Systems within the Church

This afternoon I spent some time listening to one of my favorite teachers, Andy Stanley. He was teaching about the church; specifically about “systems” within the church. I would define “systems” as parts or elements that interact with one another to form the whole. For instance, your body is made up of systems; i.e. cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine... I loved what he had to say about systems within the church.

Here are just some of the notes that I took. (very random notes)

Systems create behaviors.

There are organizational systems that free leaders to lead and organizational systems that obstruct leaders. Young church planters know this truth. They think, "Why spend the next 10 years of my life trying to change people that don't want to change, why not create my own systems and my own environment because we just go further, faster, that way."…

This principle explains why it is so difficult to transition a church. Just changing the programs doesn't fix the behavior or the organization… The system you inherit, adopt, or create will eventually impact what staff and volunteers do… If a new leader casts a new vision and never addresses the old systems nothing ever changes.

A denomination is a system. People within those denominations act a certain way; and they act a certain way not because someone told them to act that way, it's because those denominations produce behaviors… Churches that are growing tend to work around their denomination’s systems... New systems will create new behaviors.

Congregational rule is not in found in the Bible… Find a church that is moving and you will find that they are not operating by congregational rule - there is a key leader surrounded by key people who can get decisions done.

If you want your church to change you must focus on the systems. You can’t pray away, preach away, program away people’s behavior – systems change behavior.