Seven Effective Tactics for Change and Transition

Source: George Bullard

john.chandler@vbmb.org

Overview: Seven Main Tactics

1. Determine sense of urgency. 2. Develop a guiding coalition. 3. Do innovative things with necessary rate

of change and transition. 4. Cast Vision. 5. Initiate new Inclusion experiences. 6. Build effective Program events. 7. Reengineer the Management systems.

Tactic #1. Determine the sense of urgency for change & transition.

If the congregation doesn’t have urgent ears to hear it, you’re wasting your time

Wait until God’s time is ripe

Be willing to abort/fail for later retry

Urgent: “Wake up!”

6 of 10 congregations will strongly resist solutions-based change/transition

Of the 4 who are open, only 2 of them are willing to move beyond cosmetic change and do the necessary (> cosmetic) things

1 of the 2 will be successful over 7-9 year period

10 Reasons Churches Resist Change

1. Absence of major crisis

2. Visible signs of success mask other needs

3. Low expectations

4. Lack of seeing poor performance because of satisfaction with one’s own area of church life

Reasons Churches Resist Change

5. Congregation is meeting key result goals without talking about spiritual goals.

6. Spin from church leaders.

7. Critics are sometimes treated like lepers.

Reasons Churches Resist Change

8. Simple denial.

9. Leaders valuing morale over mission.– Leading to “happy talk”

10. Hardwiring of a core value that honors founders more than change agents.

Ten Ways of Creating Urgency

1. “Create-a-crisis.”– Set up a demon or straw man to destroy– Magnify a sin to be eliminated– Exaggerate the scale of an evil to fight

2. Allow congregational facilities to move into disrepair.

– Reallocate budget funds for renovation– Highlight cash flow problems in light of this

Ten Ways of Creating Urgency

3. Cast a transformational vision that cannot be fulfilled with actions that constitute business as usual.

4. Raise the level of accountability and set up measurable goals.

5. Set up exit interviews and share results.

Ten Ways of Creating Urgency

6. Share actual, measured, church-wide performance in key areas with large groups in the church.

7. Use outside speakers, consultants, or coaches to inject new information.

8. Challenge “happy talk” with Kingdom-focused mission discussions.

Ten Ways of Creating Urgency

9. Saturate the communication channels in the congregation with info on future opportunities and show the inability of the church to address these opportunities without making significant changes.

10. Build a spiritual exploration movement within the congregation focused on individual, small-group, and corporate prayer.

Tactic #2:Develop a guiding coalition.

“Quad A’s” – Average– Active– Attending– Adults

– Plus staff leaders

Quad A’s Coalitions

If you can get 20% of the quad A’s in your congregation to buy into a new vision for change and growth, you can get it done in the entire church

– Via special studies, retreats, groups, visits

Tactic #3: Do innovative things consistent with the necessary rate of Change and Transition.

Create some short-term “quick wins”– One-time events– Special worship service, church-wide

celebration, new ministry/program

“Ready, Fire, Aim!” mentality– “Let’s try it and see if it works …”

Tactic #4: Cast Vision.

Vision is a movement that is memorable rather than a statement that is memorized.

Vision comes from God; great ideas come from people.

Vision is imparted to all God’s people; pastors sometimes get it first.– Includes the “guiding coalition”

Casting vision

Key insight: you actually have to cast it!

Don’t hoard it; put it out there– 100/1, 10/1, 1/1

You’ll get valuable feedback– Learn from your friends … and your enemies

Tactic #5. Initiate new Inclusion experiences.

A). Evangelism and outreach B). Entry and initial assimilation C). Fellowship and Care ministries D). Spiritual growth and leadership

development experiences E). Kingdom involvement and missional

lifestyle

Tactic #6: Build effective Program events.

Annual, zero-based evaluation of every program in the church

Should we:– 1. Keep it as is?– 2. Revitalize it?– 3. Stop it? or– 4. Start another program?

Building Program Events

Rule of thumb: in expanding congregation, two new programs need to be started for every one program that is stopped.

New programs that are not inclusionary events will deteriorate rapidly

Tactic #7: Reengineer the Management systems.

Diminish the controlling aspects of management

If the CFO of an organization is calling the day to day shots, then the organization is inevitably stable and declining

The purpose of management is to get control– But the tendency is to hoard too much control

Flexibility and Control

Start

Start

End

Control

Flexibility

Diminishing Controlling Management

Does your church have an unofficial, non-appointed executive committee?– Usually aligned with finance committee– Finesse selection of staff, major $ decisions

Or, is an appointed committee unofficially acting as an executive committee?

Diminishing Controlling Management

1. Define the reality of the controlling aspects of management (“the elephant in the room”).

2. Build a broad-based ownership around the new understanding of God’s vision that is emerging in the congregation.

3. Use a crisis as an opportunity to reorganize congregational systems around empowerment rather than control.

Example: Buying a van

Chart: how many steps would it take in your church to purchase a 16-passenger van?

– Which of these steps are absolutely necessary?– Which steps have grown up over time?– Which steps could be eliminated for a more

streamlined decision-making process?

Overview: Seven Main Tactics1. Determine sense of urgency.2. Develop a guiding coalition.3. Do innovative things with necessary rate

of change and transition.4. Cast Vision. 5. Initiate new Inclusion experiences.6. Build effective Program events.7. Reengineer the Management systems.

Seven Effective Tactics for Change and Transition

Dr. John P. Chandler

www.rasnet.org

john.chandler@vbmb.org Copy right John Chandler, 2000