And We’ve Arrived…..Home

Earlier in the calendar year I did a several-part series on our search for a new church, with the last post done in early May.  I won’t detail the number of churches we visited, but I will tell you that we did visit quite a few.  To make a long story short, we have ended up at Discovery Church.  To be honest, I’ve struggled for quite some time with whether I even wanted to write this blog post because I didn’t want to draw attention to any one church or make one of the churches we visited but didn’t end up at look bad (for the record, all of them were wonderful congregations).  At the end of the day, though, I guess I felt it was only fair to give this update on our journey.

We made our first visit to Discovery sometime last March and have actually been in attendance ever since.  We decided over the summer to get involved in a small group, so we joined one, and then this past fall I got involved with the early-morning men’s Bible study as well as their new discipleship class.  After all I’ve written on the subject of finding a church I feel it only fair to say what finally drew us to Discovery.  It wasn’t the music, the service time, the pastor, the people, or any of those things (they all played a part, but they weren’t the “deciding factor”, so to speak).  Quite simply, the one thing that overwhelmingly drew us in, and why we felt like God was sending us there, was the vision.   Again, don’t get me wrong, the pastor is a great preacher, the people are wonderful people whom we’re enjoying getting to know, and the girls enjoy the kids’ program.  But at the end of the day those things are, well, just parts of the whole.  And, to be completely honest, there are plenty of churches that do a good job with those parts (some perhaps even do them “better”).  What we were really looking for, as I look back, was to identify with what held all those parts together.  And that was always the missing part at so many churches we visited: our visions didn’t align.

So what is the vision?  I’m not sure I can tell you the “official vision statement”, but I can summarize it fairly simply.  Discovery church is about making disciples.  And that’s what we’ve been looking for for a very long time.  Lots of churches talk about making disciples, but this is actually the first church I’ve ever been a part of that has a plan in place to do it.  Granted, it’s a plan in infancy, but it’s a plan none-the-less; and it’s a good plan.  The leaders and people at Discovery truly want to connect people with Jesus.

And that’s what it’s all about.  Our church in Florida had a very simple vision: “Changing lives by connecting people with Jesus Christ.”  We saw that start to work its way out before we left, but we weren’t at the church long enough to fully experience it (not because we left the church but because we left the State!)  And I see that same desire at Discovery:  They talk about it every week, they make it obvious in how they structure their organization, and they’ve spent weeks preaching it and countless hours putting a plan in place.  They’ve identified discipleship as having three components: Deepen, Do, and Develop (it’s what we now call the “3-D’s” of discipleship).  They’ve even restructured their pastoral staff to align with the three terms – we have a pastor of doing, a pastor of deepening, and a pastor of developing:

• Deepen – it’s about deepening our relationship with God and other believers
• Doing – it’s about serving God and others
• Developing – it’s about intentionally building relationships with non-believers with the goal of sharing the gospel

I’m not saying Discovery is the only church that emphasizes discipleship or that the way they are doing it is the only way to do it – in fact, I know that’s not the case because when I talk to my strong Christian friends around the country I hear them saying the same things but in different ways.  I’m just sharing that, for whatever reason, this language makes sense to me.  While it’s not been said by anyone at the church (at least that I’ve heard), I get the impression that the pastors are actually working to “equip the saints” to do the work, and that the saints understand they are to be equipped rather than delegate ministry to “full-time, paid” people.  And that’s refreshing.

Am I suggesting all those things I wrote in my previous posts aren’t important?  Absolutely not.  I’m simply saying that they are not the end-all of the discussion.  I’ve said for years that those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus are all in the same church, we just worship in different buildings.  And I believe this so strongly that sometimes I have suggested to people they attend a different church than the one I attend.  For the record, I’ve actually taken some heat for that.

Before I go on, let me be clear: I’ve never suggested to anyone in one of my churches that they needed to leave the church.  I’m referring here to people who are searching for a church and I’ve suggested they try a church, but sometimes my suggestion has been different than where I attend based on their personality.  For example, if someone was not into liturgy and high-church I suggested they attend a contemporary service even though I may have been at a liturgical church at the time, or vice-versa.  I never discouraged people from coming to my church and I always welcomed them if they did.  I am just much more concerned with people meeting Jesus than I am with building my local church.  One would think those two are the same, but, unfortunately, they’re not.  And leaders who don’t get that fact are missing the boat, and they run the risk of setting themselves and “their church” up as an idol.

Which brings me to my point…  I get the sense that our pastoral staff gets this – that it’s not about us but about Him.  There were two churches we visited this year where the pastors actually said from the platform some variation of, “We want you to be involved in a church, and if it’s not our church that’s okay – just get involved in a church where Jesus is taught and lived.”  Discovery was one of them.

It’s not a perfect family, but it is our family.  Continue to pray for us as we figure out the role we are to play in our new family, and pray that we fulfill that role as God desires.  And thank-you for your prayers as we have traveled this journey.

 

And it Continues…..Diversity in Church

One of the most influential books I’ve read in the past year has been Church Diversity by Scott Williams (the link will take you to my review of the book).  I say influential because it’s caused me to seriously reflect on how I view the issues of ethnic and age diversity in church congregations.  Living in the South (but coming from the North), I have noticed the deep racial divide here in many ways, but perhaps none so more obvious as church attendance.

Over the past five months we’ve visited a lot of churches, and this issue of diversity has been something we’ve talked about a lot.  To highlight how bad of an issue this is in the South (my friends from the North may not believe this story, but it’s true), let me quickly tell the story of what we noticed several weeks ago while visiting a church…. One of the things about Greenville is that there are lots of new church plants around (I don’t mean plants like those things that grow out of the dirt that you have to water, I mean plants as in start-up, new churches).  Many of these plants do not have home buildings, so they meet in schools, hotels, or even homes.  One week we visited a church that was meeting in one of these non-traditional locations and as we walked in I saw a really good mix of both black and white people walking in the door of the building.  I actually thought to myself, “Wow – now here’s a church that’s started to become more integrated!  Praise God!”  But then I got in the building…

I kid you not – there were two different rooms setup for two different churches.  All the black people went to one and all the white people went to another.  Now don’t misunderstand me – this was not one church with two different rooms for worship, it was simply two different churches that happened to meet in the same physical building in two different rooms.  But the contrast could not have been more severe – I actually had the thought in my head, “What is this?  1960?”

Now I don’t know what effort these two churches have made towards attracting and maintaining members of other races in their respective congregations, but I did have to wonder about it.  In the South it is very common for people to say that the racial division in churches is a result of the culture down here – and I believe there is a lot of truth to that.  But it’s not an excuse.  I was having a conversation recently with someone about this and asked about their view on reaching out to people from other backgrounds, specifically blacks, to bring them into the church.  This person responded to me that while they thought it was a great idea, they felt it would be a better idea to actually train up a black minister to go and reach black people with the gospel because as a white person he wasn’t sure he’d be able to connect with blacks and be respected by them.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Or does it?  I’ve also heard people say, “I can’t reach out to older people because I’m so young I’m just not respected and accepted, so I need to find an older person to reach them for me.”  Or, “If that person just had a white teacher instead of a black teacher he’d learn better.”  So let’s take race out of this discussion and replace it with any word that represents a portion of culture: food, music, whatever you want.  Haven’t you talked with people regarding music programs at churches who will tell you, “We have to be traditional/contemporary because that’s who we are and if we choose the other we will offend this particular group?” (or something along those lines?)

But here’s the bottom line: anytime, or perhaps I should say every time, we make a comment that because of our cultural background we can’t reach a certain set of people from a different background, we are limiting the power of God.  That’s right.  In essence, what the person whom I talked with that I mentioned earlier was saying was, “The power of the cultural barrier in Greenville is more powerful that the God I serve.”  What those who argue over music are saying is, “The power of musical style to divide us is greater than the power of God to unite us.”

And that’s a problem.  The problem ultimately isn’t our view of race, culture, music, or what-have-you; no, our problem is our view of God.  For me the main issue is not so much that we have segregated congregations (it’s an issue, but it’s not the main issue) – the main issue is what are we doing about it?  I get concerned for those who don’t recognize it is a problem that needs to be addressed.  I’m not saying I have the answer as to how to address it, I’m just saying we need to stop hiding behind the excuse of “that’s the culture here in the South” and start recognizing that the power of God to unify and reconcile is greater than the power of the enemy to divide.

Go back to the example I shared at the beginning of this post about the two different churches worshiping side-by-side in two different rooms…  I’m in no way suggesting I wouldn’t have been allowed in the room where the “black church” was meeting or that if a black person had tried to enter the room where the “white church” was he would have been turned away; I truly believe both sides would have welcomed a person of the different background into their group without making them feel uncomfortable.  I’m just wondering why it was up to me as a white person to enter the “black church” or for one of the black Christians to enter the “white church”.  Why do we always put the onus for change on the other person and rarely (if ever) ask, “What can I do to reach out to someone who is different from me?”

Does this mean the church we ultimately end up at will be a perfect representation of all the races and ethnicities found in Greenville?  No.  Does it mean the church we ultimately end up at is willing to start talking about this problem and acknowledging that it is a problem?  I certainly hope so.  Churches need to be asking the question – just start by asking the question.  And then let God take us where he wants us to go.

And it Continues…The Singing Men (or lack there-of)

I’ve been tossing this one around in my mind for awhile, discussing it with a couple of people, and even reading other people’s thoughts on it.  So it’s time to throw it out there for people to consider and even comment on.  As we have been visiting churches I’ve noticed a phenomenon I don’t care for – and it really bugs me.  At first I started seeing it only subconsciously, but now that we’re visiting lots of churches I’ve actually started looking specifically for it: do the men in the church sing?  Let me lay out a couple of assumptions/beliefs so you can understand where I’m coming from on this:

1. Worship is a response to God, as such it is not initiated by us (I’m not even going to link to a specific post on this because I’ve written on it so much – if you click on the tag “worship” you’ll find more posts about this than I can count)
2. The Bible calls men to be leaders in the church and in the home.  I’m not saying this to down-play the role of women or sound chauvinistic; I’m simply stating what the Bible says (and I’m not going to get into a long drawn-out discussion about it because that’s not the point of this post).  I’m also not saying women can’t hold leadership roles – because they can and do; if you disagree with this statement just bear with me and I think the context will help explain it.
3. Men, by nature, are designed by God to be initiators; women are designed by God to be responders.  Now, this is a broad (very broad) generalization, but it helps me make my point so I’m going to keep it in here.

You’re probably wondering why I pay attention to whether men sing in church when we visit: after all, shouldn’t I be focusing on God and not the people in the room?  I look specifically because I want to see what the leaders of the church do in worship: what do they model?  I’m not talking the formal leaders (deacons/elders, pastors, musicians, etc).  I’m talking the leader of every household is standing in the congregation – I’m talking about the men.  I look to them because people do what the leaders model, so if men aren’t singing it says a lot to me about the church.

Now as I was researching this topic a little I realized I wasn’t the only one to have noticed this trend over the years – in fact, I stumbled across an entire website dedicated to getting men more involved in church (including singing and worship).  In fact, this website has multiple pages dedicated to helping churches design their ministry to encourage men to participate (at least that’s what they say).  Posts like Men Vs. Praise and Worship or Why Men Have Stopped Singing; they even have a so-called “Guy Friendly Test” for churches to take to see if their culture is too feminine for men to feel comfortable!  Then there’s this page I stumbled upon named “Why Do Men Resist Getting Into Worship?” or one worship pastor’s thoughts from his blog.  Apparently I’m not the first person to wonder about this question.

And these people make some great arguments – saying that music is too feminine, or too emotional, or too performance-oriented.  It’s great reading, but I’m not going to re-hash it here since I’ve provided the links above.  In all honesty, they offer some pretty decent suggestions for churches to consider in designing services that men would feel more comfortable in.

But that’s not what I want to talk about – I don’t want to talk to churches and church leadership (pastors and worship teams).  I want to talk directly to Christian men.  Here’s the bottom line, guys: I don’t give a darn what type of music your church is using – if you don’t like it get over yourself, get over it, and start singing.  Grow up and be a man – stop being a baby and pouting every Sunday morning.  I have been to too many churches in the past four months (at least 8 by my most recent count) and I am sick and tired of seeing men in the service standing during the songs with hands in pockets or arms crossed, lips not moving, and just staring with disgusted looks on their faces.  Do youreally think that when you stand before God after you die and he asks you “Why didn’t you worship me in church” he’s going to accept some lame-a** excuse that “I felt the song was too feminine and emotional” or “I just couldn’t get the tune” or “Singing is for women – I’m a man” or any of the other excuses identified by the writers mentioned above?

We are the leaders, so we need to lead by example.  My girls need to see that men sing – and we sing our hearts out.  Not because of anything we have done, but because of what Jesus has done for us!  Why is it men will do the absolute dumbest things at a sporting event but then check-out when it’s time to cheer for the God of the universe?  Do you think he’s not looking?  Not only do my girls need to see that real men sing and real men worship (so they know what to expect in a husband), but the young boys in churches – two of which will one day marry my daughters – darn well better see what they are supposed to be so they can adequately lead as husbands.  If we don’t do it guys, no one will.

It’s not easy and I’m not going to pretend it is.  Go back to points 1 and 3 above: if they are true (and I believe they are), then worship itself will in many ways feel un-natural for men.  If worship is response and  we are not by nature responders, then we’re going to have a hard time worshipping.  But anyone who says they can’t do it is lying not only to themselves but also to God on High.  If you can cheer for your favorite team you can cheer for your Lord and Savior.  I get excited to see the Cubs play – even though they haven’t won the World Series in over 100 years (no, I’m not bitter!).  I wear hats and shirts with their logo on them – and I don’t even live near Chicago anymore.  And I know I’m not the only one who feels that way about a sports team.  If I can do that for my favorite baseball team I can certainly do it for my Lord.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not equating worship with singing, because worship is so much more than that.  But singing is one of the most visible ways we can worship.  And we don’t worship for others to see us, we worship for God.  Yet at the same time when we refuse to sing we send a very strong message not only to Him but also to those around us.

I mentioned that I look at this because it tells me a lot about a church – and it does.  One of the things it tells me is how seriously men take their walk with the Lord.  Do they really believe what their hearing?  Are they willing to look like a fool for the one they love?  Does the church evaluate what they are doing in terms of preaching and worship (because if all the men are disengaged obviously they aren’t evaluating their effectiveness very hard since they aren’t very effective)?  Do I see men who challenge me to draw closer to God and become more like Jesus?  Do I see men modeling for the boys the type of man I want my daughter to marry?  Yes, I really do believe you can make an initial assessment of the health and vitality of a church just by looking around it to see if the men are singing.  It’s that big of a deal.

So men, this Sunday at church (which for me is in just a couple hours by looking at my clock), stand up and sing.  Don’t worry about how you sound, don’t worry about if you like the song, just sing.  Let your kids see you singing and praising God.  Let others’ kids see you singing and praising God.  But most of all, let God see and hear you singing.  Forget about the lights you don’t like, the music that’s not your style, the song you may or may not know, or the distracting whatever on stage (fill in the blank there: drum set, dancing worship leader, etc).  Just sing to Him and for Him.

It will not only warm his heart, but it will also warm the hearts of those around you.

And It Continues….Worship

I’ve written quite a few posts regarding worship, specifically the place of music in worship, over the years, but this post is unique.  In contrast to all my earlier posts on the topic, this post is written from the standpoint of just another congregant and not a music director.  As we’ve been visiting various churches this topic is always one of the things we talk about after the service.

I really don’t want to go on and on about issues of style or mechanics (music selection, “traditional” vs. “contemporary”, to clap or not to clap, what key a song is sung in, etc), but instead want to focus on the place of music and worship in the service.  Let’s agree on one thing: worship is more than music, and the idea of a “worship section” of the service is a misplaced concept – worship is not something we attend but rather something we do; it is something that requires the engagement of heart, spirit, and mind.  These are some pretty basic concepts that I’ve explored in other posts, and perhaps I’ll come back to them again, but since I’m talking about something bigger today I won’t explore them right now.

Worship is response.  Pure and simple.  Worship is our response to God as he reveals himself through his Word.  Which begs the question: how can we respond to that which we do not know?  I’ve been the member at a lot of different churches in my lifetime, and I’ve served at two different ones as a professional music director, and this is a truth I’ve taught over and over again.  So let me say it again: worship is our response to God.  It is not music, it is not raising or clapping of hands, it is not speaking in tongues, it is not singing, it is not a particular style of music or action. Worship is response.  How we worship may be examined (at least partially) by looking at those things, but the concept of worship is much broader than any of them.

So I naturally want to know what a church believes about worship.  The obvious place to look is to examine how a congregation worships (all those things I’ve listed above), but there are some other things to consider at as well – and that’s the focus of this post.

Since the primary purpose of church is to learn the Word in community, I look at what a church emphasizes in terms of time.  If preaching takes 20 minutes and singing takes 40 minutes then a caution sign goes up in my heart.  Is that to say you can never spend more time in song than in teaching?  Absolutely not, what I’m talking about are repeated trends that happen over time.  One Sunday with that ratio isn’t going to bother me; 5 in a row is going to raise some serious concerns. (yes, for the sake of argument I’m using a standard 60 minute service, though the vast majority of churches we visit and have attended over the years have an average length much closer to 90 minutes, which is my personal preference – I’m making a broad generalization here)

Another important thing to look at is the order of worship in a service.  While there is no right or wrong here, the order can tell you a lot about how a church views worship.  Take the offering, for instance.  Is it smack dab in the middle of a service, between singing and preaching?  Based on a lot of conversations I’ve had with people I find this can often (though not always) indicate a practical belief that the offering is simply a “transition” time in a service.  Is it after the preaching?  Every time I’ve seen it here the church tends to believe the act of giving our offering is a response to the word that was preached (hence, an integral part of worship) (on a side note, I’ve actually spoken to pastors who specifically refuse to put the offering at the end of the service because “too many people may leave after the sermon and we may not get our full income for the week”.  This represents an entirely different view on the offering, and an unhealthy view at that!).  Then there’s the whole issue of do you pass the plate or let people bring it forward…. Again, I’m not suggesting there is a right or wrong place for the offering or way to take it, what I’m looking for is that a church has consciously thought these things through and can justify them.

Another thing I look for in terms of order is a response time after the sermon.  I’ve visited churches where after the sermon there is a quick “God bless you.  Amen.  You’re dismissed”; I’ve been at churches that force an alter call every week (and keep extending it until someone comes forward for prayer, it seems); I’ve been at churches that will sing a single “song of response” (sometimes with very little response by anyone); and I’ve been at churches that fall somewhere in-between those extremes.  I believe there needs to be a time for response – whether it is prayer time, singing, offering, whatever, there needs to be a time in the service where congregants can meditate on the words and challenge of the sermon and then respond to it appropriately.  When churches place extended singingafter the sermon instead of before it they communicate to me they view response in worship as a crucial part of the service, and they communicate an understand that worship is response.  By placing all the singing before the sermon and no response after of any sort they communicate a belief that music is to prepare us to hear the word (in other words, worship is initiated by us) but that worship is not response (after-all, if we can’t respond then response must not be very important).  Again, I’m not suggesting there is a clear right or wrong answer here, except to say that I personally think there should be music before (to help prepare our hearts for worship/learning and demonstrate a physical/aural break with the world we came from) as well as after (to give us an opportunity to respond to what we’ve just heard).

Finally (for this post), one last thing I’m looking for is a church’s belief on the presence of communion in the service.  Perhaps it’s because I spent part of my childhood in a liturgical church, but I think communion should be present more often than it is absent.  Communion is the sacrament we do to remind us of the death of Christ and what he paid for us; we are told to do it “in remembrance” of him.  Do you have to do it every week?  No.  Is there any specific verse in the Bible that says how often it should be done?  Not that I’m aware of.  But if it is part of the regular worship service then it is never viewed as an “after-thought”.  On a broader scale, participation in communion is a constant reminder to me of my membership in the universal church and not just my local church.  Call me crazy if you want, but when I take communion not only do I think of what Christ did for me on the cross, but I am reminded that I belong to a body of believers that crosses geographic, political, and even time lines.  Some argue that if it is done every week it looses its meaning.  If we accept that line of reasoning, though, then we should not pray or read the Bible every day because it will loose its meaning if we do it that often.  For those churches that offer it every week I ask them, “Why” and I want an answer – and it better be good.  For those that do not I ask the, “Why not?” and I also want an answer – and it better be a good one.

I guess what I’m trying to say in all this is that I want to know a church has put much prayer, thought, and study into the construction of its worship service.  To say “That’s how the church has done it for years” is one sure way to turn me off – I could really give a horse’s rear end about tradition.  If tradition helps focus us on God then by all means keep it.  Don’t keep it for tradition’s sake, keep it because it draws you closer to God.  But if tradition doesn’t draw you closer to him and lead you into authentic, responsive worship, then for cryin-out-loud get rid of it!  Just as much as churches need to be able to answer questions of doctrine (where do you stand on such-and-such), they also need to be able to answer questions on worship; churches should invest just as much time defining and studying the structure and components of their worship service as they do defining their statement of faith.  This is, after all, the primary time during the week where the “church” gets together – don’t you think we should be clear on what that is going to look like?

And It Continues…Children’s Ministry

Last month I wrote my first blog post on our current church search, so this is just a continuation of that.  In the past eight weeks (five in January and three in February) we’ve visited a couple of different churches, each with some great points and each with concerns that either Melissa or I have.  We know we will never find the perfect church, and that’s okay, but we’re looking for the right church.

One of the advantages, if you can call it that, of this journey is that it’s really causing us to think and talk about what it is we want in a church, what we need in a church, and what a church should be.  Since we have two little girls we’re obviously spending time looking at the children’s ministry programs, trying to make sure that where ever we land it will be the right church for our family, not just for us as parents.

One of the really important things for us is to find a church that not only allows but welcomes kids in the service.  We’re not looking to have them with us the entire time, because once the sermon starts we want them to have the opportunity to hear the Word at an age-appropriate level.  Why do we want them in the service?  A couple of reasons…  First, so that they can learn to participate in a service and understand how adults (since they will one day be one!) “do church”.  Second, because we want them to see that we place a high value on attending worship and participating in the service.  If their experience is limited to what they see in children’s church they won’t see the big picture.

On a similar note, we appreciate finding out what the girls are learning in the children’s time.  At one of the church’s we attended when we pickup the girls we are given a sheet with a summary of what the teachers covered, as well as follow-up questions we can ask to reinforce the lesson.  It makes us feel like we are involved with what the girls are learning in their teaching time even though we are not there with them.

Another important thing we’re looking at is the entire philosophy that runs through the kids’ ministry.  Recently we attended a visitor’s luncheon at one of the churches we’re considering and the director of the children’s ministry got up and spoke for a few minutes – and what he said has profoundly impacted me and caused me to really consider children’s ministry in a new light.  He said the focus of their “program” was to show kids that they could have a real, authentic, personal relationship with Jesus – it wasn’t “just for the adults”.

It was the fact that he verbalized it exactly that way they made such an impression on me.  Both our girls are involved in some great programs, and I really like the programs they are involved in, but at times I feel like the programs focus more on transferring head knowledge than building an authentic relationship than with the creator of the universe and the one who can be their personal savior.  Now I’m not saying that memorizing Bible verses is a waste of time and learning scripture stories isn’t important – it is – what I’m saying is if that’s the limit of what a kids program is then there’s something missing.

All this to say that the children’s ministry at a church is a very important component of our church search…  We’re not trying to allow our kids to pick our church for us, but we want them to have a say in it because we are looking for a church to attend as a family, so that means every member of the family needs to get a say (even if there’s still someone who gets veto power )  We also are taking our responsibility to direct the spiritual development of our girls seriously – and, ultimately, we’re looking for a church to partner with us as we raise our girls, we’re not looking for a church to delegate it to (and that’s a major difference)

And it Starts

I’ve been largely silent on the blogging front over the past few months, and I guess that’s for good reason.  For the past 8 1/2 years I have served as a part-time music director, both to supplement my income and as a way for me to do ministry.  This past fall, however, the church I’ve been at for the last 3 1/2 years cut my position due to “budget concerns”.  So I’ve tried to keep my comments and thoughts largely to myself throughout the last several months.

But now that we’ve left that church we are in the process of finding a new one – and so that means I’ll be blogging more often.  After a lot of prayer and discussion we’ve decided that for the time being I’m not going to pursue another church job – for now we’re going to take a break as a family and focus on finding a church where we can get plugged in and become members.  All this raises the question of “where”?  To that, I don’t yet have an answer.  It is opening some some great conversations about what we are looking for in a church, what a church is, and what the church’s role in our lives is.  I’ll be sharing about our search for a new church home, but in the interest of protecting both the innocent (and maybe the guilty), I won’t share names of pastors or churches.  Please also understand that anything I write is not meant as a slam against any individual church (including my former one) – while I’m not sure what I’ll be writing (since I haven’t visited all the churches we want to visit), sometimes people can take these types of comments as a slam against someone in particular.  They won’t be – I can assure you of that.  I’m just going to share our journey as we seek God’s direction in our lives for a church home.

With that said, I’m actually going to share something I experienced several months ago while visiting a church while on vacation….  This church (which, for the record, is a pretty good size church) was in the process of starting a church plant – but the amazing thing was that they were starting a church plant not only in the same city as them, but literally in a building only about a 1/2 mile down the road from them (which they happened to own).  So many churches I have attended over the years seem to compete for congregants like McDonald’s and Burger King compete for customers that the thought of doing a church plant in the same geographical area where they draw “customers” from would seem counter-intuitive.  Yet that is exactly what this church was doing.  Not only that, but a current member of their pastoral staff was going to be leading this new church – and not as a break-off church over some disagreement, but as a missionary the church was sending out to reach unsaved souls.  To top it all off, the church even asked current congregants to consider committing to attend this new church as their new home church for one year as a starter congregation.  At the service I attended they called forward the pastor they were sending off on mission as well as the 40 or so families who had signed up to go support and attend this new church and ended the service by laying hands on them and praying God would bless their efforts.

Let’s compare that to how many churches seem to function: someone gets mad, they leave the church, they take a bunch of people with them, then begin attending (or form) a new church.  People from the old church call the people who have left and beg them to come back (“Things have changed” they tell them or “So-and-so has left so you’ll be happy now” they say) because they are “missed”.  What about when people visit our churches – how do we counsel them?  “Let’s find a ministry to plug them into so they’ll stay.”  I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard someone counsel a person to seek the “church God has for them” – even if it’s not the current church!

Church leaders (and that includes pastors, music directors, deacons, councils, elders – whatever your particular church/denomination calls them) need to get over themselves and their in-securities and realize that God moves people around from one church to another and that God calls people to churches to fulfill certain functions – and that sometimes he then calls them to another church to minister there.  We need to stop being afraid of letting someone go (if God has called them to go) and instead of chastising or condemning them praying God’s blessing on them.  We need to stop praying only for “our” church and pray more for The Church (which is the bride of Christ).  The excitement I experienced while visiting this church I mentioned was infectious – everyone was ecstatic about the possibilities a new church in town presented for reaching unsaved people whom this particular church couldn’t reach.

That’s the type of church I want to attend – one that has it’s eyes and focus on the Gospel.  One that understands our goal is not to build our kingdom here but to build God’s Kingdom.  One that understands that different church buildings are not competitors but partners in the call to reach the unsaved and lead both Christians and non-Christians into a transformational relationship with Jesus.  A church that says to someone, “If you don’t believe this is the church for you, let me help you find the one that is right.” In short, the church that is more interested in developing people spiritually – even if the physical location isn’t their building.