As I have been getting around church ministers, I have been hearing many people voice this similar statement ‘Sunday church service is just too hard to get unsaved people to attend.’ I am beginning to think that it is not so much what the Sunday church product looks like but the fact that people don’t go to activities they know little about.
An increasingly greater percentage of 96five’s audience rarely if ever attend church yet they are increasing their engagement with the radio station. Obviously they are not negatively affected by the Christian message in the programming. Attending church though on a Sunday isn’t an option for them. I actually think it is unfamiliarity with church which could be the problem.
Let me use the Bronco’s as an example. Very few people would go to a Bronco’s NRL match not knowing anything about rugby league. Virtually the whole crowd has at least some passing knowledge of the rules and format of the game and the Bronco’s. If there are any who go with no knowledge at least they go with someone who does and invited them to go.
Why are we surprised that strangers don’t suddenly start turning up at our services. What we do know is that strangers will come if they are invited by a friend. And most church ministers do encourage their congregation members to invite a friend to church.
What I have been seeing are ministers who are starting to think out of the box. What if I kept my congregation members less busy and gave them more opportunities to form relationships in the community. What would it take to resource Mary Smith to help her be Jesus in the school tuckshops? How could I help Rob at his kids sporting club be Jesus to the parents on the sideline. Historically church has been about keeping its members busy so they don’t get caught up in the world. Suddenly we have lost our influence in the world. What if your church businessmen were members of their chamber of commerce? Congregation members joined political parties on both sides of politics. Then we start being an influence, making friends and creating opportunities to invite people to a relationship with Christ and church.
I think as more Christians are released to be Christians in the marketplace not just in the pews we will begin to see our influence spread further and perhaps over time our attendances rise. Maybe the principal of less is more might work. Less work in church programs and more work out in the community might just work.
Showing posts with label church in action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church in action. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The Church in action - a powerful force
The disaster of the floods which has swallowed up large sections of Queensland has certainly seen some unprecedented examples of people doing whatever they can to help their fellow Australians in time of need. Some people have been saying for a while that the church is starting to become an irrelevant force in Australia. Over the last 2 weeks in South East Queensland I have seen the opposite.
When the floods started wreaking their havoc over the SE corner of the State the first organisation the Govt contacted to set up evacuation centres were local churches. Across Brisbane and Ipswich churches with only a few hours notice became evacuation centres. Congregational member were quickly mobilised to provide bedding food and importantly comfort to the fleeing residents from flood affected homes. The Salvos were asked to provide catering and comfort to the big evacuation centres at RNA Showgrounds and the QE 2 sports centre at Nathan. All over the region local churches were rolling up their sleeves and serving people who thought they would never visit that church in their lifetime.
Then in areas that weren’t flood affected I saw churches begin to organise clean up teams to go and clean up flood affected communities on the other side of town. This happened well before Campbell Newman was able to organise his large volunteer army. The church was able to organise itself into teams and with help then connect with churches in the middle of the crisis and find the places in most need of assistance.
Other churches mobilised themselves into catering teams and organised sausage sizzles and tins of cakes for the volunteers.
Other churches started organising Baskets of Hope for families who were flood affected to help them restart lives in their damaged homes. Some two weeks after the floods we are still seeing churches spearheading the community recovery teams in many parts of Brisbane, Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley. In fact while sporting teams got plenty of publicity for their good works churches have continued to quietly go about helping people rebuild their lives with dignity.
I saw in these floods people from different parts of town, different congregations and styles of worship come together around their common love of Jesus and serve with out any agenda. By agenda I mean a desire to see these people come to their church. They served because that is what Jesus would do to people in a time of need.
So while the stats of bottoms on seats may show the church in decline and perhaps irrelevant to its community; in a time of crisis it was a powerful resource of buildings and people who can quickly be organised into service without asking questions. As some one asked earlier where was God in the middle of this disaster? He was right in the middle in the faces of the volunteers serving the people.
When the floods started wreaking their havoc over the SE corner of the State the first organisation the Govt contacted to set up evacuation centres were local churches. Across Brisbane and Ipswich churches with only a few hours notice became evacuation centres. Congregational member were quickly mobilised to provide bedding food and importantly comfort to the fleeing residents from flood affected homes. The Salvos were asked to provide catering and comfort to the big evacuation centres at RNA Showgrounds and the QE 2 sports centre at Nathan. All over the region local churches were rolling up their sleeves and serving people who thought they would never visit that church in their lifetime.
Then in areas that weren’t flood affected I saw churches begin to organise clean up teams to go and clean up flood affected communities on the other side of town. This happened well before Campbell Newman was able to organise his large volunteer army. The church was able to organise itself into teams and with help then connect with churches in the middle of the crisis and find the places in most need of assistance.
Other churches mobilised themselves into catering teams and organised sausage sizzles and tins of cakes for the volunteers.
Other churches started organising Baskets of Hope for families who were flood affected to help them restart lives in their damaged homes. Some two weeks after the floods we are still seeing churches spearheading the community recovery teams in many parts of Brisbane, Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley. In fact while sporting teams got plenty of publicity for their good works churches have continued to quietly go about helping people rebuild their lives with dignity.
I saw in these floods people from different parts of town, different congregations and styles of worship come together around their common love of Jesus and serve with out any agenda. By agenda I mean a desire to see these people come to their church. They served because that is what Jesus would do to people in a time of need.
So while the stats of bottoms on seats may show the church in decline and perhaps irrelevant to its community; in a time of crisis it was a powerful resource of buildings and people who can quickly be organised into service without asking questions. As some one asked earlier where was God in the middle of this disaster? He was right in the middle in the faces of the volunteers serving the people.
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