Avoid a Cascading Ministry Failure

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Avoid a Cascading Ministry Failure

Smithsonian Channel’s “Air Disasters” is must-watch TV in my home. The catastrophic incidents in aviation history are presented with reenactments, survivor interviews and cockpit recordings. But what’s particularly interesting are the insights that show what went wrong and whether or not the crashes could have been prevented.

Accidents sometimes occur after a series of unforeseen or unintended events create the conditions where flight systems, pilot training, safety protocols or mechanical parts fail. And very often, one failure is compounded by another and another producing what’s known as a failure cascade.

A cascading failure is “a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of one or few parts leads to the failure of other parts,” growing progressively with self-reinforcing momentum. One part of the network fails which triggers a flood of other breakdowns and failures. Then, each new problem gets magnified and grows exponentially as more pieces of the system fail.

Cascading failures in ministry often build for years under the surface and then emerge in some major event that produces a series of stumbles, missed opportunities and downside momentum. It could be caused by the unhealthy exit of a key leader, poor team culture, a difficult or changing community context, church conflict or a creeping sense of apathy and entitlement in the congregation.

When a church strings together a series of these challenging events, the danger of cascading ministry failures increases. And while churches and leaders bear some responsibility for this, it’s often true that unrelated and unforeseen situations come together to create the conditions for a prolonged breakdown.

And while the failure cascade is one possibility, that doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. What do leaders and churches do to stay centered on growth, spirit sensitivity and the Great Commission? They have:

  • Clear Vision — They focus on Christ-centered, missional objectives above everything else.
  • Personal Spiritual Discipline — Leaders who prioritize a heart connection with Jesus are less likely to experience spiritual drift and leadership insecurity.
  • Organizational Spiritual Discipline — A church with biblical preaching, teaching and doctrine will usually have strategies and action plans with gospel impact. Those congregations aren’t prone to complacency or lukewarmness.
  • A Heart for Discipleship — When a church makes disciples who make disciples, it builds the DNA of multiplication into its identity. That’s the very definition of a growth mindset.
  • Intentional Leadership — Leaders who watch for the signs of mission drift and sideways energy spent on second-tier distractions are a key guardrail for the small stumbles that lead to bigger issues.
  • Hyper Contextual Ministry — A focus on reaching its community keeps a church centered on the gospel imperative. Thom Rainer says it this way: “When a church ceases to have a heart and ministry for its community, it is on the path toward death.”
  • Effective Ministry Execution — Intentional ministry, solid planning and resource allocation ensure that what the church does matches what it says about the gospel. Growing churches don’t leave these decisions to chance.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Avoid a cascading ministry failure with a growth mindset centered on the Great Commission. Missional leaders and churches have clear vision, spiritual discipline, a heart for discipleship, intentional leadership, hyper contextual ministry and effective ministry execution.   

Resources


Sources

“Cascading Failure,” Accessed April 8, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure.

Thom S. Rainer, Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep Yours Alive (Nashville: B&H Books, 2014), 28.

Ministry Command and Control

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Ministry Command and Control

There’s inherent tension between leaders and followers in any congregational church. Because effective leaders usually have a strong sense of vision and values for accomplishing the church’s missional objectives, and some members and leaders desire a voice in those same objectives, there’s bound to be healthy push and pull.

Victor Lipman says it this way:

The qualities commonly associated with management and leadership—being authoritative, decisive, forceful, perhaps somewhat controlling—if not moderated by a high degree of awareness as to how one comes across and is perceived by others, are also qualities that have the potential to easily alienate those on the receiving end. Most people chafe under too much authority, too much forcefulness, too much control.

Lipman was describing what teams and employees feel in a business setting, but he just as easily could have been describing what happens in your local church.

Most churches (and church members) value decisive and forceful pastoral leadership. The expectation for bold proclamation, scriptural truth and spiritual leadership are held high in our tradition, while other values may seem less important. But that doesn’t mean pastoral leadership is, or should ever be, one-sided.

The forces of collaboration—working with others, listening, making adjustments, compromises, introspection and self-understanding—multiply your capacity to lead and make you a more effective manager, communicator and pastor.

There are three categories of commanding (and collaborating) leader:

  • The Over Commander – The leader who tends to overdirect and neglect the value of team cooperation and discussion (The “CEO” Pastor).
  • The Over Collaborator – The leader who tends to prioritize collaboration over almost all forms of direct leadership (The Indecisive Pastor).
  • The Self-Aware Commander and Collaborator – The leader who recognizes the need for both command and collaboration moments depending on context and need (Our Aspirational Goal as Pastors).

People desire strong, spiritual leadership in most churches. But any leader worthy of his high calling as Pastor recognizes the need for collaborative thinking and consensus building. So how do you strike a balance between commanding and collaborating?

For churches, consider a few best practices:

  • Build trust with strong, biblical, spiritual leadership.
  • Model a culture of mutual respect between pastoral staff and volunteer leaders.
  • Create defined roles for leadership teams and committees.
  • Communicate regularly with church leaders.
  • Build a structured process for collaboration and decision making (usually regular meetings).
  • Commit your planning, organization and vision documents to a written plan.

For pastors and leaders, learn to moderate your command-and-control instincts:

  • Listen to your team and your church.
  • Ask questions.
  • Seek common ground and build consensus.
  • Demonstrate a willingness to make adjustments.
  • Collaborate with intentionality.
  • Command with humility.
  • Measure your words and commands.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Navigate the tension between command and control vs. leadership collaboration and participation. Hold high the aspirational goal of a leader who recognizes the need for both command and collaboration moments depending on context and need.

Resources


Source

“Why Are So Many Employees Disengaged” by Victor Lipman, Forbes (January 18, 2013), http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/01/18/why-are-so-many-employees-disengaged/.

When the Growth Cycle Ends

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When the Growth Cycle Ends

Vision is clarified. Strategy is developed. Action plans are implemented. Lives are changed. Needs are met. Growth follows. The pattern repeats. And the end never comes. Or does it?

The reality is that growth seasons run in cycles. As sure as there’s a beginning, there’s an end. What kind of ending depends on the church and its leaders.

What happens when the growth cycle ends? Consider three possibilities:

  • The church crash lands—the result of a single, fateful event or a long-simmering issue that finally reaches its explosive climax.
  • The church enters a holding pattern—the curse of the plateau.
  • The church recharges for another growth cycle.

If the church crash lands, then casualties are the result. It might be worn-out leaders or church members who leave for greener pastures. Church finances may suffer and ministries may become hollowed out over time. In the worst case there’s no course correction and the church eventually dies.

Crash landings occur when the leader fails to cast clear vision, multiply disciples and build a solid missional foundation for the inevitable challenges that lie ahead.

If the end of growth happens due an organizational deficiency, then the church is in danger of entering the up and down—but generally flat—trend line called the growth plateau. Most churches can’t break free from this holding pattern without some significant course correction.

In these first two scenarios, growth ends because something went wrong. Several factors can trigger an end to ministry growth:

  • Leadership Drift — Leaders lose sight of the church’s unifying mission and vision and spend valuable resources on sideways energy.
  • Staff Turnover — Seasons of high team turnover make it difficult to sustain ministry momentum and growth.
  • Failure to Execute Effectively — Too little time and resources spent on Christ-centered, nuts-and-bolts ministry execution is a recipe for stalled growth.
  • External Factors — If we learned anything from the COVID-19 experience, it’s that we can’t control a wide range of external factors that impact church growth and health.
  • Internal Conflict — Lack of vision clarity often leads to conflict among church leaders and members.
  • Apathy and Entitlement — Lukewarmness and complacency are the enemy of a growth mindset. If enough of it takes root, then the church loses its spiritual vitality and stops growing.

Even though we face growth challenges, unhappy endings aren’t inevitable. There is hope for leaders and churches ready to recharge for another growth cycle. Tony Morgan offers this aspirational perspective:

Most churches start, grow, thrive, decline and eventually end. But I believe God’s plan for our churches is that they grow in maturity towards a peak of sustained health, and that as methods and traditions and culture change, they continually reevaluate and refresh, finding new ways to lead people towards Jesus.

Healthy churches possess clear vision, effective leadership and able execution. After a short pause at the end of the growth cycle they are able to recharge, refresh and relaunch into a new season of growth.

As church leaders, we are the ones most responsible for positioning our churches to navigate the peaks and valleys of growth. We should prepare well because wherever our church is in the growth cycle, the end is coming.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Avoid organizational pitfalls that lead to crash landings and the curse of the plateau. Instead, build a healthy church ready to navigate the inevitable end of the growth cycle. Then recharge and relaunch into a new season of growth.

Resources


Source

“Understanding the 7 Phases of a Church’s Life Cycle” by Tony Morgan, The Unstuck Group (June 21, 2021), https://theunstuckgroup.com/phases-church-life-cycle.

Strategy Starts in the Mud

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Strategy Starts in the Mud

The best ideas and strategies come from leaders and teams closest to the people being served and the ministries deployed to meet their needs. Think about that for a moment. While we often make strategic ministry decisions around the conference table, consider that a better way is to create strategy and generate ideas with volunteers, key leaders and teams who make ministry happen every week.

It’s not that big picture, top-down leadership doesn’t matter. It’s still a vital part of the way churches create vision, clarify direction and build out Great Commission strategies for evangelism, discipleship, missions and worship. But it shouldn’t end there.

In fact, a key observation of my 30 years in ministry is that most churches don’t fail on mission and vision. Instead, most churches struggle and often stagnate on strategic ministry execution. And execution success or failure rests with the front-facing teams who do most of the hands-on work and implementation of nuts-and-bolts ministry.

Empowering leaders and volunteers to make ministry happen is a paradigm shift for many leaders. Execution with less control or oversight isn’t always pretty, and it’s usually done in a way you wouldn’t do it yourself. But that comes with the territory. This is the “mud” of day-to-day ministry—an analogy for how laborious, challenging and messy it can be to implement those Big Ideas that mobilize the church to go and make disciples. There’s no question that it’s a glorious calling, but the mud remains. Ministry can be messy.

Enter a strategy planning process that often tells instead of listening. Nilofer Merchant says it this way:

As we all know, simply telling people what needs to be done is rarely enough to produce action. Yet that’s exactly what many organizations often do in the strategy process. Creating excellent strategy depends on collaboration throughout the organization.

Collaboration and collaborative leadership take many forms, but some of the most important are organizational strategies and tactics—everything we do (and don’t do) to achieve our missional objectives. So how do you foster a spirit of collaboration as you make strategy in the mud? Here are a few tips:

  • Lead By Asking Questions — Peter Drucker said: “The leader of the past knew how to tell – the leader of the future will
    know how to ask.” Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
  • Ask for Strategic Input — Most Big Idea strategy development happens at higher levels of leadership, but don’t neglect
    input from others. Collaborate with leaders and volunteers to allow for strategic ideas to bubble up from the bottom of the org chart. Ask them: “What does your team believe they can accomplish?”
  • Collaborate with a Cross Section of Leaders — Devolve as much authority for developing ministry tactics as you can. The most effective action plans develop in departmental groups, volunteer teams and hands-on serving ministries.
  • Delegate Execution Decisions to Ministry Teams — Ask departmental ministry teams and key volunteer leaders to develop the action plans for accomplishing your mission, vision and values. Place a high value on bottom-up leadership, strategy development and execution.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Create strategy and generate ministry ideas with volunteers, key leaders and teams who make ministry happen every week. And for maximum ministry impact, delegate execution to ministry leaders nearest the people being served.

Resources

   
Sources

Nilofer Merchant, The New How: Creating Business Solutions through Collaborative Strategy (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 2010), 32.

Marshall Goldsmith, “Advice on Getting from Here to There” (Business Week), Accessed March 5, 2025, https://marshallgoldsmith.com/articles/advice-on-getting-from-here-to- there.

Change the Environment to Change the Meeting

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Change the Environment to Change the Meeting

Early in my ministry life, I remember a weekly staff meeting around a large conference table in a cramped room (with fluorescent lights and leather-bound club chairs). At the time, I didn’t think much about the setting or the meeting outcomes, but in retrospect, I see how the two things are inextricably linked.

It’s clear that different rooms can often produce very different meeting outcomes. Perhaps you need to create a new leadership dynamic, cultivate a different kind of interaction, or facilitate a specific team collaboration goal. And it might be useful to tweak your team culture in some specific way. Whatever the objective, environmental factors play an important role.

Consider these scenarios and the problems they create:

  • The Capacity Problem — A large group of 40 people gathers in a room with a large conference table that only seats 20 people. The result? The other 20 people become second-tier participants in the meeting because they’re not at the first-tier table. The solution? Reduce the size of the meeting or find a bigger setting.
  • The Engagement Problem — A group meets together in a room with seating in rows and a lectern up front. The result? The leader talks a lot and group engagement suffers. The solution? Circle up and plan activities to “break the ice.”
  • The Formality Problem — A group gathers in a sterile room with tile floors, harsh lights, metal folding chairs and rectangular tables positioned in a square with a head and foot. The result? The formality of the setting impedes open conversation. The solution? Find a new room with couches and lounge chairs to encourage less formality and honest, open dialogue.
  • The Collaboration Problem — A large group of 45 meets in a room filled with round tables while the leader asks for group dialogue and feedback. The result? The leader does most of the talking and group collaboration falls flat. The solution? Form smaller groups with round tables and have table leaders give feedback to the larger group throughout the meeting.

These examples show just how much the environment shapes the meeting. It also tells us that meeting purpose is the most important factor in where you meet, who you invite and what you talk about—the meeting agenda.

Recognize that different meetings have different purposes: information, collaboration, planning, execution or vision. Depending on your objective, you’ll do best when you match the environment with the meeting’s purpose.

Consider these environmental factors that impact meeting goals and purpose:

  • Space — Is there enough space for everyone?
  • Furniture — Is the look and feel conducive for the meeting’s purpose?
  • Seating — Are the chairs comfortable and configured correctly?
  • Setup — Does the room setup contribute to the meeting’s goal?
  • Technology — Does the room have adequate sound and presentation tools?
  • Lighting — Is the room well lit?
  • Composition — Are the right people in the room?
  • Food — Is the meeting long (or early/late) enough to require coffee, water, or snacks?

So what’s the Big Idea?

Change the environment to change the meeting.

Resources