Think out loud with me.
Did you know that there are 9 UM churches within 5 miles of Mt. Oak?
I was listening to a podcast recently and two things hit home with me. The first was a saying attributed to a popular pastor. The way to reach the people no one is reaching, is to do what no one else is doing. The second thing that hit me was the pastor speaking saying that someone would come up with an idea that would radically shake the church, and it will revolutionize the way we do church. And he wasn't speaking about style of worship or how we dress or anything as simple as that.
I would like to dialogue with anyone who would join me in discussing an idea.
Here is my idea - raw I admit - but worth some investigation and thought.
What if all 9 churches or even 4-5 of the churches decided to work together. Could the resources including money, laity, buildings, volunteers, and more be used more effectively, together?
What if each church didn't try to do all the things churches try to do? What if there were ways to use the gifts of the staff more along the lines of their gifting rather than each clergy needing to be all things to all people? What if the mindset was not survival of each location but rather how could we be used and even used up serving Jesus and reaching as many people in our community for our Lord?
I have so much more - but this is a lot to chew on - how about your thoughts?
Did you know that there are 9 UM churches within 5 miles of Mt. Oak?
I was listening to a podcast recently and two things hit home with me. The first was a saying attributed to a popular pastor. The way to reach the people no one is reaching, is to do what no one else is doing. The second thing that hit me was the pastor speaking saying that someone would come up with an idea that would radically shake the church, and it will revolutionize the way we do church. And he wasn't speaking about style of worship or how we dress or anything as simple as that.
I would like to dialogue with anyone who would join me in discussing an idea.
Here is my idea - raw I admit - but worth some investigation and thought.
What if all 9 churches or even 4-5 of the churches decided to work together. Could the resources including money, laity, buildings, volunteers, and more be used more effectively, together?
What if each church didn't try to do all the things churches try to do? What if there were ways to use the gifts of the staff more along the lines of their gifting rather than each clergy needing to be all things to all people? What if the mindset was not survival of each location but rather how could we be used and even used up serving Jesus and reaching as many people in our community for our Lord?
I have so much more - but this is a lot to chew on - how about your thoughts?
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7 comments:
Interesting. I will "chew" on that for a minute. My initial thought though is why limit it to the UMC churches?
Eventually - maybe - but sharing resources like staff would be easier within the same denomination...
Along the same lines as sjegede, my first reaction to this was why are limiting ourselves to a denomination?
I myself have never been a fan of them and think in many cases they cause division over trivial differences. For my denomination I love the term (from Dan Merchant) "I am a Red Letter Christian"
Ray I agree with you 100% that the Church needs to be shaken up but feel it needs to be on a much grander scale than the UM churches in Bowie, why not all of Bowie? It would easier yes, but I don't think that shaking up the Church is going to be easy.
I agree it should be larger than the denomination - but do we crawl before we walk before we run? Or do we try to run right off the bat? I wonder?
I think you could make a "consortium" of churches. That group would meet quarterly or so as a corporate body to worship together or do projects together. You could publish the schedules of the other churches and the activities they are leading. Encourage visiting the churches in the consortium, etc.
I agree that denomination is not important as long as the fundamental beliefs--trinity, salvation through the blood of Christ, etc.--are shared in common. Whether we baptize at birth or at the coming of age is something we can discuss and agree to disagree on.
Charges--groups of churches with one pastor (or a few) and different bodies will remain separate if you do nothing to unite them. There has to be a common denominator. I'm not sure that's Bowie--I admit I sometimes feel left out when we focus so much on Bowie. I think quite a few of our members travel 20 minutes or so to get to church from other towns--like you! :-)
My experience in church is that a church becomes a "home", where one can be safe, comfortable yet challenged. When we are asked to go outside the home, we may become frightened, apprehensive. I love your idea Ray... but wonder what the "family" of one church would have to sacrafice to find the food they need at the "other home" in the area. We build so much into allegence to our home church, it becomes hard to seek refuge at another home. Also, the clergy leaders would have to change their mind set. I believe many pastors are intimidated by the leadership of others - to the point of being afrid of loosing members if the seek food from "other homes". One person said that we need something to unite us - Wouldn't that be Jesus Christ. So, what about ourselves - clergy and lay, is keeping us centered around our own "homes" (aka churches)?
From John G.:
Certaintly the events during the recent Thanksgiving outreach events (exs- DC turkey outreach & Applebees) showed what coming together of different bodies and the community for one common positive goal could look like. I've always been an advocate for doing 1 -2 things really well (or good any way) and becoming better in that versus trying to do a dozens different things and not doing well at any of them. (I think GM auto and others have fallen into the trap of having too many offerings of similar like items versus building 1-3 really strong products), therefore I can agree in theory with that vision for church bodies also. Sounds good for certain bodies to excel / flourish in each of their own gifting, and not be so duplicative in liked ministries. (Although we just had a preaching not long ago about God desiring to have little churches on as many corners as HE sees fit.)
With that said, there would have to be alot of ego checks, major financial changes, and removing of "gold stars", amongst clergy and lay folks, and could anyone's flesh really handle that? Church or outside church the flesh is the flesh.
But continue thinking outside the box and who knows in the year 2100 what church might look like.
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