Is Your Church Ready for What God Wants to Do Next?

One of the greatest lessons I have learned in ministry is that yesterday’s success does not guarantee tomorrow’s effectiveness. Everything around us continues to change, and if we are not careful, we can become so comfortable with what God has done that we stop asking what He wants to do next.

Pastor Michael Graff likes to remind me that when I first started pastoring, I wore three-piece suits. I even had those little handkerchiefs in the pocket, although I never quite figured out what they were for! Styles change, culture changes, communities change, and the way people connect changes. The Gospel does not change, but sometimes the wineskin must.

Jesus talked about the importance of new wineskins, and I believe that principle is incredibly important for churches today. There are churches that are perfectly organized and perfectly executing a strategy that would have reached people in the 1990s. The problem is that we are not living in the 1990s anymore.

At Faith Family Church, COVID forced us to look at many things with a fresh set of eyes. We prayed, talked with other leaders, evaluated our processes, and asked the Holy Spirit to show us where we needed to change. Before that season, the most people we had baptized in one year was 265. After reevaluating how we helped people take that next step, we saw nearly 500 people baptized in a single year.

We did not change the Gospel. We changed the wineskin.

Denial or Desire?

That leads to an important question every church should ask: Is our heart characterized by denial or desire?

Denial says, “We have always done it this way.” Desire asks, “God, what do You want to do now?”

In Exodus 17, Moses found himself leading people who were so frustrated they were ready to stone him. Moses cried out to God, and the Lord told him to go out in front of the people, take some of the elders with him, take the staff God had used before, and move forward.

There is tremendous leadership wisdom in that picture. Prayer keeps us close to God. Vision casting helps people see where we are going. Bringing leaders with us builds ownership. Remembering what God has done before gives us faith to believe He can do something new again.

Pastor Michael made an important point during our conversation. Having people in the seats, money in the bank, and members who are satisfied does not necessarily mean God is satisfied. In Revelation, Jesus spoke to churches that were doing some things well while still identifying areas that needed to change.

Our goal cannot simply be maintaining what we have built. Our goal must be pleasing God.

Make the Vision Clear

The second question is this: Is the vision and mission of the future known by everyone?

I define vision as what God is calling us to do. Mission is how we are going to do it. When those things are clear, people can begin moving together.

I learned this early in my ministry at Faith Family Church. We were going weeks without seeing anyone come to Christ, and I knew something needed to change. As I prayed, God took me to Luke 14 and gave me a picture of church as a banquet.

I felt God saying, “Prepare good food for people. Help the poor leave with rich insight. Help the crippled find healing for their hearts. Help the lame gain strength to walk into new dreams and help the blind see that the Gospel can truly change a life.”

That became the vision, but there was also a mission. I had to prepare the banquet, and our people had to invite others to come.

I remember standing before our congregation and promising that no matter what happened during my week, I would come prepared to give people something from God’s Word. Then I challenged them to bring people who needed what God was preparing.

Before long, zero salvations became 365 in a year. The next year, we saw more than 1,000 people respond to Christ, and we have continued to see God change lives ever since.

It was not because I suddenly became a better preacher. The Holy Spirit helped us see what He wanted us to do and how we could do it together.

Never Let the Spirit Become Stale

Years ago, I was invited to preach at a church in France. Tamara came with me, and while we were there, we visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but I remember feeling something deeper as I stood inside.

Here was a magnificent building that had once facilitated the life of God among people, yet I wondered whether the spiritual fire that had once filled places like it had been replaced by admiration for the architecture.

That experience has stayed with me because every church faces that danger. We can preserve the structure while losing the spirit that made the structure worth building in the first place.

Seeing your church with fresh eyes is not about chasing trends or changing simply for the sake of change. It is about staying close enough to the Holy Spirit to recognize when He is leading you into something new.

So ask the questions. Are we operating from denial or desire? Do our people clearly understand where God is leading us and how we are going to get there? Are we still creating an environment where lives are being transformed?

Never become so committed to preserving yesterday’s wineskin that you miss the new wine God wants to pour out today. Honor what God has done, learn from it, and then have the faith to ask Him, “Lord, what do You want to do through us next?”