When I was a school principal we had an annual fundraiser in which our small army of 800 elementary school students sold hundreds of dollar candy bars. You know the ones, those one dollar, delicious, long bricks of chocolate and almond kids used to sell door-to-door but which today get sold by helpful (often eager and overfunctioning) parents in their offices and workplaces. While I suspect that I’ll be doing hard time in Purgatory for that shameless and unconscionable use of child labor I must admit that it was our most profitable fundraiser. We consistently cleared around $10k after expenses. As any private school bookkeeper will tell you, that’s nothing to sneeze at.
One year a mother made an appointment to see me about the annual chocolate bar fundraiser. I thought it was going to be the occasional complaint from a harried parent about having to sell candy bars for the kid (usually as a result of feeling like she had to compete with other supermoms who took to selling with a frenzy). As it turned out she just needed to vent her frustration about having to pay for two cases of chocolate bars. It seems her son had eaten rather than sell them! On top of which, to add insult to injury, that little episode of gluttony had necessitated a trip to the doctor for a bad case of constipation (apparently two cases of chocolate bars can do some serious bowel obstruction on a 10-year-old).
All that to say that, sometimes, too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing
On occasions congregations will get to a stage when they are tempted to engage in a round of program proliferation. Usually as a result of a long-range planning process, congregational surveys, or the result of a particularly enthusiastic staff planning retreat somehow a list appears of a dozen new programs various church groups think they should start within the year. Often this is a mix of in-house programs for various populations within the congregation and for outreach to identified populations outside of the congregation. New programs are begun–usually under leadership from professional staff and enthusiastic and committed laypersons. The problem arises when within a few months these news programs cannot be sustained due to various factors: lack of (or competition for) funding and resources, waning interest and commitment on the part of the leaders, a lack of support from participants, a lack of integration with the larger life or schedule of the congregation.
A congregation that lacks intentional program planning will eventually wind up with the same old people moving from one program to another with no gain of results in program effectiveness. The fact is that the most committed people in your congregation are already as busy as they can be participating in current programs.
When to start new programs:
- If your average Sunday morning worship attendance is 200 to 350 start a new group every two years
- If you can identify a population that has particular needs not currently met by existing programs, start one for that group. Appreciate that it takes about two to three years for a new program to “take” so don’t make attendance the gauge for success.
- If a church member feels called to a particular ministry that does not duplicate what current programs are doing and meets a need, then encourage and facilitate that new ministries’ success
- Assess which existing programs are floundering, stuck, or ineffective. Rather that trying to resuscitate them, allow them to atrophy and put your energy in creating a new program to take its place. Appreciate that the new program will have its own lifespan
- In a congregation with average Sunday morning worship attendance of 350 to 500 you should maintain a balance in the ratio of programs that are focused for in-house ministries and those that provide opportunities for ministries outside of the congregation.
- Starting at the 500 avg. Sunday morning worship attendance mark you should strive for a 2-to-1 ratio (two OUTSIDE ministry programs or groups to every one in-house program or group).
Before starting new programs and ministries do a program audit. Determine:
- How many programs (classes, groups, ministries, etc.) currently are running?
- How many attend and participate in these programs?
- How many non-members or prospective members participate in these programs?
- Which population groups participate (and which do not)?
- How well are the programs funded?
- Where and when they meet?
- How effective and stable is the leadership for these programs?
- Is current staff sufficient for providing oversight and support for existing programs plus the new?
- Will you need to make adjustments to your church structures and processes to accomodate new programs?
Take these things into consideration when starting a new program. If you make no adjustment to the ministries or programs budget, or increase the level of resources, leadership development or support, you run the risk of shortchanging all existing programs.
“It’s not enough to be busy.”
Hey, great post about avoiding program proliferation. This is an issue that needs some attention. A few initial observations.
1. You provide some assessment criteria….when a church has 350-500 in worship it should maintain a balance between in-house and outside ministries, for example. But you do not provide a reason WHY this is important. Should a church that does not have 350 in average attendance not seek a balance between internal and external ministry? Tell us why the church that has 350 members in attendance does and WHY the church with less than 350 doesn’t and why the real big churches should have double the others. Should smaller churches always be more internally-focused because they do not have numerous resources? Wouldn’t there still need to be a balance, the only difference being HOW MANY many things a church can reasonably do? The criteria you cite suggests that bigger churches ARE MORE OBEDIENT, that is, if we believe that obedience to God as a result of effective faith formation results in ministry action.
2. Do these criteria come from your personal experience or is this documented by research? That information would be helpful.
3. Also, given the fact that most churches operate with 20% doing the work, what about a word related to Christian vocation and gifts, that is, if a church is intentional about that, then a greater percentage of the members of the congregation will be involved in ministry. How does a church determine the number of internal and external ministries it can handle? If someone is gifted and passionate about ministry, why we would not empower that person and release him/her in ministry? If we believe that our response to God is derived from calling, how do we prescribe a balance between internally and externally-focused ministries? And Therefore, when do we sound the warning horn for program proliferation?
4. I believe congregations need an evaluative tool to assess internal and external ministries. The results may be stunning. The problem, I think, is that when are not intentional in our planning. But, I suspect, more is involved than just the intentional planning consideration. Our understanding of who we are (church identity) and what God is calling us to be and do (our congregational theology) plays an essential part of the assessment process.
At one church I served, numerous new ministries were launched. At another church, it was like pulling teeth to give birth to new ministries. And what is interesting about that, is that I encouraged and executed the same Christian vocational process in both of those churches because I believe this process should be a part of every congregation’s response to God. So, another issue related to the proliferation of program planning is a conversation about factors in a congregation that impede or encourage effective program planning and follow-through.
Thanks for clearly stating that congregational resources ARE limited. I’ve heard some staff speak for an “abundance†philosophy regarding resources. That is, if one program of the church, like a music program, for example, is using up most of the quality calendar time and people resources, there are still ample resources for other areas of church life to “raise the bar†to the same level of the music ministry. I do not believe that is possible. Even a gifts-driven theology is not an unending resource for the congregation, if the church has not made the overt decision to be balanced in its ministry. I’m not sure it ever can be because the local congregation is an organization. Organizations, by nature, have limitations. Thus, all the more reason for clear identity, theology, and balanced planning.
A tool that may be helpful would be one that would help the congregation determine if some programs of the church are taking up too many resources or are not contributing to the primary identity, theology, purpose, calling, etc. of the church. But that’s tough work that most churches will not address because it is uncomfortable work and may hurt someone’s feelings. Afterall, we do need to be Christians about this, don’t we! Ha!
Great post! Your insight into planning is a great place to start and has given us much to consider. Thanks for raising our awareness to this important issue! I hope others will chime in…
Thanks for your response, Marty. Appreciated. Some thoughts:
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Great observation. One would hope that the “why” is self-evident, but are correct to suggest that it isn’t. One reason why is that once a congregation reaches that critical mass it has the resources in people to focus outward more in its ministry and mission response. After all, in order to get people involved in ministry you’d either have to create more and more committees, or in-house classes and groups. Just how many people need to be on a committee and just how many committees do you need to create just “to get people involved”?
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Yes, smaller churches do need to be balanced in their journey inward/journey outward ministry structure and activity. But two things: smaller churches tend to have greater needs in terms of investing in self-maintenance and preservation (not to mention that it is the nature of communities to do so anyway). BUT, also this point: there is research that suggests that smaller churches do a better job than larger churches in outreach and external ministries than larger churches (see the material from Natural Church Development).
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Both. But they are general guidelines. The type of congregation and its context often tilt these rules of thumb one way or another.
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See the previous post for May 7th on this issue.
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Your suggestion below that his needs to be an intentional process is the answer to this. For one thing, the limitations of resources the congregation has (staff, personnel, members, etc.) will dictate the limitations. One mistake is to try to be all things to all people, when in fact, I think it’s more appropriate to work at discernment about the things the congregation as a whole is called to.
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I used such a tool when consulting with congregations. It’s a form of comprehensive ministry audit. And you are correct—it’s necessary to get the theology and corporate identity issues established first in order to faciliate one’s vision for ministries and programming.
Hey Dr. Galindo,
You mention to start a new program with average attendance for 200-350, start every two years. What if the average attendance is smaller, say 100-150 in attendance? Does the same apply? I am assuming that the same criteria needs to be asked in regards to the smaller churches.
With a congregation of up to 150 there are additional variables to consider. For example, are you in a period of development for which you need different kinds of educational opportunities (like training for specific functions, ministries, or for leadership development)? Are you experiencing some numerical growth because of an influx of new members? If so, then you’ll need to create new groups, classes, and venues to accomodate and provide for this new population—assimilation, education, etc.
The other factor for a congregation this size is in developing new and different opportunities for people who are not currently participating in the existing programs. That requires an assessment as to why that is so, identifying unmet needs, perhaps targeting an emerging population (for example, often an upcoming crop of youth arising out of the children’s population. If currently there is no existing youth program, per se, then now’s the time to start planning on creating it in order to accomodate the rising youth).
Congregations tend to “palteau” at about 150. It’s the first growth ceiling. It’s rather natural and nothing inherently “bad” about that phenomenon (see Hidden Lives of Congregations on that subject). So, while you still need to do program planning it tends to not need to be as hectic and aggressive as in a larger congregation. Let’s face it, you’re also dealing with a challenge in terms of staffing for new programs.