I spent the last two posts laying out some history and facts concerning the way we do church. Basically, the existing model is this: A church is just a gathering until it has enough members to register as a "put in order" church. It looks for a building so it can be respected as a "real" church. When it has a building, it has a budget to maintain the building. It needs a full-time pastor, and eventually several paid staff members. With a building, comes 24 hour access. With 24 hour access, come the reasonable requests of the members who contribute to pay for the building. These requests come in the form of ministry programs they would like to see established, and since we have a building which is only used a few hours a week, we now have room to get started. Rooms get reserved, new tables and chairs are ordered, the kitchen gets an upgrade, and multiple sound systems are purchased. The operating budget increases. Most of the ministries are designed with our church people in mind. Yes, the church is growing, but it is growing because people are coming from other churches because we are doing a better job of providing a program that is important to them. You fear that if you modify that program, you will lose families.
Eventually, without aggressive attention, the church becomes a clubhouse where we come to meet with people we really like. Occasionally, someone "odd" or "rough" comes in, but they don't stay long because they aren't like us, and we fear for our children when the tough kids from the neighborhood come in. They just don't meet our spiritual standards. Maybe we can contribute to a ministry which is better equipped to reach that kind of kid. Well, we can't really spare any money to help the outreach ministry because we have to replace our dated light fixtures.
This church does a great job of having church services we enjoy attending and providing a safe place to raise our children, but is that really what the church is supposed to be doing?
Again, more tomorrow.
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