Month: December 2010

What People Want from their Senior Pastor

REVEAL also included research about what people expect from the Senior Pastor (or Senior Minister – SM). People view the Senior Pastor’s responsibilities as:

1. Serving Advocacy. The SM is expected to be the chief promoter and champion of serving opportunities. They identify and encourage the use of people’s gifts and talents. They attract, develop and motivate ministry teams. They promote and create enthusiasm for serving activities. They create a welcoming and friendly environment for this to occur.

2. Spiritual Challenge. The SM is expected to provide sound doctrine that is biblically accurate, to model and reinforce how to grow spiritually, and to challenge the people to grow and take next steps.

3. Pastoral Care. The SM is expected to counsel people facing major life decisions, minister to the sick, dying and bereaved, and provide guidance to individuals about spiritual development.

4. External Focus. The SM is expected to be a recognized voice on important local issues, to be involved in issues of global significance, and to motivate the church to recruit new members. This includes representing the church to other organizations.

5. Preaching and Vision Casting. The SM is expected to preach inspiring sermons and to cast a vision that captures people’s hearts.

6. Unity and Stability. The SM is expected to maintain harmony, handle troublemakers, avert/resolve problems, and help ensure that the church is financially stable. They are to be a stabilizing force  

When studying the influence of each of these responsibilities on church satisfaction, the following insights were made:

1.Preaching and vision casting have the biggest impact on satisfaction with the senior pastor (51%). This is what people want most from their senior pastor. Its influence is three times greater than the next category.

2. Spiritual challenge is a secondary influence on satisfaction with the senior pastor (17%). The SM is expected to be the church’s chief theologian and a spiritual role model.

3. Pastoral care (9%), unity/stability (11%) and serving advocacy (12%) have less impact on satisfaction with the senior pastor than preaching and vision casting. These areas are important but their impact on satisfaction pales in comparison to preaching and vision casting.

4. External focus does not influence satisfaction with the senior pastor. External focus, although something people expect, has no influence on satisfaction with the senior pastor.

5. The drivers of senior pastor satisfaction are the same for everyone – no matter where they are on the spiritual continuum. What people want from their senior pastor does not differ based on spiritual maturity. Every time the senior pastor gets up to preach, they are responsible for speaking one message to a group of people who are at different stages of spiritual growth. Preparing an effective spiritual message for such a diverse crowd is like preparing a math lesson for a group of students with education levels ranging from primary school to university. It is impossible to be equally effective for all of them, yet this is the expectation.

What People Need from their Senior Pastor

The research revealed three key findings:

1. Spiritual challenge is the senior pastor’s most significant driver of spiritual growth. Spiritual challenge has by far the most powerful effect on spiritual growth for all three movements. Great preaching and vision casting is definitely what people want from the senior pastor but it is not, by itself, particularly influential on spiritual growth. On the other hand, spiritual challenge, delivered through teaching, counseling or leading the church – is clearly what people need from the senior pastor in order to grow. The SM must challenge people at all stages of spiritual growth to take the next step.

2. The most spiritually mature people need more from the senior pastor to help them grow than those at earlier stages of spiritual development. As people mature, they need more from the senior pastor. The most mature, need serving advocacy, unity and stability and external focus.

3. Pastoral care does not contribute to spiritual growth. Pastoral care is needed at particular times – for example, during a life crisis – but it is not something needed to spur on spiritual growth.

In conclusion, people want great preaching and vision casting from their senior pastor but people need spiritual challenge in order to grow. The ability to deliver spiritual challenge is the senior pastor’s most influential driver of spiritual growth.

What do people want from Preaching and Vision Casting?

The research revealed four insights:

1. Spiritual challenge is what people want from preaching and vision casting. People are hungry for spiritual challenge.

2. Sound doctrine and modeling influence everyone on the spiritual continuum. Everyone strongly desires biblical teaching and a senior pastor who models growth.

3. Challenge and next steps are important for all believers.

 4. Serving is significant for those in earlier segments of spiritual growth.

Other Insights

The senior pastors’ leadership role (80%) had four times the impact on satisfaction with the church’s role in spiritual growth compared to the role of teaching (20%). In other words, the senior pastor’s leadership of the church – which means making and executing the kinds of decisions that create an environment of spiritual challenge and spiritual guidance in all ministries – drives satisfaction with the church’s role in spiritual growth by a margin of four to one. Day-to-day decisions   about how to lead the church – specifically the decisions that deliver spiritual guidance to the church – have an even greater impact than the very best sermon.

The spiritual growth of a congregation depends on having a senior pastor who does two things: (1) delivers spiritual challenge through both teaching and leading; (2) demonstrates through daily decisions and behaviors that the role of leadership is the one deserving the senior pastor’s greatest time, energy and attention. Being a great leader is more important than being a great teacher, when it comes to the long-term spiritual growth and viability of a congregation.

A concluding statement from Greg Hawkins on the research: “as church leaders, we need to give people a place to belong and a pathway that guides them on their journey toward intimacy with Christ. We catalyze their spiritual growth by helping them understand the Bible in great depth, by challenging them to apply the Scripture with specific next steps and by modeling how we are taking those steps ourselves.”

The above material has been summarized from the book FOCUS: The Top Ten Things People Want and Need from You and Your Church by Greg L. Hawkins and Cally Parkinson (Willow Creek Resources: Barrington, IL, 2009). 

What people want and what they need may be the same thing or they may be different. Sorting out wants and needs is an important task for any church leader. Understanding what people really want from their church is an important starting place. We need to understand why motivated people show up every week. What do they want from their church experience? Knowing this helps you determine whether there is an “expectation gap” or not. 

The following insights were gleaned from surveying 80,000 people in 376 churches who took the REVEAL spiritual life surveys between October 2008 and March 2009. The churches represented a broad range in size, style and theological persuasion (including Pentecostal churches).

The five big categories that drive church satisfaction and spiritual growth are:

1. Spiritual Guidance (54%). This includes the church helping people understanding the Bible, developing a personal relationship with Christ, encouraging personal responsibility for spiritual growth, leaders modeling growth and showing how, and challenging towards growth and next steps.

2. Belonging (31%). This includes the church helping people to feel like they belong,. Assisting in time of emotional need and providing places for connection with others.

3. Accountability and Impact (9%). This includes the church helping people develop relationships that encourage accountability, providing opportunities to grow spiritually through relationships, and empowering people to male a significant impact in the lives of others.

4. Ownership (6%). This includes the church setting clear expectations for what it means to be apart of the church and inspiring a sense of ownership and commitment that leads to active engagement in the life and mission of the church.

5. Serving. This includes the church providing a strong serving culture and opportunities to serve those in need.

Here are five conclusions from the research:

1. Spiritual guidance has by far the biggest impact on people’s satisfaction with the church. People come to church hoping to know and become more like Christ. This drives more than half of the combined impact of all five categories.

2. Belonging is also a powerful drive of satisfaction with the church. This accounts for approximately one-third of the circle of impact.

3. The influence of accountability/impact and ownership on church satisfaction is limited. 

4. Serving did not emerge as an influential category. Serving others is not on the radar screen for most people when they think about what makes them satisfied with how the church helps them grow spiritually.

5. The drivers of church satisfaction are the same for everyone – no matter where they are on the spiritual continuum. Spiritual guidance and a sense of belonging are what everyone wants from church.

Wants are optional. Needs are essential. What do people need from church? Here are the three conclusions from the research:

Continue reading “FOCUS: What People Need from their Church” →

There is nothing more difficult to gauge or measure than spiritual growth. However, we must do our best to try. After conducting the REVEAL survey with over 6000 of their own church members and another 300 people who had left their church within the previous year, Willow Creek started involving other churches in the research. Specifically, they surveyed 80,000 people in 200 congregations. The focus this time was extended to include research into what people really want from their church, the barriers they face, and what draws them closer to Christ.

Many insights emerged including one of the top answers to the questions “What’s the most important thing you want from your church?” as being ”Challenge me to grow and take the next step in my spiritual life.”

Spiritual Catalysts

Fifty factors were assessed as to their impact on spiritual growth. These fall within four categories of spiritual catalysts:

1. Spiritual belief and attitudes. Foundational beliefs are critical. Key beliefs include: salvation by grace, he trinity, a personal God, Christ is first, the authority of the Bible, identity in Christ, giving away my life and stewardship. Two beliefs catalyze growth across all three movements across the spiritual continuum: “Jesus as first in life” and “the authority of the Bible. “

2. Organized church activities. The catalytic power of the church is limited primarily to the first two movements of spiritual growth. Church activities provide an ‘on ramp’ to spiritual growth.

3. Personal spiritual practices. Reflection on Scripture is the number one factor across all three movements.

4. Spiritual activities with others. Spiritual community is a critical catalyst for spiritual growth.

Spiritual growth is not linear or predictable. It is a complex process as unique as each individual, and it progresses at a pace determined by each person’s circumstances and the activity of the Holy Spirit.

Other Insights

From the wider church surveys, it was discovered that 32% of people fell into the struggling, unhappy groups of “Satisfied but Stalled (15%),” “Dissatisfied and Stalled (7%),” and “Dissatisfied but not Stalled (10%).” 

People who are Stalled spiritually fall mostly in the earlier segments of spiritual growth. People get “un-stuck” by re-engaging in spiritual practices.

Dissatisfied people are present in all segments. Usually these feelings arise from three unmet important elements in the weekend services: (a) “Relevant Bible teaching to help me with everyday life,” (b) “Is challenging and thought-provoking,” and (c) “Provides in-depth study of the Bible.” Addressing these unmet expectations will resonate with all people, regardless of their satisfaction with the church and no matter where they are on their spiritual journey.

Two other breakthrough discoveries were: (1) Christ-centered people show enormous capacity for increased kingdom impact and (2)the Bible is the most powerful catalyst for spiritual growth.

Continue reading “FOLLOW ME: What’s Next For You?” →

Twelve bonus discoveries were made from the survey:

1. Growing up in a church is the leading reason people begin to explore Christianity. Other reasons relate to personal feelings of emptiness or struggle.
2. People begin attending their church primarily because of a personal relationship or recommendation.
3. Expressions of gratitude toward God and dependence on God rise dramatically across the spiritual continuum.
4. People’s feelings/attitudes about the importance of spiritual practices in their daily lives advance significantly along the spiritual continuum.
5. People openly acknowledge that significant barriers, like addictions or emotional issues, impede their spiritual growth.
6. As they advance along the spiritual continuum, people express a growing need for a spiritual community that “holds me accountable.”
7. There are many reasons why people serve, but most importantly they feel it is an expression of their faith.
8. The number one evangelistic activity for most segments is talking about prayer or offering to pray for non-Christians.
9. More than half of those surveyed said that they used the Internet at some point in the last year to advance their spiritual growth.
10. The Stalled and Dissatisfied segments are significantly more likely to say they are considering leaving their church.
11. Six church attributes are most important to people, although satisfaction levels vary considerably (provides compelling worship services, helps me develop a personal relationship with Christ, challenges me to take the next steps in my spiritual life, helps me understand the Bible in greater depth, helps me feel like I belong, and helps me find a spiritual mentor). .
12. People say weekend services are important to their spiritual growth, and they especially appreciate the singing/worship experience.

Now check out: FOLLOW ME: What's Next For You?

The material in these three BLOG posts has been summarized from the book REVEAL: Where Are You? by Greg L. Hawkins, Cally Parkinson and Eric Arnson (Willow Creek Resources: Barrington, IL, 2007). See also www.revealnow.com

Willow Creek were shocked with the findings from this survey and spent more than two years assimilating the research. The results have led to a total rethink as to how Willow Creek is coaching Christ-followers. Specifically, they have made three strategic changes:

1. They Changed Their Message to the Congregation. They realized that they had been wrong in thinking that their job was to meet all of the spiritual growth needs of their congregation. They have endeavored to shift people from dependence on the church to a growing interdependent relationship with the church. They now let people know early on in their journey that they need to look beyond the church to grow. Getting a weekly dose or two of what the church has to offer (even if it is great) will never be sufficient spiritual nutrition for survival, let alone growth. They now see that their people need to learn to feed themselves through personal spiritual practices that allow them to deepen their relationship with Christ.

2. They Now Coach Next Steps. They are endeavoring to shift the church from a spiritual parent role top that of a spiritual coach. Like attending a gym and meeting with a trainer, each person needs a personalized workout plan. One of the church’s initiatives is to create a tool everyone can use to assess the current state of their relationship to Christ (‘spiritual fitness’) and then to recommend a customized growth or ‘workout’ plan that provides direction fort their next step spiritually.

3. They Have Extended the Impact of their Weekend Services. Weekend services are very important on the early stages of spiritual growth but have less value for those further along the spiritual continuum. They are experimenting with ways to provide more additional follow up resources for those who would like to go a little deeper on a particular topic.

As a result of these changes, Willow Creek are moving beyond merely asking “How many?” to asking, “How did this event help people grow?” and “Which segment of people was this event intended to help, and did it actually help them?” They are also moving beyond asking, “How are you?” to deeper questions such as: “How is your relationship with God?” “What is helping you grow spiritual these days?” “What ministry is making a difference in your life and how?” and “What could the church do differently that would help you grow more?”

Speaking at a leadership conference, Bill Hybels summarized the findings this way: “Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for. We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.”

Tomorrow – 12 bonus discoveries …

Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, led by Bill Hybels, has conducted surveys every three years to assess the quality and impact of their ministry.  After moving into a new 7,200-seat auditorium in 2003, they conducted one of their most extensive surveys ever. Their focus in the survey was less on “how many?” but more on “where are you?” – are people moving towards deeper love for God and people? They endeavored to measure spiritual growth, defined as “an increasing love for God and other people.”

The survey results revealed six insights:

1. Involvement in church activities does not predict or drive long-term spiritual growth. Church activities alone do not create spiritual growth. But there is a “spiritual continuum” that is very predictive and powerful.

2. Spiritual growth is all about increasing relationship to Christ. The spiritual growth continuum has four stages:

(a) Exploring Christianity – “I believe in God, but I’m not sure about Christ. My faith is not a significant part of my life.”

(b) Growing in Christ – ”I believe in Jesus, and I’m working on what it means to get to know him.”

(c)  Close to Christ – “I feel really close to Christ and depend on him daily for guidance.”

(d) Christ-centered – “God is all I need in my life. He is enough. Everything I do is a reflection of Christ.” 

3. The church is most important in the early stages of spiritual growth. Its role then shifts from being the primary influence to a secondary influence. The church’s main activities (weekend services and small groups) decline in importance as people advance along the continuum. Personal spiritual practices begin to become more crucial at the later stages of growth.

4. Personal spiritual practices are the building blocks for a Christ-centered life.

5. A church’s most active evangelists, volunteers and donors come from the most spiritual advanced segments.

6. More than 25% of those surveyed described themselves as spiritual “stalled” or “dissatisfied” with the role of the church in their spiritual growth (with many of them were considering leaving). Both segments voiced complaints about the need for more in-depth teaching, more connection opportunities, more serving options and more of about everything else they felt was missing from their church experience. 

Tomorrow – a strategic response …