Frazee, Randy. The Comeback Congregation. Nashville
BR560.A78F73 1995 131 pages
Randy Frazee is the pastor of Pantego Bible Church in Arlington, TX. and a mentor in the Teaching Church Network,Eden Prairie, MN.
Those familiar with the work of Aubrey
Malphurs (Strategic Planning for Churches)
may see many similarities. Malphurs refers to the church many times. The church
is connected with Dallas Theological Seminary where Malphurs is a professor and
it is a Bible church which is Malphurs original denomination
Frazee was a member of the church which had experience great growth and a recent decline. The founding pastor left and it took the church two years to call Frazee. The book is the story of the turn around the church made.
One of the best aspects of the book is Frazee’s assessment of the kind of person who can be the “change agent” who can help a church make the comeback. It does take someone who is an activator and influencer. Sadly, this means that many current pastors may be unsuited and possible unable to affect a comeback.
Frazee gives a lot detail about the transition. Not enough to guide a church through the process, and too much detail about some elements, but overall, the reader can get a fairly clear understanding. Some of the elements include how the elder board was reorganized, how the staff was hired and reassigned, and how the foundational documents (by laws and mission statements) were re-written. Many of the ideas will not work with churches of different makeup, denominational backgrounds, or polity, but the general ideas are work a look.
How the church determined a disciple making process will be new to many churches and worth the time to digest. The most unique aspect of Pantego's discipling process (which was later found in Reggie McNeal's book, Present Future) is the idea of helping members develop their own Spiritual Fitness plan. The appendices have examples of a Spiritual Fitness Plan for both one's self and family and a Spiritual Fitness Resource Card which lists the various resources the church provides for individuals, small groups, and the entire church. The church also supplies a Spiritual Fitness Coach for any individual or family that desires one. Finally, Appendix C has a staffing chart which shows how the staffing fit the discipling process.
The chapter on volunteers is also helpful. The church developed a useful taxonomy for volunteer positions based on four letters and a level number.
1 – Leadership ability: C = Contributor, M = Manager, I = Influencer
2 – Work style: S = Self (likes to work alone), T = Team (likes to work on a team)
3 – Closure style: O = Open (likes open ended projects), C = Closed (likes projects with quick completion) [Meyes-Briggs J/P?]
4 - – Relationship style: T = (likes to work with) Things, P (likes to work with) People [Meyers-Briggs E/I?]
Levels 1 – 3 refer to the level of spiritual maturity and church commitment (membership) needed. This must be totally subjective.
Frazee devoted one chapter to the children’s ministry. While this may have been a significant change, it also shows signs of “taking the easy road. They were dissatisfied with the traditional approach because it used too many volunteers: 200 volunteers for 450 children. This seems to be ridiculously high. They also believed that most of the recruits did not have the gifts or skills to teach children. Frazee also makes the audacious statement “Children’s curriculum is almost totally useless.” How absurd when he has already admitted that their recruitment process resulted in many unqualified teachers. In their defense, one can only point out that they did also try to involve parents in the teaching process more.
Aside from the criticism above, the book can provide a older (mid 90s), but still relevant profile of a church in the process of renewing rather than dying, ignoring, or planting, which are the most common responses to a church in decline.
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