How a Merge Would Work

Getting married involves two people coming together, making a pledge that their lives will no longer be apart – but one. They make a vow before God, loved ones and each other that they will do all they can to meet each other’s needs even as they recognize that the other party makes them happy. The wedding, of course, is not the marriage – the marriage happens the day (and into the decades) after.

It requires a few changes in one’s values – things that the other party deems important all of a sudden will become important to you; or at least, because you love the person, you will support your partner in that pursuit of what he/she deems important. You may even find having to adjust the placement of some of your furniture – and yes, even your sleeping habits will change as you try to get some z’s with that snoring partner of yours (and you’ll discover that your partner is also adjusting to your snoring). Practically speaking, you are turning your world upside down for the sake of your spouse. And in the end, all the influence she has on you will change you and turn you into a different person than you would have been if you had never met her. Hopefully, you bring out the best in each other – that’s what a successful marriage is all about.

Now try and apply those principles to a merging of two churches.

Each church has its own way of doing things - its own values, its own priorities and its own needs. So when two organizations merge in order to meet each other’s needs, both must also realize that there are unavoidable changes both should prepare for.

First, one may not have the same values as the other – they may hold some common values, of course, but maybe they tend to express it differently. Both parties will have to be patient with each other as they both learn to do things together. At the beginning, one may not value the same things as the other – but because they are now in a marriage founded on love, they must both submit to each other and vow to support each other in that endeavor. Eventually, because of the relationship, both will soon value what the other values. The one rubs off on the other.

Both will have to be patient, too, in the way the other party serves God. Once again, just like in a marriage, each will have to find time to support the other realizing that it is that activity that makes the other feel fulfilled – and who wants an unfulfilled spouse?

In the end, a merging between two parties does not mean that the personality of the other is smothered by the stronger personality. Rather, just like in a beautiful marriage, the good personality traits of the one should be brought out by the other and even influence the other party towards that good. Just like in marriage, the organization must not think of itself as absorbing another one for the sake of increasing its numbers – but rather, it must give in to the fact that both will be transformed to become a new organization that is equally influenced by both parties. By God’s grace, if the strengths of each are supported and encouraged and developed, it becomes a strength of the whole and just as being married means you are one, so a merging of organizations means that is also your goal.

What's In A Name?

In 1989, my wife and I set foot in America. The first thing we wanted to do was get involved in a local church. From 1989 thru 1992, Alliance Bible Fellowship in North Seattle took good care of us. There we met some of the most loving and wonderful people whom we still greatly admire today.

In 1992, we had the opportunity to speak to our former pastor in the Philippines - from Word for the World in Makati. Through Him, God inspired us to start the work of forming a ministry in Seattle. Together with a sister who was also from Word for the World Young Adults and a middle aged couple from Shoreline, we started the work in Renton and kept it going for 2 years between Renton and Seattle, even without a pastor.

By 1994, Word for the World Seattle was established as we welcomed our pastor from the Philippines. We drew in more members and expanded the ministry in University Plaza Hotel.

Some time after that, probably around 1997 or 98, we became Word International Ministries (WIN) in Seattle. No, we didn't move - we just changed names. Something happened in the Philippines that caused our local church to become a separate ministry from Word for the World and become a part of this new organization. It was nothing that the local church members did or had anything to do with.

In 2002, our church changed names again to NetWork Christian Ministries (NWCM), even as Word International continued to do ministry in South Seattle. Same people, same theology, same Christian work. Once again, the name change having nothing to do with the actual church members’ day to day walk but more to do with disagreements in the higher places.

In 2006, NWCM became 3 churches in order to expand its base and reach more people in their neighborhoods (we were meeting in downtown Seattle even as our people lived in the suburbs). This is probably the first time we experienced an organizational change due directly to the experience of grassroots members who were living all over the city.

A year later, one of those churches affiliated with the Assemblies of God due to the uniqueness of their situation and with the local group's approval.

Now it's 2010 and we in NWCM-Federal Way, one of the 3 original NWCM churches, are potentially switching names again. Does it really matter? We are still in fellowship with the same people who started this whole thing 20 years ago. We still love them as friends, invite them over for parties, reach out to them when they're in need. Of course, because you're more likely to work with the people in your organization, that naturally tends to draw you closer to them than others who used to be really close to you but belong to different organizations.

Is there anything preventing all of us from working together? Could it be that maybe because we're in different organizations, there's an unwritten rule that we're not supposed to work with each other because we should only do things that benefit our own organization? Now that's a conspiracy if I ever saw one.

The Church of Jesus Christ is much bigger than our organizations and certainly the work of the Kingdom surpasses these boundaries. My prayer is that whatever name we choose to serve under, we shall all continue to work as one. After all, we are still the same friends, brothers, sisters that we've always been. We all have the same vision - to preach the gospel, to serve God and to serve His people. Different organizations may have different strategies and may place different emphasis on different ministry areas at any given time - but that's actually a plus. In God's sovereignty, all areas get addressed at the same time because all of us are doing something different.

People Change – So do Their Passions

I was a part of an active ministry that was struggling to stay relevant to its members back in 2003. At that time, my church had established itself in a comfortable space in Seattle, north of downtown - with a couple of classrooms, a conference area, practice room for the band and a few feet away from a large multi-purpose ballroom that we used as our worship area every Sunday. Because of its history (see other blog entries), most of the workers in this church lived up in the north - Shoreline, Lynnwood, etc. So during the week, this "church facility" was largely unused. Sometimes, in the middle of the week, we would have meetings and people would have to drive in to Seattle to make use of the facility.

Around the same time, there were comments being made about the lack of attention being paid to the work in the South area. This wasn't anyone's fault, of course. A couple of years beforehand, this church had established a satellite church in the South, brought in a pastor to take care of it - only to watch it become a different denomination altogether (that's another story). So over the turn of the century to then, the natural focus geographically speaking and the place where all the workers came from was the northern area. There was such a great need to care for the people who came from the South but since most of the pastoral workers were from Shoreline and beyond, that became a very difficult thing to do.

It was during this time that the vision to move into people's neighborhoods was adopted. Pushed specifically and championed by one of the northern based elders, the idea that the church must be where the people are rather than being in a remote place that people have to drive to became a rallying cry. This slowly became a working slogan as most of the leadership and congregation jumped on board. The possibility of not having to drive 20+ miles every Sunday was an attraction to everyone. Potential regions were identified and potential pastors selected and prepared. In 2006, the vision came to pass - a congregation was established as far south as Federal Way, another one in West Seattle and the remnants (which were the majority of the members, including the only trained and full time pastor) who were mostly residing in the north, stayed in the church facility for a while until they could find a location where they could gather up north. They settled eventually in Mountlake Terrace.

In 2007, 3 congregations were functioning and the business of spreading God's Word under the name of this church and working with local communities was in full swing. Originally, the vision was to plant several churches as we developed workers and found opportunities to establish congregations. Church planting was the name of the game… or so we thought.

The work of trying to keep a congregation together by themselves was too much for the church in West Seattle. Led by a bi-vocational pastor and largely untrained church workers, it was all they could do just to keep a Sunday worship service happening. Less than 2 years after the original launching, they had to affiliate themselves with a larger denomination just so they could get some guidance, covering, and spiritual feeding. They loved the Lord and His work. It's just that the structure that had gotten set up by the original church expansion could not support 3 churches all pursuing the same passions. There was no overseeing body to provide support, follow up, guidance - and most importantly, unity. Each church that had gotten set up were on their own to develop programs, workers, training and direction - and everyone just relied on their relationships with each other in the other churches to keep the organization together.

Almost 4 years later, the church in Federal Way is experiencing the same challenges. Although they had stuck with the original church in Mountlake Tarrace because of a stronger bond of friendship between the South pastor and the pastor from the north, their local work became the focus of all their time. They brought in new people - people who had no relationships with the original church - was this not the aim of the original expansion in the first place? The local church’s emphasis began to change to one of local involvement rather than church expansion via planting. Due in part to the way the structure was set up (i.e. no centralized oversight), the 2 remaining congregations from the north and the south drifted apart in terms of their methods, passions, ministry focus and even theology. They could not even keep a shared website as information was not shared as regularly as it should have been and there was no clear owner of functions that encompassed both groups.

As much as the originals remained friends, their passions and ministry focus areas began to change. The pastor from the south - yes, the one who championed the original vision of planting churches around the area - had moved on to a different area of ministry. A new generation of church members had developed whose passions lied in serving the community - locally and internationally - in getting involved with organizations whether Christian or secular. These new people had no ties to the original church in Seattle and did not see planting churches as their primary mission in life – nor did they see it as a priority for their local faith community. They were more progressive, so to speak - left leaning, if you will, focused on social justice, the environment, poverty, human trafficking, etc.

People change, circumstances change - but it's all good. In all of this, God continues to provide, guide and work. The church in the South is now considering a merger with a larger organization in order to keep itself moving forward. To them, as long as they can keep doing what they are passionate about, it doesn't matter what the history was behind the establishment of their local church. What matters is where they want to take it from here. Its bi-vocational pastor says he has reached the point where the congregation needs to be turned over to a full-time pastor, someone who can care for them and nurture them spiritually because that's what he does full time. Most of the new generation of believers have tremendous potential but a full time pastor must take the reins. Unfortunately, due to the economy (half the congregation are laid off workers) and a lack of resources to draw from, the church in Federal Way cannot depend on its sister church in the north to come to its aid. So their best move right now is to merge with another congregation where both can benefit from each other's resources.

Changing visions, changing passions, changing directions. It's all part of our journey in this ministry life. Sometimes we think we've got the future all figured out with our plans of expanding the Kingdom of God - then God surprises us with something different. And that’s all part of the excitement.

Why We Need an Overseer

A local church can dream big – after all, any church “franchise” (i.e. a denomination) started from a single person bringing together a group of people, and then expanding their ideas of ministry to different parts of the country. So it comes as no surprise that people in a small church would dream that one day their organization’s name would be found all over the world doing the work of God.

That happened to our church. Word for the World Christian Fellowship (WWCF) started out in a pastor’s condo in Makati, Philippines in 1980 – then grew to be over 25,000 people by the time we left it in 1989. It was all over the world, literally and it expanded to Seattle. Later, on, some of the people from that organization separated from the group and became known as Word International Ministries (WIN) around the mid 90’s –they too, are now all over the world.

Our current church, NetWork Christian Ministries (NWCM) is a “daughter” of WIN – its founding members all came from the Seattle ministry of this organization earlier in this decade. So it’s no surprise that the NWCM founders also dreamed the same dreams of its “parent” church – that is, to expand the work of God by planting more and more churches in the area. In spite of its small membership (less than 200), NWCM did plant several churches in Seattle. WIN Seattle, as already mentioned was founded by members of NWCM before they even became NWCM. Another church in West Seattle took root under NWCM’s watch. That group, after functioning as a “daughter” church of NWCM, soon affiliated with the Assemblies of God. A third church was birthed by NWCM in Federal Way. This church has been functioning for approximately 4 years but now stands at a crossroads – whether to continue being a part of the NWCM family or to affiliate once again with WIN.

One of the challenges facing NWCM is the fact that it stands by itself as an organization. It has no denomination or larger organization that it can call its parent – having become independent from its parent organizations (WIN, WWCF) through relational differences. So although it is able to birth new churches, it has no overseeing organization, personnel or structure to make sure that its daughter churches all stay in the family. Child churches are given birth and then left on their own to define their culture, values, and direction – regardless of what those who gave birth to it think.

In a typical denomination, daughter churches are routinely established by up and coming pastors but they are constantly overseen by a central authority. The central power makes sure the leaders are on their toes, that their preachers are preaching towards expanding their denomination, and most of all, that their pastors are taken cared of spiritually and emotionally. In many cases, that central organization also coordinates the support required to keep a church plant stable until such a time as that local church is able to support itself.

This is what’s missing in NWCM. God has indeed gifted it with the ability to give birth to daughter churches. But until its leaders decide that it wants to be an expanding denomination, overseeing church plants and making sure the work of planting churches keeps going, any new daughter church that it plants will eventually find its own way and move forward towards a different direction.

It was only a matter of time before NWCM’s latest daughter churches in West Seattle and Federal Way experienced a desire to move on. Although these churches were planted by NWCM, what held the 3 churches together was not the same vision – it was the relationships between the pastors. But even their friendships were not enough to keep the hand of God from moving the daughter churches forward. West Seattle left the NWCM family in 2007, and now Federal Way is considering the same thing. This is through no fault of NWCM’s leaders – it’s just a reality and a fact of life because of the way things are set up.

It is my hope that anyone who reads this article who still belongs to NWCM will process this truth so that if indeed the goal of this organization is to function like its “parent” organizations (WWCF and WIN and before that, Church of God, TN), then they need to function like a denomination and become purposeful working towards that goal. What happened in the past was nothing negative – the work of God still continued and people still came to the Lord.

The church is a church because of its members and its members’ values and ideas will define its direction. This will be the local leader’s natural inclination in the absence of purposeful oversight by the parent organization. If those values do not line up with the vision of the parent organization, the local leaders will have no choice but to take them to the place where their vision can naturally be fulfilled. On the other, if at the beginning of a church plant, an overseer and a purpose is immediately established, and the organization is purposeful in overseeing the plant and meeting the needs of its leaders, then the local leader can work with NWCM towards that goal.

Regardless of what happened in the past, NWCM continues to be a powerful ministry, making a difference in the lives of its immediate congregation. But again, for as long as its own local church remains the focus of NWCM’s leaders, it will continue to do what it has done in the past – birth congregations that eventually move on. In the grand scheme of things, that’s probably not a bad thing – at least it’s helping the Kingdom of God expand and giving all the credit to God, rather than taking it for itself.

The Blame Game

I was telling a good friend of mine about the situation we're facing as a faith community. He told me that one of the first things that parties from the original organization will ask me is this: what's wrong with me? What has happened to me that so that I am no longer in favor of expanding our ministry around the area and around the world? Why did I change? This is all happening because it's my fault. I am to blame.

First of all, I think it's highly unlikely that "fixing" me will fix the situation. Maybe I am broken and maybe I need to be corrected - that doesn't take away from the fact that our small faith community is now in need of a full time pastor who can shepherd them. And that's something I'm not. And unless some action is taken, we risk losing not just the name of the old organization, but maybe some of the church goers as well.

Does it really matter who's at fault? In the first place, is there any fault to be placed? Is there any blame to ascribe? Has a crime been committed? Has any wrongdoing been done? All we're talking about is figuring out the next step to give people a brighter spiritual future.

Truth be told, none of this stirring would be happening if I wasn't stirring the pot. And if you look at my history - that seems to be what I've always done (rock the boat). I always settle into some ministry and then at some point, realize that it's not where it's supposed to be and make a dramatic move to get something started - to implement a change. And for the most part, those changes have been good. Check it out:

1. In 1992, we were very active with our home church but somehow felt the calling from God to start something different. God allowed us then to dream and envision a new ministry - and because of that stirring, an extension of our home church in the Philippines was conceived in 1992 and then born by 1994.
2. In 1997, I was wanting to get more involved in our music ministry (having been assigned a different role in the new church) so I was given more responsibilities and eventually became the ministry leader - together with some very gifted people, we elevated the worship ministry to a different level.
3. Some time around the turn of the millennium, my wife was assigned to lead the Children's ministry and she recruited me to help out - so I got involved somehow and helped to organize it. She took if to a different level before passing it on to the next person.
4. By 2002/2003, my oldest daughter was a teen and we found ourselves becoming more passionate about Youth. The council recommended that I pass on the Worship Ministry to the next capable person so that we can take over the Youth Ministry. We rocked the youth and grew it in the 4 years we were there. Today, some of those teens are still very close to our hearts.
5. In 2003/2004, again I was not satisfied with the state of the church and a vision had been placed in my heart to break down barriers and to do something bold - to push the local church towards a higher level of ministry by birthing 2 churches from the one (Yes, I only envisioned 2 churches. It was actually the senior pastor who recommended 3 churches). At any rate, that has come to pass and our church became 3 groups instead of 1.

So here we are again and a stirring is happening. I guess you could say my ministry has always been one of stirring the pot, starting something new. Of course, change is something everyone is uncomfortable with. In all these past endeavors, it has taken a while for everyone to adjust - and just when everyone affected is settling in, here I go again.

One of the biggest changes in my stirring of the pot this time around is this - I no longer feel that my life should revolve around the church ministry. We've come to a point in our lives where we are open to doing ministry outside the church. At the beginning of this year, I found myself excited, even giddy about the prospect of doing the work of the Kingdom of God outside the confines of a church structure. In essence, that's what some of our people are already doing.

Of course, we'll always be connected to the church somehow - regardless of what denomination that is. Our ties to our friends and family go beyond organizational ties...I hope. But at least for the near future, it seems like we'll be more involved with kingdom work rather than church work.

So the change in direction of our faith community isn't because someone failed to do this or did something wrong - it's simply a change. So we have to figure out how to manage that change while we're doing it.

Did We Fail?

One of the first questions I was asked when the issue of reorganizing our ministry surfaced was this: How do you assess your own performance as a pastor? At first, I took offense at it because the obvious implication was that we’re closing up shop because I failed the church (and that will probably be the official bi-line for the rest of the organization). So my response was – that’s neither here nor there. Regardless of my performance as a pastor, the fact is that we are in this situation right now where we need to find someone who can give more time and focus to the ministry. And since there are no resources from our ‘denomination’ to draw from, the logical solution was to seek resources from others within the larger Christian community whom we trust. And this is why we sought the assistance of WIN.

There was actually another option – quit and leave the problem up to the organization (who couldn’t fix it anyway). But I chose to stay and find a solution because we remain committed to the people in our community.

But reflecting on that question over the next couple of weeks caused me to reflect on a few more things about life. At first, I admitted to myself that I must have failed as a pastor. After all, pastors take care of their congregations and all pastors grow their churches into large numbers and all pastors multiply their congregations and do church planting…right? Apparently not. Every pastor has his/her journey towards where God wants them to take the people they’ve been entrusted with. If being successful as a pastor means you grow your numbers and multiply your presence in the area over a specific period of time – then yes, I failed (but so has every other pastor in our organization over the past 3 years). Yet many pastors have been successful in doing it. Compared to them, I’m a failure. But if pastoring means creating a community and educating them about the Word of God, causing them to be aware of His work in their lives and especially in society, creating in them an excitement about that work and getting them involved in it – then maybe we’ve experienced some success. We can’t really play the numbers game because there is no objective way to measure cost versus benefit and no way to objectively factor in all that could have been done or should have been done because once again, there is no objective way to factor in where we should have been.

I’ve realized that how we measure success is ultimately a whole lot different than how God does. Is there even a measuring that goes on? It seems like all these performance measures (numbers, finances, saturation, leadership succession, etc) are all part of the same methodologies that churches have been copying from corporate America. In this environment, ministry is measured against results, not against an individual’s heart. Growth is measured against population, not against an individual’s attitudes and effectiveness is measured against biblical literacy - and we all know how inaccurate that is. Our local community may be small and we’re like a ragtag group of bandits making a small dent in the overall work of the Kingdom of God. But in the grand scheme of things, everything is being orchestrated by the Spirit of God – so even as we ministers measure our successes against each other (so we can claim who’s doing a better job than the other), God simply looks at each individual’s heart to see if that person did what they could. He takes care of how big or how small the impact will be (again, if there is such a thing).

So the question still remains. Did I succeed as a pastor over the past 3 years? And the answer is - only God can knows...