It’s a new year. Let’s talk about one key reason why church consultations often fail.
The New Year always brings reflection and resolutions. 2022 is here and there is a natural inclination towards planning for the year ahead.
With the new year comes reflections about the church year in the past. Many churches feel it is helpful to have the past year reviewed by a neutral third party.
The Pain of Misinformed Decisions
There is a massive benefit to having a trained consultant with real experience examine a church’s position, strengths, and direction.
Very often, the church leadership has been living in the same environment for many years. They are very familiar with it.
Their perspective is shaped by their experiences. The problem with such an internal perspective is that it can be highly limiting.
Misinformed decisions can be made based on limited information. People often justify their existing positions with stories about the past which are full of distortions and incomplete information.
Every church has its “sacred cows”.
One Key Reason Why Church Consultations Fail
Unfortunately, many church leaders refuse to admit that they don’t know everything. Too many have a strong sense of their own omniscience and refuse to accept or even consider alternate opinions.
Church leaders often dig in their heals and take the position that they are right and others are wrong.
This is one key reason why church consultations often fail.
Unwilling to Change
Changing churches’ direction requires a major shift away from the past to a new direction. This often entails the church giving up certain things it has been “doing for years and years”.
The price of change is high for churches. They must often admit that they were wrong in the past. This can be a very hard thing for churches to do. They often dig in their heels and refuse to acknowledge their errors.
This is one key reason why church consultations often fail.
Resistance to Change
Bringing change to a church’s thinking and behavior can be a very difficult process. It often requires overcoming resistance from the congregation.
This process is often a very long one. Churches have a very difficult time changing their direction.
Unfortunately, churches often become lazy. They do the same things over and over again. When things stop working, it is more difficult to change directions in the face of so much opposition.
This is one key reason why church consultations often fail.
Lack of Honest and Trusting Relationships
When churches lack honest and trusting relationships, the church fails to be what God intended it to be. When a church lacks healthy and open communication, when a church lacks transparency, it i s unable to function properly.
Lack of honest and trusting relationships between the church leadership and the congregation is often the result of a loss of trust between the church leaders and the congregation. When this happens, the church must work through that to regain the trust necessary for it to function properly.
This is one key reason why church consultations often fail.
Disempowering the Congregation
Church leaders must find ways to empower the congregation. The church is not a large organization with many departments and people. The church is a small community where everyone is important and everyone’s contribution matters.
Church leaders who have lost their ability to empower the congregation often find themselves in a lonely place. They fail to lead because they lack the support and enthusiasm of the entire congregation.
This is one key reason why church consultations often fail.
Lack of Real Leadership
The church is not a large business or corporation. It is not a small business or corporation either. The church is a small community, a small community where everyone is important and everyone’s contribution matters.
This is why it is so important for the church to have real leadership. If you don’t have real leadership, you don’t have a church. Real leaders are those who can empower the entire congregation. They lead from the front, not from the back.
This is one key reason why church consultations often fail.
Conclusion
It is a great mystery how God could bless us so much in 2021, while allowing so much destruction of human life and property to occur around the world.
Why did God bless us? We don’t know.
It is a great mystery why God allows suffering and evil to happen in this world.
We don’t understand. We don’t know why. And we never will know why.
But we do know that God is sovereign, that God is good, and that God has a plan and a purpose for this world.
Let us take advantage of this new year to let Him work through us, to let Him use us to bring good into this world. Let us bless others this year!