"What to do with an established church?"

I'm the Minister of a well established church, some 150 years old, grand old building, very well cared for on one of Adelaide's busiest streets down by the beach with almost all members living outside the area, some kms. away. An acquaintance sent me this from Alan Hirsch's blog. So, here it is and I hope it will assit me in my thinking too.

I was asked this question recently in an interview

“If you were asked to steer a conventional, western church on a missional path and were given the freedom to utilize or reallocate all funds and resources in the best way you felt this could be accomplished, how and what would you do?"

And here is my answer…

The issue of change and transition into missional forms of church is fraught with many complex problems. But again, at the heart of the problem is our ‘idea of church’—the conception we have of what it means to be God’s people as a community. Part of the problem is that we have so associated our idea of church with the institutional forms of it (including programs, services, professionalization of ministry, theologies, denominational templates, etc.) that we need to at least be given the chance to experience each other as Jesus’ church divorced from the predominance of the institution of the church.

Having said this, I do believe the building can present a real problem—for one, it staticizes our idea of church. I would certainly have the building in my sights. But that would be just one thing—the heart of my strategy would be to try to communicate a more primal and organic idea of church and mission because I think that is more who we truly are meant to be. You no doubt know that wonderful quote from Antoine de Saint Extupery “If you want to build a ship, don’t summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work, rather teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.” The unfolding of Christianity as the means by which people are re-connected to God has nothing to do with the institutionalized idea of church in the first instance. We need to recover our most basic, and dangerous, forms of church—that of an apostolic movement. It’s the story of the church and her mission that I outline in The Forgotten Ways. I would tell and retell of that story and then lets see what happens!

But here’s my general advice to people in this situation (note the 6 P’s you 3-B Baptists out there )

1. You need to get the right paradigm. (Clearly getting our ‘idea/conception’ of church right before we start is critical–as per comments above)
2. You need to be prayerful (It’s God’s work and God’s church, prayer is vital. Especially corporate prayer around these issues: we must come before the Lord of the Church)
3. You need to be patient (it ain’t going to happen overnight, but if you stick in there, and be consistent in your activism, it will/might eventually happen.)
4. You need to be very practical (Do something, don’t shout your mouth off. The best critique of the bad is the practice of the better)
5. You need to have some power (in any institution, you had better have some form of social power to change things. Otherwise, frustration will become your food and cynicism will follow)
6. You need to have a darn good plan (don’t just be a change agent, be a change manager. For large and complex organizations, this might take years. So buckle in.)