Gateways

Gateways are important.

Pretty obvious they let things in, they let things out. Well how many gateways does your church have? (Remember the church is not the building its the people) How do you let people into the fellowship life of your congregation? You say, well there's worship and Sunday School - what about the person who works on Sunday? Or simply works all night on Saturday?

Do you have childcare for the families with kids? Childcare for meetings? How do you make it work for people to enter into your fellowship? It's a critical question. Are you offering things that people need?

One great resource out there is available for free:

Percept

Take the free quizzes and you will learn a great deal about what you could be doing to open up your fellowship to the world around you (to the Glory of God of course).

Going on vacation through the 30th see you then.

Is it Really About the Fish?

One of the things a congregation needs to figure out is why it was started, who is in it, and what is its purpose. Many church growth experts will tell you that the church needs to exist to be fishers of men. This is true. Other traditionalists and theologians will tell you that the church exists only to Glorify God. Any other actions stems from that truth. That is also true.

Hmmmm....

It is about God - to God alone be the glory!

However, Matthew 28:19 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

The challenge for any church is keeping the main thing the main thing, however, the main thing is often bigger than we might think. Is it all about the worship service for the elect to praise God? Or is it all about making it accessible to the outsider so they can get closer to God?

Bringing it into our Reformed tradition:

Q: What is the chief end of man?

A: To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

So they both are important but before you go out on a membership recruiting drive slow down. Churches that are in decline are usually that way for a reason. Rarely did they lose half their members over night (although such things do happen). They need to glorify God and ENJOY Him. Fact is that many churches that love God forget to enjoy him and if you aren't enjoying God nobody in their right mind wants to hang out with you or "that god".

When I arrived here at Thibodaux there was a wonderful core group of Christians. They weren't stuck in the mud. They weren't hide bound but the congregation had been in decline for years. Why? Those answers are in many ways as complex as society. Rather than ask "why" we asked "how". How do you turn the tide? Later we will begin to answer some of the why questions but that is later....

The book of Acts teaches us that, 'yes signs and wonders occured but also the Word was proclaimed'. In fact the signs and wonders appear to be all about drawing people in to the word. Alot of church growth experts say "have great music and they will come". Despite all the pundits out there we grew without a vibrant music ministry. In fact we either had High School pianests or used a digital hymnal. At times the music was bluntly put - horrible. But we dedicated ourselves to 'fellowship, prayer, and the Apostles' teachings'.

We made sure the service flowed in an order that made sense and enhanced the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. We did well what we could do well and we tried not to worry about the other things. No matter our lack of style nobody could doubt the sincerity of what was going on. I tagged it "casual but reverent" that's our style and it was about reverence but approachability. We maintained true and sound worship but we made moves to make sure that the outside world could enter into our 160 year old community. It was about us worshipping God and our desire that others come and join in. And in that first year we went from 25 in worship to about 50 and we had 20 people join or rejoin the congregation.

This gives honor to God and it draws fish to the net! Most churches will count their success in handfuls not thousands. Most congregations in fact are thrilled to hold the line. All of this points us away from God. We can't become fish counters. Its potato salad (this ones for you Viola). Its not the eggs, or the potatoes, or even the olives (for the record I love olives in my potato salad) - its about them working together. Glorifying God cannot be seperated from reaching the fish.

In the liturgical church one thing that often occurs is the worship may not make sense anymore to anyone outside the small group of believers present on Sunday am. Why do we say a creed? Why do we confess our sins communally? Why do we do that before we hear the sermon? What is a sermon anyway? Does it matter to my life? All these questions and more had to be answered both privately and publicly. You see we are all fish and some of us get used to the water we are in and forget to explain to the new fish why it works so well.

To truly honor God you must live out the worship service and that includes the primacy of faith sharing. So it is all about the fish but only because its all about God (and he loves the Fish). So if God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.... How much do you love that world? What are you giving (to God's glory) to honor God's love? Give up the organ? Let go of a creed? or even add an organ? Add in a creed? There is no magic fix but there needs to be intentionality.

Would love for you to push back add your thoughts. Interact.

Change takes Time

Well friend it is time for a change, time for something new!

New Wineskins presents something radical. Something possitive and oddly enough something familiar.

For me the familiarity comes out of 10 years of training for and doing ministry in a particular church. I want to begin to turn the topic of this blog to talking about building healthy churches.

Am I an expert. No way. Has our congregation grown - you bet. At times it has grown dramatically in numbers, at other times it has grown dramatically in maturity, it's outreach has expanded.

One of the first steps of change is getting perspective. So Pastor, Elder, Deacon, or fired up member. Do you know your church? Is what you think you know accurate.

First step is to take time to study the history of the congregation - ours is 160 years old and I have read or at least skimmed all 160 years of session records, I have read the church history, I have listened to the stories. I am not the Lorax and I do not speak for the trees but I know the history of this church and I consider it part of my job to speak for it. It is an important tool in strengthening a dying church because somewhere in every church's history is a reason. A reason for existing.

Do you know yours? Is it to glorify God and Enjoy him forever? There is the official history and the unofficial history.