There is a formulaic way that a Needs Assessment is created and it ends up highlighting the community at large, as well as the congregation. It spells out the benefits that will be paid upon the successful hiring of a candidate and all that jazz - but at its heart, the document is exactly what it says it is. This is what we need.
At the risk of sounding bitter - I can tell you what your church will say in its assessment before I even read it.
I have read scores of them and helped to create a handful more. They all differ in terms of what they describe their community as, and to be fair and upfront one in a hundred will be different from what I am about to say - but in a nutshell, despite the idea that each church is creating a unique document, they are all the same...
Here is what they need:
- an engaging, biblically focussed preacher who can connect to all ages
- a minister who loves to visit and will always be there in times of crisis.
- a minister who will perform weddings, baptisms, and funerals.
- a minister who works well with others.
- a minister who loves children and youth.
- a minister who will do administration tasks.
- a minister who will be visible in the community and represent the church well.
In other words - someone who does what has always been done and does it better than the last gal.
If you read the whole package, the surveys, the write-ups, and everything between the lines - here is what I imagine every church means by this.
- You have to be interesting enough that people will flock to hear your sermons.
- You need to seek out every single person who ever attended this church and have tea with them and hope that makes them feel better and perhaps even come back on Sunday.
- You need to be willing to baptize our grandchildren from away while at the same time doing such a good funeral that we all feel taken care of.
- You need to not rock the boat. There are people in this congregation who have been doing things here longer than you and you have to honour their wisdom and play along.
- Bring back our kids. Pure and simple. Our church needs more people paying the bills and somehow that will be accomplished if young families come and bring their children.
- We need you to manage all the forms, census, housekeeping etc. in such a way that we do not have to worry about it, but simply vote on it.
- Bring more people to church by going out there and being so popular and present that everyone who sees you anywhere wants to come to church on Sunday.
And the unwritten expectation is this - you need to keep our church open, by getting more people, who will give more money, simply to enjoy the show on Sunday morning.
You have to realize that this blog is where I air my own grievances and frustrations - so I apologize if that sounds bitter. But I think we need to start owning the real problems of the church. And this is a real one.
Every congregation seems to harbour this secret fantasy that they will magically return to the 1950's and 60's when their church was the "boys club" of professionals and the "wive's club" of the community and everyone went and everyone had coffee together, and maybe there was a church picnic, and there were bowling leagues and couple's clubs and everyone loved being there but no one really had to do anything.
The world has changed. Society has changed. Faith has changed. Technology has changed. Hell, everything has changed and the church is the one single organization that spends the entirety of its effort trying to go backward.
We are not living in the past - we are actively trying to recreate it. To return to it. To glorify it.
You know what - just because everyone came did not make it better. People were not more faithful. People did not follow Jesus and more closely. It was a sham.
If we were serious about this whole faith being the important thing we would be spending all of our passion, energy, and enthusiasm in figuring out what we should BECOME and how different that needs to be from what we WERE.
