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Alan Roxburgh offers a right question for churches seeking God’s missional future for them:
Churches rarely spend time debating bad ideas. The challenge is sorting through all the possible good things a church should do to discover just those few things that are right for your particular church and context at this moment. Some questions to consider are:
How your church is known in the community is very important in reaching new people. Often those active in another church will suggest your church to new people because they know enough about your church to know that the fit will be better for the newcomers. With that in mind, consider using these questions:
Complexity is the silent killer of organizations. Bottlenecks and logjams can be avoided when we loosen up and unleash creative impulses. Simplicity works.
Reviews, whether for staff or volunteers, tend to be crowded out by other things, especially those reviews that come outside any required annual reviews. Increasingly, churches are finding that building in some “along the way” conversations, ideally quarterly, helps everyone. Questions sometimes used are:
Clif Christopher, an expert on improving financial stewardship, has said that often what appears to be a money problem may have to do with other things. He offers three questions when churches think they have financial problems.
This article is reprinted by permission from Leading Ideas, a free e-newsletter from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary available at churchleadership.com.