I like to think about church- to a point. Eventually my head hurts and I have to stop. I think about questions like, "What does a mature Christian look like?" And, "Discipleship is cool, but to what end?" We talk about discipleship and discipling communities, but to what end. Small Groups are cool, "But to what end?" How do small groups become evangelizing communities that are never allowed to become stagnant and inward focused?
I love these questions and like thinking about them. But, eventually my head hurts and I can be frustrated. I have been learning about a church called Real Life Ministries where they are all about small groups and have hundreds of small groups. I love their ideas. They see small groups as evangelizing communities. They believe that everything happens through relational discipleship. Then I just finished a book called The Church of Irresistible Influence. It was a great book, but it had a totally different view of church structure. They had small groups that people went to for up to three years and then joined small groups called "Common Cause." You committed to these groups for one year and each group was focused on a specific community service project for that year. Cool.
The goal was to get people in the community serving. Well, I was confused and wondered what ideas we could take from both churches and try to see how they fit in with Momentum's specific calling. My head hurt. I called the church from the Irresistible Influence book to ask about their groups because I had a few important questions. Well, I guess my questions landed on the money because they don't structure their church at all like the book anymore. They have resorted back to a more normal small group structure and encourage everyone to serve in the church somehow on top of serving in the community. I thought that was funny, how I was being influenced by an idea in a book that a church had been gun-ho about, but a few years after the book was published, abandoned for whatever reason. It was a good reminder that new ideas can be fickle and that although new idea trains are always leaving the station, it doesn't mean I have to board them all.
I know that we'll never have a perfect church on earth. Honestly, I find that frustrating sometimes. And I do love aspects of many churches. I love Momentum and the things we do. I believe we're as close to all the things I think a church should do as I've seen. I love aspects of other churches to. But, it's frustrating seeing new ideas and hearing differing ideas of all the things the church should and could be. I bet if I wrote down everything the church "should" be, it'd be totally impossible!
Being reminded of your post, a few posts ago. I guess that's why instead of trying to find the newest church ideas, we need to find our personal passion and calling. Then figure out how that specific gifting, passion, and calling work into a specific community. Then all future cool new ideas need to fit into the specific passions and callings I've been given.
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5 comments:
nice post. i totally agree with your last few sentences; i think each church has both a general call and a specific call. general call being made up of all the basic biblical tennants of church: worship God, love people, reach up/in/out, etc...Specific call is just that: specific to the church's culture, location, and heartbeat. a church in cleveland trying to target the unchurched population is going to look a LOT different from a church in DC targetting the churched intellectual.
As for small groups, i recently heard of a church that combines fellowship with evangelism. each small group meets weekly for fellowship, prayer, and Bible study. as a group they prayerfully decide where they'd like to minister in the community (i.e. a soup kitchen, to foster kids, a nursing home, etc.) [the church "requires" this of each small group--and there is some sort of accountability structure in place.] Once a month they go as together to minister to their adopted community people group. you can imagine the awesome effects: the small group members retain fellowship and Word study, but never get too inward-focused. And, of course, evangelism occurs more naturally, more relationally, as a result of serving and cultivating relationships with a specific group of people in the community over an extended amount of time.
i LOVE this idea, and if i'm ever on church leadership, i'm going to implement it!
What's crazy is when groups make that leap to reaching out on their own. We had a group that was reading "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell, and when they were done, they said, "We need to be out there doing things."
Next thing you know, I get an e-mail saying, "Hey Matt, would it be cool if we made a service-oriented small group? We'll call it Swoosh [as in Nike's Just Do It]."
I was pumped, so I said yes.
The End.
I would also say that I am "attracted" to the idea of connecting small groups with service.
But, I would feel nervous about forcing everyone to do it. That'd be one of my concerns. That's why the church in Irresistible Influence had people first go to a "regular" small group for a while (3 years if they needed it) and then go to a small group built around service.
The church Real Life Ministries views small groups as "Evangelizing Communities" so that there job is to serve and care for their surrounding community. Now, they can also serve the homeless, but, they serve best when Host man Stan's neighbor has to go to the hospital and his small group can love the crap out of Stan's neighbor. I like this idea.
But, I also like the idea of developing small groups with a specific service project in mind. One issue that must be considered is time. What are we requiring of members:
Church on Sunday.
Small Group during the week.
Build relationships with people in your group.
Serve in the community at least twice a month.
And serve on Sunday by doing communion, or serve with the kids.
What if you want to coach your kids soccer team? What small group would you join for that? You might not have time to if all the other stuff is going on.
(Love the ideas, just trying to flesh them out).
I believe I've heard of a church that encourages its members to serve in the community. And simple is almost always better.
What if you challenged your people:
Serve in one ministry in the church and one ministry out in the community.
In the church can be kids and in the community can be coaching your kids soccer team.
Time is huge. Time is how people view respect and love.
"Choosing to Cheat" by Andy Stanley talks about time and prioritizing it, especially regarding family, but it can be applied pretty much everywhere.
If you ask things of your members, you have to be absolutely sure you are respecting that time.
I have seen so many people burn out because they give so much but they don't get the love/affirmation they probably deserve.
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