We get to know a lot of churches in conjunction with our implementation of Fellowship One; currently we have sold over 500 churches. Plus we have talked to a whole lot more through the selling process. Clearly there are two different kinds of churches; those that act as “one church” and those that simply act as a loose confederation of ministries.
So how are they different? The “one church” church is concerned about the overall brand of the church and desires to have the overall brand’s “fingerprint” on everything that is done concerning that church. This should not necessarily be stifling to the ministries. It should provide some level of support concerning the overall level of excellence that is required when that brand is associated with an event, a mailing or a website? You might look at the different ministries as different “product lines” which are being used to attract and serve a different type of audience based on age, demographics, etc.
The “one church” also is more concerned about the coordination of the information flow as well as the information contained within the church database. They believe that the chances are if a parent’s phone number changed in the children’s ministry, perhaps that family would be better served if the general church database also reflected that change. The “one church” also helps people move from one ministry to the next as their life stage or circumstances change.
The “one church” is concerned about the overall workload of a volunteer across ministries, not allowing a person to get overworked and overcommitted. The “one church” does not allow a “problem” volunteer to move from one ministry to the next passing on a person who could be creating issues that are detrimental to the overall church, having the attitude, “as long as it is not in my ministry!”
We have also run into churches of the other sort, where the staffs do not have a process of on-going information sharing that allows them to all get on the same page as far as how ministry will be accomplished, what the common goals might be, or even how ministry is to be measured. Each ministry is an island; perhaps each ministry has a different formal database. If not, then at least a different informal database. You know the one that the staff and volunteers really rely on. And instead of taking the energy to fix the real issue of people allowing bad information to get into and stay in the system, they just create a database or spreadsheet that they can control. In other words, they go around the problem.
To me, the church that is a confederation of ministries is shortchanging the congregation. Within it, certain ministries will thrive; but others will flouder or even fail. Not because the congregation does not see a need or want to participate, but because the island of people will not feel connected to the church. This uneven experience that people feel will break the congregation into parts, and parts are not as strong as a whole. However, it takes strong leadership to get all ministries on the same page. Leadership that is willing to stand up to the different forces that want to do “their own thing.”
Grace to you as you go out to be one,
Jhook