Consultant Identifies 12 Keys to Renewal
Kennon Callahan, a nationally known church consultant, has worked - with thousands of churches and speaks to church leaders and pastors through his workshops and seminars. The author of several books, Kennon Callahan gave the 1999 NACCC Annual Meeting attendees the synthesis of his years of church research and congregational consulting. The information came in rapidfire, clear, and concise statements. Points were punctuated by the thrust of a finger to a laptop keyboard that sent a projected image to a large screen.

My pen couldn't move fast enough to put his thoughts to paper. Consequently, this relies not only upon the information Callahan presented at the Annual Meeting but also his book, Twelve Keys to an Effective Church (Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1983).

Claim Your Key
Kennon Callahan recommends identifying key strengths and matching them to motivation.

Strengths
Callahan identified 12 keys to an effective, thriving church. The first six are relational characteristics, while the second six are functional characteristics.

1. A Concrete Mission
Discover what your church is called to do; find a hurt and meet it. A church needs a focus; it can't be all things to all people. Callahan suggests churches identify no more than three major mission objectives. Don't adopt a negatively stated mission such as simply surviving. Like a sports team, Callahan says, "Don't play to avoid losing, play to win."

2. Effective Shepherding
Callahan believes that visitation by both pastor and laity with members, newcomers, the sick, shut-ins, and the unchurched is essential for a church to be healthy. When there's effective shepherding by the pastor, Callahan says, the congregation will even give the preaching a higher mark than it deserves!

3. Dynamic Worship
Sermons that are easily followed, provide humor and drama, and share something hopeful and helpful are key. There needs to be connected movement in the service that strings together one theme. Quality music by a gifted volunteer or staff person is essential for good worship.

4. Good Group Ministry
People are looking for a place to belong. They want to be in community, not on a committee, Callahan states. People, not programs, need to be the focus of a church, and this largely happens through groups.

5. Strong Leadership
Effective leaders are not simply enablers, responding to the congregation's wishes. Instead, leaders must be proactive, visionary, and willing to lead the congregation forward.

6. An Effective Decision Making Process
Streamlined organizational structure keeps leaders from wasting time in too many committee meetings. The congregation should perceive the decision-making process as reasonable in length and effective at reaching decisions and achieving established goals.

7. Several Excellent Programs
Too many programs exhaust a church. Choose a few in which the church can be competent.

8. Open Accessibility
This includes location accessibility-is the church easy to find? Are there sufficient green space and visible parking? It also includes ministry accessibility-is there ministry that attracts people and draws them in?

9. High Visibility
Can the church facility be easily seen? Are the pastor, people, and ministries visible to the community? Is there a good church sign? In the final analysis, however, it's people who attract people.

10. Adequate Parking
There should be a parking space, Callahan says, for every 1.75 people. Twenty percent of the parking should be empty, an invitation for seekers to stop in. A full parking lot communicates "there's no room for you."

11 Adequate Facilities
There should be a balance between size and usage. The condition of the church property communicates what the congregation thinks of itself.

12. Generous Giving
Income goes up in relation to increased participation in ministries. It's also important to remember that money follows mission. A great ministry inspires greater giving.

Callahan suggests identifying six from the list of 12 that are current strengths. The more strengths that are relational rather. than functional, the healthier the church. He suggests focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses, because when we claim God's strengths we claim God's gifts. Callahan cautions that no church is going to be strong in all 12 areas. He encourages churches to establish a long-range plan to improve a couple of the characteristics at a time.

Matching Motivations
Callahan also described five major motivations used in churches.
Compassion - sharing, caring, loving, service
Community- fun, fellowship, belonging, a sense of family
Challenge - accomplishment, achievement, attainment
Reasonability - data, analysis, logic
Commitment - dedication, faithfulness, duty, loyalty

Weak churches experience a motivational gap because the pastor and lay leadership usually employ challenge and the need for commitment to motivate the congregation. The congregation, on the other hand, is most frequently motivated by the opportunity to experience and express compassion and community. Effective churches result when the pastor and key leadership motivate the congregation by focusing on compassion and community. , As I understand Callahan's analysis, a church bulletin announcement about a need would be written by leadership focusing on challenge and commitment this way: "only have $5,000 to go to meet the budget. Have you given sacrificially?" The same announcement written to address the congregation's sense of compassion and community would read this way: "Raising our last $5,000 means we will be able to implement the seniors' program that will give them a weekly outing and a Bible study that addresses their unique needs."

Identifying our church's key strengths and matching motivation, Callahan insisted, can help us build more effective and stronger churches. It's a message the NACCC family of churches would do well to implement.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion
(The author and publisher give permission to photocopy this article for use with church boards and small groups.

The discussion should only take 20 minutes)

A. Take turns reading the article.

B. Individually and privately list what you think are your church's six greatest strengths out of Callahan's list of 12.

C. To get a better picture of where God has gifted your church, have each person list their top six without comment. Have someone tabulate the totals and report which three of the 12 ranked highest for your church and identify which are relational and which are functional.

D. Why do you think Callahan insists that relational characteristics are more important than functional characteristics?

E. Number Callahan's five forms of motivation in the order in which you think your church utilizes them, one being most frequently used and five being least frequently used.

The Congregationalist, October/November 1999