One Weird Trick

Surely, gentle surfer of “The Internets,” you have seen the banner ads promising to cure your diabetes, reduce your weight, increase your metabolism, enhance your love life, drop your auto insurance rates, get you out of your last speeding ticket, and improve your golf swing if you’ll just try this. . . One . . . Weird . . . Trick.  It’s tempting. I mean the letters are even flashing.  And the guy in the picture learned Italian in a week. Why else would language professors hate him?  That mom from Georgia is making more money than a Saudi prince. Working from home. And she’s 51.

But you never click that banner, do you?  Neither do I.  You know why we don’t take the clickbait?  Because we know things like permanent weight loss, excellent golf swings and sound financial plans are not attained through trickery.  Even if it is conventional.  Losing weight is work.  A sweet swing comes from sweat.  And financial security only accrues to the fiscally disciplined.

So why do we think we can grow our churches (or our souls) with one weird trick?  Or three easy steps?  Or 10 proven strategies?

A cursory review of church growth books would lead you to conclude that if your congregation would just go social or organic or digital or emergent, you’d experience Acts 2-like growth.  On the other hand, if your church would slow down, staff up or simplify you’d explode with new members.  But really, all you have to do is be missional.  Or authentic.  Or purpose driven. And if those don’t work, try to be attractional, sticky or externally focused.  If all else fails, follow the ancient paths.  Or maybe innovate.  But by all means, you definitely need to do some strategic planning, vision casting and mission statementing.

Full disclosure: I have read dozens and dozens of church growth books, all of which suggested at least one of the action plans I just panned in the previous paragraph.  And I, along with colleagues, attempted to implement their suggestions.  If there was a seminar on how to break whatever barrier was standing between where we were and exponential growth, I signed us up, took notes, and bought the program.  I crunched the data from the latest survey, studied the tactics of the fastest growing churches, and baptized the hottest business principles.  And honestly, I’m beginning to think it was mostly a fruitless search for that . . .One . . . Weird . . . Trick.

Look, there are some great ideas out there.  Serious people have spent countless hours exploring why and how churches grow.  I don’t mean to dismiss their work or minimize their contributions.  They love the Kingdom and want to see souls added to it.  But there are no shortcuts to converting your community.  It’s telling, I think, that Jesus often used agricultural metaphors to describe the Kingdom.  He spoke of seeds, soils, trees and vineyards.  Paul mentioned planting, watering and growth.  Processes like that take time.  Which is why you never see a farmer in a hurry.

By all means, continue to read the books, study the data, and attend the seminars.  I plan to.  But remember that growing your soul or your church is never going to happen quickly.

Unless, of course, you get yourself a hipster preacher who wears skinny jeans and ironic tee-shirts, a killer worship band fronted by a sister who sings like Stevie Nicks, and set it all up in an abandoned warehouse in the heart of the city.  You’ll be satelliting the daylights out of that church in no time.