A Sunday night children’s program and a living nativity scene seemed like really good ways for Southview Community Church (SCC) to meet its primary mission of reaching people who don’t attend church. “People loved the children’s program and we ran it successfully for two years. But when we looked at who came, not a single one of the 50 children weren’t already going to church somewhere,” said Lead Pastor William Attaway. Similarly, the annual two-night living nativity scene in December was very popular–among congregation members and their friends from other churches.

William vividly remembers how surprised he and the elders were by the congregation’s reactions to decisions they saw as rational and mission-driven. “We didn’t consider the range of emotions tied to the programs. Individuals who had been deeply involved in these programs over the years didn’t have the context of the hours of meetings that led to the changes. And, we didn’t do a very good job of bringing them along in our decision-making process. We ended up spending a lot of time after the announcements in one-on-one conversations listening to concerns. But I’m not sure we completely understood what we should have done better.”

 

SCC had other programs to nurture its own congregation and wanted to keep finding ways to reach the 142,000 people within a five-mile radius of the SCC campus who didn’t attend any church. “We simply couldn’t keep investing in programs that didn’t help us meet our mission,” William said. After much discussion among the elder team (SCC’s governing body), both programs were eliminated, one in 2012 and one in 2014.

Fast forward to 2016, when William and the elder team decided to take on the Performance Imperative Organizational Self-Assessment (PIOSA). They completed Pillars 1 (leadership) and 5 (culture of learning) individually and then came together to discuss their ratings and rationale for each of the practices. The conversation helped the elder team see where they were in alignment, tag some areas for further consideration, and reflect on next steps for getting better in their efforts.

Read the full article about the Performance Imperative Organizational Self-Assessment from Leap Ambassadors Community