April 6, 2026 • 34 mins
Tinkering or transformation?
How do you change a church, like really change, not just tweak a program or update a roster, but challenge the whole model?
Kodak missed the shift to digital photography. We’ve seen huge changes in industries impacting newspapers, landline telephones, taxis, bank branches, travel agents, street directories, encyclopedias. For each the world moved on.
But have churches missed a revolution too, and if so, what is it?
Archie Poulos from Moore College’s Centre for Ministry Development says we’ve been tinkering around the edges, changing tactics without changing the operating model, especially when our structures were built for a village world while many relationships today are affinity based.
Kirsty Bucknell outlines a change framework to help us bring people with us.
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SPEAKER_05 (00:08):
How do you change a church?
Like really change, likechallenge the whole model.
It is the pastor's heart.
It's Dominic Steele and ArchiePoulos and Kirsty Bucknell are
our guests.
Kodak missed the shift todigital photography.
Film worked in the past and yetnow everything is digital.
Blockbuster missed the shift tostreaming.
People don't come to the storefor content.
(00:30):
They expect the content to meetthem where they are.
We don't buy newspapers.
The distribution has allchanged.
Landlines to smartphones, bankbranches to apps, taxis to ride
shares, travel agents toself-booking, office-only to
hybrid and remote, EncyclopediaBritannica to Wikipedia, and
street directories to GoogleMaps.
(00:51):
But what about churches?
Have we missed the revolution?
And what revolution do we need?
Archie Poulos is frustrated thatwe're not challenging ourselves
enough on whether or not whatwe're doing still fits the world
we're trying to reach.
Archie is director of the Centerfor Ministry Development at
(01:12):
Sydney's Moore TheologicalCollege, and Kirsty Bucknell is
an organizational psychologistwho's part of the team there.
Archie says we're tinkeringaround the edges, but big change
is needed.
We change tactics withoutchanging the operational model.
Well, Archie, what is yourpastor's heart for the churches
(01:32):
around as you look at us?
What's the shift we're missingor resisting?
SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
Yeah, thank you, Dominique.
Uh, there's a whole lot ofanswers to that.
I think what we often do isfocus our attention on what's
going on in the congregation andgoing on in the parish.
And so we tweak and tinker withthat, but we often don't think
more widely than that.
So two of the things I'd want topick up today about change, but
there'll be many more of them.
(02:00):
One is a structural change, thatis, how does our church relate
to other churches?
And the second one is thechanging nature of relationships
in our world.
Can I speak a little bit aboutthat?
SPEAKER_04 (02:11):
Yeah, maybe we do the second one before the first
one.
Yeah, okay.
So changing nature.
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
Yeah, well, if uh our churches are still
functioning the way they havehistorically for 500 years and
maybe even closer to a thousandyears, and that is villages.
So, you know, I'm in theEnglish-speaking world.
So London in the 1500s and 1600swas a whole lot of villages,
even though it was a city, itwas a whole lot of villages.
And at the centre of the villagewas the square, and right at the
(02:38):
centre of the square was thechurch.
And so relationships weregeographically based because you
didn't go to other villages, andeverything happened around the
village.
I notice here, even in your uhchurch here, I know people
don't, not everyone comes toyour church, but as I walked in,
the councillors put the names ofall the different types of
activities there.
SPEAKER_05 (02:57):
Yeah, blacksmith and I mean they've they've listed
all the different professionsthat were big in the village,
um, and they've put it onto thepavement.
And if you're watching on theYouTube, we'll put a little
video of this up, but it'sblacksmith and uh all those kind
of professions.
SPEAKER_01 (03:15):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
And I think it's quite tellingthat they've done it outside of
your church building because thechurch was the centre.
And so relationships werethrough the church.
You didn't have to do anything.
You uh And you didn't needanywhere for morning tea because
you had relationships all week.
Yeah, and it was the same inAustralia at least, I don't know
about the rest of the world, upuntil the 1950s.
So you still had the cornershop.
(03:36):
You talked about changes.
You don't have the corner shopanymore, you have the mall and
the supermarket.
Uh people went on their sportingactivities in their local town,
in their local village.
And that's all changed now, andyet we still run things in a
village type way.
Some aspects are, I'll talkabout this in a moment, some
aspects are still village, uh,but not many are, because people
(03:59):
get in their car and theytravel.
And so geography doesn't defineour identity anymore.
No one is known as the villagein which they live.
They're known by the job thatthey do or where their kids go
to school, those sorts ofthings.
And so relationships matter, butwe still, I think, haven't come
to grips with the fact that theway that church does
(04:21):
relationships is different tothe way that society does
relationships.
People are much more mobile.
20% of my city is going to movein the next five years.
And so you're not anchored inyour village anymore.
So we need to think about that.
So our churches, rather thandoing things for their
geography, need to also thinkabout what affinity group am I
(04:43):
going to try and reach?
So, for example, my church.
SPEAKER_05 (04:47):
Oh, sorry, you've got a question I'm raving here.
I just was I was I'm in this onthis regional council for our
local area for the for thedenomination.
And um, we had to have adecision the other day at this
council meeting on parishboundaries and whether or not
the the parish boundary betweenX church would be um two blocks
this way or two blocks that way.
(05:08):
And I just thought, this isabsurd.
SPEAKER_01 (05:11):
Yeah, it is.
That's what I mean about it'sgood you need to focus
internally to make sure thething works well, but what that
so often does is make us blindto the other things.
And so if we relate byaffinities and not by geography
anymore, it opens up all sortsof gospel opportunities for us.
So in our local parish, we haveJesus Club, which I've spoken
(05:34):
about here before.
SPEAKER_05 (05:34):
Well, what is Jesus Club?
SPEAKER_01 (05:35):
Jesus Club is uh is a club for adults with
disability because they don'teasily fit into a whole lot of
our other structures.
SPEAKER_05 (05:42):
And and you you're particularly interested in this
because of your son.
SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
Yeah, I have a son with a disability.
Yeah.
And so uh one of the things youcan't do a Jesus club in every
parish.
It's actually energy andresource intensive.
But if we think affinities,maybe in your region, for
example, you can have one Jesusclub that all of the churches
support, and then that that uhthat can work together to reach
(06:06):
that affinity group.
And then there's another groupthat we so seldom reach well,
and that is divorcees.
Well, why would you you you maynot want to do a divorcee
ministry in every parish, butwhy not have one or two parishes
in a region where you do adivorcee ministry?
So what you can do is ratherthan try every church thinking
it needs to create the suite ofeverything and cater for
(06:30):
everyone, why don't we work as ateam and then you could each
church can actually pick theaffinity group that it is uh
best able to try and reach andthen work for that, and then
what you're doing is coveringup.
SPEAKER_05 (06:43):
I support the other ones.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:45):
And so you're what you're doing is able to reach
more people because our identityis chosen and it's tied up not
by our geography but by otherthings.
So let's try and find out whatthe other things are, and each
of the different parishes couldbe reaching those types of
people.
SPEAKER_05 (07:01):
Now, at one level, what you're suggesting doesn't
sound that controversial.
I mean, I'm just thinking um uhour church, uh there's an
there's another church over atSurrey Hills, they have uh a
ministry to homeless people atbreakfast time on Sundays, and
we group crook a group from herego over and cook the barbecue
breakfast.
One Sunday a month.
(07:22):
Now, the we're already doingthat, you know, but you're
wanting to push us much moredown that line.
SPEAKER_01 (07:29):
Yeah, I think that the default position of most of
our churches is that we think weneed to do everything in our
place.
So we need to do children'sministry, we need to do youth
ministry, we need to do whateverwe need to do seniors ministry,
every parish needs to do that.
That's a lot of resources uhthat might be better used
elsewhere.
And so, for example, in youknow, my my denomination, there
(07:52):
are people who like uh standardliturgy, you know, using a book
and all that sort of stuff.
So lots of churches saying, Oh,well, we need every church needs
to do that, and they do it in asometimes poor way.
Maybe we could have one or twochurches that do that well.
Bring people, and oh, it's oftenelderly, but bring them in a bus
to this place and give them areally good experience of that
(08:15):
sort of thing.
Uh that's but that actuallyinvolves generosity, it involves
needing to trust other people.
The way we tend to function,although we don't own up to it,
is that I run my church and I doeverything in my church, so I
don't have no leakage of mypeople, and the church next door
is my competitor.
What you do with the church inSurrey Hills is that you
(08:36):
generously give your people tothis ministry as well because
you see its value.
That is a it's it seems uh asthough it's non-contentious, but
why aren't we doing it more?
Where would you like us to do itmore?
I think uh there's there's a fewthings, which leads on to my
second point about structuralchanges.
(08:57):
Uh, we have grown up again withthis village model where the uh
local church was self-containedand it did everything itself.
I want us to explore how wemight work with the other
churches because the church downthe road has the same goal as my
church does.
That is to see people built upand more people come to know
(09:20):
Jesus so that God might beglorified.
And so, why aren't we workingmore together in that in that
sort of thing?
And so what I'd like us to do isactually explore some of our
structures.
If I can tell you about somefailures we had, would that be a
helpful thing?
Um, and again, I'm sure otherdenominations have done it as
well.
Uh, I proposed a model a fewyears ago which I picked up from
(09:41):
the secular world, which was Huband Spoke, that is, have a
centralized.
I love the idea, but the titleis so terrible.
And I'll tell you why else itfailed as well.
Um the title is terrible, but itgets the idea of a of a wheel,
though, that there is somethingcentral and there are other
groups around the edge that allshare the resources.
(10:04):
Um uh the title did alienatepeople, but there are other
things because I want to be thehub, I don't want to be the
spirit.
Yeah, exactly.
That that's that's the sort ofthing.
So I I I I introduced it as Iwas thinking about children and
youth ministry because I saidbefore we no longer function in
villages.
One place where we function invillages is when we've got
little children.
Yeah.
Because little children aren'tportable.
SPEAKER_05 (10:25):
And so my observation of young parents is
well, well, actually, myobservation of people is they
graduate from nursing and theirfriends are nurses, you know, or
they graduate fromcommunications and they've got a
whole lot of media friends, orthey th those kind of things.
And so we actually move into atone level the professional
(10:45):
tribe, you know.
Um, but when we have a baby, wemove into the mum's group tribe,
you know.
SPEAKER_01 (10:51):
Yeah, yeah.
My wife is still friends of alady she met in the mum's group
when our first child was 12months old, uh, because you're
anchored when you've gotchildren.
SPEAKER_05 (11:00):
So And when you've got the primary school kids,
you're part of that primaryschool.
Now, at one level, that doesallow us to continue to do
village ministry in the primaryschool demographic.
SPEAKER_01 (11:12):
That's what I want to say.
Village still exists when you'rewhen you're anchored.
And so children give you ananchoredness.
And what what churches have donearound the world, I've noticed,
is for financial necessityreasons, they've amalgamated
churches, which just means youconsolidate in one place so you
have a hub and no spokes.
I think to do kids' ministry, weneed to keep our churches open
(11:33):
because people are stillanchored and older people are
still anchored.
There's there's people who arestill anchored in their
geography, but some things needto be a hub as well.
So I think youth ministry, youngpeople want to swarm together.
SPEAKER_05 (11:45):
And so I'm just thinking there.
When we had kids at primaryschool, I mean, it was for us it
was before WhatsApp groups, butall sorts of people have got
super busy WhatsApp groups ofthe primary school class
community, whereas nobody hasthat as parents for the high
school kids.
You know, we we didn't meetreally hardly any of the high
(12:09):
school parents, whereas we knewlots of the primary school
parents.
SPEAKER_01 (12:12):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think that I want to haveour cake and eat it too.
I want to keep our localchurches open rather than
consolidating closing down andselling off because there are
reasons where anchored peopleneed to have a local church, but
we also can do something biggerand better than we can do
individually.
Now, the reason that Hub andSpoke failed, there's lots of
(12:33):
reasons.
One is the name, as you'vesuggested.
SPEAKER_05 (12:35):
Uh another one I mean, do you think though, I
mean, the ch the multi-sitechurch suggestion?
I mean, Hub and Spoke's slightlydifferent to multi-site, but the
multi-site church people, umWade Burnett and those kind of
people, are suggesting 20minutes apart is the ideal
distance for a secondcongregation if you're run by
the same leadership team.
(12:56):
Whereas it felt to me like thethe Hub and Spoke connection was
churches next door.
SPEAKER_01 (13:01):
Yeah, near or nearby.
I think it's got to bereasonably nearby.
And I I think that data aboutthe 20 minutes is probably
right.
I haven't tested it inAustralia, but I I think it's it
feels right to me.
But Hub and Spoke failed foranother reason as well, and or a
couple of other reasons.
Uh I we tried four of them.
Uh one of them involved fourchurches that were proximate to
(13:25):
each other, and they'd workedout if they worked together
because of compliance demands,which are right things like uh
child protection and all thatsort of stuff, if they worked
together, they could releasefour days of a pastor's time
each week.
SPEAKER_05 (13:41):
So in these So each church, one I mean you've got
four churches working together.
Each you're you're saying eachsenior minister was sending
spending a day a week orthree-quarters of a day a week
on compliance stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
And you could do it in one quarter the time if
you're together.
So that gives you almost anotherclergy person, another pastor,
just by working together.
SPEAKER_05 (14:03):
It failed for we reduce the amount of compliance.
SPEAKER_01 (14:07):
Well, I well, I I'm not going there.
SPEAKER_05 (14:11):
It just drives me mad.
My heart sinks every time I getan email that has the
denominational um uh the backpart of it.
Um I think anyway, you know whatI've done?
I've set them all to beforwarded to my administrator.
So but I don't know how peoplewithout an administrator survive
in this game.
SPEAKER_01 (14:31):
But there's other things too.
It's not just compliance, it'sthings like maintenance.
Uh that takes a huge amount oftime, which often distracts
people from the ministry thatthey should be doing.
And so if we were to, you know,anyway.
Um uh Hubb and Spoke also failedbecause there was an argument
about who would lead it.
Who cares in the end?
Um, it failed because peoplewere thinking that I was
(14:54):
advocating this as thealternative to what we currently
have.
And I just want to say, let'sexplore it.
It's not one size fits all, it'snot moving from the parish model
to the hub and spoke model.
It's thinking about what is thebest way that we can work
together.
So you need to have people whowill trust each other, you need
to have an eldership, deacons,parish council, whatever
(15:17):
denomination you're in, who arewilling to give up an element of
their control.
That that's a really that thatcaused stumbling sometimes.
You need to be reasonablyaligned, you need to be
reasonably alignedtheologically, but you don't
have to be absolutely alignedbecause this actually enables
different ministries to haveslightly different complexions.
(15:37):
And I think what drives us andwhat should drive us is the
gospel opportunity in it.
God has given our us greatresources in the buildings, the
properties that we own, and thepeople who we have.
And it's all ourresponsibilities from the senior
minister down to thecongregation member to steward
those resources as well as wecan.
(15:59):
And so often we have theseblindness about the structural
things and blindness aboutrelationships.
So that's why I'm a bit uhexercised over the whole thing.
SPEAKER_05 (16:08):
Um you've also talked about um I'm just
thinking about other reasons whychange might fail.
Um you've talked about loss ofcontrol from and at that point
you're both talking the ministerand the parish council fearing
loss of control.
Who's in charge?
There's a couple of othersthough.
(16:29):
There's historical memory andglory days.
SPEAKER_01 (16:32):
Yes, yes.
I um I this is just researchI've done in Sydney, Australia,
my environment.
So those that are watchingelsewhere will need to do their
own work.
Um but everywhere looks back tothe glory days.
Yeah, yeah.
So in the 1950s in Australia,churches were full after the
Second World War, and youth andkids' ministries were so big.
(16:53):
And so everybody looks back tothose days and says we just need
to recover those.
And the way we recover them isby doing what we're doing now
better.
So historical success means Idon't want to change.
That's one of the things that uhthat takes place.
And the and another thing, whichis just an extension of that, is
we can still pay our bills.
We are still in our the way wedo church, we're still
(17:16):
relatively successful, and sothe pain and the necessity of
thinking of change isn't ascrucial for us because we can
just keep going as we havealways gone.
SPEAKER_05 (17:26):
Aaron Powell I mean, here in Sydney we we saw, and
we've talked about this beforeon the Pastor's Heart and the
whole synods had discussions,but we'd seen a 7% attendance
drop over a decade.
And actually at that point, thepain of not changing is starting
to become real.
Do you know?
And uh one of the things I fearis that with a slight recovery
(17:48):
back, we think, oh, okay, wedon't need to think about
changing.
SPEAKER_01 (17:51):
Yeah, I think uh Chris will talk about this in a
moment, but I I think that'sabsolutely right.
That uh uh one what we didthough, because we had this
decline and some churches becameunviable, we only had the one
solution, which was toamalgamate parishes.
And therefore you lose thatfootprint, you lose that that
opportunity we have as avillage, and also you don't
(18:14):
optimize that central advantagethat we can have.
And so I just want to say beforewe get to that point and have
the necessity of amalgamation,let's think of working with how
do we work with each other andnot be afraid of it.
Let's challenge some of thestructures that we have and be
prepared to modify them, andlet's think about the changing
nature of relationships fromgeography to affinity.
SPEAKER_05 (18:36):
Okay.
Kirsty Bucknell, you've beensitting quietly and we brought
you in because we wanted, Imean, Archie having dropped the
bombs of changes are needed.
Uh, we we want to ask you, well,okay, if I've got a needed
change, how do I do that change?
But just before we ask about howdo I do that change, um you've
obviously been sitting therereflecting on what Archie's just
(18:58):
said, kind of let's hear yourthoughts.
SPEAKER_00 (19:00):
Yeah, sure.
As I as I think about thesesorts of things, I think about
the the great need for missionor work.
It's so exciting to hear aboutit.
Uh and yet when we're thinkingabout change, uh change is the
external thing.
Most often when we when thereasons for change failing is
(19:24):
because it's the actualtransitions that's going on
inside us, our psychologicalstate, whether or not we
actually want to go through thischange, whether we're holding on
to the past that prevents usfrom making the change.
So uh while we think about thesegreat exciting things that we
might be able to do for thegospel to reach more people, to
(19:48):
encourage more people, uh, wealso need to think about what's
held us back and why haven't thechanges worked quite so well?
And can we do those changesbetter?
SPEAKER_05 (19:59):
Okay.
So um how I mean, let's try androle play a change that needs to
happen, and then you can bring astructure of um how to do it on
top.
What's a what's a change that wecould role play, Archie, that
you think I mean, well let's saywe want to change our focus as a
(20:19):
church from village to affinity,you know?
Um I mean I'll I'll give you anexample.
I've just taken over the uhleadership of a church um 20
minutes west of here, so leadingboth, and um I we had a meeting,
a couple of meetings inDecember, and I said, Really
(20:44):
this church right now this isConcord, and um this church
right now has an averagedemographic uh of retirees, and
if you look north, the averageage is retirees, but if you look
south, the average age isforty-three in Concord.
(21:05):
And for this church to have areal future, we need to pursue
an average age of 43-year-olds.
We've got to pursue parents, youknow.
SPEAKER_01 (21:14):
I I think that's I was gonna suggest exactly that
thing, and so Kirsty can speakto it.
But one of I I think thequestion is most of our churches
start ministries or in continueto engage in ministries as
they've always done.
And one of the changed things isyou're gonna have to kill one of
them.
In order to do new things and toretarget the 43-year-olds, you
(21:37):
you're going to have to stopdoing something else.
And that is that is the hardestthing to do.
So I thought Kirsty might wantto speak into that.
SPEAKER_00 (21:44):
Well, the model that we tend to use when we're
thinking about changemanagement, uh, by and large, is
what the one that I've used isADCAR, um, which Now ADCAR
sounds like an acronym.
SPEAKER_05 (21:55):
We're an anti-acronym program.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
And here I am bringing acronyms.
So it stands for so it'sspelling out A D K A R.
So A is for awareness, D is fordesire, K is for knowledge, A is
for ability, and R is forreinforcement.
SPEAKER_05 (22:17):
Okay, I've got those words.
Now give it to me in sentence.
SPEAKER_00 (22:20):
Yeah, exactly.
So awareness is really uhsetting up a conversation around
why do we need to change?
Um what's what's going on inthis place in our in our space,
in our affinity groups, in ourparish or the local area.
Um what what are the dynamicsthat we're seeing?
(22:44):
Why why might we really need tochange?
If we're looking at theattendance numbers, we might
need to change.
And so this awareness is uhsometimes talked about the
burning platform, but it's notalways a burning platform.
It might just be thinking aboutthings differently, being
challenged to think differently.
(23:04):
Uh, it might be missional, itmight be thinking, actually,
there's a real need for us to dosomething different.
Um and so that's that's theawareness piece, but we want to
bring people with us on thatawareness piece.
Uh if if uh just the ministryteam or just the eldership or
(23:25):
the parish council are the onesthat are making the decisions on
this, then uh it makes lifeharder.
And so we really we want to movepeople from awareness into the
next stage, which is desire.
And so this moves us from notjust being alert to the issue,
but wanting to make a change.
SPEAKER_05 (23:47):
Okay.
If the principle is awareness,what should I do in my
situation, Dr.
Archie?
SPEAKER_01 (23:52):
Well, I think you've done it.
You've actually looked at thedemographic issues, and so
you've made people aware.
And the desire is really agospel thing, isn't it?
That there are so many soulshere that don't know Jesus.
Isn't that enough motivation?
But it we'd say it's enough, butwe've got to keep reinforcing
it.
So, you know, over to Kirsty ondesire, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00 (24:14):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's really just thinkingthrough how do we get people on
board with making this changeacross our, you know, across the
different hubs and spokes,across the different elements of
the church, churches involved.
So thinking through bringingpeople on board, lots of
communication, lots ofopportunity for conversation and
(24:35):
discussion, for questions, tohave the reasons why they might
resist uncovered and explored.
Because the first time you comeup with a solution, it may not
always be the right one.
And the more we have peopletalking about it, discussing it,
bringing their differentperspectives, it draws them into
(24:56):
this change and helps move themin into a transition, helps them
move from just coming up withthe idea to wanting to be part
of it.
SPEAKER_05 (25:06):
So you're really putting under the heading of
desire, um building a coalitionof willing.
Well, it's really gettingeveryone to desire the change
and then engaging in theconversation on what the change
should be.
Costly buy-in.
SPEAKER_03 (25:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (25:22):
Costly buy-in.
I like that term.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:24):
Yeah.
unknown (25:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (25:25):
I mean, and at this point, I mean, it's still early,
it's very early days for me atConcord.
I think they they definitely seethat I I think there was a very
there was a there was a clearpenny drop moment in the room.
Wow, I hadn't actually looked atthe census figures for Concord.
I called this person ConcordChristine, do you know that we
want to actually design churchfor?
(25:48):
Now, I think people have said,yes, we want to do that, but
haven't actually thought about,well, what are going to be the
costs of that yet?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:58):
And so in this stage, it's moving people from
not just thinking about thechange, but transitioning in
internally for me, what's goingon for me, can I buy into it,
recognizing that as part ofthis, I'm going there are going
to be some losses.
I'm I there will be some griefsin letting go of the past that
we want to acknowledge.
(26:19):
But as part of a part ofacknowledging some of the
losses, we can also see thegreat benefits that will come
with the change.
And there are reasons for why wewould make the change.
And in this instance, missionwill change.
SPEAKER_05 (26:33):
So, Archie, as you've talked with people and
you've thought, ah, they'refitting under this knowledge
thing of losses and benefits.
Where have some of thoseconversations and observations
pointed you at to?
SPEAKER_01 (26:45):
Um, sometimes, I sorry, Kirsty's much more
granular than I am, so she'sdealing with it much more than I
am.
But when we've got to uh thedesire part, uh people have
expressed the desire, but haveused a theological argument that
says we've got to be the churchfor everyone, for example, or we
(27:10):
we we've got another personwho's just like me who'll be
really offended by any sorts ofchanges.
And so we mustn't do thatbecause we must care for them.
And so what we we've got to bereally careful of justifying a
non-change because of the painof my transition and justifying
it theologically.
I hear that regularly, so we'vegot to be very careful of that.
(27:32):
But giving people anunderstanding that sure it will
be painful, but the desire tosee Christ glorified is greater
than that, which means that ontothe knowledge, I think.
SPEAKER_05 (27:45):
Well, knowledge, Kirsty.
SPEAKER_00 (27:47):
Yeah, so knowledge is uh it's more focused on the
structural change, like how tomake the external change,
knowing how to go about doingit.
If we've decided that we'regoing to go ahead with some kind
of a new arrangement, then howare we gonna do that?
And we all want to do that.
How are we gonna make it happen?
(28:07):
So this is the knowledge of howto make the change work.
So this can be actuallyestablishing the structural
components, like um laying outnew new organization structures,
things like new job roles, newum way uh new ways of working
and defining those things forpeople so that we're actually
(28:30):
really clear on what's involved.
unknown (28:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (28:35):
It's interesting.
I had a conversation with uh oneof my team members about kind of
doing that this week.
And uh I said to her, uh, you reyou'll probably do better if you
get a third voice to be part ofthe conversation and you you
don't want to be the one who'ssaying everything.
(28:57):
You wanna and so I said, Whydon't you share this pod or a
particular podcast episode withall the team, and then that guy
can paint the desired future,and then you can say, Now, which
bits do we like and which bitsdo we not like?
And if you get three-quarters ofwhat he's painting, well,
that'll be a whim.
(29:19):
Um ability.
SPEAKER_00 (29:21):
Yes, ability is actually once we've started to
make the change, it's becomingum effective.
So we're now able to do thechange, whatever the change is.
So if we're creating a new wayof working together, if we're
trying to bring ConcordChristine in, is that the right
way?
Christine from Concord, um, thenum how how are we actually
(29:46):
enabling that to happen?
Are we practiced?
So this is uh not just definingor knowing how to change, but
it's actually starting to do thechange and to do it well.
So it involves lots of umcoaching and practice.
It might mean not just likesetting out job descriptions,
but helping people with engagingand do to do that better and
(30:12):
better.
SPEAKER_05 (30:13):
And then finally reinforcement.
SPEAKER_00 (30:15):
Yeah.
Uh so once we start to see somewins, celebrating that and
recognizing where things aregoing well, tracking those
things and encouraging people inthat uh more and more.
SPEAKER_05 (30:28):
Now, Archie, uh, a rector coming to a new church,
that's often the time whenchange um is discussed.
SPEAKER_01 (30:35):
Yeah, I I think it's too late at that point.
Uh, that's what I've noticed ina few of the changes I've sought
to try and help churches with isthat the new minister coming
into a church gets uh uh getsinterviewed by people.
And I've noticed that the interthose that are interviewing want
to see change, want to see thechurch grow.
They've got a gospel heart.
(30:56):
And so what they want the newrector to do, the new minister
to do, is do what they've alwaysdone, just do it better.
And so take all the bad bits outof the previous person and just
uh enact it better.
And the problem is the newminister comes in and uh I have
a conversation with them andsay, how about we start to make
look at these changes?
How about we try and work withthe churches nearby and uh and
(31:17):
recognize the demographicchanges?
And they say, I can't do thatbecause I was brought in on the
basis of continuing what we usedto do, just doing it better.
So I think we actually need towork with those that are
interviewing for the newminister and say, all bets are
off.
Let's start to think about whatis best for the gospel.
(31:38):
What what appetite do you havefor change?
What willingness do you have tolose something for the gospel's
sake?
So that's what so I I'verealized that I've been too
late.
So we've had some new ministerswho have sought to bring about
change, but felt like it wouldbe treacherous and wrong to come
in and bring about change whenthose that uh recruited them
(32:01):
want just steady as she goes.
SPEAKER_02 (32:03):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05 (32:04):
And and potentially it is the case that um, I mean,
in our denomination, it almostum I mean, we don't pick
nominators, we often picknominators in terms of guard the
gospel rather than grow thegospel.
Grow the gospel.
Yeah.
I mean, and I really want to doboth.
SPEAKER_00 (32:22):
Yeah, and both the other piece when you've got a
new rector is that there is awhole nother change that's going
on at that same time.
So to layer those sorts ofchanges on top of each other
makes life challenging.
SPEAKER_05 (32:35):
Okay, we're wrapping up, but one conversation you
want a senior minister to havethis month as a takeaway.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (32:43):
I can I just conclude there's a few things
that we need if these changesthat I'm suggesting take place.
You've got to have trust.
Secondly, uh you've got torecognise that we have been
entrusted with resources, notfor our sake, but for God's
glory.
The third thing we've got torealize is you've got to have a
mindset not of scarcity, butGod's generosity.
So we've got to be willing togive to other people and be
(33:06):
willing to be humble.
It doesn't have to be about me.
And so the one thing I'd want tosay is have a look at the
churches round about you andstart to have conversations with
those ministers and ask them howwe can work together for the
kingdom of God to grow.
SPEAKER_05 (33:21):
And Kirsty, you talked awareness, design,
knowledgeability, andreinforcement.
Which one do we do worst?
SPEAKER_00 (33:28):
What we tend to do is actually assume that
awareness equals desire.
Right.
That we think that just byhaving the conversation, that
people will come with us.
SPEAKER_05 (33:42):
How do I fix that?
We've got to go back and backand back and forth.
SPEAKER_00 (33:45):
You need to spend lots of time having the
conversations with people tounderstand what their issues
might be, uh, to to keep uhengaging, keep building the
trust, uh, keep talking aboutwhat's happening.
SPEAKER_05 (33:59):
Thanks very much for coming in.
Kirsty Bucknell has been here.
She's an organizationalpsychologist with Moore Colleges
Center for Ministry Development,and Archie Poulos also here, the
director of Moore CollegesCentre for Ministry Development.
My name's Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastors Art, and we will look
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
How do you change a church?
Like really change, likechallenge the whole model.
It is the pastor's heart.
It's Dominic Steele and ArchiePoulos and Kirsty Bucknell are
our guests.
Kodak missed the shift todigital photography.
Film worked in the past and yetnow everything is digital.
Blockbuster missed the shift tostreaming.
People don't come to the storefor content.
(00:30):
They expect the content to meetthem where they are.
We don't buy newspapers.
The distribution has allchanged.
Landlines to smartphones, bankbranches to apps, taxis to ride
shares, travel agents toself-booking, office-only to
hybrid and remote, EncyclopediaBritannica to Wikipedia, and
street directories to GoogleMaps.
(00:51):
But what about churches?
Have we missed the revolution?
And what revolution do we need?
Archie Poulos is frustrated thatwe're not challenging ourselves
enough on whether or not whatwe're doing still fits the world
we're trying to reach.
Archie is director of the Centerfor Ministry Development at
(01:12):
Sydney's Moore TheologicalCollege, and Kirsty Bucknell is
an organizational psychologistwho's part of the team there.
Archie says we're tinkeringaround the edges, but big change
is needed.
We change tactics withoutchanging the operational model.
Well, Archie, what is yourpastor's heart for the churches
(01:32):
around as you look at us?
What's the shift we're missingor resisting?
SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
Yeah, thank you, Dominique.
Uh, there's a whole lot ofanswers to that.
I think what we often do isfocus our attention on what's
going on in the congregation andgoing on in the parish.
And so we tweak and tinker withthat, but we often don't think
more widely than that.
So two of the things I'd want topick up today about change, but
there'll be many more of them.
(02:00):
One is a structural change, thatis, how does our church relate
to other churches?
And the second one is thechanging nature of relationships
in our world.
Can I speak a little bit aboutthat?
SPEAKER_04 (02:11):
Yeah, maybe we do the second one before the first
one.
Yeah, okay.
So changing nature.
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
Yeah, well, if uh our churches are still
functioning the way they havehistorically for 500 years and
maybe even closer to a thousandyears, and that is villages.
So, you know, I'm in theEnglish-speaking world.
So London in the 1500s and 1600swas a whole lot of villages,
even though it was a city, itwas a whole lot of villages.
And at the centre of the villagewas the square, and right at the
(02:38):
centre of the square was thechurch.
And so relationships weregeographically based because you
didn't go to other villages, andeverything happened around the
village.
I notice here, even in your uhchurch here, I know people
don't, not everyone comes toyour church, but as I walked in,
the councillors put the names ofall the different types of
activities there.
SPEAKER_05 (02:57):
Yeah, blacksmith and I mean they've they've listed
all the different professionsthat were big in the village,
um, and they've put it onto thepavement.
And if you're watching on theYouTube, we'll put a little
video of this up, but it'sblacksmith and uh all those kind
of professions.
SPEAKER_01 (03:15):
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
And I think it's quite tellingthat they've done it outside of
your church building because thechurch was the centre.
And so relationships werethrough the church.
You didn't have to do anything.
You uh And you didn't needanywhere for morning tea because
you had relationships all week.
Yeah, and it was the same inAustralia at least, I don't know
about the rest of the world, upuntil the 1950s.
So you still had the cornershop.
(03:36):
You talked about changes.
You don't have the corner shopanymore, you have the mall and
the supermarket.
Uh people went on their sportingactivities in their local town,
in their local village.
And that's all changed now, andyet we still run things in a
village type way.
Some aspects are, I'll talkabout this in a moment, some
aspects are still village, uh,but not many are, because people
(03:59):
get in their car and theytravel.
And so geography doesn't defineour identity anymore.
No one is known as the villagein which they live.
They're known by the job thatthey do or where their kids go
to school, those sorts ofthings.
And so relationships matter, butwe still, I think, haven't come
to grips with the fact that theway that church does
(04:21):
relationships is different tothe way that society does
relationships.
People are much more mobile.
20% of my city is going to movein the next five years.
And so you're not anchored inyour village anymore.
So we need to think about that.
So our churches, rather thandoing things for their
geography, need to also thinkabout what affinity group am I
(04:43):
going to try and reach?
So, for example, my church.
SPEAKER_05 (04:47):
Oh, sorry, you've got a question I'm raving here.
I just was I was I'm in this onthis regional council for our
local area for the for thedenomination.
And um, we had to have adecision the other day at this
council meeting on parishboundaries and whether or not
the the parish boundary betweenX church would be um two blocks
this way or two blocks that way.
(05:08):
And I just thought, this isabsurd.
SPEAKER_01 (05:11):
Yeah, it is.
That's what I mean about it'sgood you need to focus
internally to make sure thething works well, but what that
so often does is make us blindto the other things.
And so if we relate byaffinities and not by geography
anymore, it opens up all sortsof gospel opportunities for us.
So in our local parish, we haveJesus Club, which I've spoken
(05:34):
about here before.
SPEAKER_05 (05:34):
Well, what is Jesus Club?
SPEAKER_01 (05:35):
Jesus Club is uh is a club for adults with
disability because they don'teasily fit into a whole lot of
our other structures.
SPEAKER_05 (05:42):
And and you you're particularly interested in this
because of your son.
SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
Yeah, I have a son with a disability.
Yeah.
And so uh one of the things youcan't do a Jesus club in every
parish.
It's actually energy andresource intensive.
But if we think affinities,maybe in your region, for
example, you can have one Jesusclub that all of the churches
support, and then that that uhthat can work together to reach
(06:06):
that affinity group.
And then there's another groupthat we so seldom reach well,
and that is divorcees.
Well, why would you you you maynot want to do a divorcee
ministry in every parish, butwhy not have one or two parishes
in a region where you do adivorcee ministry?
So what you can do is ratherthan try every church thinking
it needs to create the suite ofeverything and cater for
(06:30):
everyone, why don't we work as ateam and then you could each
church can actually pick theaffinity group that it is uh
best able to try and reach andthen work for that, and then
what you're doing is coveringup.
SPEAKER_05 (06:43):
I support the other ones.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:45):
And so you're what you're doing is able to reach
more people because our identityis chosen and it's tied up not
by our geography but by otherthings.
So let's try and find out whatthe other things are, and each
of the different parishes couldbe reaching those types of
people.
SPEAKER_05 (07:01):
Now, at one level, what you're suggesting doesn't
sound that controversial.
I mean, I'm just thinking um uhour church, uh there's an
there's another church over atSurrey Hills, they have uh a
ministry to homeless people atbreakfast time on Sundays, and
we group crook a group from herego over and cook the barbecue
breakfast.
One Sunday a month.
(07:22):
Now, the we're already doingthat, you know, but you're
wanting to push us much moredown that line.
SPEAKER_01 (07:29):
Yeah, I think that the default position of most of
our churches is that we think weneed to do everything in our
place.
So we need to do children'sministry, we need to do youth
ministry, we need to do whateverwe need to do seniors ministry,
every parish needs to do that.
That's a lot of resources uhthat might be better used
elsewhere.
And so, for example, in youknow, my my denomination, there
(07:52):
are people who like uh standardliturgy, you know, using a book
and all that sort of stuff.
So lots of churches saying, Oh,well, we need every church needs
to do that, and they do it in asometimes poor way.
Maybe we could have one or twochurches that do that well.
Bring people, and oh, it's oftenelderly, but bring them in a bus
to this place and give them areally good experience of that
(08:15):
sort of thing.
Uh that's but that actuallyinvolves generosity, it involves
needing to trust other people.
The way we tend to function,although we don't own up to it,
is that I run my church and I doeverything in my church, so I
don't have no leakage of mypeople, and the church next door
is my competitor.
What you do with the church inSurrey Hills is that you
(08:36):
generously give your people tothis ministry as well because
you see its value.
That is a it's it seems uh asthough it's non-contentious, but
why aren't we doing it more?
Where would you like us to do itmore?
I think uh there's there's a fewthings, which leads on to my
second point about structuralchanges.
(08:57):
Uh, we have grown up again withthis village model where the uh
local church was self-containedand it did everything itself.
I want us to explore how wemight work with the other
churches because the church downthe road has the same goal as my
church does.
That is to see people built upand more people come to know
(09:20):
Jesus so that God might beglorified.
And so, why aren't we workingmore together in that in that
sort of thing?
And so what I'd like us to do isactually explore some of our
structures.
If I can tell you about somefailures we had, would that be a
helpful thing?
Um, and again, I'm sure otherdenominations have done it as
well.
Uh, I proposed a model a fewyears ago which I picked up from
(09:41):
the secular world, which was Huband Spoke, that is, have a
centralized.
I love the idea, but the titleis so terrible.
And I'll tell you why else itfailed as well.
Um the title is terrible, but itgets the idea of a of a wheel,
though, that there is somethingcentral and there are other
groups around the edge that allshare the resources.
(10:04):
Um uh the title did alienatepeople, but there are other
things because I want to be thehub, I don't want to be the
spirit.
Yeah, exactly.
That that's that's the sort ofthing.
So I I I I introduced it as Iwas thinking about children and
youth ministry because I saidbefore we no longer function in
villages.
One place where we function invillages is when we've got
little children.
Yeah.
Because little children aren'tportable.
SPEAKER_05 (10:25):
And so my observation of young parents is
well, well, actually, myobservation of people is they
graduate from nursing and theirfriends are nurses, you know, or
they graduate fromcommunications and they've got a
whole lot of media friends, orthey th those kind of things.
And so we actually move into atone level the professional
(10:45):
tribe, you know.
Um, but when we have a baby, wemove into the mum's group tribe,
you know.
SPEAKER_01 (10:51):
Yeah, yeah.
My wife is still friends of alady she met in the mum's group
when our first child was 12months old, uh, because you're
anchored when you've gotchildren.
SPEAKER_05 (11:00):
So And when you've got the primary school kids,
you're part of that primaryschool.
Now, at one level, that doesallow us to continue to do
village ministry in the primaryschool demographic.
SPEAKER_01 (11:12):
That's what I want to say.
Village still exists when you'rewhen you're anchored.
And so children give you ananchoredness.
And what what churches have donearound the world, I've noticed,
is for financial necessityreasons, they've amalgamated
churches, which just means youconsolidate in one place so you
have a hub and no spokes.
I think to do kids' ministry, weneed to keep our churches open
(11:33):
because people are stillanchored and older people are
still anchored.
There's there's people who arestill anchored in their
geography, but some things needto be a hub as well.
So I think youth ministry, youngpeople want to swarm together.
SPEAKER_05 (11:45):
And so I'm just thinking there.
When we had kids at primaryschool, I mean, it was for us it
was before WhatsApp groups, butall sorts of people have got
super busy WhatsApp groups ofthe primary school class
community, whereas nobody hasthat as parents for the high
school kids.
You know, we we didn't meetreally hardly any of the high
(12:09):
school parents, whereas we knewlots of the primary school
parents.
SPEAKER_01 (12:12):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think that I want to haveour cake and eat it too.
I want to keep our localchurches open rather than
consolidating closing down andselling off because there are
reasons where anchored peopleneed to have a local church, but
we also can do something biggerand better than we can do
individually.
Now, the reason that Hub andSpoke failed, there's lots of
(12:33):
reasons.
One is the name, as you'vesuggested.
SPEAKER_05 (12:35):
Uh another one I mean, do you think though, I
mean, the ch the multi-sitechurch suggestion?
I mean, Hub and Spoke's slightlydifferent to multi-site, but the
multi-site church people, umWade Burnett and those kind of
people, are suggesting 20minutes apart is the ideal
distance for a secondcongregation if you're run by
the same leadership team.
(12:56):
Whereas it felt to me like thethe Hub and Spoke connection was
churches next door.
SPEAKER_01 (13:01):
Yeah, near or nearby.
I think it's got to bereasonably nearby.
And I I think that data aboutthe 20 minutes is probably
right.
I haven't tested it inAustralia, but I I think it's it
feels right to me.
But Hub and Spoke failed foranother reason as well, and or a
couple of other reasons.
Uh I we tried four of them.
Uh one of them involved fourchurches that were proximate to
(13:25):
each other, and they'd workedout if they worked together
because of compliance demands,which are right things like uh
child protection and all thatsort of stuff, if they worked
together, they could releasefour days of a pastor's time
each week.
SPEAKER_05 (13:41):
So in these So each church, one I mean you've got
four churches working together.
Each you're you're saying eachsenior minister was sending
spending a day a week orthree-quarters of a day a week
on compliance stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
And you could do it in one quarter the time if
you're together.
So that gives you almost anotherclergy person, another pastor,
just by working together.
SPEAKER_05 (14:03):
It failed for we reduce the amount of compliance.
SPEAKER_01 (14:07):
Well, I well, I I'm not going there.
SPEAKER_05 (14:11):
It just drives me mad.
My heart sinks every time I getan email that has the
denominational um uh the backpart of it.
Um I think anyway, you know whatI've done?
I've set them all to beforwarded to my administrator.
So but I don't know how peoplewithout an administrator survive
in this game.
SPEAKER_01 (14:31):
But there's other things too.
It's not just compliance, it'sthings like maintenance.
Uh that takes a huge amount oftime, which often distracts
people from the ministry thatthey should be doing.
And so if we were to, you know,anyway.
Um uh Hubb and Spoke also failedbecause there was an argument
about who would lead it.
Who cares in the end?
Um, it failed because peoplewere thinking that I was
(14:54):
advocating this as thealternative to what we currently
have.
And I just want to say, let'sexplore it.
It's not one size fits all, it'snot moving from the parish model
to the hub and spoke model.
It's thinking about what is thebest way that we can work
together.
So you need to have people whowill trust each other, you need
to have an eldership, deacons,parish council, whatever
(15:17):
denomination you're in, who arewilling to give up an element of
their control.
That that's a really that thatcaused stumbling sometimes.
You need to be reasonablyaligned, you need to be
reasonably alignedtheologically, but you don't
have to be absolutely alignedbecause this actually enables
different ministries to haveslightly different complexions.
(15:37):
And I think what drives us andwhat should drive us is the
gospel opportunity in it.
God has given our us greatresources in the buildings, the
properties that we own, and thepeople who we have.
And it's all ourresponsibilities from the senior
minister down to thecongregation member to steward
those resources as well as wecan.
(15:59):
And so often we have theseblindness about the structural
things and blindness aboutrelationships.
So that's why I'm a bit uhexercised over the whole thing.
SPEAKER_05 (16:08):
Um you've also talked about um I'm just
thinking about other reasons whychange might fail.
Um you've talked about loss ofcontrol from and at that point
you're both talking the ministerand the parish council fearing
loss of control.
Who's in charge?
There's a couple of othersthough.
(16:29):
There's historical memory andglory days.
SPEAKER_01 (16:32):
Yes, yes.
I um I this is just researchI've done in Sydney, Australia,
my environment.
So those that are watchingelsewhere will need to do their
own work.
Um but everywhere looks back tothe glory days.
Yeah, yeah.
So in the 1950s in Australia,churches were full after the
Second World War, and youth andkids' ministries were so big.
(16:53):
And so everybody looks back tothose days and says we just need
to recover those.
And the way we recover them isby doing what we're doing now
better.
So historical success means Idon't want to change.
That's one of the things that uhthat takes place.
And the and another thing, whichis just an extension of that, is
we can still pay our bills.
We are still in our the way wedo church, we're still
(17:16):
relatively successful, and sothe pain and the necessity of
thinking of change isn't ascrucial for us because we can
just keep going as we havealways gone.
SPEAKER_05 (17:26):
Aaron Powell I mean, here in Sydney we we saw, and
we've talked about this beforeon the Pastor's Heart and the
whole synods had discussions,but we'd seen a 7% attendance
drop over a decade.
And actually at that point, thepain of not changing is starting
to become real.
Do you know?
And uh one of the things I fearis that with a slight recovery
(17:48):
back, we think, oh, okay, wedon't need to think about
changing.
SPEAKER_01 (17:51):
Yeah, I think uh Chris will talk about this in a
moment, but I I think that'sabsolutely right.
That uh uh one what we didthough, because we had this
decline and some churches becameunviable, we only had the one
solution, which was toamalgamate parishes.
And therefore you lose thatfootprint, you lose that that
opportunity we have as avillage, and also you don't
(18:14):
optimize that central advantagethat we can have.
And so I just want to say beforewe get to that point and have
the necessity of amalgamation,let's think of working with how
do we work with each other andnot be afraid of it.
Let's challenge some of thestructures that we have and be
prepared to modify them, andlet's think about the changing
nature of relationships fromgeography to affinity.
SPEAKER_05 (18:36):
Okay.
Kirsty Bucknell, you've beensitting quietly and we brought
you in because we wanted, Imean, Archie having dropped the
bombs of changes are needed.
Uh, we we want to ask you, well,okay, if I've got a needed
change, how do I do that change?
But just before we ask about howdo I do that change, um you've
obviously been sitting therereflecting on what Archie's just
(18:58):
said, kind of let's hear yourthoughts.
SPEAKER_00 (19:00):
Yeah, sure.
As I as I think about thesesorts of things, I think about
the the great need for missionor work.
It's so exciting to hear aboutit.
Uh and yet when we're thinkingabout change, uh change is the
external thing.
Most often when we when thereasons for change failing is
(19:24):
because it's the actualtransitions that's going on
inside us, our psychologicalstate, whether or not we
actually want to go through thischange, whether we're holding on
to the past that prevents usfrom making the change.
So uh while we think about thesegreat exciting things that we
might be able to do for thegospel to reach more people, to
(19:48):
encourage more people, uh, wealso need to think about what's
held us back and why haven't thechanges worked quite so well?
And can we do those changesbetter?
SPEAKER_05 (19:59):
Okay.
So um how I mean, let's try androle play a change that needs to
happen, and then you can bring astructure of um how to do it on
top.
What's a what's a change that wecould role play, Archie, that
you think I mean, well let's saywe want to change our focus as a
(20:19):
church from village to affinity,you know?
Um I mean I'll I'll give you anexample.
I've just taken over the uhleadership of a church um 20
minutes west of here, so leadingboth, and um I we had a meeting,
a couple of meetings inDecember, and I said, Really
(20:44):
this church right now this isConcord, and um this church
right now has an averagedemographic uh of retirees, and
if you look north, the averageage is retirees, but if you look
south, the average age isforty-three in Concord.
(21:05):
And for this church to have areal future, we need to pursue
an average age of 43-year-olds.
We've got to pursue parents, youknow.
SPEAKER_01 (21:14):
I I think that's I was gonna suggest exactly that
thing, and so Kirsty can speakto it.
But one of I I think thequestion is most of our churches
start ministries or in continueto engage in ministries as
they've always done.
And one of the changed things isyou're gonna have to kill one of
them.
In order to do new things and toretarget the 43-year-olds, you
(21:37):
you're going to have to stopdoing something else.
And that is that is the hardestthing to do.
So I thought Kirsty might wantto speak into that.
SPEAKER_00 (21:44):
Well, the model that we tend to use when we're
thinking about changemanagement, uh, by and large, is
what the one that I've used isADCAR, um, which Now ADCAR
sounds like an acronym.
SPEAKER_05 (21:55):
We're an anti-acronym program.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
And here I am bringing acronyms.
So it stands for so it'sspelling out A D K A R.
So A is for awareness, D is fordesire, K is for knowledge, A is
for ability, and R is forreinforcement.
SPEAKER_05 (22:17):
Okay, I've got those words.
Now give it to me in sentence.
SPEAKER_00 (22:20):
Yeah, exactly.
So awareness is really uhsetting up a conversation around
why do we need to change?
Um what's what's going on inthis place in our in our space,
in our affinity groups, in ourparish or the local area.
Um what what are the dynamicsthat we're seeing?
(22:44):
Why why might we really need tochange?
If we're looking at theattendance numbers, we might
need to change.
And so this awareness is uhsometimes talked about the
burning platform, but it's notalways a burning platform.
It might just be thinking aboutthings differently, being
challenged to think differently.
(23:04):
Uh, it might be missional, itmight be thinking, actually,
there's a real need for us to dosomething different.
Um and so that's that's theawareness piece, but we want to
bring people with us on thatawareness piece.
Uh if if uh just the ministryteam or just the eldership or
(23:25):
the parish council are the onesthat are making the decisions on
this, then uh it makes lifeharder.
And so we really we want to movepeople from awareness into the
next stage, which is desire.
And so this moves us from notjust being alert to the issue,
but wanting to make a change.
SPEAKER_05 (23:47):
Okay.
If the principle is awareness,what should I do in my
situation, Dr.
Archie?
SPEAKER_01 (23:52):
Well, I think you've done it.
You've actually looked at thedemographic issues, and so
you've made people aware.
And the desire is really agospel thing, isn't it?
That there are so many soulshere that don't know Jesus.
Isn't that enough motivation?
But it we'd say it's enough, butwe've got to keep reinforcing
it.
So, you know, over to Kirsty ondesire, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00 (24:14):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's really just thinkingthrough how do we get people on
board with making this changeacross our, you know, across the
different hubs and spokes,across the different elements of
the church, churches involved.
So thinking through bringingpeople on board, lots of
communication, lots ofopportunity for conversation and
(24:35):
discussion, for questions, tohave the reasons why they might
resist uncovered and explored.
Because the first time you comeup with a solution, it may not
always be the right one.
And the more we have peopletalking about it, discussing it,
bringing their differentperspectives, it draws them into
(24:56):
this change and helps move themin into a transition, helps them
move from just coming up withthe idea to wanting to be part
of it.
SPEAKER_05 (25:06):
So you're really putting under the heading of
desire, um building a coalitionof willing.
Well, it's really gettingeveryone to desire the change
and then engaging in theconversation on what the change
should be.
Costly buy-in.
SPEAKER_03 (25:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (25:22):
Costly buy-in.
I like that term.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:24):
Yeah.
unknown (25:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (25:25):
I mean, and at this point, I mean, it's still early,
it's very early days for me atConcord.
I think they they definitely seethat I I think there was a very
there was a there was a clearpenny drop moment in the room.
Wow, I hadn't actually looked atthe census figures for Concord.
I called this person ConcordChristine, do you know that we
want to actually design churchfor?
(25:48):
Now, I think people have said,yes, we want to do that, but
haven't actually thought about,well, what are going to be the
costs of that yet?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:58):
And so in this stage, it's moving people from
not just thinking about thechange, but transitioning in
internally for me, what's goingon for me, can I buy into it,
recognizing that as part ofthis, I'm going there are going
to be some losses.
I'm I there will be some griefsin letting go of the past that
we want to acknowledge.
(26:19):
But as part of a part ofacknowledging some of the
losses, we can also see thegreat benefits that will come
with the change.
And there are reasons for why wewould make the change.
And in this instance, missionwill change.
SPEAKER_05 (26:33):
So, Archie, as you've talked with people and
you've thought, ah, they'refitting under this knowledge
thing of losses and benefits.
Where have some of thoseconversations and observations
pointed you at to?
SPEAKER_01 (26:45):
Um, sometimes, I sorry, Kirsty's much more
granular than I am, so she'sdealing with it much more than I
am.
But when we've got to uh thedesire part, uh people have
expressed the desire, but haveused a theological argument that
says we've got to be the churchfor everyone, for example, or we
(27:10):
we we've got another personwho's just like me who'll be
really offended by any sorts ofchanges.
And so we mustn't do thatbecause we must care for them.
And so what we we've got to bereally careful of justifying a
non-change because of the painof my transition and justifying
it theologically.
I hear that regularly, so we'vegot to be very careful of that.
(27:32):
But giving people anunderstanding that sure it will
be painful, but the desire tosee Christ glorified is greater
than that, which means that ontothe knowledge, I think.
SPEAKER_05 (27:45):
Well, knowledge, Kirsty.
SPEAKER_00 (27:47):
Yeah, so knowledge is uh it's more focused on the
structural change, like how tomake the external change,
knowing how to go about doingit.
If we've decided that we'regoing to go ahead with some kind
of a new arrangement, then howare we gonna do that?
And we all want to do that.
How are we gonna make it happen?
(28:07):
So this is the knowledge of howto make the change work.
So this can be actuallyestablishing the structural
components, like um laying outnew new organization structures,
things like new job roles, newum way uh new ways of working
and defining those things forpeople so that we're actually
(28:30):
really clear on what's involved.
unknown (28:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (28:35):
It's interesting.
I had a conversation with uh oneof my team members about kind of
doing that this week.
And uh I said to her, uh, you reyou'll probably do better if you
get a third voice to be part ofthe conversation and you you
don't want to be the one who'ssaying everything.
(28:57):
You wanna and so I said, Whydon't you share this pod or a
particular podcast episode withall the team, and then that guy
can paint the desired future,and then you can say, Now, which
bits do we like and which bitsdo we not like?
And if you get three-quarters ofwhat he's painting, well,
that'll be a whim.
(29:19):
Um ability.
SPEAKER_00 (29:21):
Yes, ability is actually once we've started to
make the change, it's becomingum effective.
So we're now able to do thechange, whatever the change is.
So if we're creating a new wayof working together, if we're
trying to bring ConcordChristine in, is that the right
way?
Christine from Concord, um, thenum how how are we actually
(29:46):
enabling that to happen?
Are we practiced?
So this is uh not just definingor knowing how to change, but
it's actually starting to do thechange and to do it well.
So it involves lots of umcoaching and practice.
It might mean not just likesetting out job descriptions,
but helping people with engagingand do to do that better and
(30:12):
better.
SPEAKER_05 (30:13):
And then finally reinforcement.
SPEAKER_00 (30:15):
Yeah.
Uh so once we start to see somewins, celebrating that and
recognizing where things aregoing well, tracking those
things and encouraging people inthat uh more and more.
SPEAKER_05 (30:28):
Now, Archie, uh, a rector coming to a new church,
that's often the time whenchange um is discussed.
SPEAKER_01 (30:35):
Yeah, I I think it's too late at that point.
Uh, that's what I've noticed ina few of the changes I've sought
to try and help churches with isthat the new minister coming
into a church gets uh uh getsinterviewed by people.
And I've noticed that the interthose that are interviewing want
to see change, want to see thechurch grow.
They've got a gospel heart.
(30:56):
And so what they want the newrector to do, the new minister
to do, is do what they've alwaysdone, just do it better.
And so take all the bad bits outof the previous person and just
uh enact it better.
And the problem is the newminister comes in and uh I have
a conversation with them andsay, how about we start to make
look at these changes?
How about we try and work withthe churches nearby and uh and
(31:17):
recognize the demographicchanges?
And they say, I can't do thatbecause I was brought in on the
basis of continuing what we usedto do, just doing it better.
So I think we actually need towork with those that are
interviewing for the newminister and say, all bets are
off.
Let's start to think about whatis best for the gospel.
(31:38):
What what appetite do you havefor change?
What willingness do you have tolose something for the gospel's
sake?
So that's what so I I'verealized that I've been too
late.
So we've had some new ministerswho have sought to bring about
change, but felt like it wouldbe treacherous and wrong to come
in and bring about change whenthose that uh recruited them
(32:01):
want just steady as she goes.
SPEAKER_02 (32:03):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05 (32:04):
And and potentially it is the case that um, I mean,
in our denomination, it almostum I mean, we don't pick
nominators, we often picknominators in terms of guard the
gospel rather than grow thegospel.
Grow the gospel.
Yeah.
I mean, and I really want to doboth.
SPEAKER_00 (32:22):
Yeah, and both the other piece when you've got a
new rector is that there is awhole nother change that's going
on at that same time.
So to layer those sorts ofchanges on top of each other
makes life challenging.
SPEAKER_05 (32:35):
Okay, we're wrapping up, but one conversation you
want a senior minister to havethis month as a takeaway.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (32:43):
I can I just conclude there's a few things
that we need if these changesthat I'm suggesting take place.
You've got to have trust.
Secondly, uh you've got torecognise that we have been
entrusted with resources, notfor our sake, but for God's
glory.
The third thing we've got torealize is you've got to have a
mindset not of scarcity, butGod's generosity.
So we've got to be willing togive to other people and be
(33:06):
willing to be humble.
It doesn't have to be about me.
And so the one thing I'd want tosay is have a look at the
churches round about you andstart to have conversations with
those ministers and ask them howwe can work together for the
kingdom of God to grow.
SPEAKER_05 (33:21):
And Kirsty, you talked awareness, design,
knowledgeability, andreinforcement.
Which one do we do worst?
SPEAKER_00 (33:28):
What we tend to do is actually assume that
awareness equals desire.
Right.
That we think that just byhaving the conversation, that
people will come with us.
SPEAKER_05 (33:42):
How do I fix that?
We've got to go back and backand back and forth.
SPEAKER_00 (33:45):
You need to spend lots of time having the
conversations with people tounderstand what their issues
might be, uh, to to keep uhengaging, keep building the
trust, uh, keep talking aboutwhat's happening.
SPEAKER_05 (33:59):
Thanks very much for coming in.
Kirsty Bucknell has been here.
She's an organizationalpsychologist with Moore Colleges
Center for Ministry Development,and Archie Poulos also here, the
director of Moore CollegesCentre for Ministry Development.
My name's Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastors Art, and we will look
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
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