In a typical church 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work, but that does not mean that all of your focus should be on the 20 percent, according to Scott Thuma and Warren Bird in their book The Other 80 Percent: Turning Your Church’s Spectators into Active Participants. In business you can often maximize profits by concentrating your energies on the top 20 percent of your clients, but the biblical standard for kingdom ventures if different.
The authors’ research reveals that the general trend to lack of participation in the life of a church is attributable to a number of causes:
- Individualism and consumerism have infected the sheep and made them less willing to follow.
- Some Christians have experienced disappointment with the church as they know it, and now want a life of faith apart from the church.
- Church leaders are partly to blame for setting expectations to low and exercising leadership poorly.
- The problem is partly an organizational one, requiring rethinking of the activities of volunteering and committee work.
- The problem is also a spiritual problem, arising from a lack of understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
The book goes on to describe the characteristics of the committed 20 percent and the characteristics of the less-committed 80 percent. Because the causes of non-involvement are complex and differ from church to church, the authors advocate creating a listening team to listen to the 80 percent and a learning team to learn from them. They then suggest a range of ways, starting with prayer, in which you can seek to address the problems and reach towards spiritual maturity for 100 percent of your congregation.
I found the book very helpful, and highly recommend it to all church leaders.