I have a question for you if you are a Christ follower. Is your faith centered on your church, its members, and its building?
I have noticed two things I see the modern method of American Christianity doing that I am not sure it even realizes it is doing. The first is to center the focus of our faith on the church. It does this by focusing all it does on itself. The things it participates in that are outside the church are still focused on getting people to the church building on a set day of the week. Does this describe your faith experience? Is it centered on serving and ministering to the lost in your community as you share the gospel?
The second thing I have noticed is that many ministries are focused on getting people “saved”. The majority of the time, talent and treasure are placed on getting people to church where they can hear the gospel and respond in faith. Its what comes next that I have noticed is odd.
Does your church take the next step as being one of connecting them to the church body? Or does it give them a clear path to walking out their gift and passion in public service? If it does the second choice then you would know because someone would have sat you down and said something like – “Now that you are a follower of Christ here is how you go from new birth to full maturity and actively use your spiritual gift to grow the kingdom.”
The sad truth is that many ministries today hope that the second part just happens. There is no plan to take the average convert from new birth to maturity. That is one reason it takes so many years for Christians to mature in the American church. Instead of making disciples we are focused on making converts that will become members of our church. This distorts our God designed purpose of being disciple makers in a fallen world to becoming passive participants in a church system. So Sad!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Church Attendance Trends in the USA
80% of the WWII generation attended church.
50% of the “Baby Boomers” attend church.
30% of “Baby Busters” attend church.
3% of “Gen X'rs” attend church.
65% of the Baby Boomers have dropped out of the institutional church.
60% of Gen X’rs have never been in a church a single time, not even for a wedding or a funeral!
50% of the “Baby Boomers” attend church.
30% of “Baby Busters” attend church.
3% of “Gen X'rs” attend church.
65% of the Baby Boomers have dropped out of the institutional church.
60% of Gen X’rs have never been in a church a single time, not even for a wedding or a funeral!
Friday, October 14, 2011
On Pastoring the Community
Every community is in need of pastoring. Some communities are in more need than others are. Our community has a problem with drugs and violence. One of the ways we decided to pastor our community was to make sure that the services offered by the city were being provided to our community. One service many may take for granted is to have streetlights on at night. In our community we noticed that the lights were often not working and that repairs were taking a long time to get accomplished.
Our neighborhood is comprised of about 70 square blocks. It is a somewhat dangerous place to roam about at night. We thought that might have led to the lack of repair on the streetlights. We found out which city department was responsible for reporting the outages and we decided to assist them. We went out one Friday night with note pad and pen and we drove down every street in our neighborhood. We only had one instance where a car tried to block us in but I managed to get past them before they could get out. I am sure they just needed directions or something. By the end of the night we had documented 42 street lights out in our neighborhood.
I am happy to report that after one week it appears that 40 of these have been repaired. Our area is brighter at night and that will help to deter crime. We are making this a regular activity of ours. Last week, as we checked on the repairs to the reported lights, we found several more that had gone out. In our simple daily walk to live our faith and pastor our community we have found that the most basic of services can be held back if we do nothing. There are many other services the city offers that we see lacking in our community. Instead of looking for someone to blame and complaining about the lack, we have decided to assist them in their job.
Our next step will be to make sure we praise the civil servants that helped us correct these issues and to teach the community members how to access these services. As we do this publicly we will care for the residents, show our love for the community and promote unity between the city and its residents. All the while we get the privilege of shepherding the community Christ has given us charge over.
Our neighborhood is comprised of about 70 square blocks. It is a somewhat dangerous place to roam about at night. We thought that might have led to the lack of repair on the streetlights. We found out which city department was responsible for reporting the outages and we decided to assist them. We went out one Friday night with note pad and pen and we drove down every street in our neighborhood. We only had one instance where a car tried to block us in but I managed to get past them before they could get out. I am sure they just needed directions or something. By the end of the night we had documented 42 street lights out in our neighborhood.
I am happy to report that after one week it appears that 40 of these have been repaired. Our area is brighter at night and that will help to deter crime. We are making this a regular activity of ours. Last week, as we checked on the repairs to the reported lights, we found several more that had gone out. In our simple daily walk to live our faith and pastor our community we have found that the most basic of services can be held back if we do nothing. There are many other services the city offers that we see lacking in our community. Instead of looking for someone to blame and complaining about the lack, we have decided to assist them in their job.
Our next step will be to make sure we praise the civil servants that helped us correct these issues and to teach the community members how to access these services. As we do this publicly we will care for the residents, show our love for the community and promote unity between the city and its residents. All the while we get the privilege of shepherding the community Christ has given us charge over.
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