Church Recap

Here is a new weekly post that I'm doing. Every Monday I will give a little observation about church life. I'm beginning today and will never repeat this again. Ha. Get it? That gives me permission to not follow through.

Men's Breakfast Prep

Anyway, this week I'm prepping for a talk I'm giving this weekend at church. Men’s group that meets this Saturday. Fellowship group of 15-20 men that meets monthly at the church. Has breakfast. $5. They asked me to give them a witnessing update at their 7:30 time. Uggh. That’s early for Saturday. They had me talk a couple of years ago on men’s group and the importance of men getting together and meeting. At that meeting, I shared my passion and then tried to coordinate guys start meeting. A daunting task for 1 guy and as usually, I failed and didn't follow through. My problem was I approached it like an opportunity to get men’s groups going in the church. I have learned now. This is a meeting of guys like you might go to in the business world for any various type of organization you belong to and that organization is looking for speakers for their monthly gatherings. Just men getting together in fellowship (which is great), but just encourage them.

E-class in fall

My pastor sent me a note as well saying he wanted to talk to me about the evangelism class for the Fall I taught last Spring in which I ended up with one participant, though it was great. He agreed with my initial assessment to change the class to a hybrid of teaching and field work. I sent a little note to the coordinator for the fall asking for clarification on the class name, how it will promoted and such. She didn't respond. I later apologized. Again, no response. Get tired of how inept people are when it comes to email and common response courtesy. O well. It’s not intentional. Just trying to take stuff in stride. 

Church model

I think I have expected too much out of my church leadership and their backing of my ministry ideas. You know, the landscape of church now is that church leadership really just hones in on the basics and spends their time on those things. North Point and Sagebrush, now, have got it right. Set up the small home group and let life (and application) evolve from that group. It’s basically the church hybrid of large corporate worship and house church (i.e. cell group).

My problem is I’m still caught up in the old church model (since that's where God seems to have called my wife and I) where you hope the church starts a ministry, get 400 people engaged, active and everyone involved. But, there are just so many aspects of ministry. So, a church has a hard time going off in so many directions. 40 years ago, it was missions, evangelism, discipleship, but now we've veered off into so many different areas while the involvement at times is less than stellar. I’m waiting for this magic moment for things to change, but it’s not happening.

The problem is blooming where we are planted. It can be frustrating partly because I think my church leadership, unintentionally, frustrates people. The demographics of the church are primarily made up of people over 60, the wealthy class of the church as well, who have extra giving often for the church and so the funding for the church often comes from these folks. And the leadership seems really apprehensive about changing much in the church because it doesn't seem to want to upset these individuals. So, I've had talks with the senior pastor in the past about men's ministry, discipleship, outreach, greeting visitors, follow-up---all good things and basic things in most churches, but all things that would require change and it is clear the 60+ generation doesn't like change. So, he usually loves the conversation, but when I start talking application, he states, "not now." I could be way off, but that's the way I see it. Baby steps.  

Progress is happening

And yet maybe the church is developing, but just not in the way I see it. Take greeting visitors. We do have a greeting team now, but it's not different from what we've had and for the most part, the only difference is name tags. We do get a weekly update on new folks coming to the church and the deacons are reaching out to them, so that is progress. I'd prefer a face to face, but that's me. Discipleship remains absent, but actually, not sure what this will look like because not sure how much senior leadership even agree's with having a discipleship program. So, I guess things are happening. So, what is the problem still? 

Maybe what I see is still just this split in the church. There remains so much emphasis on fellowship inside church walls. And my concern they are just re-training current adherents in an old model. 

I've been trying to shift the way I look at worship, focusing more on God versus my own selfish needs. And yet, it's so hard to listen to a message absent of the gospel, and absent of application, while just getting the same theme the pastor likes to give. Last week was awesome, but this week was back to just submit talk and not just talk, but in your face wake-up talk. I don't know. Maybe the problem now is we have so many choices. As a kid, to hear a different message, you stayed home from church and watched TV or you went to a different church. Now, you can pull a new message from a pastor you like out of your pocket. And so you go to church because God tells you to, but you just sample the areas that you like. 

I talk to people every week that gave up on the service. But, they love their small group class and have community there and their kids love the classes they are a part of and so they just do their thing and skip church service. What are they missing? Worship songs? I don't know. Corporate fellowship I guess. I wonder if they are giving. 

And life goes on.