Organizational Cycles and Responses

All organizations change over their lifetimes. These changes occur incrementally and may take decades. They may be described as cycles in the business world, or seasons in relation to the church world, but typically they coincide with the generation who is in command at the time. As the generations are replaced, the changes occur.

A common sequence occurs in the business world. A leader or group of leaders begins a new business from scratch. The early years are marked by sacrifice, hard work, and a determination to be successful that overrides any organizational structure or policy. The focus is on results. The founders are completely willing to do without personal comfort and will rally all available resources to insure the success and growth of the business. When it succeeds, there is a tremendous feeling of satisfaction, but a lingering idea that success is fragile and should never be taken for granted.

When the children of the founding generation take over, they remember the sacrifices made by their predecessors, but being children, they didn’t really experience the anxiety and hard work of their parents. As they assume roles of leadership, they are stepping into a successful and strong organization. They move forward with the company always hearing the voice of the founders reminding them of how valuable and fragile success can be. Typically the second generation will be better educated then the founders. That education was one of the sacrifices the founders made so their children would have a better opportunity than they did. As a result, the second generation takes the company to heights that are hard to imagine by the founders. With a better understanding of markets, newer technology, and the advantage of starting with a flourishing company the second generation makes great strides and the company becomes a force in the marketplace. Typically it branches into new products or services. It expands into new areas and adds layers of bureaucracy as it grows. Typically there are new facilities, with lifestyles that are commensurate with success.

The crisis occurs when the third generation comes into power. They are children who have only seen strength and prosperity. The stories of sacrifice seem quaint to them. Being children of privilege, they attend the best schools, travel extensively, and have unlimited access to the best things of life. When the third generation takes command, one of three things typically happens. Either they (1) take the business public and cash out; leaving the company in the hands of stockholders, (2) they keep the business, but lose interest in building it and taking risks, so they live on the fruits of their predecessor’s work until the business is run into the ground, or they (3) take the business far from its’ original direction and get lost in a diffused sense of direction until a crisis requires a drastic restructuring. Then the company may or may not recover its former glory. If it survives, it typically thrives, and goes on for many years, making adjustments as it goes. The changes don’t seem as emotional or drastic at that point, because the business is now “on its’ own”. The founders are no longer the personality of the company, and no longer cast a shadow over its operations.

It is interesting to see parallels between business cycles and what I see in our movement, the Assemblies of God. The early twentieth century Pentecostals had no goals other than the spread of the Gospel under the anointing of the Holy Spirit throughout the world. They began with very little in physical assets. What they had they made available. They made a lot of mistakes in those early years, but their eyes stayed firmly on the goal of establishing a worldwide evangelistic organization. Men and women of great quality and passion risked everything to get established. These were the pioneers. There were no established works in any of the countries they went to. They started from scratch in every country and among every people group. They encountered and overcame many great difficulties and many died fulfilling God’s call on their lives. Eventually they established a beach head in places in every region. Works were begun, disciples made, churches planted, pastors trained, children were taken care of, and believers multiplied.

The next generation, those who weathered the Great Depression and World War II followed their predecessors. This generation was a generation of builders. Where works were planted, buildings were built. The Churches of the U.S. responded with generosity and enthusiasm. The post-war boom brought great prosperity to a nation that was suddenly interested in the world. They wanted to lend a sense of permanence to the works that were begun. Here in the States and around the world, we still benefit from buildings built by this “builder” generation. Churches, Bible schools, hospitals, orphanages, and office buildings rose in metropolitan areas, deserts, and tropical forests. As you travel the world today it is impossible to go to an area reached in the mid-twentieth century without seeing buildings built by the generosity and efforts of the builder generation. This generation was willing to sacrifice because prosperity was new to them and they didn’t see “doing without” as a necessarily bad thing if they were being involved in something that reflected permanence and legacy. Their names grace many of the buildings we still use today.

My generation, the Baby Boomers, are organizers. If the local church doesn’t want to do something, we begin a parachurch organization to do it. We are the generation that became concerned with programs and procedures. Our way of thinking is that if we set something up correctly, it should run smoothly. We are not fond of exceptions and we value strategic planning and seamless execution. We are comfortable handling and spending millions of dollars, all of which was donated by others. We are into statistics and success ratios. We look at a map of the world and lay out 5, 10, and 20 year plans. We insist that our missionaries’ needs are met even if it delays them living out their calling for years. We are uncomfortable asking someone or even allowing someone to sacrifice. We want everyone to earn a good living while they are doing God’s work. Our missionaries have the best equipment and live the best lifestyle of any mission sending organization in the world. We evaluate risk/reward ratios and calculate how many gospel presentations our mission dollar will provide. We do love God, and we are passionate to see the Great Commission fulfilled, but in many ways it is more of a project than a life of commitment. We have drifted a long way from the passion of the founders. We are still getting success reports, and we have more missionaries on the field than ever before, but we have a vague sense that things can’t go on like this forever and that something needs to give before there is a crisis.

My feeling is that we are poised for an exciting and scary ride in the next few years. Here are a few fundamentals. We have a growing number of missionaries going to the field. This generation of young missionaries is recapturing the passion of those original pioneer missionaries. They want to go to new, Gospel-resistant areas and share the Gospel with those who still haven’t heard after all these years. They are not afraid to take their families into difficult places. They are not afraid of hardship and sacrifice. They are ready to give all for the cause of Christ. Each year in my district, we have more new missionaries heading to the field than those who are retiring.

At the same time, the number of A/G churches in the U.S. is static. The population of these churches is staying static. Their giving is static. That means that we have an ever increasing number of missionaries raising their ever increasing budgets from a static pool of churches. I’ll be the first to say that our churches are not giving anywhere near their potential, but the current reality is that it is taking longer and longer for our passionate new candidate missionaries to make it to the field.

I am not critical of our movement. I believe that the heart of the Assemblies of God is still to carry out the mandates of the early General Councils to reach the entire world with the Gospel. I just see that it is time for some serious conversation about how we do things. What we are experiencing is normal for a 100 year old organization. We are at that critical point in the cycle when we can either keep doing things the way we are until it is too late to do anything else, or we can begin to look at our goals in new ways and make the significant changes that will prepare us for an even greater next 100 years.

The most exciting and challenging parts of the earth remain to be reached with the Gospel. It will require the radical faith of our founders to reach them. It will require innovative thinking and new resources. I believe that God is raising up the harvest laborers to do it. We have to be willing to resource them the way they need to be resourced even if it looks radically different than what we do now. We can do it. I believe that we will.