Church Growth: A growing area?

One of the (many) challenges I have before me is to be found in the area of church growth. 

The problem is that the only substantial growth I'm generally coming across is in people who are looking to examine and produce academic papers on the subject. I have over the past few weeks met a handful for folk, all of whom were 'church growth experts'. This was a claim they substantiated by their post graduate qualifications in the subject and the academic papers they had presented!

Now don't get me wrong, I love academic study, but in conversation this morning I have come to realise a few interesting, and quite challenging (well they were for me but I'm pretty thick!) things too. So let us stop and take stock of things for a moment (before you reach for the sticks, stones and house bricks):

If you were to read a certain book on church growth by some who was doing it you will find people reconciled to God through Jesus (the Christ) enjoying being the people of God and celebrating that reality in the company of those who were both 'near and far off'. It was just like looking at the Church that Acts describes; unity in the Church and enjoying the favour of those who were not followers of 'The Way'.

Interestingly the same person who was running this expression of Church has now moved up the ladder a bit and the same freedoms that saw them establish successful and authentic Church is now replaced by structures, strategies, administrative block(age)s and all the stuff that makes running a number of which bodies manageable. It makes sense that different levels of Church need differing parameters and areas of control - but formalising the informal is sometimes the way to impede or constrict it!

This is perhaps a problem with the planned management training of potential bishops and other senior church staff as found in the Green report. We might have a bunch of people who have all the management tools that the world uses but without that spark that gives life to the dust and makes it live, without the breath of God, the reach, which causes us to soar like an eagle.

Everywhere I look I find Church Growth strategies and yet as one of my heroes, Stanley Hauerwas, says:

Church growth strategies are the death rattle of a church that has lost its way!

But, of course, Church growth is big business and the dual truths that are to be found in the expressions that:

In the the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king!

AND

Hungry men will follow the least likely of people in the hope that bread is to be found in them!

I hear of missional communities and of groups of people who are doing church in a fresh and engaged manner and yet, when I get to meet the people billed as the leaders of these happenings find something small and sometimes very much less that the PR might suggest.

Again, please don't think I'm knocking these - because I am most definitely not - but understand that as wonderful as this glowing embers are, replicating them in every aspect is (I am beginning to think) sheer folly. I have recently read a great piece of academic writing and within it find something successful grasped at, dissected and placed under the rigours of academic investigation and then the component parts are listed. But sadly, just like a flower or animal we have dissected, examined, understood the physiology and then itemised - the reality is that when we come to replicate or re-assemble the blessed thing all we have is something that is dead. We might understand the component parts and the processes but regardless of whatever it is that we have found, the reconstructed entity is dead.

We can scan a living hand and make a 3-D print of it and even though we might work hard to make it look like it is alive, it will never have the life of the original!

We talk of 'Best Practice' and we grasp at 'effective models of Church' and yet in doing so rationalise and construct some sort of Frankenstein-like monster which has the attributes of life but is not only pretty scary but pretty ugly too - and I see the Bride of Christ as something beautiful.

It is underpinned by prayer and enabled and given life by the Holy Spirit.

It is a body who are of one heart and mind, united in their hunger for the word and the love of those around them (close, near and far off) and this makes the what we now call 'missional'.

It is a bunch of people who support each other spiritually and, when the need arises, financially too; a people who pick up the fallen; heal the broken; correct those in error.

Authentic Church contains all of the above (and I'm sure you can all add to the list which is why we are all doing so well). It draws on the opportunities to put tools in the box so that we can build church (Tools like Mission Shaped Introduction and Mission Shaped Ministry and LYCIG* and more besides).

Desperation calls for desperate measures - but we aren't desperate, were assured and rather than worrying about numbers we are concerned with reconciling people to God through the Cross of the Christ and the fulfilment of the calling we have as the people of God.

we are, aren't we?




*LYCIG     Leading Your Church into Growth

40 Acts Challenge - Easter Celebrations

So here we are and we've done our forty days of Lent and hopefully not just enjoyed the challenges ourselves but brought joy, a listening ear, a seeing eye and actively engaged hands and hearts into the proceedings thanks to the 40 Acts Challenge.

But of course today is just the start of our celebrating the love, life and sacrifice and so the question has to be - do the 'Acts' stop here?

Watch on

and HAPPY EASTER

Daily Quiet Time or Prayer or . . .

Office or study or . . .

It doesn't matter what you call it the issue is that if you do it you do it right and this is where it gets hard (as if doing it wasn't hard enough)!

When I was a student there were a bunch of really dedicated Christians in the Christian Union(CU). They got together and did their daily study, getting together each morning and having their 'Quiet Time'. They would read their Bible study notes and the passage set for the day.

Another group were the Navigators - a disciplined bunch who would work through various themed programmes - using the Topical Memory system these guys would learn a new passage each day and would test each other on the verses that had passed. These were the storm troopers of the CU, they learned their stuff and could be found stopping students in the corridor and asking them (in various ways) what they thought of Jesus and Christianity.

Then came another group who were a bit hit and miss with their Quiet Times. They tended to start the month well and slowly slide into variable observance. This was the group I was usually part off and it was not because I didn't see the benefit of reading the Bible or didn't want to spend time reading, thinking and praying but because I had a life. I can hear some say that the life I had was probably indisciplined and you may well be right, but things got in the way and the best plans and highest intentions were binned because I'd be out all night praying with people or discussing the Bible and arguing with the atheists (always been there) or doing other stuff.

What I noticed was that then, and now, that some who did their daily wotsit religiously, by which I mean, legalistically and without much enthusiasm or joy. They ticked the box and 'did their duty' and as much as I applaud their commitment (would that there were more who were committed) I was, and am, sad that some do it as drear and dread duty rather than as a place of sanity and a source of joy.

I made a promise when I was ordained that I would do my daily office - that is my morning and evening prayer - and this promise, and the keeping of if, is a commitment and a challenge. A commitment because, like feeding the cats, it is something I have to do because I need to feed the spiritual man (and I promised God and a pointyhat - not one and the same thing I'd do it) and a challenge because it requires a discipline - that's why I do it the minute I wake, getting up earlier to ensure it happens before the demands and distractions of the day conspire to distract me - and it needs to be something I want to do.

So here's a little plea to those who stumble across these words:

If you are a Christian you need to feed the spiritual person every day - lest they become emancipated and eventually starve.

If you are a Christian you need to find some joy in being so, if it is a joyless, lifeless and draining experience then slowly, but most assuredly, you're living in a time stamped existence - one that leads to being an ex-Christian!

If you don't take time out to consider the world around you and the needs nearer to you and to regard them with spiritual eyes and listen regarding them with anointed ears then how can you make sense and pray intelligently and form a world view and a rational understanding that fits your faith view and satisfies those of no faith?

So my plea is this:
Read your Bible
Understand what's happening in the world, work, home, church, elsewhere
Use your brain
Use your tongue to talk to God (and people)
Get excited
Be passionate (or as passionate as you can be)

Do this and you'll find yourself craving time where you can dialogue, reason and rejoice in being a person of faith - and you'll find people want to be doing it with you.

Happy Friday

Book-Aid: Our first book collection

It's been some time since we started being a collector for:

Book-Aid.org

So I thought I'd let you see how many books we have collected and encourage you to donate at the same time!  So here we go:

Twelve boxes of Christian books and Bibles - waiting for collection and a very big 'Thank You' to all who have contributed to the contents of them.

Palm Sunday - Praise and Rejection

palm crosses blessed
and waved
sang 'Hosanna'
Said a prayer (or did I mumble?)

had fingers crossed as confessed our sins
my sins
looking to God for forgiveness
and a short memory
for sins past
and life events (failed)
'What greater love than this?'
no need to ask as the nail-pierced hand held mine
safely
assuredly

and then
without warning
there were were
on a journey

donkey with a King on its back
King with stripes on His back for a donkey (that's me)
before the religious leaders (who crucify Him still)
before the Political stooge
the Pilate who ley justice fly in the face of truth and love
before the ersatz king
the horrid who was Herod
And back again

And we cried out
Silently
above the noise of love

our lives
our hearts
our sinful
selfish
cruel ambitions
cried out: 'crucify Him, crucify Him!'

And they did
They bloody well did
gave us exactly what we demanded

and Him
scourged
bleeding
broken
went off to Golgotha

Nailed
Pierced
Broken
mocked

even by the bloke next to Him
(but not the bloke on the other side)

and then
'it is finished'
job's a good 'un

tetelestai
the debt
of sin
cancelled
paid
by THE act of love

Centurion
battle-scarred
seen men die
made men die
standing and watched
impressed?
touched?
guilty?
proclaims the dead
'a righteous man'
'a good bloke?'
'a dead good bloke' perhaps?

and taken down
wrapped up
like a Christmas present?
like an Easter present?
a 'good egg' perhaps?
He's placed in a tomb

game over?
not the Messiah?
without hindsight what would we be thinking
how would we be acting
what would this mean to us

and so
Palm Sunday done
everything on hold
we await
eagerly?
disbelieving?
hoping
for a greater comeback
than winning 5-7 from 4-1 down at half-time

Holy Week
wholly weak
we struggle to
a Good Friday
in the knowledge of
a better Sunday

Bread on water or pearls before swine?

That's one of the challenges that so often faces us when it comes to being and doing church.

How do we decide where (and upon what) to spend our cash in our attempts to 'build the kingdom'?

Do we plant new churches and engage in Fresh Expressions (FE) or do we invest in people?

I engage with people who are keen to try new things and some of them are wonderful, other quite weird and other are just plain wacky; yet each idea needs to be considered not just with human eyes, business plans and the like but with spiritual eyes too.

For me, whilst I know it is important, money is neither prime mover or reason for binning something, what I would have us think about are:

i. impact on the community,

ii. impact on the church, and (most important until last)

iii. The calling (what does God want you to be doing?)

I have seen stuff tried and failed majestically, sinking like the Titanic without the benefit of deckchair or band and yet it has been a success. How can that be (I hear you mumble)? Well, from the ashes has come a bunch of people who have bonded and risen from the depths to engage with something else that will be a success because adversity brings one of three things:

Increased resolve and coherence

Despair and dispersion

Confusion and apathy

The key to knowing the where (and what) of any church plant, FE or church engagement is to ask a few questions - a social audit or walk around your patch with a missioner or someone who will bring fresh eyes will pay dividends in helping understand what is needed.

For instance I often find people who have decided to start doing Messy Church just yards from another church who are doing the same thing. What is called for here is partnership but no, each does it's own thing and this not only dilutes the audience but, in one notable case, brought animosity (they're trying to pinch our people!') and caused despair (all set up and no one comes doesn't leave you with a spring in your step, does it?).

We need to be speaking of kingdom rather than 'our church' - seek to do what we can in partnership (especially in smaller locations where the population and place is small, limiting those we can reach) where we can - doing what we do alone where this is not possible.

When a church began a parent and toddler group in the centre of our town they were advised that such a work 'never' brings new people in. Their response was, 'Perhaps not, but we provide something that is needed and build relationships,' and that was a start - the issue was that that neither clergy or church members tried to engage with the people who came. For those who came, the people who ran the group were 'church' and the rest were strangers (and strange) and remained that, even after a visit to a service.

I meet, or hear of, people who are doing great stuff; things that the community really lacks and has need of. The problem is that when we seek to meet them, whose name do we do it in and what is the desired outcome?

It's not good enough to do stuff anonymously for fear that using the name of Jesus or using the word 'church' or 'God' or 'Christian' or any other perceived weakness or threat, will scupper or limit the work.  We go out in the name of Jesus the Christ the name above all names and if we can't, then we need to ask ourselves what we meet for and why we're considering looking at engaging with the community.

I have asked this and my (perhaps cynical and wrong) assessment of some of the responses is this:

1. If we tell them we are Christians they will think we're 'scalp hunting' 
but what, and how, we do what we're doing will some scupper, or confirm, that.

2. If we don't tell them we're Christians we can influence them more
because they think we are the same as them (and when they find we've 'conned' them - what will they think!

3. We don't label ourselves because we want to be socially active rather than do gooder Christians
for me there are two questions here:
so are you Christians in a secular project? if so, excellent - we need Christians in politics, secular projects and the like. My next question is, 'This is a secular project or partnership with a secular group, isn't it?' (And if it's not then surely you're denying Christ?
OR
are you merely people who gather together and do good stuff using the church building as a base? Where does Christ, the Gospel and our call to 'go into all the world . . .teach them to obey, sit with you?

So much more buzzing in brain but after this seven minute splurge (I feel better now) I know I'm leaving you with questions, challenges and perhaps some guidance and thought-provoking stuff for me in return.

Happy Wednesday - visits, service writing, tenebrae to print and Holy Week to contemplate (and then lunch :-) )

Pax