Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer, Transformational Church: Creating a New Scorecard for Congregations. B and H Books, 2010.
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Anything written by Ed Stetzer and Thom Rainer reflects credible qualitative research. This book is no different, reflecting the research of over 7,000 congregations and hundreds of interviews with church leaders. It is perhaps the most accurate portrayal of effective evangelical churches available today.
Transformational Church begins with a passion for God’s plan that
“’We all, with unveiled faces, are reflecting the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ (2 Cor. 3:18) That means that we (as individuals) and ‘we all’ (as the church) are supposed to see this transformation. Transformation ‘from glory to glory’ should be normal, but too often it is exceptional. Our passion is to help the church see, aspire to, and achieve biblical transformation.” (2)
This is over against the tendency of the church to “pick a rut and make it deeper…preferring, even if not consciously, repetition or even stagnation,” convincing ourselves that “managing the status quo is good enough.” (3) Unfortunately, many leaders take the “merry-go-round approach,” to “keep everyone moving, the flashing lights shining bright, and the music happy.” Instead,
“God calls us to make a transformational impact on the world, not provide a carnival of frenetic activity for ourselves. But to make this impact, we must engage in His mission for His sake and on His terms. Pastors and church leaders must move beyond entertaining consumers and into engaging Christ’s mission.” (3-4)
The authors wanted to understand how this transformation actually happens. They began a project in the fall of 2008, the largest ever of its kind, to discern how God transforms people and communities through his church. The appendix describes the research in depth. It involved over 7,000 churches, hundreds of pastors, and 15,000 church member surveys.
In their research, they found many churches that “share this desire for transformation – but on a deeper level than most churches. Where many churches desire to make a difference, Transformational Churches (TCs) actually do. They possess an increasing awareness of the need of change in the people, the church, and the community.” (6) TCs deliberately moved away from “the old scorecard of the church that valued the external measures of the three Bs: bodies, budget, and buildings.” (26) Instead, they created a new scorecard that is conveyed in the Transformational Loop.
The Transformational Loop conveys the repeated pattern of elements and practices that comprises the new scorecard of the tangible and intangible features of TCs. There were seven elements that fell into three categories into a Transformational Loop (Summarized on 32-41)
Category 1 – Discerning Your Context: TCs actively seek to understand their community, moving beyond demographic facts and figures to spiritual discernment. They ask questions. Who lives here? What are their hurts? What are their dreams? Where do they spend their time? How do they relate to one another? The research revealed on contextual element: Missionary Mentality. TCs believe they are not here by accident but sent by God to the community and minister in it contextually appropriate ways to reach local people with the gospel.
Category 2 – Embrace the Right Values: TCs do not just tout these values on a church web site but the congregation as a whole embraces them. The research discovered three elements:
- Vibrant Leadership: In TCs, positional leadership was less important. Positional leadership is when a person expects to be listened to and followed simply because of their title. The leaders in these churches showed passion for God, His mission, and its transforming power on people. They week ways to move all believers into places of effective leadership for the mission. They lead more by examples and values than by dictates
- Relational Intentionality: TCs help Christians deliberately connect with one another through both accountability and encouragement, hold long-term relationships in high regard.
- Prayerful Dependence: TCs showed a natural disposition of communicating with God about the hope for transformation.
Category 3 – Engage the Right Actions: The research revealed three elements:
- Worship – Worship witnessed in TCs contained expectancy. When people arrived for worship, they knew something great was going to happen. They trusted God to deliver transformation rather than musicians to deliver a good show.
- Community – this does not mean the geographic location of the church, but the activity of joining lives together. TCs were so serious about relational intentionality that they created systems to put people in community with one another. TCs connect people to one another through ministry systems such as home Bible studies, small groups, Sunday School, and service groups.
- Mission – TCs are committed to making disciples and engaging the world as Jesus calls. Evangelism is not taught as a periodic program but as a natural way of life. TCs lead their people to understand disciple making as the normal state of the Christian’s life.
They also discovered three framework principles:
- How a church connects to the loop. There is not one starting point in which all churches must enter the Transformational Loop. Many methodologies say you must start “here.” Their research did not show a starting point. Some started by capitalizing strengths, others by shoring up a weakness.
- Cathartic experience. Usually, in order for the level of change that is necessary to take place, an intervening event must occur. Many times it is through a cathartic experience, i.e. a moment of decision of change that is beneficial or liberating whether through dissatisfaction with the status quo, a conflict, etc.
- Convergence of elements. Churches that compartmentalize the elements in the loop are not transformational. By segmenting transformational elements from one another, they render the elements ineffective. If all a group of church members wishes to do is pray, who will do the work of evangelism? If a group only wants to participate in worship, how will community be built in the church? We must challenge believers to participate in all areas where God affects transformation the our lives by the gospel.
The book includes separate chapters on each of the categories and elements in the Transformational Loop.
From the Publisher
How are we doing? The church, that is. And how are we doing it? Congregations have long measured success by “bodies, budget, and buildings”- a certain record of attendance, the offering plate, and square footage. But the scorecard can’t stop there. When it does, the deeper emphasis on accountability, discipleship, and spiritual maturity is lost. Ignoring those details, we see fewer lives transformed, Christian influence wane, and churches thin out—a situation that is all too familiar across North America today.
It is time to take heart and rework the scorecard.
According to Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer, the authors of Transformational Church, “Too often we’ve highlighted the negative realities of the declining American church but missed the opportunity to magnify the God of hope and transformation.”
Based on the most comprehensive study of its kind, including a survey of more than 7,000 churches and hundreds of on-site interviews with pastors, Transformational Church takes us to the thriving congregations where truly changing lives is the norm.
Stetzer and Rainer clearly confirm the importance of disciple making for all through active biblical engagement and prayerful dependence on God alongside of ever-increasing, intentional participation in mission and ministry activities. As the church engages these issues, the world will see the change:
- More people following Christ
- More believers growing in their faith
- More churches making an impact on their communities
The transformation starts now.
About the Author
Thom S. Rainer is president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, one of the largest Christian resource companies worldwide, and the best-selling coauthor of Simple Church, Essential Church, and Simple Life. Rainer and his wife, Nellie Jo, have three grown sons and live in Nashville, Tennessee.
Ed Stetzer is director of LifeWay Research and missiologist in residence at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, Tennessee. He holds two masters, two doctoral degrees, and has written dozens of articles and acclaimed books including Planting Missional Churches, Breaking the Missional Code, Comeback Churches, and Lost and Found. Ed and his wife have three daughters.
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