Friday, March 13, 2009

Churchianity vs. Christianity-"Come and Get it" or "We are here."

The church council sits around a table discussing current ministries. At the end of the meeting, one member asks, "This area is growing, but yet our church has not grown at all. What should we do to get more people in worship?"

What do we typically bring up events that we can have within the church walls (food, sales, events, etc). And many of these events are great. I truly enjoy the activities that we have at our church that reach out to our own kids and also to the preschool families. Yet, it appears that people in the community really are not driven to walk in the doors of a church if they have a major event. This presents a challenge to the current church that has not been fully addressed. Events within the church doesn't attract many people and does even less in the evangelistic sense.

So what do we do? I'm not really sure :-(. One thing is for sure, we need to get out to the community in new and various ways. This doesn't necessarily mean that we do door to door evangelism (even though that is great), but being present wherever the people are. Town meetings, community events, football games, the most popular restaurant, and the most popular bar. From there, we need to do simple relational discussions, prayers, and support for those whom Jesus misses the most. This is going to be tough and LONG. But it is obvious that we need to promote less of our "church" and more of our Christian Lutheran faith in different arena's.

May God Bless us as a church to do His Will.

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