1.  Preprint church name tags for your regular attendees

One church set up two large registration areas.

One has preprinted tags for regular attendees and blank name tags for first-time guests.   To get a name tag, each guest completes a registration information card. The next week, those guests have preprinted name tags waiting for them.

Another area has preprinted name tags for staff and core volunteers such as the prayer team or ushers.

First time guests are somewhat easy to identify because their name tags are handwritten.  This can help your ushers and greeters connect them with more information and resources about the church.

Yet, this “obvious” distinction may have an unintended consequence of showing a visitor that they are yet “different” as the nametag is not like the others.  You know your local culture to be able to discern how people might feel about this.

2. Handwritten name tags every Sunday

Another church has a stack of labels every Sunday.

All members and visitors fill one out as part of their “culture.”

All are handwritten, avoiding some of the concerns of the pre-printed ones

This takes administrative burden off the staff, but requires that your regular members understand the reason for doing this every week.

One church shared with me they preprint a theme logo, plus the branding of the church with its phone number, name, and website.  Sometimes they will use an image for a special event that week, like a Baptism, or communion.

3.  Distribution of name tags

Churches need to design a system that works for them.

Some will have a board of some kind near entrances where members can obtain their name badge and return it when the service is over.

Visitor centers or guest information booths will have greeters staffed to provide name tags for visitors.

4.  Recollecting name tags

Some may have one central area near the entrance, and make announcements in the bulletin about how to return the nametag.

Inevitably, some will get ripped, accidentally taken home and put through the wash, or just somehow lost.

Part of your ongoing maintenance of a name tag initiative is replacing lost ones, torn ones, or overly doodled nametags.

I’m familiar with churches where about every quarter, leadership reminds people of the reason behind the name tags and that begins a new wave of organizing, using, and distributing.

Let me ask you this?

• What style of nametag do you use that you have found effective?
• How do you distribute them?
• How do you recollect them?
• How do you maintain them?

Share your thoughts in the comment field below (Feed or email readers: click through to find the comment field).

See also

• Using Name Tags in Church
• Why Use Name Tags in Church

For more church hospitality tips on welcoming church visitors, buy your copy of How To Welcome Church Visitors.

Others have published their entry ahead of me (see below), and a few others will follow behind.

The Rabbit and the Elephant

A movement of house churches is reaching the tipping point in North America.  Some claim it’s a second Reformation.

How could we change the world if our Christian faith began multiplying at a rapid pace — through a way of life that is explosive and transformational?

We can grow, can we reproduce?

As Christians, we are the church—whether we meet in office buildings, college dorm rooms, coffee shops, factories, or homes—and the Holy Spirit uses us to expand that church to the far reaches of the globe.

By practicing “simple church,” we’ll find that a small gathering of friends loving Jesus together and reaching out to the community around them can help us to be the church, the way God intended.

The Rabbit and the Elephant Synopsis:

If you put two elephants in a room together and close the door, in 22 months you may get one baby elephant. But two rabbits together for the same amount of time will result in thousands of baby rabbits!

In The Rabbit and the Elephant, “micro church” planters Tony and Felicity Dale use the “rabbit” illustration to show the pace at which the Christian faith can (and should) be growing—through evangelism that is explosive and transformational. The Rabbit and the Elephant contains the key to 21^st century evangelism—taking the Gospel to where the pain and the people are.

My take on the Rabbit and the Elephant

If you are familiar with Neil Cole (Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens and Organic Leadership: Leading Naturally Right Where You Are) you are likely familiar with the simple church movement.

This book by Tony and Felicity Dale adds to the body of literature about the house church / simple church  movement.

The Rabbit and Elephant can serve as a great introductory book for Christians looking into this model of church planting.  The entire book is written so that one can grab a good introductory level concept of what a house church might look like, how it might multiply, and how a house church can rapidly do the work of personal evangelism.

Overall, I found it to be an easy read, easily digestible, and full of personal stories that model what a house church might do, including some of the messiness of spectacular failures.

Because every house church is unique, The Rabbit and Elephant can’t get into every single detail or challenge presented by one house church, so the authors have to stay at a generic overview level.

But they do provide enough information that one could follow a few practical steps and launch a house church in their own area.

Included are some sample meeting outlines, a FAQ appendix, and a good review of common pitfalls in a simple church.

Worldview

The writers are well seeped in a charismatic worldview, which believes in the ongoing operation of the spiritual gifts and the realty of spiritual warfare.  They firmly believe in God’s miraculous activity and the guidance of the Holy Spirit about how and where to share the gospel.

I share their worldview, so much of this text and examples were easily digestable.  For those that don’t share that worldview (such as dispensational cessationists, or people who aren’t even aware of their worldview), some of the stories and principles may be a stretch, a sticking point, or even heretical in your worldview.

Yet the Dales are clear to say that not all simple churches share their worldview with regards to the spiritual gifts and spiritual warfare.

As another part of their worldview, there is a nice mixing of relational evangelism, which means their church meetings might have more non-believers than believers in them.  If this makes one uncomfortable, then this model of doing church might not work for you.

The best chapter in the Rabbit and the Elephant

Chapter 13, called Luke 10 Principles, outlines their entire church planting methodology.  This chapter alone is worth the price of the book, whether you want to plant a church or simply learn about small group expansions through networks.  In my estimation this chapter is the crux of the entire book so let me give you the basic outline.

1.  Trust God to provide the strategy and workers (Luke 10:1-2)

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

The disciples were sent out as “church planting” teams and directed where to go.  The job of the disciples were to obey His instructions, and go to places where He was to visit.

The root of this is prayer.  They recommend prayer walking (webinar, resources) where you sense Jesus is sending you.

2.  Trust in God’s protection (Luke 10:3)

Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves

As you go places you may very well confront demonic powers (which exposes a worldview claim in the text).  We are to bind the strong man (Luke 11:21-22) and cooperate with God’s rescue.  Ed Silvoso writes much more about this in That None Should Perish.

3.  Trust God to provide Resources (Luke 10:4)

Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road

4.  Trust God to lead you to the Person of Peace (Luke 10:5)

When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you.

This is the most crucial insight into the methodology.  Look for the person of peace who will invite you into their home to start a house church within their social network.

This is a person who has some kind of reputation (good or bad) and has a wide circle of influence.  The church is usually started in that person’s home (p. 105).

New Testament examples would be Cornelius (Acts 10), or Lydia (Acts 16), or perhaps the woman at the well (John 4).

5.  Enjoy the Hospitality that God provides (Luke 10:7-8)

Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you.

Don’t move from home to home, but stay in the home of the person of peace.  House churches celebrate meals together as part of their practice.  Eating with people creates relationship.  At this point, you’ve only become a friend.  There has been no proclamation to this point.

6.  Trust God to Answer Your Prayers (Luke 10:9)

Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’

Look for opportunities to pray with and for people.  You’re looking for opportunity to bring people face to face with God’s activity.  Once you identify needs you can put your faith on the line and pray.

Then watch God respond.  In their experience, this often happens in connection with one of the spiritual gifts, such as prophecy or word of knowledge, as a demonstration of the kingdom of God.  When people experience the power of God in this way, word of mouth causes more people to gather to start studying and learning from God.

The Rabbit and the Elephant For Legacy Churches

They use the term Legacy churches to speak of what most of us think as church:  a gathering of believers in a building, led by one or more pastors, with a worship service that follows some kind of liturgy.  Mainline denominations, evangelical denominations, all of these have what we would consider traditional churches.

For legacy churches thinking about migrating to simple church, this book hints at such a transition, but doesn’t serve as a how to manual to make that transition.  It also doesn’t get into helping one re-frame their current way of doing church into this model.  It doesn’t get into issues like 501c3 status, record keeping, membership, articles of organization, paying a full time pastor, and stuff like that.

It doesn’t deal with some of the confessional theology of legacy churches (such as what are the marks of the church, Westminster confession of faith, ch 25.4).  I think this direction is outside the scope of the book.

However, legacy churches that want to expand their small group structure, this book can have a lot to say in terms of launching new small groups, and empowering people to launch small groups in their areas of influence.  The Luke 10 principles above are, I think, equally applicable there as well.

I also commend the Dales for not ripping the legacy churches as they present an alternative model.

Order your copy of The Rabbit and Elephant from Amazon. (affiliate link)

Related Resources

• Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
• See Rabbit and Elephant Webinar Resource Page for resources and bibliography.

Other Reviews of The Rabbit and the Elephant

• http://voiceofthesheep.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/the-rabbit-and-the-elephant-book-review/
• http://www.morethancake.org/2009/06/rabbit-elephant.html
• http://revitalizeyourchurch.blogspot.com/2009/06/rabbit-and-elephant.html
• http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2009/06/new-house-church-book-the-rabbit-and-the-elephant.html
• http://rangescc.org/2009/06/02/the-rabbit-and-the-elephant-blog-tour/
• http://churchgrowthsoftwareconsulting.internetpastoronline.com/church-growth-consulting-presents-the-rabbit-and-the-elephant/
• http://christianbookclub.godsdaytimer.com/the-rabbit-and-the-elephant/

The challenger warned me that I could only reach so many people, but if I delegated and empowered, I could lead larger ministries with longer reaches and greater sustainability.  The challenger mentioned that my personal limit of people I could effectively influence was likely around 120-150.  If I could influence leaders, the ministry could grow beyond my personal limits.

One blog I read (ChrisBrogan.com) shares the source behind the social limit of real relationships that a person can maintain.

There’s a theory called Dunbar’s Number that suggests there’s an upper limit to the amount of relationships we can maintain. If you’re interested in networking, this should be an issue. That number, for the record, is 150. 

Source: Beating Dunbars Number | chrisbrogan.com.

Implications for pastors

I know of a church plant that started about nearly 10 years ago.  I checked in on it recently, and the pastor reports that it has plateaued about 125-135 people for the past five years and that the turnover rate is about 45% each year.

New people come in, other people leave after about a year or two.  The net effect is that the congregation has remained numerically stable.

This church is a single pastorate, and the pastor has a leadership style where his hand is in everything.

Pastor sets the direction (with a board of government), pastor runs the small groups, pastor runs the worship service and no ministry gets started without the pastor’s initiative.  Recently pastor split up the small groups into different areas, but he still maintains a pretty tight involvement with the leaders.

Pastor lovingly leads it all.  There is joy in the congregation, no complaints, and for this church this type of leadership functions.  It’s not a dictatorship and pastor is not a control freak.  He gets joy out of being involved.

Now, before you agree with me that this is

• Not healthy, or
• A recipe for burnout or
• Effective in a small church, or
• Leadership style that hinders further growth

let me connect it to the point.

1.  The church will not grow any larger.

If Dunbar’s number holds true, the limit of a single pastor who feels the need to be involved in everything will be about 150.  It seems to me that the congregation has reached the practical end of its growth unless the pastor gives and empowers leadership to raise up their own networks.

2.  Leaders leave because they can’t serve or lead.

This church leadership model does not delegate and empower leadership of other ministry.   It doesn’t effectively raise up others to lead their own network of 150.  Not having a place to serve or contribute their gifts, after a while solid believers leave for a place where they can serve.

This particular congregation is at a moment of stage of church growth.  If it wants to continue its dream of fulfilling its particular calling, one thing that must change is the leadership style.

Implications for Church Planting

I know it’s not as simple as waving a wand to make a solution, but if you are wondering why your church isn’t growing — perhaps you’ve maxed out the social limit of your leaders?

How much leadership can you give away to trusted and respected leaders?

With regards to evangelism training in your church’s DNA, is the pastor in charge of it all, or is that delegated as well to empowered leaders?

One church planting coach that I have gotten to know uses Jethro’s advice to Moses — delegate and empower.  Put people in charges of 50s, 100s, and 1000s.

Implications for Church Visitor Retention Rates

There are practical implications here as well to keeping church visitors in your midst.

In the church I describe, the back door is as big as the front door.

People come and perhaps stay connected for a little while, but without the empowerment to lead and serve in ministries, they may likely take their gifting elsewhere where they are needed.

Your church is working hard at retaining visitors and building connections, but the leadership DNA won’t let it grow.

Coaching corner:

Could this issue — 150 people per pastor — be part of the reason?   Take a look and think about it for a while.

]]> http://www.evangelismcoach.org/2009/beating-dunbars-number/feed/ 7 http://www.evangelismcoach.org/2009/church-hospitality-webinar-resources-and-replay/ http://www.evangelismcoach.org/2009/church-hospitality-webinar-resources-and-replay/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:30:53 +0000 EvangelismCoach http://www.evangelismcoach.org/?p=1955 We had a great webinar this afternoon. Registrations from 10 different countries, covering 31 different states and churches from a wide variety of denominations and traditions.

Church Hospitality Book Recommendations

How to Welcome Church Visitors, Chris Walker

A practical how to manual on first impressions with study questions.

Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church, Nelson Searcy

A book focused the mechanics of an effective assimilation process for his church.

Sticky Church (Leadership Network Innovation Series)

Strategy of sermon-based small groups to retain new people coming to your church.

First Impressions: Creating Wow Experiences In Your Church

A book focused on training welcoming teams in large campus churches.

Related Links on EvangelismCoach.org

• 15 Strategies to Increase Number of First Time Visitors
• What to say to A Church Visitor
• 10 Church Visitor Gift Ideas
• How to Make Church Visitor Welcome Packets
• 10 Tips for Church Greeters

The Actual Presentation

Download the PPT Welcoming Church Visitors April 2009

View more presentations from Chris Walker.

1. In the name of Jesus Christ invite the Holy Spirit to lead the prayer group.

We are Christian believers who pray in Jesus name.  We need to remind ourselves of this regularly.  Asking the Holy Spirit to lead the prayer group helps us from keeping our agenda from taking control

2. Offer a time of praise and worship of Jesus Christ.

Worship is where we connect with the Father’s heart.

Praising God for his works, thanking God for making a relationship with Him possible, and declaring one to another the marvelous works of the Lord strengthens our faith and reminds us to always be watching for God’s activity in our life.

3. Lead in a time of confession and prayer ministry with one another.

This may be a time to deal with any issues in the group.

Confession of sins or burdens clears the way to receiving guidance from the Holy Spirit.

Conclude with prayers for one another, absolution and passing the peace.

4. Report on what God is doing.

Here the members of the team will briefly share any evangelism conversations they may have experienced or opportunities they may have missed.

Reflect upon and give thanks for these.

It may be that the Spirit will lead the team to pray for each one of your group and those to whom they have been given the opportunity to share the gospel.

5. Move into Intercession

The following may be helpful:

Pray according to Jesus’ commands: Pray thy Kingdom come. In addition, pray that God the Father will send laborers. Ask God to show you specifically where His Kingdom is to come. Ask God specifically who the laborers are whom He is raising up. Be ready to be one of them!

Go through Paul’s list of ways of praying for evangelism. Linger on any of these that seem especially important for your situation.

One by one, with the whole group agreeing in prayer, lift up the names of those who have been given to the individuals in the group to be prayed into salvation. (A list should be kept by the leader of who these people are – this could be done by the whole group or in small groups.)

6. Discern open doors for the gospel.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the open doors in the community, the church, the world and in individuals for the gospel.

7. Ask God to reveal any blocks to the gospel message in these situations or people.

8. Ask the Lord what you or the team are being called to do.

9. Discern together what God is saying

God speaks to us through Scripture.  For those of us who believe in the ongoing work of Spiritual gifts and the guidance given by the holy Spirit, we may need to talk about impressions, leadings, visions, prophetic words, or by consensus of the group as part of that discernment. Keep a record of this guidance.

10. Pray for this guidance

Ask God for steps in implementation. Write these down as they are revealed for further discernment, prayer and implementation. These may later be taken to the church leadership for approval and implementation.

11. Conclude the meeting with praise and giving glory to Jesus Christ.

Note: The eleven steps above were first presented in a manual on personal evangelism through PRMI’s Phillip Endeavor. That has been further refined and developed in the Evangelism Dunamis.

See Part I of Evangelism Where You Live – A Review Part I

See Part II of Evangelism Where You Live – A Review Part II

This final section of Chapters 5 – 8 gets into the nuts and bolts of what this might look like in the local church.

CBSE involves a Christ follower who serves others out of his or her passion, using one’s spiritual gifts at connection points of need in the community to demonstrate the love of Jesus to others as a salt and light servant.  . . . .

Administratively, CBSE reduces the church’s events and ongoing programs to allow people to be deployed into their daily lives to exercise their passions and gifts. (73)

Chapter 5: Salt and Light Servants

The majority of current discipleship material seems to be focused on information, not so much on experiential transformation.  The idea was that better information and accumulated information would lead to spiritual transformation.

The authors have seen this descend into matters of personal preference, rallies around the latest Christian bestseller, and rabbit trails into the most effectively marketed latest trend .

However, they see a shift from information to experience.

A method that fosters experience to help shape a person’s spiritual formation.

Educational materials are connected with service in the community “as the context to live out the expression of a life in relationship to Christ.”

I have often noted and taught that I learn by doing.

In other businesses, I could study, study, study, but until I was actually doing, the study didn’t make sense.  Study lead to hypothesizing, thinking about 1000 what ifs.

But not until I got into people’s lives and talking with them 1-1 about their spiritual journey did any of the studies seems to start finding a purpose.

Perhaps a quote from Randy Pope captures this better in this illustration:

Much in the way that eating creates no appetite for exercise, so too, I have found that Bible study and prayer alone do not create mission oriented Christians.  But, just as exercise creates a desire for food and drink, mission related activities create an insatiable thirst and hunger to feed on God’s word (89).

The idea is deploy your church members to serve their community and that kind of relational context will spur personal growth.

Eating has never created in us a desire to exercise, but preparing to run 26.2 miles in about 4 hours definitely creates not only a desire, but a need to eat (89).

In the same way, service may very well be the missing factor in developing fully devoted followers of Christ.  Transformation happens in combination with information and experience.

Chapter 6: Connection Points

The subtitle focuses the chapter on Evangelism Training.  The authors have given lots of evangelism training over the years, from memorizing gospel scripts, to relational evangelism seminars, yet not seeing any statistical evidence of new believers.  The rare church had more than 5 new believers in a year after the seminar.

Church’s are beginning to ask “Why is training people on how to share their faith not resulting in new Christ followers?”

The authors claim that intentional community service is the missing ingredient.  The chief issue is that our church members have lost touch with genuine relationships with people far from God.

To fulfill the front half of the Great Commission the process will always begin with a Christ-follower connecting with someone far from God.  To lead someone into a personal relationship with Christ has little to do with whether someone has attended training and learned a model presentation to the Gospel (95).

Connecting Points

The chapter lays out how to find connection points with the local community, beginning with an inventory from Becoming a Contagious Christian, Hybels and Mittleberg:

• People we know
• People we used to know
• People we would like to know.

I use a similar idea with Spheres of Influence.

The key for churches is to assist members in creating a context for connection, but it remains up to the individual member to connect.

The third group, people we would like to know, is where the role of community service comes into play.  Relationships develop best around a need the mutual relationship can meet.

Where is your church member passionate?  Where is their burden? Examples:

• Single Moms?
• Fatherless kids?
• Teachers?
• Firefighters?
• Undercover FBI agents?
• Little League?

Where are their gifts?  Administratively gifted folks can organize events or run leagues.  Mercy gifted folks can visit people.

We have come to realize that not assisting our church members to develop a connection point into an authentic relationship is simply not providing good leadership.

Chapter 7 and 8: Implementing CBSE

Chapter 7 and 8 map out how to make such philosophical changes in implementing Community Based servant evangelism.  The authors note that there are several books about systemically changing a congregation, and they note that their system works when followed.

The process is organic and leadership driven.

First four steps are for the pastor, the next two are are for the leadership, and the last 5 are how to make it public.

• Pray and read the Bible
• Church leadership must own the mission of “Love God and Love Others”
• Must be totally supported by the Senior Pastor and or Lead Pastor
• Enlist top / key church influencers
• Enlist a CBSE champion
• Enlist a CBSE leadership team
• Design a plan
• Provide training
• Cast the vision to your church
• Implement the plan
• Evaluate all aspects and correct

This list may seem generic in terms of changing systems, but the chapters tease them out more fully.

A Pastor’s Personal Prayer life

It strikes me how a pastor’s personal relationship with God is the root of this change, not only the pastors, but so also the rest of the leadership.

In a 2007 review of surveys of pastors,

two hundred seventy (270 or 26%) of pastors said they regularly had personal devotions and felt they were adequately fed spirituality.

Seven hundred fifty-six (756 or 72%) of the pastors we surveyed stated that they only studied the Bible when they were preparing for sermons or lessons.

If the root of systemic change in a church is found in a pastor’s personal relationship with God, then how can churches give their pastors time to nurture that relationship?    From another study in the same report:

We found that 90% of pastors work more than 50 hours a week. One out of three pastors state that being in the ministry is clearly hazardous for their families. One out of three pastors felt totally burned out within the first five years of ministry.

Research from Crandall (see 5 phases of renewal from Turnaround and Beyond: A Hopeful Future for the Small Membership Church) indicates that personal renewal is the number one factor in successful turnaround in churches.

Research from Martha Gay Reese (Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism (Real Life Evangelism Series) elevates the importance of prayer for a congregation to pick up and maintain an evangelistic passion.

Order your copy

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community from Amazon

I’ve been reading Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community and I think it is a must read book for pastors of churches seeking to engage its community.

Over the next few days leading up to the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar, I’ll be pulling out a few themes.

A philosophy of Ministry

The foundational drive of this book is to present a philosophy of ministry that should work it’s way into the DNA of a congregation.

A way of doing ministry in which Christ followers model, encourage, and equip others to be salt and light servants where they live . . . living out the great commandment and the great commission in our network of relationships in the marketplace and neighborhoods.

Chapter 1: Foundations

Pate looks at ineffective methods of church based evangelism and the relationship between personal evangelism and the local church.  The end results he points out is a lot of effort, but little results.

Programmatic changes have not led to church growth, so perhaps a systemic change needs to be made.

Ever after a lot of evangelism training, people can’t give a scripted gospel presentation, but they can answer the question: “What is God up to in your life?”

But all the emphasis on programming in the past few decades has created several barriers to this kind of relational evangelism on a church level.  Friendship evangelism models have been around for some time, but how do you mobilize the church to engage the mission field where it is planted?

Based on his own experience as a consultant and a practitioner, Pate and Wilkes put forth a philosophy of ministry that makes sense and develops this idea throughout the book:

The key argument is:

The premise of this book is simple: the key for a local church is to create natural connection points for Christ-follower to intersect the lives of people far from God through service in the community as salt and light servants. (8)

The church must purposefully deploy people into the community, become friends of sinners, if Christ-followers are to live out the Great Commission.  (15)

Their answer, using the “salt and light” images of the NT:

Churches can deploy their members according to their passions and gifts to be an irresistible influence among the people of their community. (10).

We do not offer a presentation to be memorized but a lifestyle of service that engages tangible needs wherever they occur and seizes every opportunity in that interaction to introduce the person/people served to our Rescuer and Leader, Jesus. (18)

Chapter 2: Barriers that keep us out

Pate and Wilkes give a summary of barriers that keep church individuals from connecting with the neighborhood.

Time (or perceived lack of time), program maintenance, church structures, and unawareness of passion and spiritual gifts among members of your church are primary barriers that keep your people out of the community and within the walls of your church.

The chapter unfolds this list with great detail and I think accurately reflects what I see in churches that I consult with.

Time

Many churches have far too many time consuming programs, events, and meetings each week that do not enable their church to moves even one step forward in accomplishing either the Great Commission or the Great commandment (24)

To the pastor, they provide a simple way to calculate the total number of volunteer hours it takes to sustain the current programming of the the church.  The simple question is that with all the man hours church’s ask their people to give, is there any time left over for building relationships?

Church Programs

Programs are not bad, the authors are clear to say.  But are they the tail that wags the dog?  Do your programs assist the church in fulfilling its mission, or are they stale and lifeless relics of a past era?

People far from God are not looking for more things to do.  Are we a bit off center because of the countless hours we devote to the programs at our church? (27)

The authors encourage pastors to examine their church programming to see what is hindering the mission of intentionally deploying people in the community.

Church structure and control

Essentially, how does leadership respond to new ideas and new directions.  Are policies prohibiting new directions?  Does leadership trust new ways the Holy Spirit is leading?  Are new initiatives squashed or are people given freedom to pursue them?

Unawareness of Gifts and Passions

Passion determine where a person serves best, and gifts determine how.  Passion is God-given and answers the “where” of ministry.  Gifts are God-given and answers the “how” of ministry.  The authors maintain, rightfully so,

churches cannot reach their potential when those joined to the mission and vision of the church either (1) do not know their God-given passion and spiritual gift(s) or (2) if those aspects of who they are in Christ are underdeveloped.

Their main point in all of this is to explore how can the church get outside it’s walls?  How can the local church get out of the building and into the neighborhood when these barriers are in the way?

Learn more

Part II comes tomorrow — Grab my feed to have it delivered to you automatically

Learn more about this philosophy of ministry direct from the author, Stephen Pate.  Register for the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar this coming Thursday.

Over the next few days leading up to the Community Based Servant Evangelism Webinar, I’ll be pulling out a few themes.

What’s not working?

The authors ask:

Why Aren’t Our Efforts Producing Anything Other than More Work?

Think about all the evangelism training, all the conferences, new ideas, new books, new resources that have been offered in the last few years.

Pate looks at the statistics from his own denomination and notices no noticeable change in baptism statistics (which is a marker of growth in their Baptist tradition).

Of their 2100 Baptisms in 2003

• 12% were Christ-followers not previously immersed.
• 54% were children or grandchildren of members
• 34% were individuals with no prior church connection.

Numerical statistics from their association note that their membership in relationship to their county decreased in its percentage from 4.3% to 1.9%

The church was not reaching people for Christ, in spite of all their efforts in evangelism training, programming, and lots of resources.

Church outreach programs, age-grouped bible studies, church-wide evangelism emphases and events have produced current results.

As a consultant earning a living from evangelism training, this bothered him.  Why is there no noticeable change even after all time and effort to do training and provide resources?

A philosophy of Ministry

The foundational drive of this book is to present a philosophy of ministry that should work it’s way into the DNA of a congregation.

A way of doing ministry in which Christ followers model, encourage, and equip others to be salt and light servants where they live . . . living out the great commandment and the great commission in our network of relationships in the marketplace and neighborhoods.

The key argument is:

The church must purposefully deploy people into the community, become friends of sinners, if Christ-followers are to live out the Great Commission.

It is relational evangelism to the core.

How is this different from other relational evangelism material?

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community is different in that it seeks to figure out how relational evangelism can work in context a local congregation.  It’s not a curriculum, but a philosophy that can shape the culture of your church.

A lot of relational evangelism training curriculum is focused on individual — helping you develop relationship and then skills in sharing the gospel.  The authors refer to several, such as Just Walk Across the Room (or Just Walk Across the Room Video Curriculum)

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community focuses on the implication of relational evangelism in the church DNA.

What happens to your programming?  What happens when your calendar is too full to spend time with unchurched people?

Example:

Let me share an example from my own life.

I’ve been asked via email to conduct an evangelism training program for a local church.

The coordinator has asked to meet with me, so

FOR 5 MONTHS

we have been trying to arrange an in-person meeting time.

We have had at least 10 appointments set, and every time, this coordinator has canceled on me.

Every time — “something came up at the church”  “I have to be at the church” and so on.

He’s left me hanging.

No-shows, and canceled appointments.

I’m frayed.

I am unable to meet him at his church because of distance.

We keep trying common meeting points, half-way, but each one keeps being canceled.

The point is — the church calendar is so full with surprise meetings or other meetings, that even the evangelism coordinator doesn’t have time to meet with me unless I make it to the church to catch him between meetings.

His church calendar is so busy — can he spend time with unchurched people building relationships?

Pastors and Leadership

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community is aimed at church leadership to help think through these hard questions.

Time (or perceived lack of time), program maintenance, church structures, and unawareness of passion and spiritual gifts among members of your church are primary barriers that keep your people out of the community and within the walls of your church.

They present a relational evangelism philosophy that will seriously impact your church’s DNA.

Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community isn’t really aimed at individuals, but pastors and leaders seeking to answer the question: How can our church connect with the community?

This goes beyond servant evangelism (doing random acts of kindness in Jesus name) and beyond scripts, to deploying members to meeting community needs.

We are pleased to announce that our resource for new church development, Starting New Churches: A Discernment Process, has been revised and updated.

I know the principal authors and have skimmed the resource this morning and believe that if you are involved in planting a church, this study would be a good study for your team.

The authors write:

Each of the 16 gatherings suggests a Bible study and an extended time of prayer. We encourage you to engage this process slowly. Resist the temptation to rush through the Bible studies and prayerful reflection. New church development is not the implementation of successful models and techniques; it is the faithful discernment of God’s leading and the faithful implementation of God’s mission. Wrestle with the scriptures, listen, and fall on your knees in humility.

Church planters and those who are attracted to beginning new churches are often “doers.” We can’t wait to get started, bring in the kingdom, make it happen and happen now. Remember Jesus told his “doers” to go back to Jerusalem, pray and wait until God’s right time. We hope that all of you fellow “doers” will resist the temptation to start doing and will take the time to discuss, listen, discern, and wait for God’s right time. We have countless stories of teams who were delayed in their plans and the finding of the right leadership took longer than expected, yet in hindsight those delays led the team to the “perfect timing.”

You can see the preview here or click on the link to download the whole thing:
StartingNewChurches2.0