One of the questions I get asked regularly is whether a change in location or venue will help a church grow.

I understand why I get asked the question. In less than two decades, our church has met in a century old building, an elementary school, and a brand new facility.  Since we started Connexus in 2007, we’ve met in movie theaters and are now searching for a permanent facility.

By the grace of God (and the longer I’m in ministry, the more those words resonate), in each of these settings, we’ve grown. So have a lot of other churches that are on the move.

A few weeks ago I got an email from a pastor who wanted me to come talk to church leaders in his area about the need to abandon their hundred year old facility and move to rented space in a school or theater so they could start growing. I told him I couldn’t give that talk because I don’t believe a change in venue will help churches like that at all.

Here’s why.

Growing churches usually keep growing regardless of the venue.

Declining churches usually keep declining regardless of the venue.

While it isn’t all that polite to say it, it needs to be said: a new venue only amplifies your ineffectiveness if you’re ineffective. What’s worse, is it probably just got more expensive to be ineffective as well.

Changing venues so that you will grow is a bit like the couple with relational difficulties who decides that getting married will make their problems go away.

I saw the same logic at work a decade ago when we became one of the first chuches in our area to make extensive use of video and media in our services. People said “if we get a projector, more people will come.”  I just don’t believe that. Media can make a compelling message clearer, but it can’t make an ineffective message effective.

Think of it this way.  As a rule:

A change in venue won’t help a dying  church grow.
Better media won’t help a dying church grow.
Adding new campuses won’t help a dying church grow.

Why? As David Ogilvy is famous for saying, great marketing just makes a bad product fail faster. It’s not that the church is a bad product at all.  It is the greatest force in human history because it’s Jesus’ church. But often our expression of the local church leaves much to be desired. We fail to take what is timeless and give it an effective cultural expression.

So what makes a church grow?

Becoming effective at accomplishing your mission makes you grow. For us, that started with prayer, scripture and a burning desire to reach people who were far from God. Then we figured out a strategy to help us accomplish that.

When you become effective at accomplishing your mission, then:

A change in venue can help you become more effective.
Better media can make a solid message better.
New campuses can help you reach more people who can’t get to a church they really want to get to.

I’m not saying any church feels ‘completely effective’ at accomplishing their mission (I don’t), but you see the difference, right?

You can grow a church in a centuries’ old building.  And you can kill a church in a multi-million dollar facility.  You can grow a church with zero media.  And you can waste a million dollars on lights, gear and cameras. You can grow a church in a single site. And you can go bankrupt adding venues no one wants to attend.

These truths are hard truths but they’re so helpful because they make us look in the mirror and get on our knees. They help us realize where the issue really is and make us do the homework and the heartwork we need to do.

What do you think? And what other things do you think people look to (inaccurately) as ways to grow their church?

I don’t like the line of thinking attached to this post. For sure it falls in the ‘true but not admirable’ category.  Yet I have this thought every time a natural disaster strikes.

So here goes.

If you’re like me, you’re checking the news frequently about Hurricane Sandy.  I’ve been texting and messaging friends who might be impacted by it to see if they’re okay.  It hits close to home.

The media coverage is constant, front page and urgent. So is my interest in it.

Question: why?

Well, we’re in North America.  And this disaster is going to strike in…North America.  The closer something hits home, the more interested we are.

Why is that?

While this is likely somehow related to our innate selfishness, I think the following thought captures the dynamic:

When you’re in the story, you care about the story.

Sadly, I don’t have the same level of engagement when disaster strikes elsewhere.

For example can any of us actually name the some of the worst natural disasters in the last ten years?  Hurricane Katrina with 1,300 dead? For sure. The earthquake in Haiti in 2010 in which 225,000 perished?  Yes. What about the European Heatwave of a decade ago? Maybe. 70,000 total died in it.

But do you remember Cyclone Nargis that killed 140,000 people in Myanmar (Burma) in 2008?  Afraid I don’t.  Or the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in China that killed 84,000 people?  Me neither.

How is that 1,500 people die in a tragedy in New Orleans and it’s top of mind, but almost a quarter million people die in China and Myanmar and I can’t even remember?

Again, this isn’t admirable, but for most of us, it is true. Fire trucks on the scene of a blaze in South American are almost irrelevant to most of us, unless the fire they’re fighting is in a dorm room where your daughter is staying on a mission trip. Then all of a sudden it is very relevant.

When you’re in the story, you care about the story.

The problem for preachers and those of us who communicate is that we’re often trying to get people to care about things that are far from their minds or hearts. We are trying to get them connected with a God who seems far away (even if he isn’t), and connected to causes half way across town or half way around the world.  How do you bridge that gap?

You start by finding common ground (this is a great Preaching Rocket principle). As a communicator, you can establish common ground in several ways when trying to rally people around a cause far removed from their immediate world:

• Tell a personal story about a time when you faced a crisis and someone helped you out.
• Encourage people to remember a time when they were in deep need and someone helped them out.
• Talk about a similar (but smaller scale) event that happened in their life time or neighbourhood.
• If you have no story like it, try putting people into the story as through their imagination:
  • Imagine a wall of water that came out of Lake Simcoe (insert community here) and wiped out the cities of Barrie, Orillia, and five neighbouring townships leaving 100,000 dead.  What would you do? How would you respond?
  • Imagine someone came to your home and took your daughter from her bedroom while she was sleeping…
  • Imagine that you were away from home, helpless to get back, and you knew your family was in the path of a tornado you were helpless to prevent…

Like you, I’m praying for the people in the path of Hurricane Sandy.  And as a Christ follower, I will remind myself to pray more for people I’ll never meet whose stories we’ll barely hear.

But as someone committed to helping people care passionately about things that we don’t naturally care about, I’ll also spend time trying to place myself (and others) in the stories that matter most in this life. Because on this side of eternity, we live in a world where we care most about the stories we see ourselves in.

I look forward to the day we’ll care about everything the way God does.  Until then, finding common ground so we can see ourselves in stories we should care about will continue to be a discipline I hone.

A short post today for all church leaders.  I’m hoping you can help me out with a project.

I’m putting together the senior leadership track for Orange Conference 2013.  If you’ve never been, it’s an amazing leadership conference. Confirmed speakers for 2013 include Andy Stanley, Perry Noble, Bob Goff, Kara Powell and of course, Reggie Joiner.  If you’ve been, you know what I’m talking about when it comes to getting a leadership infusion.

Here’s my question for senior leaders: What subject would you most like to see addressed at Orange 2013?

Here’s my question for all other leaders (staff, volunteers etc):  What subject would you like us to address with your senior leaders when we get them gathered in the room?

Hit me up with a response here on the blog by leaving a comment.  The most interesting idea (in my hopelessly subjective opinion) get a free pre-release copy of my new book, Leading Change without Losing It (available everywhere next month). (This contest closes Monday, October 29th.)

Ready? Go!