17 Clues You Might Be In A Messy 200church!

Have you ever been in, or are you now in, a messy 200church? I would not characterize my current 200church as messy, although people are messy, and we’re all dysfunctional. But, I found myself in a very messy situation in a 200church once. It was bad.

Here are 17 clues that you might be in a messy 200church. Your church has:

1. Poorly selected leadership
   
2. Mistrust among leaders
   
3. Mistrust of leadership by the congregation
   
4. Gossip
   
5. Lack of repentance or acknowledgement of sin
   
6. No vision
   
7. No understanding of the mission
   
8. Turf wars
   
9. Inward focus
   
10. No ministries focused outward to the community
    
11. No concern for those without Jesus
    
12. Agenda driven board members
    
13. Budget battles
    
14. Facilities prioritized over people
    
15. Lack of communication generally
    
16. Lack of communication between leadership
    
17. Lack of communication between ministries
    

Makes you tired just reading through that list, right? Happy Monday morning!

About ten years ago, I found myself in a 200church I would characterize as messy. At least half of the above list was true of that ministry. Certainly mistrust and misunderstandings were numerous.

I was caught off guard, and it all came crashing in on me one Sunday morning. I had come to the church as a staff pastor, but was the acting senior pastor at the time. We were considering a young man as our youth pastor. The board had decided to call him to our church. I had met with our board one extra time on a Tuesday night to double-check and make sure they were in favor of calling this man. (that is really the first clue!) To a man, they said they were, which means yes, which means a positive vote, which meant a unanimous approval. Or so I thought.

On the following Sunday morning, five days later, we were to vote on this.  During the “question and discussion time” one of the members challenged the board’s support of the proposal to call this man. He asked that any board members who were against calling this man stand up. I don’t recall the particular number, but a majority of the board members stood up, something like five of the nine present. Wow.

So much difficult stuff had happened in the previous year, but I was committed and completely optimistic that the church would come around. Not after that meeting though, that was the last straw for me – board members who would lie to the congregation. That was my last Sunday at that church; I resigned two days later effective immediately.

That was a messy situation I was not able to turn around. Perhaps you are in a 200church that is messy – today! How can you turn it around? What are some principles or practices you need to keep in mind?

How to turn around a messy 200church is the subject of this week's podcast, episode 25, which will be released on Wednesday morning.

If you would like to send us questions on this topic, you can do so until 12:00 noon tomorrow, Tuesday, July 2. We will have a special guest join us for our podcast on Tuesday, the day we record, and we could consider your questions and include them on Wednesday’s podcast.

You can submit a question via voicemail using SpeakPipe on our homepage, or at www.speakpipe.com/200churches, or by emailing us at questions@200churches.com.

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