Several years ago, I worked with a congregation in a very upscale community, in which one of the leaders was a retired airline executive in his late 70s. In every meeting, he made clear that he was hoping for a document that gave the church a set of Best Practices on all sorts of tasks and subjects. Best Practices is a common business term, where industry consensus has formed around certain protocols which may be different than protocols a generation earlier. Often these practices relate to customer service, to corporate organization or to a changing legal landscape.
That gentleman never was satisfied with my recommendations because they did not come from a standardized list of Best Practices for Twenty-first Century Churches. In the latter half of the twentieth century, standardized lists made an appearance in multiple industries including church. In more recent years, there no longer is one standardized list. Each church has multiple variables, including denomination, region of the country, theological orientation, the particular demographics of the congregation, median age and so on. If you are familiar with the Mission Insite tools, you are likely aware that Tom Bandy created a customized Best Practices list for each of seventy Mosaic Lifestyle Groups in America. But, what if a church is largely made up of five Lifestyle Groups, where the needs and preferences of each are different, and possibly in conflict?
I served on the pastoral staff of a near-megachurch in the 90s, and a couple years into this century. We were all about Best Practices in that era. But then we planted campuses in different communities, and discovered that the context was different enough from one to the next, that each campus had to customize its approach to all sorts of ministry questions. One campus had over 40 physicians. Another, the one I planted, had no physicians, but we had more electricians and blue-collar workers per capital. At the new campus, we even had four professional wrestlers.
The last semblance of Best Practices died in the Pandemic of 2020-22. So many things that had worked well for generations, so many paradigms and models of ministry just came to their end in that dynamic season.
There are still a few nearly-universal Best Practices that I could cite - I would include attending to a robust Christology, emphasizing prayer in leader gatherings, following up as soon as possible after a new person attends the church’s worship service. In terms of church leadership, retaining a clear pastor-in-charge who preaches at least 40 Sundays a year. In terms of facility, I would warn against over-building and recommend a fellowship-multi-purpose area at least half the size of the sanctuary nave, that lies within the traffic patterns of most Sunday worshippers as they move from their seats in the worship area to pick up their kids or to get to their car. But the ways that each of these principles are applied still varies widely from place to place.
Hence, Ministry How-to Books have become a bit dangerous. Several of my books get into How-to questions - so I am pointing to some of my own work as a bit dangerous. I just updated my best-seller I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church, because the world had changed so much in 17 years. Often a pastor who has presided over a fruitful season somewhere wants to share the ministry playbook from their church. That can have a short shelf life even if we live in a very similar community context. And even before the book’s recommendations have expired, it is easy to find equally fruitful churches whose protocols are radically different. Context, context, context!
For every ministry practice, there is a place and a season in which it is clearly the right thing to do, and the best way to do it. And there are always places where a brilliant ministry protocol in one context does not work well. In almost every aspect of local church ministries, practices that once were almost universal are no longer so. An example would be holding an annual pledge campaign to underwrite the church budget. We know that this method of stewardship development does not yield the same result with younger American adults as it yielded with their grandparents.
In so many ways, we have moved off the old maps! We are journeying again through a season like the first century. The early Christians made up so many practices in the power of the Spirit. There was no manual. It was a journey of faith and constant innovation in the New Testament. Just like 2025!
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