“I’d like to phone a friend, please” is the unforgettable phrase from arguably what may be the most winning TV show in history, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? With around 12 separate million-dollar winners, and a very high rate of guests winning, everything seemed possible for viewers. Again and again, in more than 3,000 episodes of this popular show, contestants got 30 seconds to phone a friend for help with a question that stumped them. It is human nature to reach out to others when we face questions we cannot resolve on our own. Today, when businesses and communities turn to others for help, there is a phrase we use to describe that practice: “turning to consultants.”
When did the practice of spiritual communities and spiritual leaders turning to consultants for help begin? Many people point to a significant moment in the life and ministry of Moses when someone near Moses, an extended family member, acts as a consultant of sorts, offering Moses guidance for how to ‘outsource’ some of his leadership burdens and responsibilities. This occurs in Leviticus 18:13-23:
13 The next day, Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. 14 When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?”
15 Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will.16 Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.”
17 Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. 18 You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. 19 Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. 20 Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. 21 But select capable men from all the people – men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 22 Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. 23 If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.”
Moses did indeed heed the counsel he received, and because of that, he was freed up to perform other critical acts of caregiving for Israel. Fast-forward to the early Apostolic movement and we witness a similar occurrence in the creation of the Deacons, which alleviated the work of the Apostles at tables, to spend their energies elsewhere (Acts 6).
Today, in the modern church, consulting has taken on a much more particular, focused form. In the 1970s and 1980s, under the influence of leaders like Donald McGavern and C. Peter Wagner, The Church Growth Movement popularized pragmatic guidance for churches to address common, repeating growth challenges they were facing. Some common consulting requests churches make of faith-based consulting agencies include strategic and church-growth guidance, church-health studies, leadership-development models and practices, church-conflict resolution, capital projects and capital campaigns, church-rejuvenation and renewal, church-planting, and church staffing assistance.
Some of the bigger names in the world of church consultation include “The Unstuck Group (https://theunstuckgroup.com),” “Auxano (https://auxano.com/church-consulting),” “Vanderbloemen (https://info.vanderbloemen.com/),” and “Christian Ministry Alliance (https://christianministryalliance.org/services/consulting/).” You may not know this, but the Presbyterian Church of Novato engaged the Brown Church Development Group consultants (https://www.churchdevelopment.net) to complete a 2019 discernment study that explored a more intentional reset of the church's staffing and leadership structure.
At this critical time of transition in the life of the church, as our Mission Study Committee undertakes its Mission Study Report to help offer guidance on the future Installed Pastor search, the Session of the Presbyterian Church of Novato is exploring a new consulting agency to resource the church as it considers the question of church growth. The consulting group we are exploring is called the Engagement Group (https://www.engagement.group). The Engagement Group offers a unique 360 resource that helps churches clarify how they hope to grow and what practices are vital in that church growth. In addition, the general counsel provides specific guidance on guest experiences and retention practices (assimilation), which aligns well with a special task team created by the Session in the winter of 2025, called the “Guest Friendly Church Task Team.”
As we continue to imagine the faithful future of the Presbyterian Church of Novato, we ‘phone a friend’ and practice the promise of God that we never face the future alone as an isolated church community, but rather as part of the broader body of Christ, with gifted consultants who have wisdom for the future.
Some of the books that explore the potential growth of the future church in the modern world include Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger’s book, Simple Church; Eddie Gibbs’ book, ChurchNext; Graham Tomlin’s book, The Provocative Church; Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Raymond Chang’s book, Future-Focused Church; and Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand’s book, When Church Stops Working.
We are on a great adventure, friends; an adventure we take with many others who have gone before us and join us in this present moment!