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When it comes to church growth, feelings of disappointment, frustration, and failure creep up on you, and you tend to find that your efforts to bring in new people aren’t paying off. Keep reading to find out:
- Why your feelings matter and how they’re having more of an impact than you think
- A few of the most damaging and unbiblical statements we all should stop repeating
- How a few corrections in your view of church might make all the difference
The Feeling Of Disappointment In Regards To Church Growth
Disappointment is very real. In small churches, disappointment comes in a lot when an outreach event you poured your heart and soul into only brought in two families, or maybe your Sunday morning attendance has dipped down to something that might not even be sustainable. This is all real and valid.
I imagine Jesus felt disappointment too, but I don’t think He was worried about church growth. He was aware that there was a larger story unfolding. However, I’m sure He knew what disappointment felt like when the disciples didn’t quite understand or didn’t follow instructions, or when Peter cut the soldier’s ear off when they came to take Jesus away.
Disappointment is real. It’s a God-given emotion. Disappointment isn’t a bad thing. In fact, no emotion is good or bad. Your emotions exist for a reason, and they are a part of God’s design. However, emotions do have an impact. They have an incredible impact on you, those around you, and the community as a whole. While we don’t need to be controlled by our emotions, they also aren’t meant to be ignored. God created them, and they are good. While they can, at times, hold us back from all that God has for us, they can also propel us forward in beautiful ways.
How Can Disappointment Be Good?
Every emotion has the potential to bring good or to cause great harm to our relationships with God and others. Even the emotions that we might think of as negative, can be a magnet that pulls us closer to the heart of Jesus, or not. Many people have latched onto this false idea that our emotions get in the way of progress, and that the best leaders move on despite emotions. However, we are learning more and more, not just in the church but in leadership, relationships, psychology, and the medical world, that the most successful and healthy people not only acknowledge their emotions but are becoming experts in emotions. They acknowledge them, feel them, understand them, learn from them, and draw closer to relationships because of this. This is how God created us.
Not processing your feelings of disappointment can often be what’s standing in the way of progress and forward motion. Please hear me, it’s not the feeling of disappointment, but it’s not leaning into it, allowing it, processing it, and bringing God and others into it in a healthy way.
So, let’s acknowledge that we’ve all felt disappointed. Disappointment, discouragement, and even hopelessness can be damaging, but they can also lead us to freedom and a closer walk with Jesus than we ever imagined.
The Most Common Responses to Feeling Disappointed
1. Deny The Feeling And Push Forward
Some people, when faced with the feeling of disappointment, just keep going and keep leading. They try to ignore it and write it off as a nuisance as if it’s knocking on the door and you’re just not going to answer it. This is probably the number one response that I see in people in small churches. They often say, “I’m going to be faithful. I’m going to persevere.” They ignore the feeling and go on anyway.
So, here’s the question. How’s that working for you? 90% of the time, this results in burnout and bitterness. I want to show you a different way.
2. Spew It And Share It
Another common response is to talk about how disappointed you are with your friends or others in your church. You get them to start talking about their disappointment too. I’ve heard people say, “I just feel better knowing that others are going through what I’m going through.” I understand that a little, and yes, I like empathy too, but the problem with this one is when it festers. If all you’re doing is hanging out with disappointment, I promise you, you’re going to stay there. This isn’t the option I choose.
3. Feeling Guilty
This is common and often happens concurrently with the first two. We feel guilty for feeling disappointed, or we blame ourselves for the disappointment. We often beat ourselves up for feeling the emotions, and maybe we even invite God in to support the bashing. We question what is wrong with us or why we can’t be grateful. Maybe you blame your pride or self-centeredness, or maybe you blame yourself for not doing enough. There is a better way to process all of this that leads to more truth and goodness.
4. Be Intentional
One thing you could do with your disappointment is to start a deliberate process that moves toward health and goodness. Take yourself out of autopilot. Be intentional and process this emotion. If you do, it’ll change your trajectory.
What To Do With This Emotion
When we don’t process disappointment, it can lead to a spiral of negativity toward ourselves and others. However, I want to reintroduce something to you that could help you process this feeling. I want to walk through the 5 A’s I mentioned a while ago. You can use them every day if you’re working on emotional health or being more in tune. I use them quite often.
The first A is, Aware. Ask yourself, “What am I feeling?” Is it really disappointment, or could it be more than that? You may find that your disappointment is covering up feelings of worthlessness or even anger. Try pulling out your emotion wheel, or even journal. The second A is, Accept it. Don’t just accept that you feel disappointed, accept that your feelings matter, that God created them on purpose. Accept that what you do with them, or not, has the potential to draw you closer to Him or to push you farther away. Accept that they have the potential to deepen healthy relationships or to push you farther from your friends.
The third A is, Ask. Ask for some help here. Yes, ask God, but don’t just ask Him to help you stop feeling this, ask Him to illuminate what is surrounding and contributing to this. The fourth A is, Attend. Care for your feelings—question whether this is a familiar feeling or not. Ask what unhelpful thoughts are magnifying these feelings. Next, ask yourself what is true! Before you decide how to act, it’s important to get clear on what is true. The last step is, Act. What ‘next steps’ give you the best chance to show up the way you want to? Do you need to spend time alone, journal, or rest?
Start With Your Heart
I’m starting to believe that the most practical thing I can teach you isn’t how to find and keep volunteers, but to start with your heart. We need to acknowledge ourselves as spirit, soul, and body, not just machines who want a system to fix things on the outside. If you want to know how to get more people in your church or at your events, it starts here. It starts with a healthy you, and when you get in touch with the healthy you, you’re connecting with Jesus in a real way, and it might even shift what success looks like for you. The things you used to measure success, might start to change.
Challenging Damaging Statements
One damaging statement I often hear is, “If you do this right, you will grow”. Now, you will grow if you do it God’s way. You will grow as a person, but this isn’t referring to church growth at all. This mindset actually causes us to slip into feelings of failure, self-reliance, and pride. It’s not good. Another statement we need to get rid of is, “If you’re faithful, God will be faithful.” People say this a lot, but it’s not true. The truth is, God doesn’t need you to do anything. In fact, 2 Timothy 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself”. God doesn’t need you to work for Him. I’m not saying that we should be faithless, but I want you to look at what God actually calls us to. We are called to love the Lord your God with all of our hearts.
Dismantling A Damaging Thought
If I asked 99% of Christians what their biggest ministry day is in their church, for most, it’s Sunday. 90% of church effort is put into Sunday morning. What if we shifted our minds? What if we started thinking that the biggest ministry days were Monday through Friday, followed up by Saturday? What if the whole point of being a light had to do with what happened between Sundays? I want to explore this a little bit. We often try to contain ministry to our service times and events, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
What if Sunday was more like a team meeting and ministry happened on the other six days of the week? What if every Sunday people stood up and shared how they were a light that week?
What Can You Do As A Result?
Go back to your emotions. Don’t just say that you’re disappointed. Explore that emotion. Chances are, there are a few things mixed with that feeling that aren’t really about the lack of attendance at your service. Remember, God might be drawing you into a greater understanding of His sovereignty, and of the fact that He is at work now.
If you’re feeling disappointed, you can choose to let that draw you into a spiral of failure and frustration, or you can process that disappointment in a way that is a fruitful calling out to our Almighty God. We should be asking for His clarity and help, putting us in a right relationship with Him. We draw near to Him by recognizing our own need for God rather than our own effort, and by knowing that He is big enough to handle it. If you’re sitting in disappointment and not processing it, you’re not going to have the transformation you desire. You have to do the work and deal with foundational things inside you if you really want to embrace the tools for an amazing small church ministry.
This is the starting point. Seeing God at work right where you are, even in disappointment, is critical!
Read More:
Why It’s Not About The Numbers (& It Never Was) – Small Church Ministry
