Thanks to Jay at OnMovements for posting this list from Sam Metcalf. I think that many (if not all!) of these things are certainly worth thinking about if you are in any way a steward of ministry…
How to Kill a Movement »
By Jay Lorenzen on Jan 19, 2008
Sam Metcalf at UnderTheIceberg posted the following list on How To Kill a Movement:
1. Require education for the leadership
2. Demand conformity of methodology
3. Refuse to provide administrative help and let it suffocate under it’s own weight
4. Get spooked by supernatural phenomena outside your paradigm
5. Make no room for younger, less experienced leadership
6. Be obsessed by theological purity
7. Put the safety of the people involved as a higher priority than sacrifice
8. Centralize the funding
9. Punish out-of-the box thinking
10. Manage it by goals and strategic plans
11. Reward faithfulness rather than entrepreneurial ability
12. Get tied to property and buildings
13. Let your critics define you
14. Be threatened by giftedness that’s not like you
15. Create an endowment
16. Treat creativity as heresy
17. Refuse to exercise discipline for the right things
18. Make sure you are related to existing institutions for credibility
19. Promote on the basis of seniority and longevity
20. Insist that decisions be based on policy instead of values
21. Make nurture and conservation of gains a focus
22. Don’t be intentional about leadership selection
23. Be risk adverse under the guise of stewarding your people
24. Justify your reluctance to raise money
25. Have a big need for approval and affirmation
Above all else, control it if, God forbid, he actually shows up!
Justin, thanks for this list. I hope you don’t mind but I put a link to this list in my blog. I know this is the way many of the churches think here in America as this is how we have been doing Christianity for so long. I just got an email from my wife who is in Thailand on a missions trip. Their group is working with prostitutes in Bangkok and they have an awesome ministry called Rahab ministries. They work with women by going out to bars and by having a salon where prostitutes can come and get nails and hair done before going out just so they can build relationships with these women and offer them hope and help. In just reading about the ministry there, I wanted to post your link and have others compare and contrast the thinking of many churches today (How to Kill a Movement list) with the missional approach to the Rahab ministries in Thailand. Hope you don’t mind.
Good article Justin - Thank you!
this is a great list. thanks.