Here’s Part 2 of 4 posts (click here for Part 1) by Dr. Donald E. Ross, Nelson Searcy Coaching Alum and Lead Pastor of Creekside Church (Mountlake Terrace, WA).

Issue #3: Leadership.
If you’re leading a turn-around church, you must be able to paint a constant verbal picture of your church’s preferred future, based in reality.  You’re probably the only one who sees it, and that picture may be foggy to you.  Nevertheless, there is a God-given picture, and you must hold on to it relentlessly.

Max De Pree says, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”  The pastor of a turn-around church needs the skill to tell the truth without discouraging their flock.  His ability to encourage, recognize any progress and chart a manageable course is critical.

Issue #4: Pain.
The turn-around pastor will endure pain.  That pain is often the emotional pain of rejection.  The old saying, “No pain, no gain” could not be more applicable here.

Let me be painfully honest here.  If the current way of doing things at your church fine, it wouldn’t need to turn-around.  People own and do these “things”, so in order to change the way things are done, the people must change.  Either they change internally or they are changed and new people do those things.  This is incredibly painful for both pastor and people, but critically necessary to understand.

Imagine telling a faithful member, they need to change their way of leading a class or ministry.  They may feel driven away by the pastor.   It’s an emotional minefield and someone is going to get hurt, and it’s probably you.

The upside of pain is that it will not last forever and what grows out of pain is real ministry.  Pain causes you to lay down your life for the mission of Christ, one moment at a time and God will give you grace to endure.  You only experience the deep settled peace and grace of God during seasons of deep struggle.

I recall during my turn-around experience, my board decided to meet secretly in my absence to review my leadership.  Half were loyal and half were not, and I was 3000 miles away teaching when I found out.

That night I read Acts 27. I was in a storm just like Paul.  Jesus protected me and what came out of that time was an increased ability to trust Jesus to take care of His church and me.  Great challenges produce great victories.

Issue #5: Urgency.
Urgency is the adrenaline of a turn-around church.  Without it change cannot be made.  Too much urgency and the church will become discouraged and give up.  To little urgency and no change will happen.

John Kotter said, “Instilling urgency is critical to getting organizations to switch directions; arguing the case using facts alone won’t create that urgency.”

Most pastors are unwilling to inject urgency into the system because it will require painful decisions, but there is no other way.  You can’t “nice guy” your way out of decline in a turn around church.

Someone has to say, “This ship is sinking!” and pastor that’s you!  Urgency buys you permission to lead and make the needed changes.

Simply mentioning that the back half of the ship is having a few problems won’t get you what you need.  You’re going to have to declare a state of emergency.  Once you’ve done that you’ll see that urgency is your friend to help reverse the trend.  Only the truth will set your church free.

For information on the Turn Around Church Coaching Network,
see www.TurnAroundChurch.org

P.S. For a package of resources to help you evaluate and improve the Systems of your church, check out The Systems Seminars Package.