Starting a church is not a sprint but a marathon unless you are just an interloper using ministry as a meal ticket. It’s shocking to note that 85% of churches in Nigeria do not outlive the founders while 40% wind up in five years. These stats are obviously a sign that most church founders in the country lack long term vision and operate without a succession strategy.
It’s very sad that many pastors today are running successful churches but will not be outlived by those churches. Once the pastor passes on the churches collapse immediately. This is because most churches are not established to last. Meanwhile, if you look at the orthodox churches you will see the baton of leadership seamlessly transferred from one leader to another.
First and foremost churches that outlive the founders must be built on solid foundations. The durability and sustainability of a church is the vision and mission. It’s not the type of church that makes it generational but how it is run. A church built on a shallow foundation is not likely to stand the test of time. The church that will outlive it’s founder must be institutionalized, not personalized.
Most contemporary churches are personalized or built around the person of the founder. This is what we call in psychology personality cult. Most pastors do not have a succession strategy but because they are mortals and will kick the bucket someday it’s imperative that an administrative structure is implemented to enable the churches to go beyond their founders.
These are 3 Keys To Make Your Church Survive You
1. Legalizing the Church.
Register the church with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). Avoid the temptations of making the Trustees members of your family. Here emotional intelligence is the key. Do not entertain fear that the church will be hijacked from you. Don’t personalize your church or make it a family business. It will backfire. Select your Trustees from the people in the church and let the Constitution of the Church be the driver. It’s a Constitutional Church guided by principles, rules and regulations. 90% of churches not registered die with the founder.
2. Documenting the Church.
You must document your Mandate. There must be a book or booklet chronicling the aims and objectives of the church. The document is the Grund Norm or Manifesto of the church. It should be broken into two segments. Segment 1 should be about the Vision and Mission of the church. What’s the inspiration or motivation behind the church? Did you have a dream or something supernatural that compelled you to start the church? Put it down here. Segment 11 should be about the organisational strategy. You must clearly spell out the leadership organogram. You’re the president or chairman. You need a deputy or deputies. You need a secretary, treasurer, choir master, head of security, public relations officer and auditor. You cannot afford to be a Jack of all trades and a master of none. You’re the General Overseer. Break the church into departments otherwise your job will be overwhelming.
3. Learning, Unlearning and Relearning.
More pastors now understand the need to learn, unlearn and relearn. Hitherto, many felt that the moment they start a church they are infallible and that there’s nothing new to learn. But with technology, the church landscape is changing very fast and pastors more than before need to keep up to speed. Pastors need to develop management skills and to learn how to build systems. Pastors need to learn how to set agenda and map out short term, medium term and long term strategies for both church growth and development of succession strategy. That way the pastor hits the ground running and if anything goes wrong it can be fixed automatically. The biggest mistake founders of churches make is operating without a futuristic framework. You’re a failure if your church cannot survive your incarceration, infirmity or fatality. Imagine your church existing for another three hundred years and visualize yourself cannonized as the patriach or founder.
*Caveat*
Ignore this post please if you are a pastoral hustler only looking for daily bread.