Tools have somehow begun amassing in my custody for quite some time, and I’m beginning to take notice. (It has been decades since I was able to get a car in any garage I’ve owned!) Table saws, chop saws, scroll saws, lathes, routers, drills, drill presses, hammers, screwdrivers, chisels, air compressor & nail guns (six of them – they all do different things! Ok, just don’t ask Jan! She’ll tell you that they all just nail things together!) You name it, I’ve probably got it. Of course, there are always a few more tools on the want list. That will probably never go away. Most of my tools I have justified by using them on mission trips. After all, hurricane relief takes a lot of tools!
I think I’m as addicted to how-to books as I am tools, too. I have a several volume set of a Popular Mechanics How-To encyclopedia. (It was published in the late sixties – the pictures are kind of fun to look at – everyone has a flat-top haircut!) I also have subscribed to countless wood-working magazines over the years. Ironically, after about the second or third year, they all seem to repeat the same patterns, projects, and tool reviews. Still, I keep hoping to find that holy grail of project that will take me to the next skill level as a woodworker.
But my love for tools, and my love for books has given me one other collection.
You might call it a how-to collection of church growth. Just about every kind of book that is available I have either read, or I own. How to grow small churches into big ones. How to turn around a dying church. How to start a Dinner for Eight program and ministry in your church! Seven strategies to turn around a congregation in decline.
I also have books about changing mindsets of churches. I have books about helping churches to create vision and mission statements, and to set goals. I have books about group dynamics, group process, and spiritual development of groups. I have books about preaching, teaching, pastoral care, and worship leadership. All of them are excellent books. Each one has its own ministry focus, and each one has its own “approach” to doing church.
Alas, what I have discovered about my woodworking journals, I have also discovered about my church leadership books. Eventually, there is a pattern that emerges where the strategies outlined seem to repeat – almost copy one another. The plans, steps, and processes become almost predictable. Everyone wants to become the author who created the better mousetrap, but in the end, each is strikingly similar to every other one.
Ultimately, what I have learned from reading these books is that the plan, step, or process is not as important as the attitude of the congregation toward change. If the congregation is committed to being what it needs to be in order to change, then the congregation will begin to change. If it is not committed, it will remain the same. As Gil Rendle once said, “The system is designed for the exact results it is getting.” In other words, if you don’t like the results you are getting, you need to change the system. Change what you are doing. Ah, but change is hard! Yes, it is.
I’m still trying to change. I don’t always come home with a new tool any more when I go to the hardware store. And I don’t always come home with a new book from Cokesbury when I go to Annual Conference! I still enjoy browsing – hoping to find that book that makes accepting change easier for churches – and for tired, amateur woodworkers like me.
See you in Church!
Grace and peace,
Brad
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