Thriving churches demand strategic choices by leaders

SAN ANTONIO—Churches can thrive, even in communities that aren’t thriving, but only if church leaders make wise choices, Roger Yancey, executive director of Tryon-Evergreen Baptist Association, told a workshop during the Texas Baptist Family Gathering.

Roger Yancey, executive director of Tryon-Evergreen Baptist AssociationIf pastors and other church leaders want their congregations to thrive, he said, they need to:

• Cultivate a spiritual heart and character. “Everything starts on your knees. People can tell whether you have been spending time with Jesus,” he said.

• Be strategic in all aspects of personal and corporate ministry. “Just because it worked somewhere else, that doesn’t mean it will work where you are,” he advised. Strategic leaders “know where they are and where they are going,” he added.

• Build a ministry with leaders and teams, not personalities or programs. People in churches who always have performed particular tasks need to be challenged to train others to accept those responsibilities, he emphasized.

• Demonstrate a hopeful outlook. Nearly every church has “an Eeyore”—a member who, like the character in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, lives under a dark cloud of pessimism, he noted. But no church can thrive if the pastor becomes Eeyore, he observed.

• Commit to become a lifelong learner. Ministers not only should attend conferences and read books and journals related to ministry, but also should read widely outside their field, he suggested.

• Possess tenacious persistence. Ministry can wear a person out, he confessed. Effective ministry demands long-term commitment.

• Be ready to sacrifice. “Every church, no matter how conflicted, has the potential for movement in a good way. But it will always cost the leader,” Yancey said.

“Celebrate the small victories. And find at least one friend you trust. Don’t try to do it alone.”