I can think of a dozen churches who need to take these principles to heart, and none of them are “mega.”
1. To be honest about our current condition. This can be hard for a church with such a storied past. …
2. To relinquish our rights as members to a church building that we are no longer able to pay for by ourselves. The Garnett Church of Christ building is becoming the Garnett Event Center.
Already, several other churches are using our facilities on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon: a Messianic Jewish community, a charismatic Hispanic church, a rock church called Rolling Stone, and a new church plant. …
3. To recognize that the most life-giving activities of our church aren’t necessarily going to happen in our facility. Church leaders in event-driven and personality-centered churches tend to gauge success by headcount, the number of people who show up. This is what leaders talked about, and subsequently members tended to judge success by how pews and collection baskets were filled. …
4. To learn to be missionaries in our own culture. Across the street from us, Fire Station 27 is the busiest station in the city. Fire Chief Michael Baker said, “This is a big church and the neighborhood is waiting ?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ waiting to see what you are going to do for this community.” …
(H/T: The Philosophical Pastor)
Thanks for the hat tip, Darrell.
You know, every time I visit your website, I look at that platypus and just bust up laughing. Where did you find him?
Like me, he is a Frankenstein’s monster cobbled together from various spare parts. Ah, the wonders of PhotoShop!
Regarding #3: Interestingly, our church sees our building as a big part of the mission to the community. The building is well used by both church groups and by groups that may have had their start in the church, but serve the larger community (ie cancer support group), as well as groups that meet there, but aren’t official parts of the ministry, such as AA, Boy Scouts, piano lessons, yoga, and many more. In addition, there are funeral gatherings (not the funeral itself) in the fellowship hall when the person doesn’t want a church funeral. Occassionally there are meeting held in the fellowship hall when the group has no other meeting space available.
Someone estimated that our relatively small congregation, has about 500 people coming through the doors of the church (building) each week.