The following is a book report on John P. Kotter's business classic Leading Change. In addition to Kotter's information I have added notes about my own personal experience in attempting church turnarounds, and some information from other books about turning congregations around.

It is important to understand this information is not to be taken as a program for leading change in your own congregation. For one thing perhaps the most important component needed for successful change is completely missing here. That is help and guidance from an outside person familiar with change process in congregations. In my case I was fortunate enough to have a District Executive who himself had been a successful change leader in a congregation. He not only offered advice and support, but ran as an offensive lineman for me before my board when things got tough.

What I do suggest is that some of the ideas and concepts listed here can be helpful to church leaders at any stage of a congregation's life cycle.

 Monty Keeling

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We church folks are well aware that we are living in changing times when change is demanded in every aspect of our lives. We are also aware that the institution most resistant to change in our society is the Christian church. A good number of church attenders will even tell you that in the heaving sea of life their good old church is a life preserver because it doesn't change. And they don't want it to.

That is until the church is in danger of closing its doors. Then they want it to change just enough to keep going. Well, they don't really want change but they'll live with it if the alternative is losing their beloved church entirely.

For most of my life I have been the kind of person who champions change. Which is rather strange since personally I don't like changing anymore than the next person. My love for fast pitch softball pushed me into changing much of the city of Bakersfield California's fast pitch program from public to private leagues. As Public Relations Director of the Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce I was part of an effort that changed the chamber from a donation seeking, to a program offering nonprofit organization.

And finally, my love for God's church has driven me to work for change in a number of congregations. So I know first hand just how hard motivating change in a church culture can be.

Enter John P. Kotter's amazing little book Leading Change. This is what the Web Wikipedia says of Kotter:

John Paul Kotter (born 1947) is a professor at the Harvard Business School and author, who is regarded as an authority on leadership and change. In particular, he discusses how the best organizations actually "do" change. (Kotter & Cohen, 2002)

John Kotter’s international bestseller Leading Change, which outlined an actionable, 8-step process for implementing successful transformations, became the change bible for managers around the world.[1] In October 2001, Business Week magazine rated Kotter the #1 "leadership guru" in America based on a survey they conducted of 504 enterprises.

Man I wish I had been able to have this book in seminary. As I reviewed the eight steps Kotter uses to explain how successful organizations change, I could see exactly how I had initially succeeded and later failed at changing the second congregation I pastored. And as I read the rest of the book I could see in black and white why so many other churches I had known about failed to succeed in their change efforts.

Kotter's observation that many organizations are declining because their leaders have actually only been trained as managers rather than leaders really hit home. This is why so many seminary trained pastors are not doing well into today's church ministry. And it's why so many new church projects fail.

Managers and leaders are two entirely different kind of animals. Managers keep things running, leaders change things. Most people are usually good at one or the other, managing or leadership. Leaders are skillful at creating and communicating vision. Usually they aren't much on details. Mangers are the detail people make sure the details get covered. In a stable environment where things don't change, like the 1950s, all you need are good managers. But in a fast changing world you need leaders and managers. In the 1950s top down management worked just fine. Today every member of the organization needs to be part of the leadership and management process.

Kotter says that to succeed today people need to be competitive and involved in life long learning. Organizations that succeed in their mission must communicate with and resource every member to be involved in the leadership and management process. Welcome to the real priesthood of all believers.

While large numbers of businesses have adopted this philosophy (I worked seven years for one HomeCrest Cabinets in Goshen, IN.) I suspect the majority of churches have not. Which is a shame because the early Christian church probably looked pretty much like the organization Kotter advances. Many of the issues Paul deals with in the Corinthian letters speak to the kinds of problems such an organization would face.

Of course for such an organization to exist you would have to have a high level of trust between its members. Leaders would need to value the minds as well as the muscles of their “associates.” And most everyone would have to support change. Kotter examines all this in much more detail in his book.(Which yes I recommend you buy.) Now I want to take a quick look at the eight steps he had devised to help foster successful change in organizations.

Step 1: Urgency

The first thing organizations must do to change is establish a sense of urgency. Church consultant Lyle

Schaller has noted that people will only change when their level of pain gets high enough that they feel they have to. Churches generally change for two reasons, because they are in danger of closing their doors, or because their theology of Hell motivates them. Studies have shown that most people, including church attenders, don't really believe in Hell these days. But there is another kind of hell (one with a small “h”) that deals with human suffering and problems in the here and now. The small h hell, in my experience, has been the kind of hell that motivates church change today. However, the reason most churches are considering changing today is because they are in deep decline, or in danger of closing during the next few years.

There are a number of concerns we church folks should have about being motivated to change by our declining in size congregations. While this is almost always the motivation for change in the business world, churches whose urgency to change is motivated by declining membership, or a near death experience, have serious faith issues. Of course you can always do what we Anabaptist peace churches do when in a declining situation, convince yourself that your witness is so unique in the community that you worry about shutting down. Doing so would rob the community of your special witness. The truth is that most Anabaptists churches who are struggling are doing so because they have failed to witness in the first place. Like any organization churches transform over time from overriding concern from those outside their group, to overriding concern for themselves. And the vast amount of their resources go to helping themselves.

Carl George, another church consultant, has said that dieing churches are a gift to the unchurched.

It is my opinion that during the first step of establishing urgency it is important that churches do everything they can to shift the congregation to feeling an urgency for those outside their church family. This is a process that probably will take years for some churches but you can start now.

The best way to start this whole process is through prayer. A whole lot of prayer. One pastor friend of mine shared that the change process in their congregation began before he was even called. When the elders of the congregation would gather one night a week to pray for God's guidance in changing their church.

Kotter suggests that establishing a sense of urgency requires two things, examining the market and the competitive realty the organization faces. Examining the market is what Robert Schuller calls “find a need and fill it, find a hurt and cure it.” Be aware that competitive realities will come from without and within your church family.

Before continuing let me stress that Kotter emphasizes these eight steps must all be accomplished, in order, or change, even if it appears to succeed after earlier steps have been completed, will not last. Not moving through the steps in order, and making sure that each has been accomplished, will also lead to change failure.

Step 2: Organize A Guiding Coalition

The second step in Kotter's leading change process is to create a guiding coalition. Two things need to happen at this point. The first is to organization a group of people with the power to make change happen. This may or may not be officers of the board. But it must be people with the influence to get the church family to go along with the proposed changes. In small churches especially, you will often find that the most powerful people in the church aren't on the church board. George Barna, in his book Turn Around Churches observes that most of the churches his organization has studied needed a new pastor for the change process to work. In any event the pastor must be very supportive of, and very involved in, the change process. While attending the Bakersfield Church of the Brethren I formed a Tuesday night Grace Group study that became a change group. They did not change the congregation, but they, along with an emotions support group that also began meeting in the church, have altered the congregation's mood, I think, to being a more open church. You would think that because my younger brother was chairman of the church board at the time making changes would be easy. But then you would not have much experience with brothers born 18 months apart. My brother and I disagree on almost everything. Having our mother, and my brother's brother-in-law in the group , both powers in the congregation, allowed us a certain freedom and power to operate we would not have had with just me as the leader.

While putting together a guiding coalition might be difficult, the next task, getting the group to work together, will make many long for the good old days of just trying to organize the coalition. Because the group must not just work together but trust each other. Bringing change in a church can be not unlike being on the front lines of a battlefield. The team will be shot at from all different directions. So it's important for the team members to feel that others on the team “got their backs.” Such a need almost requires that the group go through team building exercises. And it requires a lot of communication and understanding of the mutual importance of each team member for the coalition to be successful.

Kotter cautions not to add what he terms egotists and snakes to your leading coalition. Egotists are often talent folks who get things done, as long as it's done there way. The don't work well with others, however, and can destroy group process. Snakes may be talented like egotists but pose another danger. These folks are back talkers who will subvert the group process by spreading negative propaganda about the group and it's members. Having experienced the damage both these types of individuals can cause I second Kotter's caution.

Step 3: Develop A Vision

Step number three is to develop a vision and strategy, through group process with the leading coalition. Vision allows the organization to keep their eyes on where they are going. Strategy is your plan for getting their. Or as Ketter would put it: “Vision refers to a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future,”

An effective vision, Kotter says, has characteristics that include are imaginable, desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and communicable.

I was able to attend a peace consultation recently between the three historic peace churches in Florida, the Church of the Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers. I participated in one group discussion with the Mennonite representatives at the consultation. A member of the group shared how he was teaching a course in Mennonite history. His reason for doing this was because support for becoming less Mennonite and more like the Mega churches was growing in the congregation. The church was already large by peace church standards, but some in the congregation worried that the congregation was not growing.

Being me I offered without invitation that those people should take a closer look at what's happening with Mega churches these days. Many are losing almost as many folks as they are still attracting, and they have noticed that people aren't being discipled as they had hoped. Traditionally the Mennonites and Brethren have been recognized as some of the most successful congregations in discipling members. I think, at least with the Brethren, our ranking is probably slipping in recent years. And the reason, I believe, is because we Brethren and Mennonites have become less Brethren and Mennonite. Our vision can no longer be seen by many of our own church family. I offered that the Anabaptist were probably the first “Jesus people” in history with our radical desire to do everything Jesus. If it were up to me our vision statement would be simply “Doing Jesus.” The happy and sad fact is that today most everyone respects and likes Jesus, hardly anyone feels that way about the church.

When considering vision it's important for churches to think about the needs of those inside and outside the church family. Peter Drucker used to say that the real purpose of business is to gain and retain customers. Although churches certainly aren't businesses Jesus' command to go into all the world and make disciples sounds pretty close to Drucker's observation.

Kotter believes that the first step in developing vision is working on a vision statement that works. Then statement should be as short as possible with words that help the readers picture the vision. “To be the best company selling marbles,” doesn't communicate as much as: to be the best company selling marbles by empowering our employees to produce the market's best marbles.”

The organizations vision must be the image by which change is accomplished. That vision needs to be communicated over and over again, in as many ways as possible, until it becomes a believed reality And after that communicated again and again to make sure the reality of change survives.

Step 4: Communicating A Vision Of Change

Communicating the change vision, in fact is the fourth step in the change process. This communication needs to happen both in word and deed. Leaders must live the vision if the vision is to be believed by other members of the organization. One of the leading coalitions responsibilities will be to work with others leaders to make sure they understand the vision well enough to relate it to others, and that those leaders are supportive of the vision. For small churches the option of replacing leaders who do not support the vision often doesn't exist. But some way needs to be found the “quarantine” that leader. Hopefully by convincing the person to give the process a chance to succeed.

Kotter writes:

“Vision is communicated most effectively when many different vehicles are used: large group meetings, memos, newspapers, posters, informal one-on-one talks. When the same message comes at people from six different directions it stands a better chance of being heard and remembered, on both and intellectual and emotional levels. So channel A helps answer some of the questions people have, channel B addresses others, and so on.”

Communication must be a two way street. Listen so you may be listened to. Kotter notes he has seen times when employees and members have corrected and helped focus the vision of change because leaders listened.

Step 5: Empower Broad-based Action

The Fifth Step Empowering Broad-Based Action deals with getting rid of obstacles, changing systems or structures that undermine the change vision, and encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.

Anyone who pays attention to churches seeking to revitalize their ministry knows that one of the big issues is that organizational structure, and for churches tradition, can block any change efforts. The ten last words of a dying church: “We can't do that because it's never been done before.” Revitalized churches become ministry centered rather than programmed centered. This requires an operational format that limits red tape and encourages innovation, Failure must not be seen as something to be avoided, but something to be learned from. Success almost always comes following failure. Walt Disney said three failures are required for every success. He was talking from his own experience.

Kotter notes that adequate training is required for folks to be able to do things successfully and with confidence. Failure can be accomplished rather quickly, success takes time and training.

On the other hand Bob Whitesel in his Growth By Accident Death By Planning details the importance of ministry done by those who themselves have experienced the problems and pain of those the church once to minister to. Unless leaders have a deep understanding of the culture, needs, and wants, of those the church wants to serve the chances for the ministry's success are slim. Seminary education does not provide that kind of expertise and indeed can lead to a distrust of the innovation that such ministries require.

Step 6: Generating Short Term Wins

Because accomplishing real change in an organization can take years, its important that short term wins be generated and celebrated along the way of the change process. By generated Kotter means wins that come naturally as the process unfolds, and if those aren't available wins that are manufactured.

Step 6 does not need to be a dishonest effort. When I arrived at my second pastorate one of the first things I did was encourage a number of formal popular events in the congregation that were no longer in use. One was a volleyball gathering every Sunday evening, the other was the hanging of the greens ceremony for the Christmas season. Both were well received and helped to recharge the energy level of the congregation. Of course, some things I tried failed, but since we don't celebrate failures they aren't as likely to be remembered.

Let's be clear about this energy level thing, the purpose of everything talked about here is to ignite a way of energy that will carry the change process along. Growing churches have an energy about them that makes people want to get involved. A good number of churches these days, perhaps too many, are moving to praise, or celebration worship services as one way to get such energy. But other kinds of worship services can provide a weekly spark as well. And no type of worship service alone is going to provide such a spark. Develop well run small groups is actually a better, more difficult, way to energize a congregation in my opinion.

And when wins happen naturally in you church celebrate them. In the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), it seems that whenever they got together the first thing they did was celebrate the past wins God had provided for them.

Step 7: Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change

Intentional and political resistance to change never really goes away. Even with success in the early stages of the change efforts there will be those waiting for an opportunity to put things back the way they were. Kotter writes:

“Until changed practices attain a new equilibrium and have been driven into the culture, they can be very fragile.

One problem is interdependence that has been built into the operating structure of an organization. The more one part of an organization must seek approval or work with another part of an organization the greater resistance to change becomes. A church committee that must seek approval from a church board before performance of its ministries, for instance, will be anchored in the change process to the larger group. Some dependencies are necessary for the success and health of the organization. Others over a period of time have outlives their usefulness and should be reevaluated. I know of a large church where the pastor insisted he be involved in almost all decisions. When the long time pastor left the congregation fell into a crisis. Better was a friend of mine who placed people he could trust in leadership positions and then, as a pastor got out of the way and let them do the ministries. He saw his role as a resource person and trainer of other leaders, rather than ministry central. His congregation went from a struggling church to one of the fastest growing in our denomination in a matter of years.

Changing an organization usually will involve making a lot more changes than anyone imagines at the beginning of the process. Kotter gives the example of a room full of furniture connected by rubber bands and cables. In order to successfully move one piece of furniture you must make changes in others that are connected to it.

During stage seven the guiding coalition will use the creditability it has gained early in the change process to make even more changes. Additional people will be brought in, promoted, and developed to help with the changes. Senior leaders will focus on keeping clarity of purpose and making sure that the sense of urgency remains strong. Other leaders will both provide leadership for specific projects and manage those projects. Managers will identify unnecessary interdependencies and eliminate them.

In his book Leading Change In the Congregation, the Alban Institutes's Gilbert R. Rendle writes about using “Force Field Analysis” to deal with resisting forces that challenge congregational change. In this system the driving forces of why people might want to participate in a changed program are identified along with the reasons why they might oppose such a program. The resisting factors are addressed and an attempt is made to decrease their influence. The reason for concentrating on resisting factors rather than reasons might support the program is to create a positive rather than a negative call to unsupportive participants. Its a pull rather than a push. An invitation rather than a demand or a threat.

Step 8: Anchoring New Approaches In The Culture

You probably won't be surprised to hear that each congregation has it's own distinctive culture.

Culture, Kotter says, refers to norms of behavior and shared values among a group of people. He writes:

“Norms of behavior are common or pervasive ways of acting that are found in a group and that persist because group members tend to behave in ways that teach these practices to new members, rewarding those who fit in and sanctioning those who do not. Shared values are important concerns and goals shared by most of the people in a group that tend to shape group behavior and that often persist over time even when group membership changes”

In fact studies have been done that proves congregations which completely change in membership over time keep the same culture. One standard theory of change is that culture must be changed before real change can happen. Kotter, however, said his experience has shown him that culture is the last thing that changes in a change process.

Think about this, Jesus used new ways of thinking, and new ways of believing and acting to change culture. Not the other way around. Most cultural stage happens in stage eight Kotter writes. And such change could take decades or longer to accomplish.

Anchoring change in a culture depends of results. New approaches usually sink into a culture only after it's very clear that they work and are superior to old methods. Anchoring change in culture requires a lot of talk. Without verbal instruction and support, people are often reluctant to admit the validity of new practices.

Anchoring change in culture may involve turnover. Sometimes the only way to change a culture is by changing people. And anchoring a culture makes decisions on succession crucial. If promotion practices are not changed to be compatible with the new practices the old culture will reassert itself.

Piece of Cake right? Kotter notes:

“It is because such change is so difficult to bring about that the transformation process takes eight stages instead of two or three, that is often takes so much time, and that it requires so much leadership from so many people.”

It has been my own personal experience that God doesn't usually make things easy. Can't remember where I read it but I like the observation that if something comes easy without suffering or struggle it's because someone before you have struggled and suffered. And if you struggle, suffer and fail, it's so someone behind you can succeed.

For more information on culture see gochurch article Church Climate Control

LEADERSHIP

Now that you have some idea of what real change involves I want to close with some observations about pastoral leadership. For background I am going to rely heavily on George Barna's book Turn Around Churches and my own personal experience. I'm a second generation turn around pastor and I can attest as George writes that providing leadership for a turnaround attempt is not for the faint of heart. Odds are overwhelming that you will fail. Barna group studies have found that so demanding is the task that most turnaround pastors have only on turnaround in them. You probably can believe now that starting a new church is much easier than turning a declining congregation around.

Barna writes:

“A turnaround church requires a leader who seeks to obey God by doing the extraordinarily difficult work of leading hard-hearted people into God's presence on a constant basis. You don't move people into the presence of the Holy One by waffling, gently nudging or silently hoping for progress. You lead with conviction, determination, purpose and a plan. In the case of the church leadership must come from the senior pastor.”

And now another hard pill to swallow. Turning a church around almost always requires a pastoral change at the beginning of the process. Actually Barna believes there is no almost always that a new pastor is a requirement. But a Southern Baptist study of 5,000 churches found that 13 were able to turn things around with an existing pastor.

Here is what Barna found are some of the basic characteristics of turn around pastors. The are team builders, they provide a vision, the grow spiritually, they have the ability to encourage others. The are strategic, rather than tactical thinkers. In other words as we have already noticed they focus on the big picture and leave management to others.

They are risk takers. Barna notes: “A true measure of a leader is the types of risks that a person takes. A great leader evaluates the anticipated risks, considers the plausible outcomes of each and pursues those that provide the greatest potential for success.”

Unique traits of a turnaround leader, according to Barna, are youth, workaholic, spiritual commitment, strong personality, being a potential visionary, and the indispensable quality Barna believes is “the one unmistakable reality is that a church needs a strong leader from the outside to accomplish the change.”

One thing is certain the pastor must be a change zealot. It's likely that if the congregation hasn't; grown in a number of years that the pastor is not that kind of person. But I believe in miracles and that the greatest change agent of all is God. People's and even pastors hearts can be changed.

Unless things change a lot from the way they are now change is a certainty. Our economy no longer works and probably won't for a long time. Millions of Americans will have no choice but to downsize and change their lifestyle. They a;re going to be looking for answers, for meaning in their lives, and for help. Most churches are not now up to that task.

Turning things around will require a miracle greater than the parting of the Red Sea. For many of those churches that do turnaround, as happened in both my father's and my experiences, will eventually fall back into their old selves, because their culture was never really altered. Small churches, especially, have the habit of seeking maintenance pastors instead of leaders when a leader leaves. Because the leader has worn them out and they want to take a break. In other words they sink back into their old culture.

And finally some turnarounds fall apart because of dysfunctional pastors and or dysfunctional members (snakes) in the congregation. Pastors who are working for their own egos instead of God cause great damage to churches. If you can't carry Jesus' cross, if you can't put the needs of the congregation above your own don't enter pastoral ministry and certainly forget about pastoring a turnaround ministry. You will only end up causing pain for yourself and others.