Personal Transformations In Becoming a Missional Church

Abstract

This research project is a qualitative study, which used an interview study approach to consider the research question. The subject was pastors who tumed-around plateaued or declining churches to spiritual vitality and numerical growth. The participants were ten missional pastors, seven from Washington State, two from Idaho and one from Northern California. The main research question was: what personal transformations have these pastors experienced that enabled them to turn-around a plateaued or declining church, and what was the nature of those transformations? The six personal transformations studied were: (1) spiritual growth or transformation, (2) one-on-one relationships, (3) modeling, (4) experiences, (5) training and education, and (6) organizational development. A questionnaire was developed, four pastors were interviewed in person, the other six responded by email. A follow-up questionnaire was given by phone to confirm or deny the previous findings of the first questionnaire. The nature of these transformations were put into four categories: (1) moving from indecisive to decisive, (2) moving from independence to interdependence, (3) moving from indifference to relationship, and (4) moving from similarity to uniqueness. It was discovered that pastors who want to turn-around a declining or plateaued church must: (1) have the ambition to do so; (2) acquire enough humility to deny themselves to accomplish the mission; (3) intentionally develop through personal transformations which mature the four characteristics needed to turn-around a declining or plateaued church (decisiveness, interdependence, relational, and uniqueness).