The One Thing to Do to Change Your Church

Everyone wants the secret to keeping their church vibrant and growing.  What one thing to add to their program that will amp up the return on time investment and send visitors crowding into the sanctuary?

Those whose congregations are dwindling will settle for a moment of triage to stop the bleeding, to stabilize the outflow of members and attract fresh members.

For both cases, one simple answer is to stop focusing on yourself.  Packing the pews or gaining a big donor is not the answer.  The answer lies in the geography of Israel.

There are two main lakes large enough to be called seas: Galilee and the Dead Sea.  The first is a vibrant body of water, with vital fishing and irrigation industry.  The second will not support life.  Both have an incoming source.  Only one has an exit.

What keeps Galilee productive is the constant outflow of water.    The outflow is not the result of water coming in; water leaving drops the level of the lake, creating an imbalance, an opening for new water to rush in from upstream to correct for the drop. 

What the church needs is a viable outflow.  Note I said viable.  This is spirit-filled activity that engages the congregation in ministry and evangelism in ways that expend physical, spiritual and financial energy, without having to sever membership ties. 

For some, it is taking on a social cause:  a soup kitchen, a thrift store, an after-school program, a kids’ athletic league.  While good to do, they will generally not achieve a level of spiritual return commensurate with the energy expended.  The Return on Investment isn’t strong enough.

I’d suggest more purely spiritual tasks.  If you want a spiritual – and not jsut social – return, you need a spiritual investment.  The easiest is prayer walking.  Walk through the neighborhood and pray for each household.  Go door to door and offer to pray about needs they might have. (Write the need down, but don’t leave without praying on the spot.)

Missions is also a good approach.  Adopt a missionary or unreached people group and commit to specific, focused prayers for a substantial time (daily for a month, weekly for a year, etc.)  Pray for spiritual victories, for salvation of the people, for protection of the missionary.  Make contact with a missions representative about the region and learn what to pray for, and then be super-specific.

In praying this way, you will model Jesus to them, the way His disciples asked to be taught to pray.  They will grow spiritually.  The congregation will grow in unity of purpose.  The church will develop spiritually mature leaders.  And the drop in available spiritual energy will allow God to refill the reservoir with fresh resources.

 

Building an Entry

I’ve been on mission this week.  33 of us from church went to New Mexico to help a local pastor in his work with the Navajo.  While most of the team led morning Bible study, a few of us did home maintenance.  The spiritual nature of our task was to “prepay” the use of the building and a witness to the community.

On Monday, we joined with a team from Georgia to put a roof on a community center.  There is nothing glamorous about spreading tar cement and nailing roll roofing in the hot July New Mexico sun.  (We went through a lot of water that day).    The three from Georgia had repaired the roof decking last week, and we joined them in finishing the job with cutting the ten rolls to size, cementing them down and nailing it in place.   By God’s grace, both teams were needed to finish, but neither knew of the other before we arrived.  They were leaving the next day, and we arrived just in time with the five additional workers  to complete the job.

On Tuesday & Wednesday, we painted a 2-story house.  There aren’t many 2-story houses in the area, and this one was at the top of a hill on the main road.  The hot sun had taken a toll on the siding, and it looked pretty rough.  The thirsty wood sucked in the paint, but the result was dramatic.  The owner (grandmother to the 10 kids and 3 other adults living there) was thrilled, and will tell the story of how the Baptists care for one another.  We bought access.

On Thursday, it was back to the community center.  Part of our team had begun to use it for Bible studies, and we painted the trim around the roof.  It made a great visual improvement, and helped cement the relationship between the local pastor and the members of that community.  Next week, the pastor will hold another Bible study there, and will begin to hold prayer meetings in the facility rent free. (The rent was paid by our labor.)

What was the spiritual nature of painting and roofing?  It bought access.  The Gospel will be preached in that community on the Reservation, on Navajo family lands, because of the efforts of 8 construction missionaries.

 

Targeted Giving

I want you to think about how you ask for money for church events, and what you are teaching the people when you do ask.

Are you teaching giving to God out of gratitude for your salvation?  Are you teaching a model of sharing what you have for the common benefit of all?  Both of those come from a practice of regular tithing – a weekly or biweekly or monthly share of your income.

Or do you fund the church with bake sales and flea markets? 

 

Mixing Missions and Vacation

Friday started my vacation.  At least that’s what it looks like on my timesheet.  But after today, it’ll be work.  My family is spending a week in Gallup, NM, with a missionary with the Navajos.

(I say with, not to, because he is living among them, and a lot of ministry happens by them.  The hope is that some day, the mission church will be led by a Navajo pastor, starting other churches led by Navajo pastors.)

But since airfare was so much better into Phoenix than Albuquerque, and since this was a trip of families, the trip leader decided to give us a couple days’ vacation.  We drove from Phoenix straight north, past Flagstaff, to the Grand Canyon.  Such a sight!  I’d never seen it before, nor had my kids.  We did a little hiking, and I got pictures at sunset.  Second day was Monument Valley, just over the border in Utah.  What a great God to create such beauty.

There is a message and a strategy in doing it that way – vacation first.  We spent 2 days getting to know one another, eating together, long hours in the cars together, talking back and forth on the walkie talkies.  And we got a sense of how distant the Native peoples can be from one another.  Miles and miles of nothing but scenery, and then a house, or a cluster of 3.

And after 2 days in the car, I was ready to get to work.