Creating Excellence in Organizational Leadership

Ministry Relevancy...A Reflection of Leadership

Growing churches are exciting places to be. It’s where members and regular attenders can sense an enthusiasm for ministry that literally compels them to become involved. The excitement of growth, of being in a “happening place,” creates a high energy environment that eventually becomes self-sustaining as it ripples through a church community like a stone thrown into a placid pond.

From a leadership perspective, that’s about as good as it can get. People are accepting Christ, the spiritual maturity of individual members is increasing, the church is growing, income available for ministry is increasing, and people are personally engaged in life-changing events. All is well as church leadership strives to maintain the status-quo and not interrupt the momentum. The general thought is: “We’ve worked hard to get to this point and everything is functioning smoothly.  Don’t change anything.”

Unfortunately, healthy ministry cannot be sustained in a static environment. Any decision to “tread water,” instead of aggressively pursuing the vision and strategy that initiated evolving avenues of ministry, is the point when the church begins to loose its relevancy and the momentum everyone has worked so hard to sustain begins to stall.

Being relevant does not mean “watering down” the Word or taking a more “neutral position” on key doctrinal issues. It does, however, mean that the church is prepared to adapt to changes in its Sphere of Influence (SOI) to ensure that the Word of God is being communicated in the manner with the greatest probability of reaching lost souls.

Avoiding a stall and maintaining relevancy is a fundamental leadership responsibility. Loss of relevancy is a leadership failure that occurs when church leaders are out of touch with key characteristics of the SOI and is symptomatic of once-growing churches throughout the country.

George Barna, founder and president of the Barna Research Group has made this observation: “…the American church is dying due to lack of strong leadership.  In this time of unprecedented opportunity and plentiful resources, the church is actually losing influence.”

Loss of relevancy precedes loss of influence. The failure of church leadership to have intimate knowledge of the forces at work within the church’s SOI will eventually create an environment in which ministries are no longer relevant and, therefore, not able to effectively execute their mission. For that reason, it’s vital that church leaders and leadership teams define the church’s primary SOI (geographic, electronic, written, etc.) and understand the concurrent social, economic, and political trends at work within the SOI. That information helps the church to develop strategies for ministry that are relevant and have the greatest likelihood of achieving mission success in the SOI.

Organizational relevancy is manifested through two unique sources: individual leaders and leadership teams.

Individual Leaders: God places individuals in a leadership role for a “season.” A key measure of a person’s “leadership season” is their individual relevancy… their ability to understand and help adapt the organization to the dynamics of the SOI. A leader’s relevancy begins to wane as they approach the end of their “leadership season.”

Leadership Teams: Each team has a corporate identity that reflects the personal traits of its individual members. Ideally, the personality, giftedness, and experience of the members are appropriately balanced, and no single individual inappropriately influences the corporate identity of the team. More specifically, the relevancy of a team is a balanced reflection of the relevancy of its individual members.

The overall impact of both individual leader and team relevancy is significant. More importantly, it’s important to recognize the fundamental relationship that exists between these two areas and that they work in tandem. For that reason, leaders need to be alert to any signs of weakness in either area and be prepared to make appropriate adjustments whenever necessary.  

In churches across the country, “organizational relevancy” has taken a backseat in the leadership environment because it has been incorrectly defined and generally misunderstood. That not withstanding, those churches that have recognized the value of organizational relevancy… that it reflects an understanding of their SOI and willingness by leadership to adapt strategy to complement the unique characteristics of the SOI… have discovered and are employing an enduring leadership tool.

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