Churches only ever change because of two things. Both are simple.
1. People stop sharing their faith with others
We stop talking to our friends about God. We never invite anyone to join us here in church and when people don’t come for a while we never ask them why not. This leads to is a long slow decline. We withdraw from things because we lack confidence. We stop doing things because there aren’t enough of us…
2. People start sharing their faith with others
We talk about how important God is in our lives. We invite our friends to join us. We get involved in our community. We make a difference. We help people.
It’s not rocket science. It’s not something we don’t already know.
So, where will you spend your time and energy; raising money to sustain the system and fix the roof or telling people the Good News that God can transform their life and the world?
great summary – did you see the missional video on mine or Johnny’s blog recently?
http://www.casadeblundell.com/jonathan/faith/the-missional-church-video/
good stuff.
We talked a bit about this during our gathering last Sunday. We came to an agreement that although it is important to share our faith with those around us, we need to stop trying to force it and to move away from programs or systems of evangelism, such as tracts, the four spiritual (f)laws and things like that. We need to be the people God created us to be and not try to be anyone else. Sharing our faith in practical ways will flow more easily when we start being the people we were created to be. We also came to the conclusion that this is easier to talk about than to put into practice, but that anything short of this will be flawed and incomplete and more ‘us’ than ‘God’.
Does that make sense?
That makes perfect sense William. I don’t like the whole tracts and programmes approach. Apart from anything else it’s way to impersonal. Sharing faith for me is about sharing MY faith. That means acting on my faith, living it out, otherwise it’s not something that’s valueable to me so why should anyone else care?
Jonathan, yes I saw it. It’s great! Thanks for including the link. I should have stuck it in the post myself.
Agree with you But surely one can fundraise and share our faith with others.
Rod, I don’t think the two are exclusive but I would worry about which is the priority. My concern is that we get caught up in the fundraising because we think it is about resourcing the faith sharing. Do we need a big building to share our faith? Or a minister? I’m not saying we don’t, just wondering aloud at where our priority is. As a denomination the URC spend more than 80% of its funds on ministers with the majority of the rest on buildings. What does that say about priorities? (Obviously CYDOs don’t count! ;-))
Hi Stewart,
Think I agree with you, except that sometimes buildings can be great hubs for mission, depending on quality, location and the stuff that goes on in them, and are therefore worthing investing in.
I agree Martin. Buildings can be great resources for mission.
The problem comes when we maintain a building for the sake of having somewhere to worship for an hour on a Sunday and it’s closed for the rest of the week.
Thanks for your comment!
Interesting discussion – I’ll keep Gospel tracting (they go where I can’t, they are there for people I never meet, they don’t chicken out and they work!) but I like all the suggestions. We need a healthy balance and should allow fellow Christians the liberty to vary on practice.
Like you say Davy… balance is good. Tracts don’t work for me but they work for some people and I’m glad you are there to balance my approach. Thanks for commenting. 🙂