told me I could share with you what was on my heart and for me, as of late, that has been the idea of leadership in the emerging church.   First, I want to say that I am beyond the term “emerging.”  Not because I see it as a “bad” word, but because I am beyond thinking in terms of “emerging” and think more in terms of being a conceptual church – let me explain.

When we think in terms of “emerging” I think in terms of “coming from.”  That is to say, a flower emerges from the plant.  While the flower “emerges” it is still very much the same as the plant it emerged from, with minor variations in color and size.  The flower will go to seed and produce a plant pretty much the same as the plant it comes from – the cycle continues; even though they emerge they carry the DNA to the next generations.  So I have found with the leadership concepts of the emerging church.  Those in leadership are products of what I call the “industrial church” (what many are still calling the modern church).  Because of this, many emerging churches are simply younger offspring of the industrial church model.  While the church may look different, at its core leadership there is very little difference.  So, what I am calling for is something very different, and something very right brained – something I am calling a “conceptual church” (a church for the 21st Century).  For the conceptual church we need to develop a “conceptual leader” – a shift from the left brained industrial church to the right brained conceptual church.

I am in the process of writing a book for my doctoral dissertation based on that very reality.  The idea to reach out to a conceptual people we need to develop conceptual churches lead by conceptual leaders.  Right brain thinkers who are creative, empathic, dynamic, and understanding people who see the world with new eyes, and lead in new (yet very ancient) ways.  Without going too deep into the book (not willing to give away the surprise) I will share that one of the keys to understanding a conceptual leader is to see people as people – in the industrial church people are seen as resources and assets and are placed in the “expendable” category when it benefits the organization.  Yet, in a conceptual church people are seen as people and add to the diversity of the of a community of faith.

My prayer is that the book will be ready by the middle of 2010 – let me know what you think.