Still Learning

The Asian Leadership Conference concluded today, with participants joining the first of two Sunday services of the Jakarta Church of Christ. Some random thoughts at the wrap-up:

1. We need to regard all of our churches as sources of ministry learning. Some of these churches have been our good news machines—tell us your encouraging stories!—but we’ve overlooked what they have to teach us about how to do ministry.

Take, for example, the innovative things the Manila church is doing to support non-fulltime staff leading sectors of hundreds range from the fairly obvious (move staff meetings to Saturday) to the experimental (including them in the church’s health plan to relieve some of the pressure to find and keep the more demanding jobs).

Asians get an unfair rap as imitators only—I’m telling you, at least in our churches, these guys are innovating. It’s a shame they are so seldom asked to share how they are pioneering in ministry. Lots to learn from them.

Steve Chin cites George Barna's research in the class Vision to Reality.

2. In a few years we’re going to have a wealth of leaders worldwide who know how to turnaround failing churches. Such stories abound here. Some churches have yet to turn a numerical corner, but the rebuilding is being done solidly. Tokyo, for example, last month added to its fulltime staff a new singles ministry—the church’s first addition to ministry staff in five years. When a church loses two-thirds of its members and most of its leadership, how does it get to this better point?

Dozens of leaders are now walking this path, and the experience they're gaining is invaluable. By God’s grace, we’re learning a better way to revive churches, one that will be far more long-lasting than the old, now-discredited purge and push method.