There’s a preacher joke you might have heard before:
Two young fish are swimming along when they pass an older fish. “How’s the water?” the older fish asks as he swims by. A few moments pass and then one young fish says to the other, “What’s water?”
The point of this fishy parable is that when we are immersed in an environment, we don’t always see clearly what is happening around us. If you live in the water day after day and know nothing other than water, then what’s water?
I have experienced this reality myself, and I’m sure you have too. I grew up in the Midwest. I never lived quite north enough to have the Minnesota accent Midwestern representations are famous for, but I am thoroughly Midwest nonetheless. There is something we Midwesterners do. When we’re startled, especially by someone, or we accidentally bump into someone as we turn the corner, we are known to say, “Ope!”
The thing is, I didn’t realize ope was a part of my vocabulary until I started watching Facebook reels about “Things Midwesterners Do.” When I first saw one of these reels, I shook my head and said to myself, “That’s ridiculous. I do not say ope!” But I began listening to myself, and sure enough, I say it a lot. I’ve noticed my wife does too. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I heard my five-year-old son, “Ope!” as well. We are passing on our midwestern legacy.
How does this relate to church?
When we are immersed in our church for a long period of time, we get used to the culture. We do things a certain way. We don’t know why, but that’s what we do. That one toilet in the basement men’s room will only flush if you jiggle the handle just right. Why has no one fixed it? We don’t know. We’re sure someone brought it up at a business meeting. Maybe. We don’t even think about it much anymore. We simply jiggle the handle and go on with life.
Sometimes this isn’t a bad thing, unless it leads to unaddressed problems.
I heard Thom Rainer tell a story about a church in decline. Over the course of a couple of decades, the church lost a couple hundred people. The decline was never drastic. There wasn’t a big split or anything obvious. It was just, on average, one or two people left each month. That doesn’t seem like a lot, especially for a church that runs in the hundreds, but over the years it adds up.
And no one really noticed.
In fact, when Rainer did a consultation with the church, he graphed out the decline and asked people what they thought about it. One lady replied by saying, “We haven’t declined.” He showed her the numbers. She replied, “The numbers are wrong.” Yet, they were the church’s own numbers.
As pastors, church members, and leaders, we all need help from time to time to see the realities of our church culture in a different light. We need someone with outside eyes who can step in, assess the situation, and help us diagnose issues we didn’t even realize existed. Then, hopefully, they can help us discover solutions.
This is where church consultants come in. A consultant is an outside person trained to look at everything from the big picture to the small details. A consultant isn’t biased by the church culture, and truly possesses an outside set of eyes. Sometimes, they can see obvious issues as soon as they drive up to the church building. Other times, they work with the church to dig deeper into the culture and fit together puzzling pieces.
I have received training and certification in church consultation, and the training has led me to believe that every church can benefit from an outside view. Consultants can serve healthy churches to help discover problems on the horizon and make adjustments before they become big issues. Consultants can serve struggling churches to uncover how the church arrived at its current state and offer course corrections for a hopeful future.
Consultants are not inerrant or infallible like Scripture, but in a way the letters of the New Testament were consultation reports to the churches. The apostles, like Paul, Peter, and John, helped the churches see what they did well, diagnosed where problems existed, and provided solutions to return the churches to health and faithfulness. Church consultants take their training and seek to do the same, applying the truths of Scripture in a situationally-relevant way.
Mark Clifton of the North American Mission Board has been known to say that God gets no glory from dying churches. I believe this is true. God loves his church. Jesus promised to build his church. God wants individual churches to succeed in sharing his love and grace to the communities around them. I also believe that God gives each church exactly what it needs to serve, in faithful even if small ways, the people who live, work, and play around its members.
Have you ever considered seeking the services of a church consultant? Maybe it’s time.
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Mike Bergman has served as a pastor for over twenty years. He is certified as a church consultant and in church revitalization. He seeks to use his experience and training to assist other churches, especially those in a smaller rural environment similar to where he ministers. You can find out more about his practice at ozarkhills.org.
Photo by Vladimir Srajber: https://www.pexels.com/photo/fish-in-sea-23848851/