Programme Overload
Posted by C. Holland on Feb 16, 2010My church elder was talking about the latest conference he attended. As he described the speakers and the books he bought, his face lit up when he remembered something. “They’ve got this brand-new approach that they’re trying now, and it shows a lot of promise. People in some areas are really excited about it. Have you heard of a Coffee Shop Ministry?”
Sigh. Yes. Ten years ago in the States.
I’ve been involved in ministry and church planting now for almost half of my life. It feels like the whole time has been peppered with the next new book, angle, approach, tool, technique, item or worship style. Every idea has the aura of “this is the thing that will really work”. And it seems like more conferences are popping up every year, each with their own subtle twist or perspective on how to “do church” the best way to get the best results. I fear I’m at the point of programme overload.
I’ve come to this point in my life for two reasons: 1) the sheer quantity of programmes over a long period of time are too much to process, and 2) seeing ministry in a different cultural context has made me realise how culture-specific virtually all of these approaches seem to be. I have no doubt that, for each of the methods or techniques available in ministry today, there is a place or people group that have responded really well and have become Christians through this. Praise God! I’m honestly glad that this has happened in that situation. But I’m startled by the attitude that most Christians have: “If it worked there, it’ll work here!”
Perhaps I’m jaded because I’m a missionary in a first-world country. Many assume that the transition would be seemless and people here would respond to a specific type of outreach that worked in the States, or even within another “socially-similar” country. I’ve had well-meaning people forward books and programmes to me for considerational use here, yet when I read the literature through my “Western European Culture” eyes, the language would too-easily be interpreted as individualistic, boastful, or sometimes confusing or even vulgar due to slight changes within the English usage here. Churches here with the best of intentions have used some of these programmes, and I have witnessed the backlash from the nationals.
It gives me the impression that ministry, whether local or foreign missionary, has become an industrialised commodity. Grab the package of books/DVDs, send it over, get results, rinse, repeat. Hey, it’s in the same language, what’s to change? Yet even with translated literature, a lack of cultural understanding could really impede rather than impact a people group for Christ.
I’ve seen people hide behind the supply chain in order to avoid contact. One man would get so excited about how many “Starter Kits” could be sent out for Bible studies, yet he was reluctant to even step foot in a Bible study himself. Doing ministry at arm’s distance was good enough for him, so don’t ask him to go any further. While distribution participation is certainly a valid part of ministry, if we use it in place of interaction with others or even God then perhaps a rethink of priorities is in order.
And I’ve known so many pastors that have a conference booked practically every month, travelling all over their country. Even Christians in my mission field expect us to go to any and every Christian conference available here, as if it were un-Christian not to go! One youth minister I know in the States was beginning to show signs of “sign-up-itis” early in his ministry, and his senior pastor wisely gave him guidance on this. To go to any conference, the youth pastor needed to be able articulate why he needed to go and what he expected to learn. Upon return, he was to submit three things he learned from the conference and planned to implement in his ministry. A year from the conference, the senior pastor wanted to review the three things with my friend to see how, if any, worked and judge from there if further training or conferences were necessary at that time. To some this may sound a little harsh, but I see it as a pragmatic approach to discerning the appropriate time to attend conferences and to gauge the effectiveness in that specific ministry.
To be clear, I’m not knocking the concepts of conferences, programmes, media or literature. If one of these methods is working in your particular ministry situation (and by working I mean bringing people into a brand-new relationship with Christ, not just attracting the Christians from the church across town), that’s a wonderful thing. Keep it up! But discernment is needed when presented with the overload of so many options in ministry. Would this work in my culture? How many conferences do I need to attend?
So why the big “sigh” earlier? I’m noticing that the (very small) evangelical presence in my mission field is mimicking the trends of American Christian culture—at a lag of about 10-15 years. I’ve had a lot of these moments with my nationals; as they enthusiastically explain this “new” way of ministry to me, I’m silently thinking, “Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. That ‘new way’ was already abandoned and they’re now on to something else.” And, in his eagerness to be just like the other, larger, urban-centred churches here, my elder is forgetting that our church is located in a sparsely populated rural area. The local farmers would not be comfortable in a slick hipster Starbucks wannabe, nor do they even prefer to drink coffee.
The funny thing is, most of the people in our church would feel more comfortable if we were replicating another programme or method that was used successfully in another church. It’s almost like they see it as a form of easy math: method that filled a lot of seats at Wherever Church=filling a lot of seats at our church. Instead, we’re going in a different direction with our outreach services, not utilising a lot of the typically accepted practises in modern ministry because most would be off-putting to the culture around us. We feel it would get in the way of how we should present the Gospel to a suspicious people who see God as an angry landlord. Will it work? Are we going in the right direction? Time will tell, but I know most see it as a gamble and a “tested method” as a sure bet.
Even though we have the internet and lighting-fast ways of communicating in the 21st century, Western Europe is oblivious to the fact that those at the vanguard of modern ministry in the States have questioned an over-reliance on programmes, instead suggesting a focus on training and encouraging people on reading their Bible, plus building relationships within the church and those around them. I’d rather the evangelicals here ignore the order of the last ten years of stateside trends and just skip to the realisation that making disciples of Christ requires genuine relationship building, and that takes time. I don’t think there’s a trendy programme for that. Yet.
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February 16th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Very good article C. Every time I read your blog it reminds me very much of my ministry in Dublin, Ireland. We would be constantly asked what programs we were doing or have things forwarded to us to speed up the growth. Ironically, almost every program I’ve ever seen used in the states has failed to live up to the hype.
In fact, the latest trend in the area that we’re prepping to leave is “adoption ministry.” Churches with no missionaries and no church planting efforts are instead switching to adoption ministries, spending lots of money to send young American couples to Eastern Europe and Asia to pick out babies and somehow that is passed off as missionary ministry! No thanks.
I’ll stick with slow growth, friendship-based, small-group to church plant based ministry. Thanks for the post.
Kevin Mullins´s last blog ..Top 5 Support Raising Mistakes
February 16th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Great post. Situation here in Thailand is very similar. And I sense that some Thai pastors are also getting jaded about “the next best thing” seminars
Karl Dahlfred´s last blog ..“Inoculated Against the Gospel” and other Side Effects of the Sinner’s Prayer
February 17th, 2010 at 12:03 am
As I read your article, I kept thinking of the reply I might make… and found that you stated it very well in your last paragraph.
Again – I find similarities as we work in North America with Native Americans. Working within the dominant culture is confusing, especially when the Native American culture where we serve is primarily below the surface (think iceberg).
For instance… Random Acts of Kindness has been popular in the last few years. In the nearby town here in Wisconsin, the “white” church began to use this as an outreach to the community. When someone from the church offered to pick up the bill for a Native couple at a restaurant, the Native couple were greatly offended that someone felt they couldn’t pay the bill…
In another instance, a kids’ Discipleship curriculum was promoted to our mission agency as “Cross-cultural.” The only thing cross-cultural was that the characters were of different ethnic groups (none of which were Native American). Nothing was done to teach in a narrative, concrete method, which would have been much more fitting of the cross-cultural tag line.
I guess what I’m saying is that it’s easy to want a “quick fix” – a program. What’s really needed is to strip away the surface efforts, and – as you stated – to concentrate on the genuine relationship building and discipling, which takes time and perseverance, not bells and whistles.
Now – this would be a perfect segue into the tyranny of meeting expectations of supporting churches versus accountability… perhaps another day…?
February 17th, 2010 at 9:13 am
honestly, i think the reason we are so quick to grab onto the next silver bullet is because a program is easier than prayer. sitting before him, praying for those around him, waiting for his direction and leadership is hard. why not just by a book and try what someone else has tired? easy.
cynical or true? a little of both?
February 17th, 2010 at 11:41 am
@Kevin: “Adoption ministry”? It’s one thing for an individual couple to feel led to an international adoption, but I don’t feel it should be promoted in the place of missions ministry. It sounds like, “We’ll convert your country by taking your children to our country.” And what a pressure on the adoptive parents if a church has paid for them to adopt and the adopted child eventually does not become a Christian!
@Karl: Thanks for the insight. I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling this.
@Roxie: I appreciate your candor about a mission field I’m embarrassed to admit I hadn’t even considered before. My nationals here would be equally insulted if a foreigner picked up the bill for the same reasons. In fact, my nationals expect to pay for VBS here (they see it like a day camp, which you would also pay for); when an American tried to offer their VBS for free, no one would attend. Once he started charging, the camp is now always overbooked. And yes, expectations versus accountability is on the short-list of blog posts.
@Mentanna: Welcome to the blog! And no, it’s not cynical. It is true, because numbers are easier to measure than people’s spiritual growth and maturity. The first question we’re always asked is, “How many do you have on Sunday?” I’ve never, ever, EVER been asked, “How are your people’s spiritual growth? Are they maturing in their walk?” Yet that’s the important part because seats filled does not equal the same number of active, maturing disciples of Christ.
February 20th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Great post. I’m posting one on Monday called “Is God vanilla?” and it’s about the same topic.
Can you imagine asking someone how they met their wife? How they fell in love? How they got engaged? And then trying to replicate it….it would look stupid to try to take something so natural and organic and make it a process….but we do this with His bride all the time.
February 20th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
@Grady: I agree, and funny you mention the replication concept…true story: my college group leader chastised me for “going too fast” when I met my other half. Why, you ask? Because we were holding hands after dating for a bit–and he and his girlfriend took a year to do that. It wasn’t a restrictive church setting, just that he felt his own timing and structure of courting was the “right way” and anything else must be bad, though we weren’t doing anything inappropriate. Curiously, he married and unfortunately divorced this girl; we’re still married over a decade later. I don’t say that with relish, just to show that “his way” sadly didn’t even work for him.
Looking forward to your post on Monday.