Allen Bingham's reflections from the front porch

January 4, 2010

The Barna Group offers a Year-in-Review Perspective

Filed under: Congregations, Faith Development, Leadership — Allen Bingham @ 3:50 pm

The Barna Group – Barna Studies the Research, Offers a Year-in-Review Perspective.

Four major themes are addressed in the above end of year review:

  • Theme 1: Increasingly, Americans are more interested in faith and spirituality than in Christianity.

“One of those assumptions relates to how we develop our faith. These days,” he continued, “the faith arena is a marketplace from which we get ideas, beliefs, relationships, habits, rituals and traditions that make immediate sense to us, and with which we are comfortable. The notion of associating with a particular faith – whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or some other strain – still has appeal because that connection provides a discernible identity and facilitates the possibility of belonging to something meaningful. But the actual components of what we choose to belong to are driven by our momentary needs and perceptions.

  • Theme 2: Faith in the American context is now individual and customized. Americans are comfortable with an altered spiritual experience as long as they can participate in the shaping of that faith experience.

“Now that we are comfortable with the idea of being spiritual as opposed to devoutly Christian,” Barna pointed out, “Americans typically draw from a broad treasury of moral, spiritual and ethical sources of thought to concoct a uniquely personal brand of faith. Feeling freed from the boundaries established by the Christian faith, and immersed in a postmodern society which revels in participation, personal expression, satisfying relationships, and authentic experiences, we become our own unchallenged spiritual authorities, defining truth and reality as we see fit.

  • Theme 3: Biblical literacy is neither a current reality nor a goal in the U.S.

“Bible reading has become the religious equivalent of sound-bite journalism. When people read from the Bible they typically open it, read a brief passage without much regard for the context, and consider the primary thought or feeling that the passage provided. If they are comfortable with it, they accept it; otherwise, they deem it interesting but irrelevant to their life, and move on. There is shockingly little growth evident in people’s understanding of the fundamental themes of the scriptures and amazingly little interest in deepening their knowledge and application of biblical principles.

  • Theme 4: Effective and periodic measurement of spirituality – conducted personally or through a church – is not common at this time and it is not likely to become common in the near future.

“It may well be that spiritual evaluation is so uncommon because people fear that the results might suggest the need for different growth strategies or for more aggressive engagement in the growth process. No matter what the underlying reason is, the bottom line among both the clergy and laity was indifference toward their acknowledged lack of evaluation. That suggests there is not likely to be much change in this dimension in the immediate future. In other words, as we examine the discipleship landscape, what we see is what we get – and what we will keep getting for some time.”


December 16, 2009

Richard Stearns and Lamar Vest comment in “Christians losing their way” … let’s pay better attention to poverty and justice

Filed under: Congregations, Current Events, Faith Development — Tags: — Allen Bingham @ 5:59 pm

Rick Warren, perhaps the nation’s best-known pastor, was stunned. “I went to Bible College, two seminaries and I got a doctorate. How did I miss this?” “This” is not some deep, hidden biblical code predicting the end of the world. It isn’t a cipher that further elucidates the truth of the Trinity. It isn’t even the formula for turning water into wine.

No, the thing that stunned Rick Warren was when he was struck for the first time by the sheer volume of verses in the Bible that express God’s compassion for the poor and oppressed. Unfortunately, Warren isn’t the only person of faith to be surprised by just how much God has to say about poverty and justice. Despite the fact that God’s heart for the poor is mentioned in some 2,100 verses of Scripture, many of us simply miss it. In a recent survey of adults in America conducted by Harris Interactive, although 80 percent of adults claimed to be familiar with the Bible — the best-selling book in history — 46 percent think the Bible offers the most teachings on heaven, hell, adultery, pride or jealousy. In fact, there are more teachings on poverty than on any of those topics.

That’s why when our organizations joined to create the new Poverty and Justice Bible, we made sure to select an unusual color — orange — for highlighting passages relating to poverty and justice. We wanted to stop people in their tracks. We wanted this simply highlighted Bible to act as God’s megaphone revealing a heart for the poor, concern for the marginalized and compassion for the oppressed.

via newsweek.washingtonpost.com

Richard Stearns’ book, The Hole in Our Gospel: What does God expect of us … The answer that changed my life and might just change the world, is a challenge from a corporate CEO transformed by the opportunity to be transformed and in turn to transform the world. Take a read …

December 3, 2009

Loius Weeks asks “Should pastors know what members give?” Answer: YES!

Filed under: Congregations, Leadership — Allen Bingham @ 3:25 pm

Louis Weeks, retired president of Union Theological Seminary, answers the question should church leaders, lay and clergy, know what people give?  His emphatic answer if YES!

“Only the church treasurer should know the giving of members here.”

“Our giving is one the best indications of our spiritual health. Of course the Session and the pastor should know what we give.”

These opposing claims came from two different leaders of a Presbyterian congregation in Alabama during a recent weekend retreat. As you might imagine, we had a good discussion about questions like these: Who should know what people give? Should the pastor know? Should lay leaders?

Ask in most churches, “Does the pastor know what you give?” and you will receive a double-take of horror and some response that amounts to “Heavens, no.” Most congregational cultures now severely restrict the knowledge of receipts. Many retain the same “Offering Counters” for years.

Let me state baldly here what I put in more measured terms in my recent book, “All For God’s Glory: Redeeming Church Scutwork” (Alban): Pastors and lay leaders should know what people in the congregation give.

via Duke Divinity Call & Response Blog | Faith & Leadership | Louis Weeks: Should pastors know what members give?.

You will want to read the rest of his post, but his conclusion is timeless: “This topic [is] complex. But I find that the proverb, ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ has a corollary: ‘No knowledge is even worse.’”

November 23, 2009

Jason Byassee reminds us that people are asking us to “tell me a story”

Filed under: Congregations, Leadership — Tags: , , — Allen Bingham @ 5:09 pm

Jayson Byassee suggests that a primary task of the leader is to tell a compelling story of a preferred future.  He closes his post with the following story, beginning with the quote that centers my ministry:

Reinhold Niebuhr said “Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime. Therefore we are saved by hope.”

I remember a story from the falsely titled book “Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” Though I learned of the story in college, I’m only now seeing the wisdom of it. It is about the building of Chartres Cathedral in France during the Middle Ages. Though it is hard for us to conceive, the people of Chartres built the magnificent structure knowing that, for most, it would not be completed in their lifetimes. One day a man approached Chartres to see how it was coming. He passed one man covered in dust and asked what he was doing. “I’m cutting stone,” the man said. He passed another covered in sweat and dirt and asked him the same. “I’m laying stone,” he said. Finally he arrived at the cathedral and saw a woman sweeping the floor. He asked what she was doing, though he could see it plainly enough. “I’m building a cathedral for the glory of God,” she said, answering truer than the others.

Leadership is about telling a story of who we are, what we are doing and where we are going. In Christian terms, it’s about describing how what we’re up to is part of God’s coming kingdom, and how we’re invited to join in it building now. So if you want to lead me, tell me a story, and if you want to lead me as a Christian, remind me how this all fits into the glory of God.

So what story is driving your work?

via Duke Divinity Call & Response Blog | Faith & Leadership | Jason Byassee: Tell me a story.

Susan Beaumont thinks beyond the corporate model of church. First learn to deal with complexity …

Filed under: Congregations, Leadership — Tags: , — Allen Bingham @ 5:02 pm

Susan Beaumont at the Alban Institute is paying attention to the larger entity in their pastoral-program-corporate church typology and offers the the following:

It’s All About Complexity

Once a congregation passes into the size zone that has traditionally been labeled “corporate,” it is already a fairly complex organizational system. In his book One Size Doesn’t Fit All (Baker Books, 1999), Gary McIntosh talks about the large church as a multiple-cell organism where:

• There are too many people to know everyone.

• There are numerous groups, classes, and cells where people can become involved. In other words, the church is a congregation of congregations.

• Church leadership is representative of several groups, classes, and cells.

It is reasonable that congregations growing beyond this attendance level will experience continued growth in the number of groups, classes, and cells that make up its ministry. It is also reasonable to expect that organizational and leadership structures will adapt themselves in predictable ways to this ever-increasing complexity.

In my work as a consultant, I’ve found that five parts of a congregational system are affected by increasing complexity and must be adapted as medium-sized and large congregations grow larger. These are:

• the organizing principle that governs adaptation and decision making

• the foundational way in which growth and assimilation are managed

• the style of pastoral leadership that works effectively

• the way in which the staff team functions

• the identity and focus of the governing board

Additionally, she identifies how the above systems flow in the multi-celled church (250-400 in worship), the professional church (400-800 in worship), and the strategic church (800-1200 in worship).

via The Alban Institute – Beyond Corporate.

Lame Duck Leadership

Filed under: Congregations, Leadership — Tags: , — Allen Bingham @ 1:44 pm

Susan Beaumont offers her insights into Large Congregations in this piece about responding to the question “shall I stay or shall I go?”

“I don’t want to stay a day longer than I ought to.”

“I don’t want to be a lame duck”

These are the two most frequent concerns I hear expressed by clergy leaders who are thinking about retiring or leaving their post. Quickly, the conversation moves away from the first question and onto the second. It’s not unusual for me to enter a congregation and have two independent conversations on the same day. First, the clergy leader approaches me and says, “I’m thinking about retiring or moving on, but I can’t discuss this with any of my lay leaders because doing so will make me a lame duck leader.” A lay leader approaches me and says, “Many of us are wondering what the pastor’s retirement plans or vocational plans are, but we can’t ask her for fear that she’ll think we want her to leave, or that she’ll become a lame duck leader once the conversation begins.” Consequently, nobody speaks about a looming departure and the anxiety level of the congregation builds.

via Lame Duck Leadership « Inside the Large Congregation.

October 13, 2009

So What Are Tribes and How Are We Like Them?

Filed under: Congregations, Current Events — Tags: , , , — Allen Bingham @ 2:21 pm

Len Sweet in a recent tweet asked “what if church ad councils or “sessions” or “deacon boards” were reinvented as “Tribal Councils” (twitter.com/lensweet, October 1, 2009)?  The question prompted me to investigate what others are saying about tribes.

I turned first to Seth Godin who recently wrote TRIBES: We Need You to Lead Us.  He gave an preview to his book at TED Talks on “The Tribes We Lead” (May 2009).  Seth suggests that in our time there is a new way of making change.  The change we seek is lived out by changing life through the tribes we are part of, and more importantly, the tribes we create.  The process unfolds as we tell the story of what is wrong with the status quo, gather others who share our discontent, and then lead this “tribe” to a better future.

So three questions I’d offer you. The first one is, who exactly are you upsetting? Because if you’re not upsetting anyone, you’re not changing the status quo. The second question is, who are you connecting? Because for a lot of people, that’s what they’re in it for. The connections that are being made, one to the other. And the third one is, who are you leading? Because focusing on that part of it, not the mechanics of what you’re building, but the who, and the leading part is where change comes.

So how do leaders respond to these challenges?

So here is what leaders have in common. The first thing is, they challenge the status quo. They challenge what’s currently there. The second thing is, they build a culture. A secret language, a seven second handshake. A way of knowing that you’re in or out. They have curiosity. Curiosity about people in the tribe. Curiosity about outsiders. They’re asking questions. They connect people to one another. Do you know what people want more than anything? They want to be missed. They want to be missed the day they don’t show up. They want to be missed when they’re gone. And tribe leaders can do that. It’s fascinating because all tribe leaders have charisma. But you don’t need charisma to become a leader. Being a leader gives you charisma. If you look and study the leaders who have succeeded, that’s where charisma comes from, from the leading. Finally, they commit. They commit to the cause. They commit to the tribe. They commit to the people who are there.

Enjoy the full video.  Seth make a great presentation.

David Logan, a USC faculty member and consultant, added clarity to me investigation in a TED talks on Tribal Leadership.  The following are the different stages of tribe development and his insights on how to lead the tribe forward:

Stage 1:  LIFE SUCKS!  This tribe is formed from folks who have systematically rejected traditional tribes and gathered together with other likeminded people in gangs.  The prison yard is literally full of tribes of this type.  Logan’s further insight is that people behave the way they see the world, e.g. if they assume that life sucks, they will behave as if life sucks (and it should for you as well).

Stage 2:  MY LIFE SUCKS!  This tribe is characterized by the line to renew your driver’s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles.  The culture makes people dumb and we react with anger at our participation in the ritual of standing in line.  But many organizations have people within them that react with despair about their situation and no work or innovation can emerge from this kind of tribe.

Stage 3:  I’M GREAT (and your not)!  This is the stage that many of us will move to and unfortunately stay at.  In this kind of tribe every member is constantly trying to one up each other.  These tribes are formed from gatherings of smart and successful people.

Stage 4:  WE’RE GREAT!  At this point tribes of motivated people gather around a larger mission and vision to become innovative as they celebrate their corporate identity.  (e.g. Zappos values fun, creativity, and being a little bit weird).

Stage 5:  LIFE IS GREAT!  The tribe that demonstrates this is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others rallied others to find common ground so that South Africa was able to avoid the fate of other nations like Rwanda.

There are three possibly counter-intuitive things that leaders of tribes know:

1.  Leaders are fluent in all five stages of tribal development.  The Declaration of Independence highlights the stage five goals of  “inalienable rights,” but most of the document makes references to stage two complaints about life under the rule of a tyrant.  Martin Luther King’s most famous statement “I have a dream” was a stage three comment from a leader of a stage five movement.  We have to speak to where our people are even as we nudge them forward.  (Organizational tribes break down along these lines: Stage 1 – 2%, Stage 2 – 25%, Stage 3 – 48%, Stage 4 – 22%, Stage 5 – 2%.  Stage 5 tribes will change the world!)

Leaders are not content to leave people where they found them!  So the following learnings are paired:

2.  Tribes can only hear one stage above and below where they are.

3.  Leaders nudge people and their tribe to the next stage.

Logan close his talk with a challenge to form triadic relationships.  Our typical response to networking is to become a hub of connection.  Logan suggests we introduce ourselves to another person and then help them make another connection in order to build a innovative movement.  World-changing tribes connect not just to a leader but to each other so the momentum continues at all levels of an organization.

We all form tribes, but what kind of an impact are the tribes you are part of making?  Will your tribe change the world?

September 18, 2009

George Bullard on a Congregation’s Future

Filed under: Congregations, Leadership — Tags: — Allen Bingham @ 9:00 am

Sometimes my mentor and friend George Bullard comes up with cumbersome names for important topics. For instance, I learned more about how congregations live, thrive, survive, and often die from George’s book Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation than I have from several other training events on congregational development. His book fleshes out the Spiritual Strategic Journey model that marks his long work as a coach, consultant, and judicatory official. The book is tremendous, the process is spirit-filled and leads to proactive movement – we just have to help rename the process.

My prelude is offered to lead you to another one of George’s lists. This list results from a series of posts at his blog Bullard Journal. Depending on your needs, George is making these posts available in a personal edition or presentation edition along with an opportunity to participate in a coaching conversation with him and your peers. Pray through your situation.

Your congregation is likely to exist 10 years from now if:
01: It has High Expectations of its Members
02: It has an Empowering Vision
03: It has a Shared Vision
04: It has Clear Core Values
05: It Is Intentional
06: It Is Kingdom Focused
07: It Is Contextually Relevant
08: Its Attendance Is Growing
09: Four Involvement Factors Are Present
10: It Is Experiencing Conversion, Biological, and Transfer Growth
11: Its Relationships Are About True Friendships
12: Its Worship Is a True Encounter with God
13: Its Worship Attendance Is Over 135
14: Its in the childhood to just retiring stage in the Life Cycle
15: The average age of the active congregation is less than 50
16: The average tenure of the active congregation is less than 15 years
17: At least 20 percent of your active adults members are tithers
18: More than 30 percent of your budget is focused on programs and missions
19: It has sufficient conflict capacity (i.e. it knows how to disagree in healthy ways)
20: It has empowering and shared leadership
21: It has empowering management
22: It has no significant debt
23: It has no dependence on endowments
24: Its facilities are in good shape
25: It is obviously Christ-centered

What else would you add to George’s list, and better yet, what new title would you give it?

September 2, 2009

Join in on the NINES Conference

Filed under: Congregations, Leadership — Tags: , , — Allen Bingham @ 10:29 am

Recently I have become intrigued with folks who challenge each other to say something powerful in a short time. First I met the folks at TED Talks who moved their live conference format to the web. At their conferences a wide variety of speakers had exactly fifteen minutes to present an idea. They now have taken their “riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world” to the web with over 500 talks available online.

Then last month my colleagues Doug Ward and Dennis Peay introduced me through their tweets to a similar event in Raleigh called Ignite Raleigh. At that event presenters had 5 minutes and 20 slides with to meet the challenge “enlighten us, but make it quick!” By the way, you may want to check out Derek Brown’s “What Would Jesus Tweet” presentation.

Now the folks at Leadership Network and Catalyst have combined to bring together 70 presenters who were asked the question “If you had nine minutes to talk one-on-one with thousands of church leaders, what is the one thing that you would tell them?” The result in a series of nine minute videos that start running at 9:09 AM (CDT) on 09/09/2009. Its free, you can eat and drink your own snacks, check your email, send a tweet, and update your Facebook status and never leave home! What’s not to like!

For more information and to register click over to The NINES Conference now!

August 29, 2009

What’s in a name? Mission or Church?

Filed under: Congregations, Leadership — Tags: , , , — Allen Bingham @ 9:48 am

Brad Abare over at Church Marketing Sucks described traveling to Hawaii for a co-worker’s wedding. While there they worshiped at Blue Water Mission, a new church in downtown Honolulu. Brad was struck by the name and it got him to thinking about “Another name for church?” Brad posts the following:

Mission. I think I like it. The word “mission” conjures up all sorts of things in my mind, including:
* Intentionality and focus
* A task or duty to be completed
* Sending out or being sent
* A haven and refuge
* A spiritual place
In other words, mission sounds a lot like church!

Brad left me with the question what defines church? What does the word church conjure where you live? For those who are leaders of other organizations and businesses what words describe what you do? Do they make sense to a broader public? Just wondering …

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