What might happen if your church never gets another member. Thoughts from Derek Penwell at D-mergent. When your dreams cannot be fulfilled as a church or personally what can you do?
What if you stopped making plans for a future membership explosion? (I’m not saying it couldn’t happen. I’m just saying, “Imagine.” Play along for a moment.)What if your congregation never got another member? What if you could no longer afford to wait for somebody to join and finally make of you what you’re convinced you ought to be? How would that change what you do, and how you understand what is required of you, given what you already have?
If you put aside the idea that there’s someone (or a whole bunch of someones out there) who are going to come and save your congregation from extinction, what might that do to the way you do ministry?
Read the 5 ideas here. Plus a Bonus:
You start living like this … and you might find that all those people who’ve avoided you all those years just might start showing up to see who the lunatics are that are running this wild outpost of faithfulness.And along those lines When Disruption Comes to Church
But, as Clay Christensen would ask, can mainline churches adopt these disruptive forms within their own structures? A provocative experiment currently underway in Great Britain is the Fresh Expressions movement. Initiated by the Church of England and endorsed by the British Methodist Church, Fresh Expressions encourages and supports “new ways of being church” and of practicing Christianity in non-church contexts such as surfing clubs, pubs, parenting groups and soccer leagues. Often, these “fresh expressions” are created by clergy alongside existing parish structures in what is termed a “mixed economy” of church.
Or maybe just give your building away. See A Church Reborn
No comments:
Post a Comment