We’ve Tried That Before…and It Doesn’t Work Here
One of the things I love doing is talking with small group pastors and directors about their small group ministry. How it’s designed. The structure. How they coach their leaders. How they connect unconnected people. It’s just fun hearing about what they’re trying.
Tell Me More About That…
And of course…I can’t help asking questions along the way. “Tell me more about that?” is one of my favorite questions. “What do you mean by that?” is another favorite? “Why do you think it’s that way?” is still another. If you’ve been along for much of this journey, you know that a great question beats a prefab answer all the time (see Four Questions That Will Inspire Breakthrough Thinking and The Right Answer to the Wrong Question for more. Also see Distinctives of the Three Types of Connecting Events for more on “What do you mean by that?”)
Have You Thought About…
Of course, I almost always hear what’s working and what’s not working and then wonder if they’ve tried this strategy or that structure. And…most of the time, I just can’t help myself. So what I’m wondering becomes a question: “Have you thought about…?”
As you can imagine, there are a couple basic responses to the question, “Have you thought about…?”
- No (usually followed by their own question, “Tell me how it works?”)
- Yes (often followed by, “We’ve tried that before…and it doesn’t work here.”)
We’ve Tried That Before
I love it when I hear, “Tell me how it works?” I love it when I hear, “Tell me more about that?” Like a red cape to a bull I am challenged by, “We’ve tried that before…and it doesn’t work here.”
A variation on “we’ve never done it this way before,” “we’ve tried that before…and it doesn’t work here” means one of three things:
- there’s something in how they’ve done it that is begging to be exhumed
- the pursuit of problem-free is still on
- something about it absolutely doesn’t work in a particular setting
Can I tell you something? It’s almost never #3. It’s almost always #1 or #2.
Want do you think? Want to argue? Have a question? You can click here to jump into the conversation.
There’s a fourth thing it can mean… Something in the culture needs to be dealt with before the strategy can work. Dysfunctional culture will trump good strategy every time. This is why many churches are “vision-proof.” Every conference, every book is all about vision, vision vision. So pastors start working on developing a vision for their church. They pray and fast and plan and prepare. They get an exciting vision of what could be accomplished for the kingdom, and they launch the vision. But they are often unaware of the hidden cultural dysfunctions that will cause the vision to be DOA. There’s nothing wrong with the vision itself, or the planning, or the execution. In a healthy church, it would work just fine. But most churches aren’t healthy. Most churches are full of fear, doubt, shame, shallowness, dishonesty, pretense, pseudo-niceness, territorialism. And they’re committed to that; they’re heavily invested in it, making them unusable. They have a form of godliness while denying the power thereof. Until that is brought to the surface, confronted, confessed, and repented of, it will continue to “not work here.” I don’t care how many tweaks you make in “how you do it”, like so many coats of whitewash.
Good stuff, Scott, but I think actually a version of #3. Cultural dysfunction (a euphemism for an unbiblical culture) is probably the leading candidate for why something “absolutely doesn’t work in a particular setting.”
Thanks for jumping in here! Love your thinking.
Mark
Thanks Mark for your kind words! And I’m not trying to be argumentative, 😉 but now in light of your clarification, I think I need to take issue with your final statement: ”
It’s almost never #3. It’s almost always #1 or #2.” If unbiblical culture (I agree–that’s a more accurate way to say it) is included as part of #3, I think that’s the most common reason for “it doesn’t work here.”
This is why the American church overall is in such sorry shape–few leaders want to tackle the long, arduous, painful work of challenging unbiblical cultures in their church. They try shooting some silver bullets, cobbled together from 8 different ministry philosophies (that are all at odds with each other). And when their church doesn’t just take off quickly and easily in the first 3 years, they blame the people and move on to some other church. Then the next guy comes in and tries all the same stuff, and he gets told “We tried that… it didn’t work here.” He tries it anyway. Guess what? It doesn’t work. It will *never* work until a leader comes in who wants to tackle head-on the sinful root that is poisoning every initiative designed to advance the kingdom. And that takes years and years–blood, sweat, toil, tears, prayers, sacrifice, wisdom, patience, faith, grace. I’m glad that your experience has been with churches that just need to try it differently, or have unrealistic ideas about what they can expect; I think the vast majority of churches are much, much sicker than that. Otherwise, all these books and blogs and conferences and videos and enewsletters and training tools would be making more of a difference by now. What we need more than anything are people who are challenging pastors to courageously go to war against ungodly attitudes and behaviors among their flock, while fiercely loving each sheep, and deeply trusting in the Good Shepherd for the outcome.
No worries. I can see your point. Still, in my experience, it’s very common for the reasons to be very surface level. While there are very common underlying issues like you describe, they’re just not the easiest cause to deal with. And…I’m with you, many churches need to deal with those issues. It’s just not the purpose of this article, or my consulting work.
That’s exactly my point. It’s not easy to deal with. That’s why nobody does deal with it. Pastors don’t deal with it. Denominations don’t teach pastors how to deal with it. Books and conferences don’t deal with this. Coaches and consultants don’t deal with it. Nobody does.
And yet, unbiblical cultures in our churches are what stymie God’s work in this nation more than anything. But everyone wants to deal with the easy stuff, the surface stuff. As if that will make any difference at all.
The purpose of your article (as I understand it) is to explain why “it doesn’t work here.” So to me, this is central to what you’re talking about. I think it’s sad that so many people simply say, “Well, that’s hard, so I’m not going to do it.” And we wonder why nobody applies our sermons to their lives. They learned from watching their leaders what they should do with things that are hard to do.
Understand. Again, thanks for engaging. Always love interacting.
Mark