This church planting thing began over 4 years ago in my heart and has flourished in ways that I really didn't expect. The Community Fellowship is 2 years old (launched January 7, 2007), and God keeps on rocking our world.
So, today's thought is really about encouraging each other to be creative, think outside the box, do something different, get some people's attention and all for the case of 'making Jesus famous'. We are all in for that. Right?
This past Sunday we kicked off a new series which is also our theme for 2009. LOVE MORE ... EXPECT LESS. is about doing what God called the church I serve to do. We are called to demonstrate the love of God to our community in every way possible through the gifts He has given us and through the people He sends our way. The theme verse is Romans 13:8 which says "Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another..." A new mindset to say the least has to come over many of us in the church world.
Another thing we were able to do this last Sunday is to 'put our money where our mouth is' by giving our people money to bless people around them. We have called this GIVE BACK. 70 people committed to pay for a meal, pay a bill or do something creative to bless a person in our community. $2,000 in all will be given. Only thing we ask of our people is that they report back what God did through them.
It is time to be creative. As church leaders, but mostly as God's people, we have to do everything we can to let people see and meet Jesus. These days call for us to be creative with what we have and to be successful in sharing what He has to offer. Think about it!
1 Corinthians 9:22 --- To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.
Church planting is not about a new church in town. It is not about doing something different. It is not about the planter finding freedom. All those things are true, and I found them true for me. BUT Church Planting is about winning people to Jesus. Let's celebrate that fact and do more to make it happen.
Get creative. Encourage the people you serve to give back to those around them. It could be a hug, some food, a prayer or something else. It's Christmas. It's the season of giving ... all in the name of Jesus.
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4 comments:
I appreciate your comments and I'm with you...to an extent.
We were made creative beings- but how should that creativity be utilized? In outreaches, camps, BBC's ---I'm cool with that and the more we can encourage each other to think outside the box in terms of how we get out into our communities the better. But what about in church during our weekly gatherings? That is where I get uncomfortable.
You said:
"It is time to be creative. As church leaders, but mostly as God's people, we have to do everything we can to let people see and meet Jesus. These days call for us to be creative with what we have and to be successful in sharing what He has to offer. Think about it!
1 Corinthians 9:22 --- To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some."
In this you quoted the very verse I brought up in my post about D.A. Carson's advice to the S.B.C.
You did not say that you were talking about church services per se, but this does bring up the concern I shared about church planting in the SBC in that post.
My concern is not a lack of creativity in church. Shoot we have churches doing everything from a series which instructs people to "Have sex every night of the week" (Ed Young Jr.- did you see him on CNN explaining it? The reporter had him on the defensive. What an embarrassment) to the pastor dressing up like Superman for an Easter Sermon (read "Proud to Be Protestant" for a good response to such nonsense).
As I stated in my post, my concern for the SBC is that we have embraced creativity, asking "Can we do this?" (meaning "can we pull this off") without first asking "Should we do this?" (meaning "is this God honoring? Is this what God intended for His church to do/be?").
I was much more apt to do anything in my first plant- we did crazy skits, puppet shows and videos, etc. during our services and there were many Sunday mornings I was laughing till it hurt. We had a lot of fun. Now, I regret much of what we did. Granted, what we did grew the church. But I'm not as confident that is how God wanted it to be done and that He was honored in our growth (if you think that is a nonsensical statement, ask yourself "is he honored in the growth of Joel Osteen's church?").
I'm afraid that our services were more about entertaining man than they were about honoring and worshiping God (even though I was preaching expositionally through books of the Bible while I was there).
We would do well to remember Kierkegaard's description of a church service- God is the audience, the congregation is the performers. Is what we are doing appealing to God?
Our job is to point our congregation's attention to Christ and, through Him, to the Father through His Word. It is hard to believe that we are doing a good job of that when we are so apt to fill Sunday mornings with so much our stuff.
I know this is a topic that gets debated often and probably one that we could spend some good time on.
Some people think I'm just getting old. True. But I'd like to think my motivations are other than simply wanting to quiet down in my old age.
I'd like to discuss this more though. Any thoughts about where I might be missing it?
What criteria do we use do determine what is appropriate and what is not for a Sunday morning?
-Doug
Great points! I was reading an essay by J.I. Packer last night and it hit on a lot of what we are talking about here. He talked about "modern evangelism" and how it's methods came to be. Packer compared modern methods to the way Puritans did evangelism. It's good stuff. Take a few minutes to check it out!
http://www.apuritansmind.com/Puritan%20Evangelism/JIPackerPuritanEvangelism.htm
Here is something that jumped out at me while I was reading through thr JI Packer Article:
"The Puritans taught that, as a general rule, conviction of sin, induced by, the preaching of the Law, must precede faith, since no man will or can come to Christ to be saved from sin till he knows what sins he needs saving from."
For more on Evangelism please visit:
www.EvangelizeU.com
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