8 systems for a healthy church

September 28, 2011 in Church Life

I’ve just finished reading Nelson Searcy’s free ebook – ‘Healthy Systems, Healthy Church‘.

I like his definition of a SYSTEM: ‘Saves You Stress, Time, Energy and Money’.

Searcy proposes 8 systems for churches:

  1. Weekend Service System (How we plan, implement and evaluate your music, preaching, transitions, offertory, etc.)
  2. Evangelism System (How we attract people to our church)
  3. Assimilation System (How we take people from their first visit to fully developing members of church)
  4. Small Groups System (How we fill and reproduce small groups in our church)
  5. Volunteer System (How we mobilise people for ministry)
  6. Stewardship System (How we develop strong givers)
  7. Leadership System (How we develop staff, lay leaders and high-powered volunteers)
  8. Strategic System (How we evaluate the above systems for constant improvement)

He also includes a helpful diagram about the importance of good systems and good people (click to enlarge). It got me thinking about where our bad systems might be frustrating good people.

Have a read of this very short ebook, and let me know what you think.

Do you agree with the proposed systems? Can you think of any other systems that should be included?

I wonder if there’s scope to include some kind of discipleship system – how to develop members who will be constantly growing in their faith, love of God and others. But perhaps this is covered by the other systems.

Let me know what you think!

How do you think your church is going with these systems?

Where are you strong?

Where are you weak?

  • http://www.littlepeople.id.au Chris Little

    Looks very interesting.

    Should ‘volunteer’ and ‘leadership’ be combined? Some volunteers are heading towards leading – better to say this from the start.

    And ‘small group’ is a name that places the emphasis on the structure, rather than the bigger reality: changing people who prayerfully gather around the word. (Unlike ‘evangelism system’, which is very clear about the big purpose – evangelism.)

    One final thought, the ‘strategic system’ would be very important in avoiding the error identified in ‘The Trellis and the Vine’ – that is, systems taking over.

  • http://www.communicatejesus.com Steven Kryger

    Some good reflections, thanks Chris. I think our danger is often to let systems take over. However, I’m also realising that without a system, we’ll just make it up as we go along, without considering whether we’re actually achieving what we set out to achieve. For example, do people who come to our church feel welcomed?

  • Lthopper

    What is there is helpful. I would add a
    Discipleship/spiritual formation system. I am weak in them all and only attentive to some. We are only growing in those of course.

  • http://www.communicatejesus.com Steven Kryger

    Hi LT, from your experience, which system do you think is most important to get in place first?
    …Communicate Jesus
    http://www.communicatejesus.com
    Digitial Inspiration for Ministry

  • Mike Wziontek

    We were going to plant a church in Sydney a couple of years ago using the systems model, the plan was to get leaders for each of the systems and that would be the leadership team of the church. It looked good on paper, but the challenge was trying to recruit these leaders. Another system we had was called service- as in serving the community.
    It was tied in with the outreach system, so we could tell and show people the gospel.

  • http://www.communicatejesus.com Steven Kryger

    Thanks for sharing Mike.

    Another system that came to my mind was ‘Communications’ – what is communicated when, to whom, by whom, and via which channels.

  • Bill Reisenweaver

    I read this article a couple of years ago.  Now I am in a tele-coaching network with Nelson (its expensive, but had a grant that covers this).  Nelson is a phenomenally  bright pastor and a great mentor.  
    I suggest you focus not on the missing systems but the questions that follow.I have made some relatively minor changes in our church which have yielded tremendous returns; these were recommendations from Nelson.  For example, we struggled a lot with first-time guests not returning.  Now, rarely do we have a one-timer, but most come back.  Think about this: if you have 100 visitors in a year and retained 50 of them versus 10 of them, your church will increase growth by 5 times!

  • Steven Kryger

    Thanks for your comment Bill.

    I’d be interested to hear some of the things you’ve learnt from this coaching experience.

    I’ve learnt from Nelson’s books, and was receiving the email but unsubscribed because the volume was too frequent!