The Bullard Journal for May 27, 2019

“A Call to Action”: What happens when congregations wait too late to consider radical transformation? Many things. Here are a few. 1. They drop below a critical mass of gifted leaders who can lead a radical transformation. 2. They also have too few workers who can carry out new and innovative strategies, partially because they cannot comprehend things that are new and innovative but only things are old and unimaginative. 3. The number of active participants who have strategic thinking skills about their future drops below the number needed to vote positively on actions of radical transformation. 4. Deferred maintenance of their buildings results in buildings in disrepair whereby if a major building system fails they do not have the funds to repair or replace it.

5. People are delusional about what it will take to turn their church around and believe all they need is a fix rather than a solution. 6. The congregation spends its financial reserves – even liquidating real estate to starve off running out of money. 7. They no longer are spiritually focused but have become survival focused. Praying for God’s will to be done rather than their will to be done is a strange and almost unwelcome idea to them.

My “call to action” for congregations is to consider your long-term future while you still have many choices available to you. If you wait too late to consider radical transformation you will have limited choices – none of which you may like. You will be angry at the people who offer these limited choices when you ought to look in the mirror to find at least one person responsible for the limited choices still available to you.

About the author 

Kyndra Bremer