Turnaround Churches

Yesterday, around 4:15pm, an EF-3 tornado (160 mph) skipped across Suffolk, VA. It touched 6 neighborhoods. Today, I joined 7 other Disaster Relief volunteers assessing the damage for the Southern Baptist Convention. We looked at over 500 homes in 4 of the neighborhoods, assessed damage for 2/3 of them, and observed 24 destroyed homes, some with little more than the front steps remaining.

See pics here and here.)

Along the way, I saw how three churches in the affected area reacted. The first was a small church of 50 just outside the police checkpoint. We were some of the first volunteers there, and the church was open, running a generator. They were serving pancakes and coffee, and let us use their parking lot. We created an impromptu planning session with another Baptist Disaster Team that saw our van and stopped. I spoke with them about our efforts to be ready to respond, but they did a good job of doing whatever they could with what they had. And after assessing that area, they fed us (and any who stopped by) hot dogs and sodas.

That other team was on their way to a church just outside the southernmost disaster area. That church had hosted Disaster Response recertification training just last week. They opened their facility to be a volunteer reception and coordination area. They were prepared, and they knew what to do, and had people in the neighborhoods very quickly to help clean up and cover (with tarps) open spaces in the houses.

The third church, unfortunately, was not as prepared. They were less than 1/4 mile from one of the hardest hit areas, just across the road from the city’s disaster command post. Yet, when I walked up, with power crews parked in their lot (fixing the lines to the hospital), only one person was there, and he came to mow the yard so it would look nice for when power . He agreed it would be good to do something, and lamented the inability to provide water bottles to the work crews on his property (not thinking of a thermos of ice water and paper cups). The pastor showed up later, and found some of his parishioners standing around and eating at the nearby sub shop. Yet they were still waiting for someone else to come do something at their church.

We do disaster response to get us past the police checkpoint. Even with training, credentials and precoordination, we spent a lot of time standing around, talking our way through multiple sequential checkpoints and doing things that seemed non-productive. (However, having blazed a trail, whoever goes tomorrow will have an easier time getting through those checkpoints.) But once at disaster ground zero, we were able to talk to homeowners about their problems, praying with and for them, letting them talk about their problems, and setting the stage for others to quickly come to do more direct response.

I wouldn’t wish a disaster on anyone, but if a major event happens on your doorstep, what will you do to show your neighbors you care? They want to know you care before they will listen to why you do it. But if you let the Spirit move you and look for ways to be used, they will see your good works before men and hear your heart.

p.s. – On Wednesday the local news reported that Baptist Disaster Relief workers were already removing branches from people’s yard. You can’t buy better coverage than that!

c2008, Mike Mitchell, all rights reserved

I was at a NetCast event recently, swapping ideas on how to reach the “dechurched.” A man my age named Jim said in my presence that the church today is by and large, “fundamentally irrelevant” for folks who are still where you used to be.

When I asked for clarification on what he meant, he replied:

Do you thing that the world views what we do in church significant? If
they did they would come to participate. This is a part of the culture
today. The approaches that we have attempted to make ourselves relevant to
un-churched too often pushes people further away.

If this is true, then this is the core issue in revitalizing church in America. True or not, it is at least perceived by some, and therefore something we need to consider, and find a way to overcome.

From the inside, we think we know why church is important to us, and we assume that those who have chosen to stay away are simply mis-informed. But from their perspective, there is no value in them attending, and we are the ones wasting valuable Sunday morning recreation time and draining our bank accounts for that perceived wasted effort.

So as we begin to think like outsiders, perhaps we will begin to understand what they are looking for, and what we should be doing different about the practice (not theology) of our faith to help them feel comfortable coming back to church.

What do you think? Is the church irrelevant? If so, what can we do to make the church became more relevant to others?

c2008, Mike Mitchell, all rights reserved

Sean over at The Dawg House posted about“The Gospel According To Church Hoppers.”

Church hoppers are those people who habitually leave one church to affiliate with another nearby, only to leave there within a few years (often sooner).

This is not the middle-aged single man who leaves the church of 25 elderly people to affiliate with a congregation with a crop of single women.  It is not the family that moves to follow the job, or changes churches to be closer to the new house across town.  It is not the one who follows the call of God to minister in a new congregation.

Nor is it even the person who leaves a church practicing spiritual abuse for their own emotional and spiritual health.  And if you are not growing, and your church is not interested in facilitating your growth,

Church hopping is a symptom of the needy person encountering the consumer church.  The church provides eye candy and amusement to draw the crowd, and when it doesn’t meet the soul need, the loose attachments that brought them there allow them to follow the movable feast to the next Christian ’show.’

And when the church finds it has become a target of church hoppers, it must evaluate what it’s doing to attract them.  Is it offering shallow teaching packaged in a  professional production?

Or are you providing the spiritual nourishment so desperately needed today?

I attended a seminar today by Sam Nadler, who is President of Word of Messiah Ministries. He is in town to provide training to the leadership of B’nai Avraham Messianic Fellowship.

Sam explained 1 Timothy 3:5, which says a leader should manage his household well, because “if one does not know how to conduct his own house, how shall he take care of the assembly of God?”

This passage is not about being a good manager. It’s not even so much about disbarring a leader who’s kids turn against the faith. Sam says that’s looking at the problem backwards. Instead, he told us that we are to interpret the passage as “do at home what you do at church.”

Do you pray at church? Pray at home. Do you study the scriptures at church? Study them at home. Do you worship at church? Worship at home.

If you do not lead your family in the business of the Gospel at home, how will you lead the church in the business of the Gospel at church? If your family is not praying with you, providing testimony of your faith, who will?

And this is more than simple mealtime grace. It is fervent prayer. It’s prayer about the missional focus of your family. (your neighbors, your ethnicity, your chosen people group).

This is the kind of active prayer that caused four men to lower their sick friend through the roof.  It was the combined faith of all five that moved them to action, to bring their friend to Jesus, and that faith moved Jesus to heal the man.

Sam Nadler said that effective prayer moves us to action even as it creates action by God. What he actually said was “If your prayer doesn’t move your heart, why should it move God’s?”

I attended a local event called NetCasting.

NetCasting is all about finding better ways to minister to our communities through the local member shurches.  The title comes from John 21:6, where the risen LORD calls out to the disciples who had gone back to fishing, asking if they had caught anything.  When they reply they hadn’t, he tells them to “cast on the other side.”  When they do so, their nets are filled to overflowing!

The organizers explained that the evening was not a seminar, not a teaching event.  It was a networking event, a place to share ideas, a way to find opportunities to work together cooperatively.  It is a group to help us help one another, to improve our ministries by holding the nets together.

Some of the notes of what happened are posted at http://netcastpba.wordpress.com/.  For me, it was a great session.

Pope Benedict XVI was in DC this week. His theme was Christ our Hope. And the DC news media gave extended time to a local priest to give the “play by play” of the Pope’s arrival at the Catholic embassy.  The news media let him fill in details about Catholic beliefs and practices, and even let him explain the desire for former Catholics and others to return to church, as many have.

For his part, the Pope spoke openly and forcefully about the need to maintain a regular relationship with the local church, for the individuals’ personal spiritual health. It was an open call to strengthen struggling Catholic churches.

During his visit, the Pope said a special Mass inside the new Washington Nationals’ stadium, with 46,000 attending. Part of the mass, you know , is the serving of communion. Catholics believe that taking the communion bread and wine is essential to maintianing spiritual closeness.

But what struck me as truly amazing was in the reporting about the Mass. NPR said that they provided communion to 46,000 people in 20 minutes. I’m not sure the exact logistics of that, but it meant a large number of priests participating, since the elements must be blessed by an ordained clergy.

Is your congregation a model of efficiency? Are you setting the stage where those in your regular and inactive congregation can become involved, and then used effectively when the time for their service comes?

People generally enjoy being part of an active, effective church, but shy away from one with busy work supporting ineffective or self-serving purposes. (see my InvolvingMore blog for more ideas on using volunteers.) But an active, involved volunteer force can both energize the participants and help the services move very smoothly.

When you read Jesus’ admonition to leave the 99 and go searching for the lost one, do see that as evangelism or ministry?

Until recently, I was in the evangelism camp. Leave the comfort of the church and go witnessing. Go bring the lost into the church.

That’s good, but I’m no longer convinced that’s what Jesus meant. What happened was that I read Ezekiel 34 again.

“Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? 3 You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. 4 The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost; but with force and cruelty you have ruled them. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the beasts of the field when they were scattered. 6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill; yes, My flock was scattered over the whole face of the earth, and no one was seeking or searching for them.” 11 ‘For thus says the Lord GOD: “Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land; I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the valleys and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them in good pasture, and their fold shall be on the high mountains of Israel. There they shall lie down in a good fold and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I will feed My flock, and I will make them lie down,” says the Lord GOD. 16 “I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick; (v3-6)

The parallels are so clear. “Woe to you, pharasees, who will not care for the flock.”