Podcast Episode #230
SUBSCRIBE: iTunes • RSS • Stitcher • TuneIn Radio • Google Play
We discuss five areas where change often fails and discuss everything related to the new book, Who Moved my Pulpit?
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- Prayer should be the foundation of everything we do in the church.
- A change leader needs to be in prayer and needs to enlist others to pray as well.
- Prayer is not a perfunctory step in leadership.
- More leaders pray well about change than communicate well about change.
- You cannot over-communicate in the church.
- You can’t just communicate what needs to be changed, but why and when as well.
- Churches will either lead change or be changed.
The five reasons change leadership often fails are:
- Not praying
- Not assessing unintended consequences
- Not communicating
- Not dealing with people issues
- Not modeling positive leadership
Episode Sponsors
Vanderbloemen Search Group is the premier pastor search firm dedicated to helping churches and ministries build great teams. They’ve helped hundreds of churches just like yours find their church staff and are uniquely geared to help you discern who God is calling to lead your church.
Find out more about Vanderbloemen Search Group by visiting WeStaffTheChurch.com.
Midwestern Seminary, located in the heart of the Midwest, is one of the fastest growing seminaries in North America and offers a fantastic array of academic programs, including multiple online and residential options at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. Midwestern’s new 81-hour Mdiv program, online program, and doctoral program have all been recognized as some of the most innovative and affordable in the country. There has never been a better time to begin your seminary education. Midwestern Seminary trains leaders ‘For The Church.’
Visit them online at MBTS.edu/Rainer and start your ministry training today.
Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of I Will.
thank you for writing Autopsy of a deceased church. I have read it twice & made notes. our church has given a copy to each household and we are going to begin sermons and meetings about where we are and where we need to go.God bless you in your work.! Yours in Christ , Jeff Russ .Pastor of Cabin Missionary Baptist Church.
Thank you, Russ!
Oh boy! Now you did it! You could have heard a pin drop when I mentioned the title “Autopsy of a Deceased Church” and we have carpet, sanctified as it is! I, too, am reading Autopsy again and just listened to the 5 things pod cast. You are a trouble maker and I thank God for you in my prayers!
Thanks, Mike. I’ve been called worse than a troublemaker!
These are great insights, but it seems that these 5 items are more symptom than underlying dysfunction. We’re finding that, for about 85% of the pastors we’ve studied, there’s a bit of a dysfunctional meta-narrative about how pastors are trained, which creates in them false expectations of what pastoral ministry will be like.
One important distinction between those who are “naturally gifted” by God to be effective change agents and those who are not has to do with the way they manage themselves and relationships with others while communicating expectations.
Effective change agents “tell rather than suggest.” Not that they are authoritarian in their communications, but naturally gifted change leaders are clear, direct, and positive when they tell others what should be done in order to move things forward. Most pastors do not communicate this way with church and ministry leaders, staff, and members of the congregation. Instead, they tend to be more suggestive, indirect, unclear and, as a result, people don’t sense that they’ve been given firm direction.
My apologies for going on at length, but this is a hot topic for us – one element we’ve discovered in four years of in depth research into the distinctions between effective and ineffective change leaders in the church.