Today I’m continuing my how to grow a healthy church series & I’m exploring those particular moments when a church should seriously consider engaging a consultant.
Church consultancy is in its infancy in the Australian church but I foresee a growing need as pastoring continues to accelerate in its complexity.
So here’s 4 reasons that should make a pastor pick up the phone & call in church consultants:
1. When the average age of your congregation is significantly older than the surrounding region
2. When you have Mercs & Jaguars in your car park & the carports in the surrounding suburb are filled with Datsun 1600′s
3. Whenever you are making significant & high impact changes, especially with staff
4. When your church hits middle age – even churches are prone to a mid life identity crisis
Dr Bill Hoyt of Growing Healthy Churches inspired this post when he wrote about the need for churches to call for help.
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What about the Holy Spirit? Do we really need consultants?
Good point Simeon. In Acts 8 there was a tremendous move of the Holy Spirit as people were saved & delivered. Then the apostles came & took the church to new realms of understanding & experience. In the same way an outsider can bring fresh eyes & renewed focus as Christ builds His church thru the Spirit with people.
Thanks for the post. Simeon/John, it could also be emphasised that whenever we seek counsel we should seek it from Holy Spirit filled men & women – Jesus gave spiritual gifts to individuals – and we should seek out those individuals who can help us build strong churches that look like Jesus.
Excellent point Daniel. No point trying to build the church without the power of the Spirit.
Phil Pringle uses a good analogy to describe the Church and Holy Spirit.
If we understand that the Holy Spirit is like a water flow / a river if you will … and the Church structure / management as being like the river banks to channel the awesome power of God…
Church consultants are good because they can help coach on the structure and management – really the man of God that you bring could turn around and tell you that the river banks are good – that the river flow has stopped.
Personally, I’d rather have a river without banks than banks without a river…
PS – If you have the C3 Church App on iPhone then you can watch that message by Phil, it is one of the more recent messages
Good analogy Craig. Personally I’d rather have banks & river ,-)
What if your surrounding suburbs have garages with Mercs & jaguars and your church carpark is filled with Datsun 1600s?
Same problem in reverse so yes you will need some help as to how to reach the demographic around your church