Healthy Growing Churches

A Change of Perspective

Posted on December 17, 2011 by HGC Staff

From Greg Wiens, HGC Founder and State Coordinator of Florida Church of God Ministries

I am always amazed at how our perspective changes our judgment and therefore our decisions.  We can see the same event and come to totally different conclusions because of how we “see” these events.  For instance, this last month Urban Meyers accepted the position as head coach of the demoralized Ohio State Buckeyes football team. For many in Florida, this was like the worst of all possible events (according to the newspapers in Florida) but to many OSU fans, this was a fantastic and unbelievable turn of events. To the rest of the nation, it was barely a blip on our radar screens.  The same event has elicited radically different emotions depending on your perspective that you brought into the situation.  As leaders, we must remember this is exactly what we see in our churches and movements every day. 

As we work with churches that are growing and outward focused; I find that they “see” events around them as opportunities to expand the influence of the gospel in their community.  However, leaders in churches that are plateaued and/or declining tend to see the same events as justification for their church not being able to impact their community.  I have wondered lately, which came first, “the chicken or the egg?” 

What I mean is this: Were the pastors who saw challenges as opportunities naturally gifted to lead healthy and growing churches, OR did the church performance produce this kind of attitude on the part of the leader?  After working with hundreds of churches over the past 20 years, I am convinced the answer is YES, it is both.

Lead pastors who see challenges as obstacles to be overcome tend to be more effective in leading their churches toward health and growth.  And lead pastors who continue to experience setback after setback can develop negative perspectives, which undermine a healthy view of the church and it’s mission. 

My question for you is do you need a perspective adjustment?  That is why we created HGC…to provide a platform for healthy leaders and churches to impact leaders and churches that need a change of perspective.

Over the last several years we have seen a significant number of churches turn around as they began to focus on interpreting everything in light of accomplishing an outward-focused vision from God.  New church plants by necessity MUST have this perspective because they won’t exist a few years from now (when the seed money runs out) if they don’t.  

Again, a few of us started HGC because we believed we needed to help the islands of health to leverage their influence in a way that can transform the spiritual landscape of our nation and world.  I see so many great things happening in large and small churches around our nation, which are very isolated.  Often these leaders are committed to becoming the best obedient leader God can make them.  This same passion has in some way isolated them because they don’t take a lot of time to just “hang out” with other pastors who are not healthy or growing.

We felt we could create a network of healthy and growing leaders with venues for us to accomplish a lot more together than apart.  These venues need to be focused around our values and created to expedite missional endeavors, not weigh us down with programs. 

One of the criticisms I recently heard of HGC was that we “just focus on large churches”.  The truth is that we want to focus on healthy churches, regardless of size.  I wish every church in our network were healthy and growing, but the truth is that they are not.  That is often what draws churches and leaders to the network; but our goal is to lead them to health, impact and Kingdom influence.  

This is the beginning of our network.  I am sure people will see it from a variety of perspectives.  Let me ask you to see it as an attempt to expand the Kingdom of God.  Period.  We will do whatever it takes to be consistent with our values and bring this about. We would love to have you be a part of the network. Take a look at our new website at www.healthygrowingchurches.com. 

Our next Leadership Gathering is scheduled for February 29-March 2 in Orlando.  It will be warm, sunny and a great time to develop some focused relationships around our mission at HGC to be a network of missional-minded individuals and churches committed to expanding the Kingdom of God by transforming our communities and the world through and for Christ.