Most, Fastest, Cheapest

In Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath the true story is told of a Brazilian railroad that GP Investments Ltd. bought from the government in 1995.  It was delapidated and losing cash.  Enter the picture Alexander Behring.  There were too many requests to fix things like bridges and no money to work with.  So he instituted four rules to guide them. 

a.  only invest in that which would make them money quick
b.  the best solution was the cheapest one up front even if it cost more in the long run
c.  faster fixes are better
d.  recycle old rather than buy new whenever possible. 

Pretty soon they had some money.  Pretty soon they could fix more with that money.  Pretty soon they could do more and got even more money. 

Some churches, and Cocoa is one, needs to think

a.  only do what makes new Cocoa fans (attenders, members, belongers, fans)
b.  do what makes the most fans
c.  do what can be started the quickest
d.  do what is the cheapest

Does it make fans?  Answer:  No.  Then don't do it.  Find something that does.  If it does, choose the one that does it the most, fastest, and cheapest. 

Brings a whole new world of thought to church discipline, doesn't it? 

Feels Hard But ...

This feels hard to post but I'll put it out there.

Losing to Gain. 

We’re at the time of year when people are trying to lose the holiday pounds they put on.  Oddly enough, with our bodies less weight generally is more health.  Because we are Christians (translated too many times nice rather than truthful or courageous) in churches we assume that losing someone could never mean better health.  But that’s not true.  Many an organization has had a low skill and low attitude person drag down the whole staff and adversely effect sales.  Tougher is the high skill and low attitude person.  He or she may bring in lots of sales but create a lot of yuck among good people in the ranks.  (Sometimes the ranks can be filled with complainers but let’s, for this example, say that this is not that way.)  The boss of that company keeps the employee on but the morale goes down.  While that difficult employee may have good numbers, the net output of the whole team eventually goes down.  So if rehabilitation of the difficult employee doesn’t work, losing him or her is gaining.  And that can be true in a church as well. 

Unfortunately, what mostly happens in churches is that the good people leave because the bads one won’t or don’t.  I’m not talking about employees but members too.  They just continue to rub and rub and rub people the wrong way.  Nobody says, “Knock it off or move along.”  If you are a steward of the whole, letting one hurt the whole or the whole’s potential is serious.   It isn’t very loving. 

It isn’t very loving is what we say that puts us in the place of continuing to tolerate off-putting behavior.  But continuing to deal with it isn’t very good for the person doing it or for the rest of the church. 

Some of our problem in this matter is that we know what egregious, criminal behavior is and we won’t abide that.  But when someone is just glib and glares while telling someone to get out of their pew, that’s just being ornery.  We know we should eject criminal behavior but we are not sure if we should ornery behavior. 

Listen to Those NOT Here

Let’s ask our people what they want.  Session's hear and say this all the time.  This is very important.  However, consider this.  What if as a part of McDonalds you went into McDonalds and asked all 20 patrons there if they liked McDonalds?  They’d say yes.  So you’d keep serving Big Macs and all.  But what if you were a part of McDonalds and went into Burger King?  At Burger King ask, “Do you like Big Macs?”  Maybe you’d get the answer, “No and that’s why we’re at Burger King!”  Then you look around and see there are twice as many patrons here as at your McDonalds.

Go back to your McDonalds and say, “Let’s make something like a Whopper.  We’ll charbroil it and make it wide.  We can call it McOpper.”   Five of your patrons say, Ok.  Five say, “Maybe.”  And five say very loudly, “NO and if you do, we’ll leave.”  So you don’t.  You still have 20 patrons. 

What if you had said, not to be mean, but because you have a responsibility to the stock holders to sell as many burgers as possible, to the five loud “no” people, “Bye.”  Then you did your McOpper.  Three weeks later you counted patrons.  There were 35. 

Now think about this – you lost five and got fifteen.  Net gain – 10.  You could have kept the five happy and made the stockholders sad.  You could have kept the five and turned your back on the fifteen.  That would have been easier because you would have avoided conflict or saying goodbye.  But you’d be static and have, whatever it is, grumpies or fearfuls or naysayers or??? 

Leadership may not be about saving everyone you already have but saving the most that there are. 

YOU DON'T GET WHAT YOU EXPECT

We have had some really great worship times at Cocoa lately.  Yesterday there were fourteen children for the Children's Message and, once again, Sarah and Heidi were outstanding.  I hate that the 12 Days of Christmastide are over and we will take down all the gorgeous decorations.  But that will indeed help us to enjoy them fully next year. 

So you know the adage that you don't get what you expect but what you inspect.  The word for churches, and especially sessions, in this is DON'T RECEIVE REPORTS from your committees or staff.  Rather SAY WHAT YOU WANT REPORTED.  Sessions should say what measurable results they want to see for the church (and this is really tough work that often gets avoided by getting absorbed with daily maintenance details -- hugging the trees instead of climbing the ladder to look at the forest).  For example, you can have an evangelism committee and they give a report to the session once a quarter that says something like, "We put an ad in the newspaper for $35/week."  But if you have said that the most effective, cheapest, fastest way to get more people to come to church is to increase the number of times each member invites someone, then that is what you ask to have reported.  "Please, Evangelism Committee, report to us the average number of times each member is inviting someone to church."   Or, more simply, report to us if the average number of invites per member is up, down, or the same.

Sessions need to say what they want and know why.  Then they need to ask for reporting on that.  If they do not, they have delegated and abdicated at the same time. 

Great Day Yesterday

Wow.  What a great day we had yesterday!  The music was outstanding.  The instruments shined.  The house looked beautiful.  The sanctuary was full.  Thank you to all who made it so special.   

Tough Questions & Thoughts

            As we turned out for a Saturday morning of power washing, garland hanging, and pageant practicing, I experienced the joy of God’s people working together.  I also found myself once again pondering questions that Cocoa Pres must face.  (I say, “must face,” but I a reminded of Lucy in the Charlie Brown comic strip saying that there is no problem so big that I cannot avoid it!)

            The questions spin out of one – how do we be a viable congregation?  As we covered one end of the campus to the other one had to wonder, how do we keep up this aging facility when we are a congregation getting smaller in numbers and older in years?  Will a pastor hired just part-time turn our decline around?  Will a pastor hired full-time turn our decline around?  If we don’t turn it around, we are in a hospice mode. 

            To maintain the facility, hire staff, and run programs we need cash.  That means revenue streams having to do with members – more $$ out of the members we have, more members and $$ out of them, or a combination of the two.  That means revenue streams having to do with income generation by renting or selling – renting part of the facility to another congregation trying to get started or needing more space, selling more land, running a thrift shop, opening a tea room, putting in a boat and rv storage area, …. 

            We easily say that we need to minister to the neighborhood and that is absolutely true.  However, our ministry needs also to lead to supplying us with sustaining members.  Otherwise we give away and continue to shrink and age as a congregation.  (Now I have more than once travelled to be a part of a church seriously involved in mission in their community.  So the flag that needs to be waved is, “Come join us as we are a group of people making a serious difference in our community.”  To do the ministry without getting sustaining members or to say we are doing the ministry when we are not, won’t cut it.)

            The other part of cash is, of course, cutting expenses.  There are soft and hard expenses.  Hard ones are set, like the insurance we carry on the property.  Soft ones are cut-able, like staff.  We can put services into Flanniken Hall to reduce electricity expenses.  We can go to volunteers for custodial, landscaping, and secretarial services.  
            Again lower expenses, selling property, increasing cash by micro-business enterprises … without growing the congregation just means being able to tread water longer.  Growing the congregation may mean, and this is ok, growing only at a rate that replenishes typical losses (members dying, moving, drifting away, or switching churches).   But if it is less than a replenish rate (typically 10% of the congregation's size), a trendline of decline can be plotted to a congregation’s expiration date. 

            Sounds gloomy? There are other ideas that can go on the table – merging with another church, selling the property and moving someplace where people like us can grow more easily, making the end of our life as Cocoa as we know it a giving ourselves away to become an African American or Hispanic congregation of the Presbyterian flavor or some other denomination all together. 

Who is Cocoa? Week 4 of Congregational Meetings

Who is Cocoa?  Week 4 of Congregational Meetings

What aren’t we doing that we need to start? 

·         Connecting with the proximate community

·         Getting new people, especially young families

·         Updating the worship service

·         Evangelism training

·         Asking members to do more

·         Offering our facilities to the community

What are we doing that we need to stop?

·         Being closed-minded and resisting change, living in the past

·         Judging others (incl the RFM school)

·         Thinking we are a big church

·         Territorialism

·         Being PCUSA

·         Being the big, white church on Dixon

·         Beggaring the facilities

What are we doing that is contributing to our success & should continue?

·         Our relationship with The Sharing Center and The Special Gathering

·         Being friendly

·         Mission involvement, BIRP

·         Fixing the facility

·         Music

·         Connecting with Westminster/Asbury

·         Our Shepherd Program

·         Women’s Ministry

What do we need to fix?  Keep it but fix it. 

·         Parking lot

·         Sound system

·         Lighting in sanctuary/narthex

·         Session committees

·         “Bridges” to WIC, Boy Scouts, RFM, Westminster/Asbury

What realistically are our main sources of new members?

·         Those like us who are near us

·         Those like us who are somewhat near us (Canaveral Groves/PSJ)

·         Those we have some connection to – Boy Scouts

·         Our own personal friends, family, neighbors, coworkers

What skills are most important to getting the above done?

·         Handyman

·         Senior Adult Ministry experience

·         Multi-ethnic, transitional ministry experience

Pastor Wood comments—I inserted a few comments above already.  Many of the points need a follow up question of, “How?”  Or, “What do we have to offer them?”  As in, “Get younger families.”  And what I call “the invite factor” must be owned by every member.  I’m going to Circle, who can I invite.  I’m going to clean up day, who can I invite?  I’m going to choir, who can I invite.  Thank you, those of you who came, for all your good work.