Greetings to you in the name of Christ Jesus, our Savior.
Just about every time I talk with a Pastoral Search Committee I hear in one form or another, “We need to grow!” While that could refer to spiritual growth, financial growth, or growth in Biblical knowledge it is pretty much couched in the matrix of, WE NEED MORE MEMBERS. More members is a critical need for churches to thrive as we are not populating congregations with our progeny are not generally attracting new individuals.
Eddie Hammet writes: "If you grew up in the church, as I did, you can probably remember a different day in the church. Doing church was pretty easy. Everyone participated in just about everything. Everybody used the same curriculum, studied the same thing. And whatever the church leaders asked the congregation to do, they did. It was a different day.
We lived in a church culture that counted progress by the 4 "Bs": bodies, budgets, baptisms and buildings. We were more concerned with where to put all the new babies than with whether we had the budget to keep the lights on and the staff paid. Almost everyone went to church somewhere, or at least knew they should. When you visited newcomers or non-attenders about coming to church, they knew the church language, knew what you were talking about.
This wasn't just a simpler time of your childhood memories. It was really like that." (Reaching People Under 40 While Keeping People Over 60, 2).
It doesn't seem that simple any more. What once worked - doesn't. The age of knowing what do seems a thing of the past. How do we reach people? And when they do come, how do we keep the revolving door off the church? When a guest comes to church how do we create belonging so they will want to stay? Those are the questions and the dilemma our churches face today. That is why the Region and the Evangelism Ministry is sponsoring the workshop "Extreme Makeover II: Church Edition - E-tools for Evangelism" To put tools in the church hands to help with the difficulties we face today is something we can work on together. Extreme Makeover takes place Saturday January 21 at Seventh Street Christian Church in Richmond. We encourage all churches to participate. Please visit the calendar link to register.
Grace and Peace,
Lee
