January 27, 2015
Going Cold Turkey
Is your congregation ready to quit smoking? Eating badly? Overspending?
Is the church ready to stop being a club instead of a mission station? Is it willing to embrace newcomers from all stations of life? To engage in worship and ministry that is Spirit-filled, not one designed to fulfill personal needs?
When it comes to changing our selves, one option is to go cold turkey. Stop smoking completely. Adopt a strict diet or a frugal budget.
With our churches, we often look at other, slower ways of change management. I’m a fan of building support, seeking collaboration, offering rationales, listening to feedback. But sometimes we need to pull off the Bandaid. When it comes to really bad habits, we might need to go cold turkey.
The challenge is to have leadership astute enough to realize what issues need radical intervention – and to have the strength to deal with the withdrawal symptoms.
For some congregations, hospitality might be a significant obstacle. Maybe members like their special club and aren’t particularly interested in fully engaging newcomers. You could cold turkey committee leadership: that is, put new people into positions of authority. You might scrap the current coffee-hour klatch, the one that loves new people cooling their heels in a corner while clusters of friends catch up and gossip. You might have greeters at the door instead of ushers, giving the greeters the sole task of, well, greeting all comers. The ushers can focus on assisting within worship, while the greeters establish an environment of welcome and hospitality.
Another cold-turkey opportunity might be your budget. Does your budget reflect a church? Or could it be any nonprofit or small business? In other words, do the line items reflect entirely administrative costs or are there places that reflect ministry and generosity? Changing the budget can be akin to recovering the Titanic, but church finances that don’t reflect a church will inevitably lead to a sinking ship.
Lay and clergy leaders may need to implement financial changes cold turkey. Maybe it’s 5 percent of the budget earmarked for mission. Maybe it’s a 10 percent tithe or even more. Making this type of change is critical. It shows we put our money where our hearts are, that our budgets reflect a mission-minded congregation, not one focused solely on its own needs and wants.
Cold turkey is hard. I did it twenty years ago with cigarettes, and I’m in the midst of doing it now with my diet. But cold-turkeying bad habits, personal and corporate ones, can lead to health, and that’s worth the short-term pain.