To Dream Again

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To Dream Again

• By Robert Dale

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Other Renderings of the Life Cycle of the Church

• Steve Mills
• The Infant Stage
• The Growing Stage
• The Prime Stage
• The Aging Stage
• The Dying Stage

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Other Renderings of the Life Cycle of the Church

• W. Frank Walton
• Risk Taking Stage
• Caretaking Stage
• Undertaking Stage

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Other Renderings of the Life Cycle of the Church

• George Bullard See Handout

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Small Group Work

• In groups of four, four, and three identify the
  five most important themes from Dales book.
  Write on piece of paper and place on wall. Report
  on findings.

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle

• Dream Gives Birth to an organization
• The Founders Dream Maintenance or Mission?
  Defensive or Offensive? Reactive or Intentional?

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle

• Beliefs Provides a values or doctrinal
  agreement for organizational skills
• Doctrinal Stance, Core Values, and
  Distinctiveness of Founder
• Doctrinal Stance, Core Values, and
  Distinctiveness of Church
• Example Funny Bones Church

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle

• Goals Extend the organizations shared dream
  and beliefs
• Survivalistic versus evangelistic
• Risk Taking willingness to take on debt
• Saddleback Goal of making disciples
• Truett Memorial Build a Final Sanctuary
• Third Greater Missionary Baptist Church

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle

• Structure Organize the organization for
  pursuing its goals and advancing its dream
• Form Follows Function Structure is determined
  by the goal
• The Dream stands on the structure

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle

• Ministry Shows the congregation reaching out to
  others, developing its members, and living out
  its dream in Christian love
• The length of a congregations ministry is
  virtually endless, but when the ministry looses
  its focus on extending and expanding Gods
  Kingdom an organizational plateau occurs.

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle

• Nostalgia Reflects a wistful longing for a
  comfortable past --- real or imagined --- but the
  past tends to be more positive in memory than it
  was in reality
• Homesickness
• Lull before the storm
• Things aint what they used to be and probably
  never was. Will Rogers

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle

• Nostalgia
• Can there be denominational nostalgia and/or
  homesickness?

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle Final
ThreeDescent into Organizational Hell

• Questioning Marks the point of no return for
  the congregation, organizationally speaking
• Questioning is the now or never point of
  congregational health. Health or death are the
  choices.
• What happens when the prayer warriors walk away
  from the church?

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle Final
ThreeDescent into Organizational Hell

• Polarization Creates an organizational climate
  in which members mistake one another for the
  enemy and fall into conflict
• Energies will tend to focus on conflict rather
  than ministry people stop being saved!

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Nine Stages of a Churchs Life Cycle Final
ThreeDescent into Organizational Hell

• Dropouts Result when the dream of effective
  ministry in this organization dies, and members
  retreat into inactivity
• Conflict is now open and growing nasty.

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How do we avoid the eventual death of a
congregation?

• Return to the dreams and aspirations of our
  founder, Jesus Christ
• We must allow each member to play a part in
  building the dream
• We must have leadership who is committed to the
  dream

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How do we avoid the eventual death of a
congregation?

• Our belief system must be established upon the
  Word of God
• Our Goals must be to seek the lost and equip the
  saints for the work of ministry
• Public, formalized, prioritized, specific,
  evaluated, shared responsibility

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How do we avoid the eventual death of the church?

• Our church structure must be modeled on the New
  Testament Church, not current fads etc.

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Final Thoughts

• No Church is healthy without a defined kingdom
  dream
• Congregations either redefine their basic purpose
  every generation or they die.
• We actually live today in our dreams of
  yesterday and, living in these dreams, we dream
  again. Charles A. Lindberg

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Final Thoughts

• The Gospel of Christs Kingdom hasnt changed.
  We have only to dream it again.

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Small Group Assignment

• In the same groups discuss where your church is
  on Dales Scale. Report and give two or three
  examples which support your choice.