We Already Tried That and It Didn't Work

In the leadership and administration section of Rev Magazine, an article by Alan Nelson appeared in the Sept/Oct 2006 issue entitled, “We Already Tried That; It Doesn’t Work”. The article was written primarily to inform leaders that trying new things and getting the objection, “we already tried that and it didn’t work” should be considered with more than one perspective. Basically, the leader must discern as to whether the objection raised about past failure is a result of human conditioning or legitimate wisdom.

The author’s purpose in writing this article is to inform leaders of the need for wisdom in discerning the legitimacy of the common objection, “We’ve already tried that and it didn’t work”. The question is this: is the person or persons voicing the objection truly savvy because the idea has been legitimately tried and proven ineffective or are they being close-minded? In order to determine the answer to this question, the author offered some points of consideration for leaders in this situation.

Some points of consideration include asking the question, “Have the circumstances changed?” After considering this question, if the leader can determine that circumstances have changed either inside the church or outside the church, he has a legitimate protest to the objection raised. Another point of consideration is who has more experience in similar situations. The author states, “Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age, but sometimes you can’t gain wisdom without time and experience. Therefore, it’s legitimate to sit back and say to yourself, ‘Am I being naïve? Is my blindness to the risks a result of my inexperience? What is it that I can’t see, don’t know, am not asking, or don’t understand?’”. Learning from those with experience and wisdom is essential for effective leadership.

The final consideration for the leader is who’s bringing new perspective. People who are in the same environment with the same routine often have tunnel vision. When someone new comes into the organization, their fresh perspective will teach the leader a lot. “New perspectives, even if not fully valid or reliable, provide insights that those of us conditioned to a process or environment overlook”, stated the author. Finally, it is important to note that not everyone who offers this common objection are trying to be negative. Humans dislike negative experiences and it is natural to try and not repeat a negative experience. Wisdom is needed. The article closes with:

“Therefore, prayerfully and thoughtfully seek wisdom in your strategic thinking. Humbly consider negative advice while you take steps to discern whether the opinion is legitimate wisdom or whether it’s a smokescreen for adverse conditioning that we’re susceptible to as humans.”

I think the author accomplished his general purpose in the article however I believe there are other facets that could be discussed as well.

In reaction to the article, my perspective tells me that there are some good points raised here and some good advice. Leaders that inherit existing organizations including existing churches must work even harder to shape, mold, and even reform the church to their leadership style and vision for the organization. This takes time. Church leaders should expect some resistance and some objections to new things. Unfortunately, many pastors and leaders don’t stay at their post long enough to see the results and the fruit of their vision and change. When the leader leaves prematurely, the change that he instituted often falls apart. It is simply too easy for an organization or church to return back to the way things always were. This means going back to doing things the way we’ve always done it. This means the new leader inherits the mindset of those who have been led and the left hanging by previous leaders. It takes time to develop trust and a lot of encouragement to lead people into something new, even if they really have tried that before.

John Maxwell "If I Had It to Do Over Again..."

Posted for the Review of the Leadership Team at NPBC

This is a review of an interview published in Rev! Magazine in the Sept/Oct 2006 issue.

The article on John Maxwell in the Sept/Oct 2006 issue of Rev! magazine is listed in the leadership and administration section of the magazine. The article does not list the name of the interviewer but the questions asked of John Maxwell are identified simply by “Rev!”. This is my first reading of this magazine. The author’s purpose in writing this article is to explore the perspective and thoughts of John Maxwell on the work of a pastor. Specifically, the author wanted to know what Maxwell would do if he had to go back and be a pastor all over again. What would he do differently than the first time?The interview asked questions of Maxwell that included, “How has your life changed since leaving the local church as a senior pastor?” and “Now that you are not a pastor, how have your views changed?” and “What would you do differently if you were starting over today? Why?”.

Some of the responses offered by Maxwell included his experience of leaving the pastorate and ministry in the church and going out into the secular, corporate world to teach leadership principles. He said, “The keyword in the church world is relationships; we’re brothers and sisters in Christ. But the keyword in the corporate community is respect.” In responding to how his views have changed since the transition from church world to secular world, he said, “I see things so differently. I always wanted to teach people how to share their faith and tried to do a decent job of that. What I didn’t realize is that there was no connection out there. People were in the marketplace, but many of them were not connecting with the marketplace.” Maxwell went on to say that in order for trust and relationships to be given in the corporate world, there must first be respect. He said that respect is earned by doing a good job and working hard in your field. After you have been recognized for your work, then people will open up and begin to relate to you.

Interestingly, Maxwell said that if he were to do it over again or if he were to give advice to young pastors, he said that he would do less church. He said that he would have fewer services, less programs, and a lot less of everything. “If I were a pastor today, I’d work much more on helping people relate to the culture they live in and relate to their workplace before I’d emphasize them sharing their faith”, said Maxwell. Instead of having business people doing menial jobs within the church, Maxwell would find out where they are most influential in the marketplace and community and help them to develop their ministry there, outside the church.

The advice was given that all pastors should start their ministry in the first five years as “bi-vocational” so that they can relate to the world and the people that their congregations are dealing with everyday. Pastors should go out a couple of days a month and spend the day with people from the church at their jobs. “If they’re salespeople ask ‘Can I go on sales calls with you?’ I’d strongly encourage a pastor to, a couple of times a month with a couple of different people, become immersed in that world.” said Maxwell.

Maxwell went on to say, “How can a holy God in the flesh come to this earth and be so engaging to secular society – and we as a local church are the arms, the head, the eyes, the arms, the mouth, the feet of Jesus and we can be so un-engaging?” From there the emphasis was placed on being relevant to the culture in order to make an impact for the gospel.My positive reaction to the article comes from the appreciation I have for Maxwell’s emphasis on getting out and into the marketplace where people in the world live.

I do believe that the church has been to inward focused and the method of evangelism has basically been, “Come to my church so my preacher can tell you the gospel.” This is not how believers in the New Testament shared their faith. Neither, did churches send out members one night a week for visitation evangelism. It is not a bad thing to go out on visitation but it’s not necessarily the New Testament model either. In the New Testament, the Apostles, disciples, and the Christians shared the gospel as they went through life from day to day. Wherever they were, they shared Christ. The witness of Christ by Christians was not limited to the pastor nor a select few with “the gift of evangelism”. The Christians simply witnessed, shared Christ, and impacted the culture by living and speaking the gospel daily. In this way, I applaud Maxwell’s emphasis in getting out of the church and into the culture.

In negative reaction to the article, I have mixed emotions and mixed concerns. I find myself in this same predicament with many things I read relating to modern church leadership models and emphasis. I’m not stating that all of Maxwell’s statements, work, perspective, and contribution to Christians are wrong, invalid, or ineffective. I just don’t think that I can buy into everything that he promotes. The objections I have are related to my deep conviction of the sufficiency of scripture, the power of the gospel to save the lost, and the sovereignty of God over all things including salvation. With that said, I know that many of my contemporaries will object and consider me too ignorant or too simple to come out of the past and realize that the culture has changed and therefore we must change in order to reach it. Maybe I am really too simplistic. I will try to keep an open mind and learn from Maxwell, Stanley, Hybels, and even Warren.

For example, Maxwell said that we are the hands, head, arms, and eyes of Christ’s church. Maybe it’s not incredibly important but this statement is not biblical. Christ is the head of the church. The importance of this reality cannot be underscored and countless Christians have suffered, been persecuted, and even martyred because they would not confess the Pope, or the King, or the Emporer as head of the church. Now, I’m certain that Maxwell didn’t intend to communicate that Christ is not the head of the church but nevertheless his statement appears to diminish the importance of the details of our faith.

The second statement that gave me pause was made in the following quote by Maxwell:“As a pastor I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but one of my major mistakes was thinking that life revolved around the local church and what we were doing. For example, if you were a member of the church, you had to have a ministry in the church. That was a huge mistake. I had high-capacity people in my church doing things that were pretty mundane for business people. If I had it to do over again, I’d have people doing a lot more ministry outside the church, in their workplace or in their community or in their volunteer organizations. I’d find out where they had the greatest influence and make their ministry where their greatest influence was, not confine it to a church. Huge mistake I made.”Again, I applaud Maxwell’s emphasis on getting out of the church and into the community to do ministry where people live. However, it seems that “the church” is not as high a priority to Maxwell as I think it is in the New Testament.

For example, Paul teaches that Jesus loves the church and gave Himself for her sacrificially so that she would be holy, blameless, and without spot or blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27). I think that we should engage our churches to impact the culture but not at the expense of the high view and high importance of the church. The church is the bride of Christ, not the culture. The church is charged with maintaining and defending the truth of scripture, for making disciples not just converting them, for training the body of Christ in righteousness, sanctification, and in spiritual growth in the grace and knowledge of Christ and to express her faith through worship, fellowship, prayer, and witness. In short, I think the church should be the center of the life of the believer and Maxwell seems to diminish this reality or at least to shift the focus from it.

My final negative impression relates to Maxwell’s plea for pastor’s to be relevant to their culture. He advices new pastors, “So for a new pastor I’d say…always do things in secular community where faith isn’t being expressed. Penetrate instead of separate.” This statement ends a larger section at the end of the interview where Maxwell laments the reality that Jesus was more engaging of the lost culture than the church is today. He then presses the need for Christians and pastors to be relevant to the culture. He said, “Let me say this…If they don’t feel comfortable with us outside the church, then they won’t feel comfortable with us inside the church.” My question is simply this, why does the world which is anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-gospel, and anti-truth need to “feel comfortable with us”?

My question and the stand that Maxwell takes here boils down to a significant difference of opinion, I say a difference of interpretation, in how God saves sinners and how God intends for believers to live and exist within the world. I honestly believe that the lost people living everywhere around us need to be offended, shocked, shaken, and even engaged with the depths of their sinfulness against God prior to giving them the gospel of grace. People who are living without Christ will not come to Christ based on feelings of common ground. They come to Christ because of the power of the gospel to save the lost who believe and the grace of God in drawing them to Christ. I think rightly dividing the Word, Spirit empowered proclamation, doctrinal and theological preaching, gospel saturated messages are sufficient to save the lost. It is God’s design. For God has chosen through the foolishness of preaching to save the lost (1 Corinthians 1:21).

Maxwell says, “Don’t separate, penetrate.” Sounds great but the scripture tells us to “come out from among them and be separate.” The scripture tells us that we are strangers and pilgrims just passing through and that this world is not our home. We search for a city whose builder and maker is God. Finally, Maxwell’s advice to pastor’s here seems to indicate that the pastor’s primary role is to “penetrate” the culture. But again, the scripture tells us in Ephesians 4:12 that the pastor/teacher is charged with equipping or training the saints so THEY can do the work of the ministry. It is the saints who penetrate AND separate, not the pastor. The pastors primary calling is to shepherd the flock not relate to the board room executives. It may not sound like it but I do like a lot of Maxwell’s message in this article. As I stated, I just don’t know if I can buy into everything he promotes.

Blessings,
Pastor Chris

Happening Right Now!

This Sunday at NPBC, the pastor will be at the church at 4:30 prepared to teach on the subject of visitation and evangelism for 30 minutes. At 5:00, we will divide into small groups and go out to see people and share Christ, promote the kingdom, and share ministry and worship opportunities at NPBC.

Please come and support evangelism and outreach.

Also, we will begin meeting and organizing for our Fall Community Block Party. More information will be forthcoming...

Pastor Chris