A More Reliable Pathway

The elder who asked the question is godly, smart, and totally committed to our church. But Covid-19 stopped everything cold in March 2020 when Illinois was closed, including churches.

I still remember the white board conversation our elders had as we wrestled through the best approach to serving our congregation and community through that season. We determined right from the beginning that our values would drive the decision-making process throughout. Little did we know how hard we would be pressed on living out those values, through Covid and isolation and cultural conflict. But our values served us well during uncertainty.

At that first meeting our elders wrote four values on the board:

• Our mission drives our decision making.

• Corporate worship is central to our mission.

• We will honor CDC guidelines.

• We will serve our community.

While I watched and thought, I asked that we add a fifth value for navigating the pandemic: We will lead the way for other ministries. That fifth value drew some pushback. “What if we have an outbreak at church? Is this how we love our neighbors?”

While those were legitimate concerns, we added the fifth value because it reflects who we are as an elder team, staff, and congregation. We have consistently raised ministry leaders from within our church family. We would live out that value during the Covid.

Those five statements guided our actions for the next months. We had a few missteps, but our communication was clear, we enjoyed strong unity, and we baptized dozens of new believers during that difficult season. We were also able to serve other churches in our area by helping them apply their values to their re-opening plans. We met with other elder teams and fielded calls from pastors. Crossroads (Now renamed Gospelife) landed on the front page of the Chicago Tribune on Easter Sunday because we were one of few churches to baptize during the pandemic.

So, how do we identify, communicate, and live our values as a church? For Crossroads, that process has developed over many years. But we revisit our values regularly to see if they still reflect who we are and the priorities we follow.

Early in 2020, just before the epidemic broke out, we invited Rob Peters, a ministry partner with IBSA, to help us refresh our values. This robust process took three weekends and involved our key leaders. Wow! It was so clarifying. We changed the wording on two of our existing values and added two more, for a total of five. Sharpening our values really helped us navigate a challenging year and come through stronger for it.

But leaning into the period of closure with all its challenges, we decided to make that second specialized list of values. I’m glad we did.

The most important lesson our leadership team learned was the power of making decisions out of our values. Staying rooted kept us from freezing in fear or striking out in anger. And following our values guarded us from overreacting to the threat. After all, there will always be threats to gospel work.

Reactionary leaders will risk decision-making whiplash and mission drift. But church leaders who identify, communicate, and lead based on their values are more likely to thrive during difficult times. And Jesus promised more of those ahead. Just read John 16:33.

Here is how understanding our values helped our church:

Values bring clarity, clarity reduces anxiety.

Our church has always had values, but we have not always clearly communicated them. We started as a church plant in 2001, so we hustled just to survive. We went door-to-door, pursued anyone who visited a service, and added ministry leaders all the time. In those days, if they were breathing, they were qualified.

Over time we considered just what kind of church we were: what we celebrated, what we spent money on, what we avoided. Understanding those things clarified who we are and what we value. We discovered that the gospel was top priority for Crossroads.

Translate that discovery to the pandemic season twenty years later. During the early days, no one knew what to expect, but that did not keep some from loudly proclaiming how our church should respond. For some, shutting down and following government recommendations was the only way to love your neighbor. For others, following those same recommendations was kowtowing to government overreach.

We chose our path forward according to the values that we wrote on the board. Not everyone agreed, but our leadership was clear on our path forward.

Values ease decision-making.

Early in our ministry, our values drove the choice to sell our building and move into a school until we could buy or build a new facility. Man, that was a stressful time! I still remember an intense conversation I had at eleven o’clock one Thursday night. A faithful deacon and I had just wrapped up visitation. He had grave concerns about the sale and move. “Scott, selling the building will make us totally adrift in the community. We will depend on rented space. We do not have the money to build, so what happens if we do not grow? What if we don’t make it?”

I responded with more confidence than I actually had. “God did not call our church to maintenance ministry. I believe he is calling Crossroads to more faithfulness and fruitfulness. It is time to take this step of faith.”

I will never forget his answer. “OK, Scott, you lead the way and I’ll be with you all the way.” And he has been. Honestly, selling the building was an easy decision, once we had clarified that the gospel was our top priority instead of comfort, familiarity, or low risk. And while 25% of our church left during the four months after we sold the building, we grew by 250% during the next four years. Our top value clarified tough ministry decisions and sustained us during lean years.

Values unite around mission.

The church is a missional organism. We exist for more than self-preservation. Making, baptizing, and teaching followers of Jesus is the mission. Our values should flow from that truth.

There will be times when pursuing our mission will lead us into uncomfortable interactions with culture. But we must lean into culture because abdicating our mission is a betrayal of Jesus Christ, who came near to win us. Jesus calls his church to serve the culture humbly and courageously, not the other way around (Matthew 16:18; John 17:15, 21).

For example, we value racial diversity because that is biblical (Ephesians 2:13-19) and because that reflects our setting in Chicagoland. It also reflects my multi-racial family. We model our values by hiring the most qualified and diverse staff available. Often they are homegrown from within the church. When our congregation and community see diversity on the platform and people of color serving in positions of real authority, they recognize that we are living out our values.

When cultural conflict over race arose simultaneously with the pandemic, our church already knew how we would respond. We identified the value years earlier, and we lived it week after week.

Values invite healthy conflict.

Sometimes even small decisions cause conflict. And they can be resolved around our values. For example, at Crossroads, our second standing value states that warm relationships matter. One way that we stimulate relationships is by serving coffee in our atrium. We give people opportunity to get to know each other over a warm cup. Unfortunately, a few years ago, we recognized that our coffee was bad. So did everyone who tried it.

When the hospitality team explored how to make better coffee, we learned that getting good was going to be expensive. Our finance team was against spending more, but our hospitality team pleaded for the money. So, we argued, but we argued around our values.

Our hospitality leader proposed a test. “Let’s get good coffee for one month and see how our people respond.”

So, during the next month we made the good stuff. Our coffee consumption tripled and the buzz in our atrium was noticeable.

Ultimately, for the next budget year, we invested in better equipment. Then, we partnered with Second Chance Coffee, a ministry in our town that hires ex-cons to roast coffee. Now each Friday afternoon a warm bag of freshly roasted coffee is delivered to our church. Our second value resolved the conflict. And we love that our coffee is sourced from a mission.

Churches with clear values can have vigorous discussion around how to advance the mission. In fact, church leaders should welcome some level of conflict. Unfortunately, churches often fight over personality, board, or building stuff. These are important matters, but they are secondary. And these matters should be resolved around our values (Philippians 2:19-24).

Values fuel momentum.

Coming out of Covid, I believe that the churches who are clearest on their values and most courageous in obeying Jesus’ Great Commission will thrive. Biblical churches have the best answers to the greatest challenges our culture faces today–gender, race, sexual orientation, poverty, and violence. And those who lead those churches must clarify the values that will drive mission forward.

The reality is that your church already has values. You know who will celebrate big ministry decisions and who will be angry about those same decisions. Whether or not they are on paper, those are value statements by your congregation.

Our role as ministry leaders is to identify and champion (or change) our church’s values. Here are some steps our church took:

Face reality. Church leaders must be honest in identifying their actual values, not simply the ones they wish they had. From his book Good to Great, Jim Collins’s “Stockdale Principle” must apply here: “Face the brutal facts without ever losing hope.” The first place to start identifying values where your church is already strong, whether intentionally or not. Be courageous enough to drop the values you talk about that do not reflect the mission you have embraced.

Work hard. Choosing to identify and live out your values will strengthen your church and increase your ministry effectiveness. This is hard work that requires biblical theology and self-reflection. And pastors must invite ministry leaders into this process. The payoff is great.

Stay humble. Defining your values will clarify that your church is not for everybody. That is okay. In fact, our church thanks God for the blessing of other churches that serve the many kinds of people God redeems. Our church is not better than others, just uniquely called by God to serve our community.

Be bold. Once you have prayed, advocated, identified, and agreed upon your values, own them. You must communicate your values repeatedly, specifically (with everyone using the same language), and concretely (celebrating when the values are lived out).

Making your values public will not change behavior among your members until your leadership embraces and models those values.

Our church came out of the pandemic (so far) a little smaller, a little humbler, and a lot more committed to serving Jesus’ Great Commission. Identifying our church’s values for that season was not easy. Identifying and living your church values may not be easy for your either, but it will be good. The mission we serve is worth the effort, because what we do today will still matter in a million years.