Our culture faces turmoil. Family breakup, social media, national debt, technology, secular philosophies, political division, and a host of other issues challenge us in America.

The wider human race faces enormous threats to its well-being, too. War, famine, nuclear proliferation, poverty, disease, water scarcity, governmental corruption, and many other factors hang over us.

The fact of turbulence is not new. Jesus himself foretold difficulty in this world (John 16:33). But many times, as churches, we struggle to respond to our rapidly changing and turbulent external world. We often pull in our wings in a protective mode. Over time, we focus only on the already converted.

Evidence shows we are more likely to be influenced by the world, than to influence it. The result is an American church that’s perceived as irrelevant in the broader culture. We aren’t “salt and light” (Mt 5:13-16). Instead of accomplishing the mission of Christ, we keep repeating traditional church activities—what we’ve always done. These don’t achieve missional results. And so we suffer decline.

Many of us agree: the status quo is not cutting it. Something’s got to change.

Churches that maintain their footing and keep finding new vitality in volatile times all have one thing in common. They organize themselves around the mission that Christ gave, to "make disciples” (Mt 28:19-20).

“Making disciples,” surprisingly, isn’t the same as what we normally call “discipleship.” So-called “discipleship” has become an educational exercise. When we talk about “discipleship,” by default we imply scholastic learning. When a church says, “We’re a ‘Discipleship Church,’” they usually mean that they have a robust adult education program.

When Jesus commanded us to “make disciples,” however, he wasn’t instructing us to set up a church school modeled after seminaries. There’s nothing wrong with education. It’s just that “making disciples” is not an academic, intellectual, learning-oriented activity.

Jesus defines “making disciples” for us. It has two parts: (1) “baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit,” and (2) “teaching them obey everything Christ commanded.”

Let’s take these two things one at a time. First, “baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit,” is about reaching people for Christ. It means that people are making first-time commitments to follow Christ. Baptism is an initiation rite. We are baptized “into the body” (I Cor 12:13).

If a church is not consistently seeing people give their lives to Christ for salvation, they aren’t “making disciples,” even if they have a seminary in the church basement.

Second, “teach them to obey everything I commanded” doesn’t call for a classroom approach. Certainly, new believers must learn about their faith; learning is necessary. But it’s not sufficient, and it’s not the most important thing. “Knowledge puffs up; love builds up” (I Cor 8:1). Intellectual or academic so-called “discipleship” would be appropriate if Jesus words said, “Teach them to understand everything I explained.”

Teaching for understanding and coaching for obedience are two different things. To be sure, obedience includes some new mindsets which must be learned. But more essentially, obedience requires new habits. True discipleship is the character transformation of Christ followers that leads them to think and act and serve like Jesus.

This doesn’t mean healthy churches emphasize evangelism to the exclusion of everything else. But it does mean that if our church is evangelistically negligent, then we are not “making disciples,” even if we have a wonderful Christian education program. If this is our church is … let’s be honest here … then we’re disobeying Christ’s command.

What we know is this: unless we as leaders invest purposeful effort at reaching out to pre-believers, our churches will drift inevitably toward caring for members only. When this happens, our churches stagnate and die.

If you want to find the main reason why churches drift toward caring for members only, don’t look outside the church. It’s not that pre-believers have no interest in the love of Christ. (The 10% of flourishing churches find that many people do in fact want salvation.) It’s not that American culture has turned against the church. (Our culture is hostile, for sure, but the 10% of flourishing churches operate in the same culture as every other American church.)

It is now time to call out the difficult truth: the reason we as churches focus on caring for our members is our leadership choices. Our members want and expect the church to serve them, and no one has told them anything different. It’s as though a school exists for the benefit of the teachers, rather than for the students. We as pastors haven’t helped our members see that the church exists for the world. Mission drift happens because we, as church leaders, allow it.

This isn’t to call into question anyone’s desire, passion, commitment, or virtue. On the contrary, most of us as church leaders are spiritual, sincere, hard-working, and committed. Our hearts are in the right place. We want to see our church grow. The usual problem is we just don’t know how. So we keep repeating the same things, hoping for different results. Hoping isn’t a strategy.

When we lead, we commonly do what we saw other leaders doing. Just as many parents parent their kids as they themselves were parented, so as pastors, we lead as our own pastors led us. So we continue traditional churches activities—preaching, counseling, worshipping. In effect, when we do this, we’re merely following the example of other stagnant churches, but hoping for different results doesn’t work. Hope isn’t a strategy.

Sometimes we as pastors will admit that the number of adults who say “Yes” to Jesus through our church is zero. But then we explain away this lack of missional effectiveness by saying, “We are a Discipleship Church.” At 360 Pastor, respectfully, we think this is an excuse.

“Discipleship Churches” may think they are following Christ’s command. But as stated above, “making disciples” is not the same as what passes for “discipleship” in the typical American church. In fact, so-called “Discipleship Churches” invest all their resources in the already converted. They are country clubs, not service clubs. Even though they do many good church activities, they fail to plan for or invest in pre-believers. It’s no wonder few people are finding Christ.

Statistically, evangelistic neglect is a symptom of a church culture that leads directly to decline. If a local church reaches zero adults, that’s a red flag. Its leaders are usually overlooking the fact that failure to accomplish the mission of Christ is like the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Sometimes transfer growth can hide the deeper issue for while. But over time, such churches will not thrive.

Thank God there’s hope.

Things can change. When we start leading biblically, churches can become missionally effective. And when churches do that, they begin to flourish in other ways, too.

Many Christians just can’t believe that their church can reach people for Christ. They’ve participated in plateaued churches for so long that they can’t wrap their imaginations around anything different. But we, EBA and 360 Pastor, have seen stagnant churches change their ways. We’ve seen dying churches—the 20% most challenged—experience revival. It’s like Easter all over again. When we act differently, we as pastors can inspire spiritual growth in evangelism, and that in turn leads to everything else improving.

Sometimes we succumb to a false either/or (either numerical increase or spiritual growth—but never both). Sometimes, pastors point to a failure to grow numerically as evidence of spiritual maturity. “We’re not growing larger, but we’re growing deeper,” people say say. Again, at 360 Pastor, we think this is just an excuse.

Flourishing churches aren’t seduced by the false either/or choice between growing numerically and growing spiritual depth. Healthy churches grow wide because they grew deep.

Churches turn things around when their leaders get serious about accomplishing their full, God-given, 360-degree purpose on earth. They refuse to bury their one talent. They don’t make excuses. They buckle down. They get themselves organized. They do the work. When they do, it’s God who produce the fruit (I Cor 3:6-7). These are pastors who lead their churches to become ten talent churches.

We believe in the transforming potential of all local churches, even those that are currently floundering. We believe this includes legacy churches who can begin again to reach their transforming potential. Mind you, we’re all in favor of church planting. But we refuse to abandon hope for legacy churches. It’s a both/and. We know by experience that even churches over 100 years old can find new life. We’ve watched it happen.

Now, obviously, legacy churches don’t experience renewal by doing the same old same old. Indeed, as they say, it’s the height of insanity to do the same things and expect different results.

So every turnaround church must commit to and consistently pursue new perspectives and behaviors. We understand those mindsets and habits. We’ve taught them to others. We’ve watched them produce results. We can teach them to you.

Because we believe in you and in the potential of your church, we want to see these leadership mindsets and habits work for you. That’s why we’re dedicated to serving your church by training and coaching you. We believe you have a desire to grow. We believe you have a teachable spirit. We believe … we know … you can learn new viewpoints and skills that will renew your church.