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Choices Within the Journey
What are strategic change and transition issues to address?
Some congregations relocate out of strength.
- Their facilities can no longer contain the size and quality of their ministry.
- The fulfillment of their kingdom potential requires a relocation of their physical facility.
- Their current facilities would limit their ability to reach their full kingdom potential.
- The relocation takes them geographically closer to target groups of people with whom they have already established a positive track record of reaching for worship, programs, ministries, and activities.
Some congregations relocate out of weakness.
- They have lost their ability to reach new people into the active membership of their congregation from their current context so they relocate to a place where they may be able to reach new people into the active membership of their congregation.
- Their current location is a place that has become so different than who make up the congregation, that they are actually unable to or afraid to reach for church membership people who live in their immediate context.
- Their cultural positioning makes it difficult for them to love unconditionally the people in the context of their congregation, and if they are to survive, they must relocate.
- At times this cultural positioning is a permanent cultural position of the congregation, and they have lost the right to minister in their context.
- At times the congregation has realized that it must as Christian transcend its own cultural positioning and reach out to its context, but it realizes this too late and the context has rejected it.
- Relocation is a bad choice for congregations to take out of weakness.
- It is seldom effective in these cases without reinventing the congregation.
A ministry plan or future story is as important as is a facilities plan.
- Often a relocating congregation develops an excellent facilities plan, which is a programs and management focus.
- They also must develop a ministry plan or future story that will characterize them in their new location, and this helps them focus on vision and relationships of the nature of a spiritual, strategic journey.
Diversity is empowered through relocation as the congregation creates in its new facilities a minimum of three different types of places where worship can occur that reach a different age group, racial or ethnic group, socioeconomic group, persons seeking a Christ-centric faith experience, or persons seeking a spiritual experience that they do not know how to define.
- In a new location a congregation might start out with a multi-cultural vision in mind, and seek to develop a program, ministry, and activities strategy that affirms multiple cultures.
- It will also be important to develop a multi-cultural staff.
The construction of new facilities, or the renovation of existing facilities in the new location, should focus around a large gathering space or commons, which becomes the crossroads of the congregation where the diversity of people who make up the congregation can meet, greet, connect, and build community.
- Future congregational unity is not in everyone being in a single worship service, but in people having a common place where they can intersect and build deep and meaningful relationships.
Other choices:
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