Let's Face Today's Realities
and Move Ahead

What makes a church successful?
Some observations after a three-month sabbatical.

C. Ray Miller
Bishop, 1973-1993

April 1991

For the past 18 years, I have served as a bishop in the United Brethren church. I thoroughly enjoy my responsibilities, the good and the bad. The church is my life. But last May, the General Board ordered me to go away for three months on sabbatical. To totally cut all ties with my work. To leave town and not stop at the office even to check my mail. For three whole months. So I did. When Pennsylvania Annual Conference ended early last August, Lanie and I began what proved to be an extremely rich experience for us.

Having stepped away from the endless meetings, phone calls, decisions, sermons, and everything else that goes with being a bishop, I was able to look at my work and the UB church in a fresh light.

A sabbatical is not supposed to be a vacation. Rather, it is a time for personal study and enrichment. I learned a lot during those three months and gained a clearer vision of what our denomination needs in the years ahead. I'd like to share some of what I learned.

A Passion for the Word

I wanted to see how some very successful churches operate, so we visited many different churches and sat under a wide variety of speakers. We heard Charles Swindoll and John MacArthur in California, Conrad Lowe of the American Baptist Church in West Virginia, Charles Lake in Indiana, and others.

I was impressed by the emphasis upon Bible teaching in all of these churches. Growing churches, I found, have a strong teaching ministry. Churches that place more emphasis upon emotions will grow for a while, but not over a long period of time. I also noted that many of these churches, like many of our own growing churches, strongly emphasize small-group ministries. And these groups study the Word, rather than just get together to share experiences.

I sensed in many of these persons a passion for the Word and a passion for getting others into the Word. This made a deep impression on me. As a result, I began the year with a commitment to not let one day go by without spending a certain period of time in the Word (in addition to any in-depth Bible study), plus an equal period in prayer.

I decided to major in the Gospel of John. On January 1, I began reading two to four chapters every day. By the end of February, I had read through John seven times. My favorite chapter is John 15, and my theme verse for this year is John 15:11, which reads, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."

As I have read and re-read John, I have gained new confidence and boldness. After 37 years as a minister, I feel a new excitement in getting into the Word and being able to preach and share it with others.

A Passion for Reaching the Unchurched

I also found that these churches have a strong passion for reaching the unchurched.

During the last month of my sabbatical, I attended a seminar called "Reach the Unchurched in the 90s," conducted by the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth. It ranks among the most valuable seminars I have ever attended. I recommend it without reservation to all ministers and laymen.

During the seminar, ministers who serve on the front lines told us of the work in their churches. I saw their passion for teaching the Word. But I also saw them shed tears over the fact that Christians don't do enough to reach the unchurched. Lost people matter to Jesus, and they should matter more to us. Unfortunately, many of our churches have forgotten that people matter to God. We need to infect our congregations with this thought.

While we need a passion for reaching the unchurched, we also need a plan to reach them. This is the third thing I saw in these successful churches. Their plan was simple: challenge believers to build relationships with unbelievers.

We all realize that most people come to church because a friend invited them. Sadly, after two years of being a Christian, people lose most of their relationships with unsaved people. Socially, they associate almost entirely with Christians.

So, we must aggressively build relationships with nonChristians. Along with that, we must train our people to share their faith, whether it is with the Four Spiritual Laws or some other simple plan. Let me stress that this doesn't just happen. We must intentionally, purposefully, aggressively build these relationships. The unchurched people must see that we are in touch with their lifestyle, that we are sensitive to their time needs, and that we can provide relevant and enjoyable leisure experiences.

The question was asked, "Is your church actively searching for ways to reach the unchurched? Or are you more interested in just ministering to the people already within your church?"

Let's face it. People are not going to be reached in the same way they were reached 50 years ago. Non-Christians do not attend revival meetings like they did when many of us were won to Christ. We must be on the cutting edge, rather than shackled to yesteryear's methods.

Along with this, we can't expect the pastor to do it all. Many of the churches I observed place a strong emphasis on training people to discover and use their spiritual gifts. People are trained to minister to others, and are doing it.

But people must not only be trained. They must be committed. We will never reach the world with casually devoted Christians.

An Acceptance of Change

Change is rapidly occurring all around us. It's been said that the average church lags 15 years behind society. So rather than ride on the cutting edge, we more often play catch-up, responding to changing values, trends, and technologies long after they arrive on the scene.

Leith Anderson addresses this in his excellent new book, Dying for Change. A recent survey, he says, found that 85% of America's Protestant churches have either plateaued or are declining. He writes: "Many of the sincere and committed Christians who still faithfully fill the family pews in these churches hold on to the nostalgic hope that tomorrow will be yesterday. Others desperately want their churches to catch up with the times and meet the challenges of the present generation, but they don't know how. And still others doggedly fight the inevitable changes for the sake of traditions that would be better abandoned."

!n the Fuller seminar, we learned about the equipment in the average household today, which differs so much from what people owned not too many years ago. Today we have VCRs, cable TV, personal computers, cellular phones, compact disk players, and even FAX machines. Fifty years ago, we didn't even have refrigerators, running shoes, seatbelts, supermarkets, or automatic transmission. Yet despite the enormous changes, we in the church often use the same methods used 50 years ago, as if society hasn't changed at all.

Values have changed, too. Previously, people valued money, quantity of possessions, and trusting people. But today, people value time, quality of possessions, and proven integrity. We learned that America has 2.5 million unmarried couple households. The question was asked, "What does your church do to minister to them?"

Doug Murren, whose church in Seattle ministers mostly to this age group (25-45 year-olds), gave us some valuable insights into baby boomers. He said boomers thrive on crowds and like to see the church crowded. They expect excellence. The music must be professional. Make sure the service is well-planned, with no dead spots; don't wait 30 seconds for the ushers to come forward. He also pointed out that while boomers may be loyal to their own church, we shouldn't expect them to also be loyal to the conference or the denomination.

In fact, denominations aren't doing very well. Only two, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God, have grown consistently in recent years. Baby boomers seem to be avoiding denominational churches in favor of independent or "community" churches. Leith Anderson says, "Most denominations not only have a declining total number, but an escalating average age. Younger people just aren't joining denominational churches."

Anderson also addresses the changing size of churches. Of America's 375,000 churches, half average less than 75 on Sunday mornings (about 60% of United Brethren churches average less than 75). He says, "Most are surprisingly stable and indestructible and would probably continue to meet even if the pastor died, the building burned, and the treasury went bust. They are built upon and held together by permanent family relationships."

However, the majority of people attend the minority of large churches. Half of all churchgoers attend only 14% of the churches. People are flocking to the large, "full-service" churches which have a lot to offer and many entry points. Management expert Peter Drucker describes this shift in church size as one of the major social changes of the 20th century.

This is one of the many changes we cannot ignore. We can affirm the role of the small church, but we must also affirm society's seeming preference for large churches. This is especially important for the United Brethren church. While most denominations have several, if not many, churches which average over 1000 people every Sunday, we don't even have one church of that size.

Our world is different from the way it used to be, and there's nothing we can do to recover the past. "Hiding from the problems and changes of today will not cause them to go away," we were told in that seminar. The decision we need to make is this: Will we hide in our churches and condemn the outside world as deficient and sinful? Or will we courageously face this new world and conquer it for Christ?

As in other denominations, many United Brethren churches have plateaued or are declining. However, some have shown considerable growth, and some are experiencing great growth right now. My observation is that the growing churches among as strongly emphasize the Word, reach out to the unchurched, are concerned about meeting the needs of people today, reach and minister to baby boomers, and are willing to risk making changes to make it all possible.

Building for the Kingdom

We began our sabbatical in Great Britain, where we visited a number of the great churches and cathedrals. For the most part, though, these were just large buildings with very few people. The thing that troubled me most was that they seemed to place more emphasis on their history and what they were at one time, than on reaching people for Christ today. In many cathedrals, we saw signs saying how much money was needed to keep the building in repair, and asking visitors to contribute to the cause. But very little was said about reaching the unchurched.

The United Brethren church flirts with some of the same dangers.

We are proud of our heritage as the first American-born denomination, and that the Wright Brothers and Francis Scott Key once called themselves United Brethren. Many of our churches proudly recall great revivals and accomplishments which produced much fruit for the Kingdom. But by reveling in our past, we can lose our relevance in the present--and forfeit our future.

We must focus on today, 1991, the world of the space shuttle and AIDS and global communications and shattered families and hectic lives and New Age religions and rampant sexual immorality and credit card debt and young families searching for stability.

That is the world in which God now calls us to minister. If we ignore these realities, we risk the fate of those great British cathedrals which are filled with history and majesty, but are out-of-touch with the people living next door.