Who Is Our Chief Strategist?
By: Lyle E. Schaller

Fifty or sixty years ago, back when the vast majority of new Protestant missions were created to reach and serve people born in America and members of white families in the United States, most were launched by denominational agencies or by large congregations.

Their three-point strategy was relatively simple. First, identify a geographically defined area where "our kind of people" are moving into the new homes being constructed there. Second, select someone to serve as the mission developer pastor. Third, instruct that mission developer to (a) find a temporary meeting place for Sunday morning worship and (b) walk the streets, knock on at least a thousand doors, and invite the residents to "come and help pioneer the organization of a new church." (Telephone surveys became more common in the late 1950s.)

The 1960s and 1970s brought a diversion of denominational resources to negotiating and implementing denominational mergers. By the 1980s, that old strategy for organizing new congregations was being amended, most frequently by those planting new non-denominational congregations. The old strategy called for planting new missions to serve a relatively small neighborhood constituency. One way to keep them small was to select a two-acre or three-acre site located at least one mile from the meeting place of an existing church related to that denomination or to another "cooperative" religious body.

Three clearly defined assumptions drove the process of selecting the site for that new congregation back in the 1950s. One was congregations should not compete with one another for future constituents. A second was people born after World War I built their personal social networks from among the residents of their neighborhood, not from people at their place of employment nor from people they would meet in other voluntary associations. The third assumption was Christians could, should, and would walk to and from church. The day when people depended on horses to transport them to and from church was a rural practice that died in the 1920s. This was urban America in the 1950s! Few suburbanites in the 1950s even owned a horse.

A New Model
The new model of the large regional congregation traces back to the 1940s and early 1950s in places such as Orange County, California; Summit County, Ohio; and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in the Midwest, as well as dozens of metropolitan areas in the South. It affirmed the gasoline-powered motor vehicle was here to stay. The two-car attached garage on that new single-family home symbolized the future, while the front porch that invited neighbors to stop and chat symbolized the past.

One way to communicate this new mission was designed to become a very large congregation was to choose as a temporary meeting place, not the nearby elementary school, but a large motion picture theater. A second component of the design was not to depend on a solo pastor to excel in all aspects of ministry from preaching to administration to working with teenagers, but to create a team of three to seven adults, a couple of whom could be part-time lay volunteers.

One consequence is the number of Protestant congregations in America that average more than 800 at weekend worship is now estimated at between 8,000 and 9,000. Most of them can mobilize the resources required to serve a relatively diverse collection of people. At the other end of this size spectrum are the 50 percent of American Protestant congregations that average fewer than 80 at weekend worship. That helps to explain why the vast majority of Protestant congregations in America operate on the unspoken guideline, "We welcome everyone who desires to come worship the Triune God with us, but we may not be able to meet all of their needs." The unspoken part might included, "We do not worship in Korean or German or Mandarin, we do not own and operate a home for single parent mothers, we do not operate a Christian day school, we do not have a professional pastoral counselor on our staff, we do not provide free healthcare, we do not offer classes in English as a second language, we do not schedule Saturday evening worship for those who must work on Sundays, we do not have a special ministry with families that include adopted children, we do not..." This long sentence could cover three pages.

One consequence is, for a growing proportion of the American population, the journey to church—like the journey to work, to shopping, to entertainment, to school, to recreation, and to the delivery of healthcare—is much longer than it was in the 1950s.

Another consequence is 15 percent of the Protestant congregations in America now account for more than one-half of the combined attendance at weekend worship in Protestant churches on the typical weekend.

A third consequence is the competition among the Christian churches in America for future constituents is at an all-time high. Institutional loyalties rarely are inherited. They must be earned and re-earned. The religious scene in America today is clearly a free market!

A fourth consequence is that rapidly growing need in the majority of congregations for a person or team who can serve as "Our Chief Strategist."

One volunteer for that assignment has been and continues to be the long-tenured and influential volunteer who urges, "If we could recreate the way this congregation was back in 1970 when my wife and I joined and when Reverend Smith was the pastor, we could attract the young people born in the 1930s." Three of the flaws in that strategy are (1) Reverend Smith died two years ago, (2) the young people born in the 1930s are now in their 70s, and (3) the year is 2008.

What Are the Choices?
If your congregational leaders agree that 2012 will not closely resemble 1962 or 1982, they have several choices. One is, "Don't give up hope! Maybe next year will resemble 1962." A second is to drift into the future. A third is to post the "We Welcome Everyone" sign on every door into the building and encourage those who return to take over and shape the future. A fourth is to watch passively as our members grow older in age and fewer in numbers. (This has been the choice of at least half of the congregations in existence in 1960 in American Protestantism.) A fifth is to instruct the recently arrived new pastor, "We expect you to design a strategy that will (a) be happily endorsed by every group, organization, class, and faction in this congregation and (b) double our average worship attendance within five years."

A more productive choice is designed to build in the "voice of our people" and provide a support system for the strategy by creating a Futures Committee consisting of five to seven people. Instead of attempting to represent every group, class, organization, interest group, faction, board, and age group, it may be more productive to include the pastor, two or three of the most widely respected and influential volunteers, an exceptionally skilled lay volunteer who makes a living in organization development or as a professional planner or as a futurist, plus one or two people who display a strong future orientation or qualify as "the lay volunteer who knows more about this congregation's ministries than any other volunteer."

An increasingly common option, especially among very large congregations, is to choose one staff person to serve as the chief strategist. One obvious choice is to add to the burden carried by the senior minister. A second temptation is to ask the church business administrator or the director of ministries or the program director or the senior associate minister to carry that responsibility. All five tend to be doers. All five tend to think in a timeframe of three to five years or less. All five tend to have been trained to answer the questions other people ask rather than to define choices in strategy.

Seven Desirable Characteristics
From this observer's perspective, the most valuable people to fill that role in congregations in American Protestantism tend to display at least five or six of these seven characteristics.

1. They believe it is easier and more productive to create a new tomorrow rather than to attempt to recreate 1985 or to perpetuate the past.

2. They are comfortable thinking in a timeframe of 10 to 12 years or what some describe as Horizon Three when Horizon Two is only 18 months away.

3. They are comfortable with and prefer to look at the "big picture" rather than concentrating on one part of that larger picture such as worship attendance or music or money or real estate or staffing or schedules or the group life.

4. They have earned the trust of the pastor or the senior minister. (The larger the size of the congregation and/or the longer the tenure of the current senior minister, the more important this variable is!)

5. They have "graduated" from years, or even decades, as a "doer" to a "thinker" who is comfortable and competent in conceptualizing abstract ideas.

6. They are comfortable with ambiguity.

7. They place a high priority on asking questions and a very low priority on answering questions. Their most frequently asked question is not "Do you prefer option A or option B?" Instead they avoid the temptation to affirm the status quo by asking, "Do you prefer change A or change B?"

Asking that second question usually is both a subtle way of influencing others as well as
avoiding the temptation to choose up sides between the status quo and change.

What if a congregation finds someone (a) who earns a grade of A on all seven of these characteristics and (b) the senior pastor suddenly departs? Two logical consequences are that chief strategist (a) becomes the No. 1 advisor to the intentional interim senior minister and (b) should be given a voice in the selection of the permanent successor.

The Other 85 Percent
A reasonable line of demarcation is that 15 percent of Protestant congregations in America that account for one-half or more of the worshipers on the typical weekend can both justify and afford a staff person who will be the resident chief strategist. Sometimes this is that minister in the sixth decade of life or later who decides to move from being a doer as the effective senior pastor to a very large and growing congregation to becoming the thinker and chief strategist in another large congregation.

On the other hand, the most common response in the vast majority of congregations is to create a Futures or Long-Range Planning Committee. What are the differences?

One big difference is a more influential voice for lay volunteers. A second is that committee usually is expected to both gather and analyze data and to produce recommendations. Frequently that process includes a heavy emphasis on statistical data. The chief strategist usually gives greater weight to the earned opinions of very well-informed and influential people. One consequence is the majority of the best-informed leaders know they have been heard and there are few surprises when the chief strategist adds, "Do you prefer change A or Change B?"

By contrast, the members of that Futures Committee tend to (a) go through a learning process that separates them from the majority of the members, (b) move too quickly in seeking a vote at a congregational meeting on that crucial either-or question, and (c) state the question as, "Do you support or oppose our recommendation?" Since most of us normal people need time to talk ourselves into supporting a proposal for radical change, the pace of that process often creates opposition. When given a choice between Change A and Change B, plus time to discuss probable future consequences, what would have been a vote against change eventually may become support for the recommended change. If the members are given more time and the same recommendation comes up for a second vote, it often is approved.

Thus, one useful criterion for choosing members of a Futures Committee is, "Are you prepared to accept rejection as a natural and normal early stage in the process of securing final approval for your recommendations?" An alternative criterion could be, "Do you understand one-half of your assignment will be the role of a planner and one-half as the role of an educator?"

Lyle Schaller has spent nearly five decades of his life as a planner and strategist.