Thursday, 10 August 2006
This thing called church
The dialogue continues.
An analogy that I heard yesterday goes like this: we are trying hard to build a bridge to reach people while they are sailing away on a boat. I guess we have been proud of the fact that we have been making an effort to make the local church attractive. Churches like Willow Creek and Saddleback have become very good at doing church. Lots of us have copied of adapted their programmes.
I think it's reasonable to expect that a good church will attract and retain people who are interested in or open to church, but what about people who are disinterested or negative? Do we leave these people to para-church organisations like the Church Army?
Those of us who feel called to minister in existing local churches don't have the option to walk away from everything that the local church is currently, no matter how much we dislike it. Neither do we have the option of conforming to the current situation. Church can and must be something more and better.
An analogy that I heard yesterday goes like this: we are trying hard to build a bridge to reach people while they are sailing away on a boat. I guess we have been proud of the fact that we have been making an effort to make the local church attractive. Churches like Willow Creek and Saddleback have become very good at doing church. Lots of us have copied of adapted their programmes.
I think it's reasonable to expect that a good church will attract and retain people who are interested in or open to church, but what about people who are disinterested or negative? Do we leave these people to para-church organisations like the Church Army?
Those of us who feel called to minister in existing local churches don't have the option to walk away from everything that the local church is currently, no matter how much we dislike it. Neither do we have the option of conforming to the current situation. Church can and must be something more and better.
# posted by Gareth Bezett @ 5:13 PM 
