By Dale Sellers

I spent some time developing a list of best practices that we’ve included in some of our recent posts. These practices are incredibly valuable for creating a ministry culture that is healthy and sustainable. With that in mind, I’d like to highlight a few of them so you can evaluate how your ministry is currently implementing them.

Best Practice: Make “next steps” completely clear (and repeat them often.)

Have you ever attended a church service where you were encouraged to follow through with a personal decision—only to feel frustrated by the lack of direction on how you’re supposed to follow through? There can be a big disconnect between what people are expected to do and how they’re expected to actually do it.

This is a major problem for many small churches. The service flow—and the process of how things are done—has become deeply ingrained in people over the years. This is especially true in older congregations. Statements like, “We’ve always done things this way,” aren’t just glib excuses; they often reveal a sincere belief that a certain way must be right simply because it works for someone personally.

Tension reaches a boiling point when someone challenges an ineffective program. Anything that disrupts the comfort and predictability of an organization’s current cultural habits is often met with swift resistance. Over time, many ministries develop a rock-hard stance against new approaches—which eventually causes their effectiveness to grow stale and creates confusion throughout the ministry.

So how does something as simple as creating clear next steps become so confusing? Here are a few reasons:

1 — You assume people know what to do and where to go.

Assumption is a real problem in churches that don’t provide clear next steps. For example, most people in many churches were baptized after conversion, so they assume everyone naturally knows baptism is a next step after conversion. But what if someone experiences conversion who wasn’t raised in the church?

There is often too little effort made to understand a new believer’s background. That can lead us to be critical of their lack of follow-through when we never clearly communicated expectations in the first place. Judging someone’s lack of follow-through against expectations they were never told about will absolutely create confusion.

2 — No one is responsible for making sure things flow smoothly.

A simple solution to a lack of clarity about next steps is to appoint someone to oversee the process. It’s helpful to assign next-steps responsibility to dependable people who consistently follow through.

A responsible leader who ensures the next step is being taken can significantly strengthen your next steps efforts. They can serve as a guide for those taking steps forward and provide concrete evidence that your intended outcomes are being achieved.

3 — The culture of your ministry does not value evaluation.

I used to get discouraged as a pastor when someone reminded me to inspect what you expect. To be honest, I hesitated to inspect our ministry because the results felt so discouraging. I knew in my heart our ministry wasn’t growing the way I hoped it would, and truthfully, evaluating our progress made me feel like a failure.

I wasn’t a healthy leader back then. My personal value was wrapped up in how our church compared to other churches. Comparison is a killer. It can cause you to avoid the truth because it magnifies what you believe is ineffective.

It would have been so helpful for me to learn the value of honest evaluation. Healthy evaluation does reveal areas where things need to change—but a healthy leader understands that’s a good thing. Effective evaluation helps you prioritize where your leadership focus needs to go.

You can’t solve every issue at once. That’s why evaluating and prioritizing can create a ripple effect: as you address higher-level problems, many lower-level problems begin to resolve as well. Discounting the value of honest evaluation often leads to unclear and undefined next steps.

4 — Preparing for someone to take a next step doesn’t feel realistic.

There’s no urgency to create a clear next-steps pathway if you don’t believe anyone will actually take a next step. Ouch. But I’ve been there. A season of plateaued ministry—when little seems to be happening—can cause a leader to stop expecting anything to happen.

Discouragement is a dream-killer. The last thing you feel motivated to do is prepare a series of next steps when it’s been a while since anyone took one. However discouraged you may be, it’s important to “create a vessel for the Lord to fill,” like the widow’s story in 2 Kings 4:1–7.

Maybe you need to remind yourself today that Jesus is the One who builds His church. Our job is to faithfully follow His instructions and then watch Him do what only He can do. Creating clear next-steps pathways is a tangible way to take steps of faith that position you to see faith become sight.

5 — Your ministry is insider-focused, creating barriers for new people.

An insider-focused church is on its way to life support. There’s no way around it.

Many factors contribute to insider focus. One is the comfort level people feel with the current size. Another is the “family feel” that’s developed over the years. A big one is cultural change in the surrounding community—meaning the people in the congregation often have little in common with the people living around them.

One of the biggest contributors I’ve personally seen is “friendliness” that is insider-focused. I’ve been to many churches that talk about how friendly they are. Yet, almost without exception, I can visit and have no one speak to me at all. While they are friendly, the truth is that they’re friendly among themselves.

This becomes a major barrier because it often goes undetected among the “home folks.” People ignore newcomers while catching up with existing friends. It doesn’t occur to them to prioritize clear next steps because they already know everyone and everything about the church.

6 — There are so many programs and events that clarity gets lost in the activity.

It’s difficult to define clear next steps when your ministry offers an overwhelming amount of activities. A significant portion of many church services is spent announcing activities and opportunities.

The simple fact is that many churches believe activity equals accomplishment. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth—especially in today’s busy culture, where everyone and everything is competing for attention.

Churches that prioritize lots of activity often lose their next-steps pathway amid the noise of constant promotion. Next steps must be prioritized as the primary pathway for fulfilling mission and vision. Without prioritization, they just add to the noise.

7 — Effective communication is a low priority.

This is another symptom of “the way we’ve always done it.” Some churches communicate in ways that only insiders understand—using language and references that require a working knowledge of church culture. On the other hand, some churches communicate in ways that most of the existing congregation can’t relate to at all. Efforts to be relevant can sometimes lead to ineffective communication.

No matter what your communication focus is, there’s a good chance it needs updating. Relying on outdated methods doesn’t work. And communicating simply for the sake of communicating isn’t effective either. For example: sending an email blast that no one opens isn’t communication. Yet many churches feel satisfied simply because they “sent the email.”

Communication becomes significantly more effective when a ministry empowers a Communications Director. This person becomes the “keeper of communication,” ensuring that everything—from announcements and events to the calendar—is centrally organized and monitored.

An empowered Communications Director with the authority to plan how and what is communicated brings clarity both inside and outside the church. It also creates margin to clearly communicate and implement effective next steps throughout the ministry.

When people don’t know the next step, they fill the gap with assumptions, preferences, and personal agendas—creating confusion and division. Define a simple discipleship path and let it become the backbone of what you communicate.

Next Steps:

Read: Church Communication That Actually Moves People Forward (build a simple framework that clarifies next steps and reduces confusion)

https://95network.org/church-communication-that-actually-moves-people-forward-clarify-next-steps-and-reduce-conflict/

Listen: Developing a Discipleship Framework (w/ Robby Angle) — Episode 273 (how to think about a discipleship pathway that people can actually follow)

https://95network.org/developing-a-discipleship-framework-w-robby-angle-episode-273/

Take: Healthy Church Assessment (a practical diagnostic tool to help leaders identify what to prioritize next)

https://95network.org/free-healthy-church-assessment/

What are you doing that is working well? What is not going so well? Let’s connect and have a conversation about it. At 95Network, we are here to support and serve you in anyway we can. If you feel like you’re in a season where your stalled out and can see the way forward then please reach out to me at [email protected]

• Website: 95Network.org
• 95Network – Soul Care Essentials
• 95Network – Healthy Church Assessment
• Read Stalled: Hope and Help for Pastors Who Thought They’d Be There By Now

Be sure to stop by our 95Network.org/online store to find helpful resources designed to encourage and strengthen your ministry leadership.