By Stan Granberg - Orginally published 10/06/2016
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Is that a bold question to ask? Why do I think I know so much that I can assume your church is not planting new churches? I do it with 97% certainty.

Before I answer the question here's a quiz for you to take:

•   How many established churches close each year?
•   How many new churches start each year?
•   How many established churches does it take to start a new church?

Over the past eleven years Our Kairos team has talked to hundreds of churches in our fellowship of the Churches of Christ. The good news is that across those eleven years over 160 churches have contributed in some way toward planting new churches through Kairos Church Planting.

That's 1.3% of our current 12,260 congregations.

The bad news is that we are losing far more churches than we are planting and we can only expect the rate of decline to accelerate. Thus the question,

Why is my church not planting new churches? Here are five common answers we hear.

Our church isn't growing, how could we start something new?
For over twenty years now the general research is that 80% of American churches are declining or plateaued. The result is that when a church is not growing, it's difficult to imagine that growth of any kind is possible. Planting new churches is our research and development. New churches can help us learn how to grow again.

It's not a good time for us.
I've heard this reason many times. When I've followed it up with "When would be a good time?" the typical answer is 10 years. But what will be different 10 years from now if we do not make the decisions to change?

Can we control a new church?
What we mean by this statement is we want to make sure a new church will look, act, and think just like us. Yet, can we defend the idea that our existing churches are perfect? Have we truly made a perfect church?

New churches are engaged in a deeply creative process to engage our dynamic culture in faith. The best control we can offer is the trust that those we have raised in faith will pursue their task with humble obedience to God's word.

We don't know how.
Twenty years ago our knowledge of church planting was limited and individualized. Today, however, there is a great deal of information available.

Kairos has identified three seasons of planting, each with five critical tasks that will help a new church successfully come into being. Our challenge is not really knowing what to do, it is learning how to execute what we need to do. Contact Kairos for your first steps.

We can't afford it.
Individually, few churches can afford the cost of planting new churches (approximately $250,000 over three to five years). Yet God has not left us without resources.

First, what if we worked together with several churches forming a support group? By distributing the costs it becomes much more affordable. Second, we need to faithfully close many older, dying churches that have finished their course in order to plow those resources back into the future.

by Stan Granberg. Originally published 10/26/16
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How many ministry job descriptions does your church have written?
 
Whoa! That’s a boring topic. My experience is that few churches have job descriptions written for more than their hired staff. But spending the time to write job descriptions for all your ministry leaders may be one of the best investments your church can make for your sanity, health and the well-being of your church.
 
Because churches are volunteer organizations we suggest using the name role descriptions over job descriptions. This name change helps people understand the volunteer idea a little more clearly.
 
The role description is your basic blueprint for success for every important, ongoing job that you want to get done. Here’s five ways that Ministry Role Descriptions will help your church:

1. So you know what the job is you’re asking people to commit to. You’re asking people to voluntarily give up vacation time, to take time away from family, and to do extra hours all for the “general good” of everybody else. The role description helps you make a clear, understandable ask.
2. So you can get the right people in the right seats doing the right things. This is a Jim Collins, Good to Great, phrase, but it’s also a phrase about giftedness. A good role description will help people sort through their gift sets to see if they fit or if this job will help them add to their giftedness.
3. To set expectations for performance. This is a hard one for volunteer organizations. In the church world it seems any kind of job performance is OK because, after all, “we’re Christians and our real goal is to love one another, right? A role description should raise the bar for people by describing how well things need to be done and what kinds of outcomes we expect them to achieve.
4. To describe both whom people work with and for whom. It really helps people to know who is my leader, who are my co-workers, and who works for me. A role description should clearly describe where the position sits in relationship to other people and ministries.
5. To set the context of the job into the mission, vision, and values of the church. Every ministry role is about the mission of the church and should display the values of the church. A good role description will describe how that job adds to or displays the mission, vision, and values of the church.

 
You can download Writing High Quality Role Descriptions from the Kairos website. Throw a “writing party” for your ministry leaders to involve them in writing their own role descriptions. Add some food and fun to get the work done!

What’s the difference between a song leader and a worship leader?

A song leader worked in a clipboard environment of worship planning. In the church of my youth we actually had “dear brother deacon” who stood at the back of the auditorium with a clipboard. His job was to check off everyone participating in the worship presentation—which included the song leader. If the song leader was ever late, brother deacon got mighty nervous. The key person in the worship experience was the preacher. The song leader was ancillary. In fact, as long as there was preaching, the worship event could be successful. Singing and music could be left out.
 
Today, the worship leader ministers in a richer, more expansive environment. In fact, the worship leader functions much like the conductor of an orchestra. The worship leader sets the stage, develops the atmosphere, and directs the people through the movements of the worship experience. The preacher appears on stage much like the featured soloist. We look forward to and applaud the soloist, but it is the conductor who has created the experience. That is what the worship leader does today.
 
Cole NeSmith, co-pastor and creative director at City Beautiful Church described the worship leader’s role this way: The true goal is to recognize, create, and amplify a culture of worship unique to where you are.”
 
Right now, I now of five churches looking for worship ministers. All of the them are a bit “angsty” about the fact that worship leaders are so hard to find. As we’re going through that search at our church, here are five criteria that stand out when hiring a worship leader.

1. Character: Does this person portray the character of Christ and worship that attracts us to the divine? This is a huge expectation, but this is the person who is opening us to the throne room of God. We must see in him the results of meeting God.
2. Stream: What stream of worship is this person drinking from? In our tribe we have the Keith Lancaster/Acapella stream, the Zoe stream, and the Ken Young/Hallal stream. In the larger Christian realm there’s Hillsong, Misty Edwards and the International House of Prayer, Bethel, 10,000 Fathers, and others. Whatever stream the worship leader drinks from to quench her thirst is what is going to seep out from her as she leads us in worship.
3. Invitation: Worship needs to be formed with the atmosphere of invitation. In the 20th century environment the worship service worked towards the climax at the close of the sermon with an invitation. Today, we need a culture of invitation that permeates the entire experience, inviting people to engage all along the way, from the moment they look at our website, arrive in our parking lot, enter our doors, and experience God through our worship. The worship leader, as the conductor, is the face of this invitation as he call us to worship then conducts us through our divine encounter.
4. Formation: The worship experience lies at the heart of forming believers and disciples of Jesus. As much as we want to place discipleship in small groups, accountability relationships, and Bible classes, it is the worship experience where we meet God together as His people. The worship leader leads this formative experience. He is truly a minister of spiritual formation.
5. Technical skill: Surprisingly, the technical skills of musicianship, singing, audio and visual presentation, designing the worship set, creating the worship stage, while the most visible and often talked about aspects, are really the frosting and not the cake. They are what we see and may ooh and ah over, but they are not the deeper, more substantive aspects. This certainly does not mean the technical skill set of a worship leader is unimportant. It does mean we need to dig deeper than these technical aspects as we consider the ministry of worship.

 
I pray these reflections are useful to you as you consider your church and the ministry of worship.

by Jared King, Missio Church, Seattle