Piloting Church

Helping Your Congregation Take Flight

Cameron Trimble

• Publisher: Chalice Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780827231702
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Institutions & Organizations

Prepare your church for take-off

A majority of churches are grounded - shrinking in membership and resources, unsure how to make the changes needed to be vital again. Pastor and pilot Cameron Trimble has helped hundreds of congregations get airborne again, and Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight guides you through the steps to getting your congregation out of the maintenance hangar and back into the skies.

Using piloting as an engaging framework for organizational transformation, Trimble addresses the process of planning, executing, and completing a church revitalization project in 10 easy-to-read chapters:

· Decide You Want to Fly
· What Kind of Pilot Will You Be?
· The Fundamentals of Flight
· Your Flight Crew
· Charting Your Course
· Preflight Checklist
· Funding Your Flying Habit
· Managing Comms
· Mayday Moments
· Making a Successful Landing

Chapter One: Decide You Want to Fly

“Courage does not consist of the absence of fear. Courage,
rather, is the mastering of that fear: feeling the fear and
going forward anyway.”
—Carey D. Lohrenz, U.S. Navy’s First Female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot

I knew from the time I was a little girl that I wanted to be a pilot. Sitting in the copilot seat of my uncle’s Beechcraft Bonanza, far too short to see over the instrument panel, I studied the gas pressure gauges and tracked our flight on the old paper maps. We had a stopwatch taped to the pilot yoke and tracked our flight legs based on estimated times that we should arrive at each point. It was magic for me! Between those experiences and a few viewings of the “infamous” movie Top Gun, I knew that I was called to the skies.

I also knew that I wanted to make the world a better place. A few months ago, I stumbled upon a picture of my childhood bedroom. Most teenagers would have posters plastering their bedroom walls of the latest popular band or teen heartthrob. I had pictures of starving children in the African Sahara Desert and polluted rivers killing massive populations of fish in China. From a young age, I was concerned about the ways the world was broken. I wanted to dedicate what energy I could to make it all a bit better. So, in addition to being a pilot, I also knew that I wanted to be a pastor, believing the church was a great pathway to make the change in the world that I wanted to see. But as it is for many people, knowing what I wanted to do and figuring out a way to do it were two very different things.

The first challenge I faced as a young woman was that I didn’t know any women who were pilots. Today, sadly, women still only make up 5 percent of the general aviation community. That means that out of all 454,000 licensed pilots in the United States, only 23,000 are women.1 We’ve seen only a slight increase in the number of female pilots in the past 30 years. While I was told as a child that I could be anything that I wanted to be, I now recognize that because my imagination was limited by what I was seeing (or not seeing) in my world, I never seriously considered becoming a professional pilot. That changed for me, slowly, after I spent years on the road traveling on planes to and from conferences. I would see female pilots in the airport and something buried deep within would jolt to life, like a literal shock to my body. One day I was walking through the terminal in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, and I remember seeing a female pilot and thinking, “I know you. I recognize what drives you because it drives me too. You are most alive when you are in the air.” The minute I found the courage to say that to myself, I didn’t care that only a handful of women become pilots. I knew I was going to become one more.

Flying has taught me more lessons about life and leadership than I could have imagined. I’ve come to realize that what we do together in our congregations, organizations, and businesses can be strengthened by what I have learned in managing a cockpit of an airplane and navigating safely in flight. In fact, I’d like to suggest that if you are a congregational leader, lay or ordained, you are also made to fly. You may not be flying an actual plane, but you are directing the flight of a congregation, organization, family, or business simply by your participation in it. Your leadership matters.

Measuring Risk

When people hear that I am a pilot, they sometimes assume I am a risk-taker and an adrenaline junkie. They often say, “Wow, you must be a little crazy. I could never do that.” What they don’t realize is that, experientially, for me it’s the exact opposite. Being a pilot taught me to manage risks because there is more at stake. The minute I approach the plane for my preflight, I am focused, disciplined, and fully present. I don’t skip steps in my checklists. I double-check my calculations. I trust my training and my instincts. I take far fewer risks in my cockpit than I ever would walking down the street. I am a good pilot precisely because I manage risk.

Leadership will feel risky because it is the art of creating something that has never existed or doing something that has never been done. No one has ever renewed your congregation at this moment in history with the resources at your disposal. No one has ever tried to start a new ministry in your town, with your vision and with the people you have gathered. It might feel like a bigger risk than you can manage, but here is the key: do your homework, don’t cut corners, trust your training. That is how you lead with excellence.

Take Responsibility for Your Possibility

Do you remember the story of Nehemiah, the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes? He visited Jerusalem and, seeing the walls of Jerusalem lying in ruins, decided that he needed to rebuild them. Can you imagine? He was the guy who tasted the food before the king to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. He was not a mason. He didn’t have formal training in wall-building. No one told him that the walls needed to be rebuilt and then gave him the task to do it. He saw that it needed to be done and took responsibility for making it happen. That’s leadership.

It wasn’t easy. He had to convince the king to let him go, organize the investors, disarm the militia, recruit the workers, convince the townspeople, and mobilize the support teams. I’m sure he had moments of doubt and wondered if he had lost his mind. But he took responsibility for their collective possibility. He knew that, with the help of so many others, he could rebuild that wall.

What if your congregation and its membership had extraordinary untapped potential within its walls? What if you actually could change the world...or at least your community? In congregations I work with across the nation, there are members who are exceptionally talented and well-connected professionals in their “day jobs.” They are influencing our national policy, teaching our children, leading our cities, serving as CEOs and vice presidents of our Fortune 500 companies, changing the culture as technology innovators, caring for people as HR professionals, leading as project managers...so many talented people who work in fields that shape our world. But when they come to church, rarely are they asked to bring what they know and do in their professional fields into the mission of the church. Rarely are they asked to consider how their contribution to their industries can create a more just and generous world. Why? What could be possible if we did?

Millard Fuller was a lay member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He had a deep love for the church, but he never considered it a career path for himself. His passions were around business...

Table of contents

• Praise for Piloting Church
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Preface
• Chapter One: Decide You Want to Fly
• Chapter Two: What Kind of Pilot Will You Be?
• Chapter Three: The Fundamentals of Flight
• Chapter Four: Your Flight Crew
• Chapter Five: Charting Your Course
• Chapter Six: Preflight Checklist
• Chapter Seven: Funding Your Flying Habit
• Chapter Eight: Managing “Comms”
• Chapter Nine: Mayday Moments
• Chapter Ten: Making a Successful Landing
• About the Author