Cultivating Flourishing Churches in Community!

Over the past several months, I’ve been speaking in various places about how we’ve refined our approach to coming alongside churches as they seek to flourish. In ECO’s early years, we learned much from Paul Borden’s approach to church transformation. There were elements of his process that were extremely helpful for church revitalization, and several congregations made significant transformations. However, as I’ve mentioned before, some aspects didn’t fully align with ECO’s unique character. Additionally, it was challenging to adapt this approach to medium-sized churches or those not ready for a significant overhaul.

Simultaneously, we introduced opportunities to help churches focus on specific aspects of their ministries, such as the Flourishing Disciples initiative and the Vision Framing process. While these initiatives were beneficial for the churches that participated, the outcomes often fell short of their potential. As Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In other words, even a well-crafted strategy can be undermined if the underlying culture is inconsistent with it. This was often the case in these situations.

When Kaitlyn Wood joined us as ECO’s Director of Church Health, our driving question became, “How can we create a process that walks alongside churches of different sizes and varying levels of health, while achieving the following goals?” Rather than trying to create “one size fits all” resources, we wanted to develop a process that could:

• Gain a comprehensive understanding of the health of their entire church system.
• Engage the entire congregation, including staff and lay leaders, while building a core guiding coalition to foster increased health and vitality.
• Coach church leaders in creating an individualized roadmap for flourishing (similar to what is done during ordination).
• Provide community and connection with other churches for mutual learning and support.

These driving questions led to the development of the Cultivating Flourishing Congregations process, which we’ve presented a few times, including in a comprehensive webinar (watch here)  for interested churches. In September, four smaller churches participated in a community event, followed by four medium-sized churches the next week. Each church brought a team of staff and lay leaders, and they had completed preparatory activities with both their congregations and leadership teams.

During the gatherings, each church developed long-term milestones and specific short-term goals and objectives. Many of these objectives integrate resources we’ve previously created, but now with a more intentional plan and stronger ownership aimed at enhancing the overall culture of their congregation.

Here’s what a couple of pastors have said about the process:

It was a fun, formative, and catalytic time for our team to intentionally discern a clear road map of God’s invitation for our church over the next 3 years. This holistic process covers so much ground in such a healthy way — I can’t recommend it enough. – Tim Norton, Lead Pastor, Indian River Presbyterian Church, Fort Pierce FL 

The Breakthrough Church Cohort gave us words and understanding for a number of frustrations we have felt, and it provided a good starting point for a way forward.  It also helped us to celebrate some strengths that can be starting points, and we look forward to building on this first meeting for the next few years! – Allen Thompson, Senior Pastor. Fairview Presbyterian Church, North Augusta, SC

While we continue to refine, we are confident that this process will effectively support churches on their journeys to flourishing. We believe it can be valuable for many more churches, trusting that the Lord, who began a good work in them, will bring it to completion as they follow Him.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Cultivating Flourishing Congregations process or exploring how you or your presbytery can get involved, please contact us at info@flourishmovement.org.

In Christ,
Dana

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