Beyond external-focus and servant evangelism

I am proposing a new model for small church ministry.  It is not a model that you have read about or seen advertised.  No seminars or conferences about this model exist. There is no notebook, website, CD, or video link.  Yet, it is so obvious that we have missed it for at least the past 1900 years.  I learned this new model, not from the church, but from a civic group.

The day I went to a strip club

Several years ago I was pastoring in North Carolina.  A young mother with two kids started attending our church.  Every Sunday morning the father would drop mom and the kids off at church, then return to pick them up after the 11 am service.  Debbie worked in the preschool department and got to know the mom and kids.  She also met the father as he would come and go, and commented to me about how much he seemed to love his kids.  I asked around about who he was and what he did, and found out that he was the owner of our local “gentlemen’s club” — which is a misnomer because it was not for gentlemen.  It was a strip club.

Doing good is kingdom business

Coming up next:  A great idea for Easter Outreach — stay tuned! 

Okay, I am going way out on a limb here because I am tired of the social gospel vs. evangelism debate.  And I know the history — the social gospel emerged at the turn of the twentieth century (1900s) because the dominant theology was that the world was getting better and better.  Then, along came World War I and blew that theory.  Evangelicals divided into fundamentalists and social gospellers, and parted company.   Obviously, it was more complex than that, but you get the picture. 

“All our library books are checked in!”

 Several years ago my dad was a church library consultant for the Baptist Sunday School Board.  One of his assignments was to conduct church library conferences at churches around the country.  At one conference, he asked for reports about the status of the participants’ church libraries.  One dear lady stood proudly to announce, “As of last Sunday, all of our books are checked in.”  Obviously, she thought the job of the librarian was to get books in, not give them out.

Which brings me to a thought about church — how much effort do we expend to get all our people “checked in?”  We count high attendance Sundays, worship attendance,  Sunday School attendance, membership lists, baptisms, and anything we can brag about to fellow pastors or our denomination’s leaders. But what are we not counting?

The pastor as poet

You’ve taken the survey, I’m sure.  You know the one — where you find out if your gifts in ministry put you in the apostle, prophet, poet, or pastor category.  I always want to be the apostle.   I can see it now, all my emails begin —

“Chuck, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the saints in Chatham….”

Or something like that.  And guess what — I usually score apostle on this test.  I like the idea of being out there on the raw cutting edge of ministry, leading the charge to take the gospel to all the world.  Then real life rears its head, and I am reminded that I am not on my third missionary journey — I’m on my way to the hospital to see a member facing surgery.  Did Paul visit people in the hospital? 

What does the Lord require of you?

My friend Josh is pastor of a church in Monrovia, California.  It’s a new church, planted because of an encounter with God.  Josh tells the story this way:

Just in time for the big game

My good friend from high school days, Jim Stovall, is professor of journalism at the University of Tennessee.  Peyton Manning, quarterback for Indianapolis Colts, is a former Tennessee Vol.  Beginning to see a pattern here? 

Caution: God at work

Rick Warren talks about preaching for “life change.”  Others speak of “transformational” preaching.  The goal of every preacher I know is to bring an effective message, engaging the worshippers and leading them to a new encounter with God.  It’s the “how-to” part of preaching that is hard, however.  But a book by Joel Green and Michael Pasquarello, both of Asbury Seminary, offer a helpful perspective.  The title is Narrative Reading, Narrative Preaching, and this short book provides an effective approach to the pastor’s reading and preaching of Scripture.

A surprising liturgical experience

I was out-of-town for the weekend and attended an Episcopal church today.  The church is much larger than mine, but had a similar gothic design so I felt at home in the sanctuary.  I love the Episcopal liturgy, but was concerned I might not be familiar with what this church was going to do.  But, they had already anticipated people like me attending. 

One vision of the future of the church

  “I imagine our congregations becoming smaller, not bigger, yet teeming with the life of his body.  And I hope there are more of them, so many of them in fact, that they become the alternative to the Starbucks of our day.  I hope our churches become known for servanthood in the neighborhoods and warm hospitality that invites strangers into our homes.  I pray that the home of every evangelical person becomes an incubator of evangelism, inviting strangers to the gospel out of their lostness and into the love and grace of life in our Lord Jesus Christ.  I imagine real fellowship in our congregations, the kind that shares joys and suffering and potluck meals.  I pray our leaders take on the form of humble servants who sit, listen, and suffer with real people through many years of leading them through this life in Jesus Christ.  I hope we leave behind the CEO models of leadership.  I look for our worship services to become liturgical places that form our people into faithful participants in the life of God.”  

— David E. Fitch, The Great Giveaway:  Reclaiming the Mission of the Church…, pg 229.