Flip This Congregation

Periodically my wife and I like to watch the television shows where a person buys a rundown house for as little as possible, remodels it and tries to sell it at a profit. Sometimes, but seldom, the remodel goes smoothly. More often than not there are so many hidden problems with the house that the only sound the flipper hears is cha-ching as the costs keep escalating. The drama is heightened with conflicts between the flipper and the contractor or sub-contractors. A sense of crisis grows as the date for the open house quickly approaches and there are yet more tasks to be completed than seems humanly possible. At the very last minute the whole thing comes together and the flipper makes money on their investment. It does not matter which of the flipper shows one watches the plotline runs the same course.

The shows have spawned the idea with some that they too can go into flipping and come away making money. Unfortunately, many who have gone into flipping on their own end up broke and discouraged that it didn’t work out as well for them as they see on the TV shows. For one thing, the shows have sponsors which help underwrite the costs. Have you ever noticed the product placement from Coke cans to store names prominently shown as the flipper or contractor pulls up to order supplies? A direct or in-kind income comes with each time the can or storefront is shown. For those products of supplies which do not produce income the name is digitally blurred.

Over the years we have tried many processes to flip congregations and mid-councils (judicatories/ governing bodies). The processes have had different names: rick evangelism, redevelopment, revitalization, transformation, and currently missional. The two primary motivators for these efforts are to get more members and raise more money. The idea is to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Just like the house flipping shows. The processes begin with the interior of the congregation needs to be cleared down to the spiritual studs and redesigned. This is often where the greatest problems arise.

First among the issues are the hidden rules of how things are done in the congregation. Folks are locked into, “the way we have always done it.” Start messing with the rules and traditions and wasps come out of the walls stinging and causing panic in the pews. A second set of issues arise around remodeling the worship service so it is more acceptable to new people who know nothing about our traditional worship.

That leads to the third issue. “What do you mean ‘new people’?” “Oh, we’re okay with new people as long as they are like us.” The problem is there aren’t any new people who will be just like them. It looks like the congregation is going to have to be rewired.

Every once in a while, one can hear a story of a radical change in the mission and ministry of a congregation. Just like the television flipper shows one in a thousand is enough to encourage others to give it a try. Who are the ones we send out to do the flipping? We send the newly ordained. We send out the naïve, the gun-ho, the inexperienced. We then wonder why the dropout rate of the newly ordained is high. If we are going to continue to do that we need to provide them with training in the basic flipping skills, coaches and enough backing to give them half a chance of succeeding. We need to line up sponsors with enough funding to underwrite the costs the congregation cannot or will not underwrite. We need to make sure that financial and spiritual bankruptcy are not the only alternatives for those we encourage to “flip this congregation.”