Developing a Significant Church: Impacting for the Kingdom

By William T. McConnell

For fifty years, a parade of writers has labored to show declining churches the route to new growth. Bill McConnell, from extensive experience and wise reflection, has written one of the most interesting and useful books of the type. As this book is read by church leadership teams (not by the pastor alone), it will catalyze the turnaround of several thousand local churches, at least.
Dr. George G. Hunter III, Distinguished Professor of Evangelization, Asbury Theological Seminary

Bill McConnell is a delightful writer, and this book is as easy to read as it is substantive in its content. It is intelligent, intuitive, and informed. There is no substitute for wisdom born of experience and perseverance, and that wisdom is found here. Full of practical insights and suggestions, this book also provides a window into Bills personal journey as a successful leader of congregational transformation.
Dr. Dick Hamm, author, coach-consultant, partner of The Columbia Partnership, and past president and general minister of The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Although not textbooks, I wish Bill McConnells books could be required reading for all mainline denominational churches. As a successful pastor and an advisor to many churches, McConnell writes from a wealth of experience that is immensely practical and applicable. All church leaders and pastors who wish to move their churches forward toward a healthy and exciting future should get this book.
Margo Woodworth, Retired Executive Director of Net Results, Inc.

Dr. Bill McConnell is a native of Louisville, Kentucky, has served in the church for over forty years, and is a church transformation consultant and Christian leadership coach. He speaks in many venues around the nation on the subject of church transformation. He is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University, Asbury Theological Seminary, and Kingsway Theological Seminary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490837260

William T. McConnell

Dr. Bill McConnell is a native of Louisville, Kentucky, and is presently serving as Transformational Senior Pastor at Lindenwood Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. Bill is also a church transformation consultant and a Christian leadership coach. He speaks in many venues around the nation on the subject of church transformation. He is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University, where he majored in political science and was Student Body President. As preparation for his work in ministry he graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary with a master of divinity degree and from Kingsway Theological Seminary with a doctor of ministry degree. Before coming to Lindenwood, Dr. McConnell served almost 20 years at the Legacy Christian Church of Harrison, Ohio. During his tenure the church’s membership more than tripled and worship attendance grew by over 500 percent. The church was noted for having over 85 percent of the membership participating in weekly small groups and over 85 percent of the membership involved in the ministries of the church. He is a frequent church leadership retreat leader, and leads several church transformation events each year.

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Copyright © 2014 William Thomas McConnell.

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Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-3725-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3727-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3726-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014908715

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/11/2014

Contents

Dedication

Preface

I Saw the Lord

Leadership Takes Courage

Off the Deep End

Almost Totally Committed

Worship – Do It Well

Five Things Healthy Churches Do

The Door

Member or Disciple – The Cost of Discipleship

Potluck in the Sanctuary

Motivation

Money as a Spiritual Tool

Let’s Fight

Larger or Smaller

How Did We End Up Like This?

Club, Clique, Cult, Sect, Institution or What?

Busy, Busy, Busy

Is Everybody Happy

Fuzzy Church

Jesus Christ is Lord?

The Attributes of a Transformational Leader

Systemic Evangelism

How Did That Happen?

Developing Healthy, Helpful Church Leaders

The Three C’s That Should Drive the Church

The Holy Who?

The Church I Want to Serve

Running Low

Making Little Difference

Honestly

Healthy Relationships = Healthy Church

You’re Mean

Heading Toward Being a Healthy Church

Good to Great

Easy Church

Angry

Making Church Members or Making Disciples

A False Sense of Spirituality

How Can I Put This Nicely?

Homemade Religion

Scamming

The Ten Windows of Your World View

About the Author

Endnotes

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the people in my life who have been willing to think with me and work with me and stand by me in the process of church transformation.

My most helpful advisor and greatest support is my wife, Nancy McConnell. She has worked as hard as I have to see churches transformed with almost no recognition for her contribution and often little appreciation. She is one of the most spiritual and insightful people I have ever met. She has literally been used of God to save my life.

Thanks to my long-time best friend, co-pastor and transformational partner in ministry, Rev. Mark Garrett. Mark has walked with me through the dark and trying days of transformation and always been a friend and support and sounding board. Without his support and listening ear, I could not have survived the difficult days of conflict that are a part of church transformation. My thanks also to the Regional staff of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who validated and supported what I was doing when it would have been easier for them to step out of the picture.

Also thanks to the many lay leaders of the First Christian Church of Harrison, Ohio, who stood with me in leadership as we sought to bring church transformation. A few of these leaders who were most involved and supportive were: Bob Johnson; Pam Friermood; Willisa Redford; Lana VanMetre; Karen Renbarger; and Tom Kendrick. Their wisdom, commitment and courage were pivotal to the transformation of First Christian Church.

Lastly, I dedicate this book to my older brother, Robert Redding McConnell. Bob was the person who challenged me to step into the Christian life and then was my number one fan and supporter until his recent death.

Preface

I have been a part of the church all of my life. It is the rare Sunday that I am not in a worship service of some type somewhere. I have served on staff, taught, led small groups, spoken to and preached at Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), Churches of Christ, Baptist Churches, Methodist Churches, Lutheran Churches, Presbyterian Churches and Pentecostal Churches. I have consulted with several different types of churches and coached pastors of six different denominational backgrounds. Depending on how you want to look at it, I have either been around or I have a rich and varied background.

The truth is I have, by accident, learned more about the church of North America than your normal pastor. In my years of working as a church consultant I have been called by some an expert in the area of church transformation. I am not sure there is such a thing. But church transformation is what I do spend most of my time reading about, writing about and working on. I may not be an expert, but I do know something about the subject.

Though many definitions are bandied about, I see church transformation as the process of turning a plateaued or dying church into a vibrant, growing church that is impacting its community in a positive way with the love and message of God. How churches accomplish this turnaround may be different, but there are basic system changes that must take place in every church for transformation to happen.

Most church leaders are aware that the church they are a part of is not healthy and growing but they are not trained to turn them around. The most often attempted initial strategy to fix the church is to implement a new program or ministry. Though that particular ministry might be successful, rarely is a church transformed into a healthy, growing church with one new ministry. For a church to be transformed, it must endure a change in its DNA. There must be a basic change in mission, vision and core values for a lasting transformation to take place.

I use the term endure advisedly. Transformation is a long and difficult process. You see, we do church like we do church because it is how we have learned to do church. It is the only way we have ever seen church done. If I show up with this grand new design for doing church I will be looked upon as a complete idiot. We all know that what I am proposing is not how church is done. We must enter into a process.

The place to start in transformation is to make a commitment to being transformed. Even though we may not be sure what that means, we are willing to do whatever it takes to do it. We can make that commitment because we realize that what we are presently doing, how we are doing church, is just not working. So, before we, the church, dies, let’s try something new.

The process works something like this. First we must provide new information about the why and how of church. My suggestion is that we take this information from the Bible. I say this because it is not over stating the case when I say that a vast majority of our church members are basically Biblically illiterate. Said new information must be repeated… over and over and over and over again before it begins to sink in. This new information will eventually produce new thinking. And new thinking will produce new attitudes and new attitudes will ultimately produce new actions. And there you have it; church transformation.

There you have church transformation in a nutshell. And like most changes that we are called to make, it is easier said than done. One of the most often questions I field is, How long does church transformation take? That is a difficult question to answer. Much depends on the willingness of the congregation to embrace the needed changes. But a good ballpark figure is three to seven years. That calls for a deep and long term commitment from both the lay and clergy leadership of a church.

I can tell you from personal experience; it is a commitment well worth making and keeping. The end results are amazing. To be a part of a church where God is at work and God’s people are joyfully serving the church, the community and the world is worth it all. With all my heart I urge you as a church leader to go for it.

Before you get too far into this book you will begin to wonder about my feelings about and relationship to the church, so let me clear that up. I will admit that I am very critical of the church in North America. It is important to know that I love the church. The most meaningful happenings of my life happened in the confines of the church; not the building, but with the people.

I am proud of much of what the church has done throughout its history and feel that it is still having a generally positive impact on the world. With that said, I also believe that we, the church, can and must do much better. It is not by happenstance that the church in the United States is shrinking in membership and losing cultural impact at an alarming rate. Most people, without a vested interest in and history with the church, view it as irrelevant at best and as a negative influence on the world at worst. More and more people who had been neutral about the church have become negative. The church has to wonder why this significant shift has happened in a relative short span of time.

I have no intention of even attempting to address the cultural reasons for this shift in thinking about the church. My only intention is to take a look at the church, seek to root out those things we are doing that may not be helpful in fulfilling our mission and suggesting new ways of doing church that might be helpful and make for a healthier church.

This book is not the last word on church transformation. My hope is that my readers are encouraged to take a fresh look at what they, as church leaders, are doing and start thinking about the possibility of doing some things differently. I truly believe we, the church, can do church better. Much better.

I Saw the Lord

Before allowing me into seminary, the school administration insisted I take a psychological test.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that they had a good idea. During my childhood I had met several preachers so my guess was they were doing a spiritual granola check. They were attempting to sift out all the nuts and flakes. Even though they made all incoming students take the test, it seemed more than appropriate in my case.

Taking the test made sense to me for a couple of reasons. One, I have always thought I wasn’t, as they say where I grew up, exactly right. The second reason is that I thought I had to be just a little bit nuts to even want to go to seminary. Going to seminary and entering the ministry were not high on my list of things to do. Most observers would have thought that my college education was not good preparation for seminary. I had spent, or some may have said misspent, much of my college career smoking, drinking, cussing and fighting. I just didn’t strike me, or most of my fraternity brothers, as the ministry type.

Since they let me in, I guess I passed the test. Judging by the makeup of the student body that gathered around me, I sensed the test wasn’t all that difficult to pass. Having come from a secular university and not pursued a Christian education, the people in my class at seminary struck me as a strange group of people joining me in the pursuit of a graduate degree in theology.

The test wasn’t terribly difficult, with the exception of one question. That one question pretty much psyched me out. The question was, Have you ever heard the voice of God? In college I was a psychology minor so I knew that the correct answer to this tricky little question should be a resounding NO! Hearing voices, especially God’s voice, is a one-way ticket to the ward where they lock the door behind you. On the other hand, it was an entrance test of sorts for seminary… the place where one studies about God. So, perhaps the correct answer here would be, yes.

Frankly, I am not sure I have ever heard God. People who are constantly yipping that God told me this or God said that make me more than just a little nervous. I just don’t find God to be all that gabby. I have also noticed that it is often a gabby person who has a gabby God who talks to them all of the time. Perhaps, since I am a quiet guy, I serve a quiet God.

There is a similar question that I find much easier to answer, Have you ever seen God? That answer is an easy – yes. I see God all the time all over the place. I see God in the many acts of kindness people have done in my life… the innumerable times I have been forgiven… the people who love me. I see God’s smile in the eyes of a child. God’s face is all over the work of creation. Just check out one sunset.

I see God in these things and people. But these are just glimpses of God… flashes of God. They are not as clear as I would like for them to be. My problem is that I don’t see all that well. In every eye test I have taken since the second grade, I have yet to see even the big E on the eye chart. I know it is there, I just can’t see it.

My inability to see is even more acute when it comes to spiritual things. I am, by nature, not a very spiritual person. So, for me, these God glimpses are a bit blurry because I don’t see well and they pass by so quickly.

Glimpses are good. I am appreciative of them. But, have you ever thought about gazing into the face of God? Spending a little time looking God