How to diagnose minor and major church issues

David R. Fletcher

previously published in the September 2008 edition of Church Executive magazine

 

Allergies in Austin can be severe in “cedar fever” season. Mountain Cedar releases billions of pollen from December to February. During a recent allergy season, I had a strange pain near my eyes. It didn’t feel like allergies and lasted for weeks. So, I hunkered down and sought out an ear-nose-throat specialist. The doc didn’t know if I had a deep sinus block or perhaps even cancer. To confirm a diagnosis, he ordered a computed axial tomography—Should I be happy or scared with a CAT scan?
In our church, Grace Covenant of Austin, grace360.org, we had a lot of hunches about our strengths and limitations. There was an undercurrent of issues and some problems. Yet, we didn’t have any hard data to make decision. We needed a CAT scan of our church. Were our issues minor or major? Did our church have a cold, the flu or cancer?

Tools for Assessment

There are several well-used analytical tools for church assessment. Willow has Reveal, revealnow.com, and Barna has the Highly Effective Church Inventory, barna.org. My preference is the Church Health Assessment Tool (CHAT) developed by Dr. Stephen Macchia, leadershiptransformations.org. Stephen has three books on the subject, notably Becoming a Healthy Church. My second preference is Christian Schwarz’s Natural Church Development, ncd-international.org, a survey and book by the same title. Schwarz’s organic view of the church is a must read!

We opted for Steve Macchia’s CHAT for several reasons. It is optimized for 20-40% of the congregation to participate—that means that everybody can have a say. The Church Health Assessment Tool measures ten areas:

1. God's Empowering Presence
2. God-Exalting Worship
3. Spiritual Disciplines
4. Learning & Growing in the Community
5. Loving & Caring Relationships
6. Servant-Leadership Development
7. An Outward Focus
8. Wise Administration & Accountability
9. Networking with the Body of Christ
10. Stewardship & Generosity

CHAT gives a great and readable summary, with full comments from all participants. The summary is separated into how the leaders and congregation responded—great insight into who thinks what! And, Stephen Macchia included sections on networking with other churches and stewardship.

Doing the Assessment

We publicized to the congregation the what and why of the CHAT assessment. Stephen’s organization has publicity information which we used in our printed bulletin, e-newsletter and website.
We invited all members and attendees to participate using a member’s login. For leaders, we used a separate login. In the leadership group, we included our governing board, pastors, directors, support staff and all key volunteer leaders. The only downside to using the Internet is that taking CHAT can be a little slow—but they are working on that. With the Internet, people can easily take the CHAT indicator from home or work, night or day, weekday or weekend.

Participation of CHAT at Grace Covenant

We had 19% of our congregation participate, which is shy of the 25% ideal range but still large enough to be accurate. A great many long-time attendees participated, almost 75% of the respondents had been at the church more than four years. Dr. Macchia commented that, “generally only 50% of a congregation has been at the church for more than four years.” 82% of the respondents were congregants and 18% were leaders, a nice mix. We are a white (92%) congregation and 88% married. Bottom line—a church with lots of young married folks, but with a good diversity of ages, not many single, widowed or currently divorced.

Well Educated

The first challenging thing that we saw was some hard demographic data—and it was shocking. We always knew that in the state capitol and university town that we had a lot of well educated people, but the numbers were numbing! 53% of attendees are college grads and another 31% have a Masters or Doctoral degree. Thus, 84% of the congregation has a bachelors or advanced degree—an extremely well educated congregation—remember that for later!

Three Strengths

The congregation identified three strengths of the church through CHAT. Following each area is the description from CHAT:

1. God-Exalting Worship—“the experience of gathering together for worship as the people of God is refreshing and renewing, uplifting and meaningful. Worship is a value that your congregation encourages you to consider a high priority on a weekly basis and generally appreciates the ways in which they are ushered into the presence of God. When worship is a strength, it's important to keep building on this so the people are fed by the Word of God, nurtured by prayer, and encouraged to engage the world as instruments of God's mercy, wisdom, and strength.”
2. Learning & Growing in the Community—“opportunities that lead to deeper relationships with others in the congregation and spiritual growth together in the Lord. The groups that have been formed for the purpose of Scripture study, group sharing, and relationship development are designed to lead your congregation into a deeper walk of faith as a community of believers. The provision of safe places to be oneself, ask their questions, and pursue vitality in their daily lives is proving to be effective and should be continually enhanced.”
3. Wise Administration & Accountability—“approval of the ways in which the behind-the-scenes needs of the church are being handled. When appropriate facilities, equipment and facilities are provided as a strong support foundation for your ministries, there is generally a smooth operational flow. This facilitates effective ministry and allows for development of future endeavors that will advance the church. Strategic initiatives will lead to growth and vitality within a healthy environment of accountability.”
   

Interestingly, the leaders identified the same three top strengths. Dr. Macchia said, “this is amazingly in–sync. Very unusual! It is incredible for the congregation and leadership to be so in-sync with strengths and areas of improvement.”

Three Limitations

The congregation and leadership identified the same three limitations of the church through CHAT. Following each area is the description from CHAT:

1. Networking with the Body of Christ—“there is concern about becoming exclusive and distant from the wider community of believers. Respondents do not want the church to become watered down in your shared convictions about "unity" among other congregations. Instead, people are desirous of connecting with others of like mind and heart in places where Christ-centered worship, community service opportunities, church facilities and training events can all be shared in a spirit of cooperation and collective witness. Congregations with a “kingdom” mentality are richly blessed as they combine their efforts and resources for building up the body of Christ with others who share our faith commitment in Christ.”
2. Loving & Caring Relationships—“there is concern on the ways in which members treat one another. This may manifest itself in a variety of behaviors: unresolved conflicts, impenetrable “cliques” among long-standing members, socio-economic comparisons, or lack of opportunities for relaxed relationship-building settings. Paying close attention to this overarching need within the congregation will lead to deeper fellowship, closer relationships, and more effective ministry to others. The healthy church knows that without the strength of relationships within the congregation, there will be no effective service to those outside the faith.”
3. An Outward Focus—“as a trait in need of improvement, there is concern about the church's lack of outreach. This may include reaching out evangelistically to unchurched neighbors, serving the tangible needs of people in impoverished communities, practicing hospitality to internationals living in our country, and/or supporting missionaries in other parts of the world. When this trait of a healthy church is lacking in your faith community, there are many ways to transform your shared mission toward strategic initiatives of outreach. Capture the best ideas among your members and mobilize as many as possible to engage in the Great Commission of "going and making disciples of every nation" for the sake of building up the kingdom of God.”
   

We compared our strengths, limitations and the demographic data. We discovered that we needed to change in minor and major ways. Here are a few examples …

We are a well-educated congregation, with many entrepreneurs, ultra high-tech workers and engineers. Sermons, classes and critique is easy:

• Leaders challenged entrepreneurial-types with Scripture. “I am bright, driven and talented and let me tell everybody how it can be done better.” Leaders began to say, “Let’s be a team.” Acts 15:36-40 & II Timothy 4:11
• Leaders began to actively pursuing peace by gently confronting critique-turned-gossip, “I have an idea for everything and will share it with whoever I want.” Leaders began to say, “Let’s address the real issues.” I John 1:9 & II Corinthians 2:20-21
  

We began to network with other churches, sharing the pulpit with pastors from two similar churches. We began to talk about the connections and ministry between us and other churches, and realized we hadn’t communicated effectively in the past. Our ministry stories need to include vital mission projects in the city and abroad. Great things are happening and we were behind on sharing it with the congregation. We leaders are remiss on communication!

Loving and caring relationships is challenging for us and we are working on it. We want close ties, but for this congregation it comes with work and effort. We launched a church-wide initiative to adopt a culture of peace:

• We distributed 400 copies of Ken Sande’s The Peacemaker. For the next three years, we will have regular preaching and teaching times on resolving conflict biblically. See www.hispeace.net, Matthew 5:23-24 & 18:15-19, Galatians 6:1-3.
• Leaders of the church are practicing the art of confessing limitations and weaknesses. The Elders are praying with more people, shepherding them according to I Peter 5:2-3 & James 5:13-16-20.
  

To deepen relationships, we are working on enhancing our small groups. We restarted dinner clubs so that people could easily get to know one another. To be more loving, we titled 2008, The Year of the Ambassador, to emphasize that our church should be a warm and caring place, II Corinthians 5:20. One staff member was mobilized to reinvigorate the welcome area, making it into a smiling place to get coffee and be greeted—in just three months, the coffee tent became a celebrated place on our campus!

Grace Covenant had a cold and needed some medicine. CHAT helped us diagnose what needed to be done. CHAT gave us great diagnostic tool for our church! We have begun to work on our limitations and will continue with God’s grace.

Now, how about me? How did the CAT scan turn out? No cancer, not even a sinus infection! That was a diagnostic tool for me!