Legos

I loved Legos when I was a kid. I bought them for my kids so I could play with them again. Recently, I heard a speaker (Larry Osborne) compare people to Legos. There are different size legos with different size connections. Different people have a different number of connections available with other people. Some people are much more gregarious and have the desire and time to connect with a lot of people. Others want only 2 or 3 friends.
Each lego piece has a limited number of connections. When it is full, you can't connect it to any other piece unless you pull off another piece. This is also true of people. We only have a limited capacity for connections with other people.
Friendliness is different from connection. We tell the people in church to be friendly. That's good, but not enough. People want more than friendliness; they want friends.
Everybody wants some connections to other people. One of the best helps for long term discipleship is long term relationships. To help "close the back door" of the church, we need to help people develop connections with other people. Some people continue to go to a church where they don't like a lot that is going on. But they stay in that church because that is where their friends are. We all want to have a few friends in church.
Strong ties come from relationships that are long-term, frequent, and vulnerable. After a time, we learn to feel comfortable with certain people and we can tell them things that we wouldn't mention to others.
So how do we help people develop long term relationships? Not by dividing the Sunday School classes or small groups and making people get in a new one every 6 months. Let people stay with their friends. Some will want to move on because they didn't connect. Have opportunities for new groups. Maybe a semester setup would give people that opportunity to try another group. It would also give new people a good time to start in a group. A new person probably has more connection openings.
However you solve this, we have to make a conscious effort and process where we help people get connected. If that lego in your church has no connections to others in church, soon you won't see that lego in church.

Church Planters Are My Favorite People

Sandy and I just got back from a trip to Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. We thought it would be nice and warm to go south in February. We were wrong. It was cold and snowy. But the people we spent time with were warm. I know - that sounds corny. But it is true. As I travel among Free Will Baptist churches, I meet a lot of salt of the earth people. Many times the saltiest are the church planters. They have to be prayed up or they can't stay encouraged. They have a heart for God; they have a heart for people; and they have a heart for getting God and people together. Almost all of them are humble. (Yes, I said almost)

Chad Kivette is a former church planter and now a pastor in Pensacola, Florida. Sandy and I spoke about marriage and I preached. It was good seeing them. He said as we left, "I miss being a part of Home Missions." I said, "You are still part of the Home Missions family." Again, corny, but true.

Here is a picture of Chad and Paula and us.

While we down in that area, we got to see two present home missionary families. Tim and Angie Riggs are ministering in Mobile, Alabama. Here are two pictures of his church:

They have 3 sons - Stephen, Andrew, and Caleb. Stephen is graduating from high school this year and heading to college. We went to the mall together and Tim and I got something for our sweethearts for Valentine's Day. (We also went to the Bama Fever store) Tim wanted to get the picture in front of the Alabama sign.

We also stopped by Meridian, Mississippi on the way home to see Larry and Sherry Reynolds. Their children are grown and they have 4 grandchilden, including one little girl born just last month. We took pictures of Sherry, too, but only this one came out:

Here is a picture of Larry on stage in their church building:

The Riggs, the Reynolds, and the Kivettes are all friendly and easy to like. But they are also people of faith, courage, and determination.

They are my favorite kind of people.

WHY DON’T PEOPLE INVITE OTHERS TO CHURCH?

I still think Christians inviting others to church is a great way to evangelize. A lot of churches have seen growth through this. But many churches hardly have any visitors week after week. Some pastors even nag their people at the end of every service – “Now go out and invite someone to church this week.” But they don’t. Why is this?

I can think of a few reasons.
1. Some people hardly have any friends that don’t go to church.
Some ideas
· Think harder. Most people know someone who isn’t saved or in church. Family members, coworkers, neighbors, facebook friends, the person who cuts your hair, etc.
· Build relationships with unsaved people. Take time to get to know them, listen, share funny stories. Look for a chance to tell your story of God in your life.
· Remember that some people may be interested in God or church, but don’t know where to go. They may be glad to get an invitation.
· Start sowing thoughts about God: give tracts, let them know about something good in church recently, thank God for good things, let them know you’ll pray about their problems.
· Go around doing good (Jesus did - Acts 10:38) People will be more open to talking to you about God and church.


2. Some people don’t want anyone else in church.
They may not admit it, even to themselves, but they like the way things are now. More people might bring – less room for parking, more crowded auditorium and they would have to sit in front, not a family feel, new ideas, new people in leadership.

3. Some people feel their church is okay for them, but not excited about how an unchurched person would feel about it.
What The Church Can Do To Make It Easier For People To Invite
· Start on time and end about the same time each week.
· Help people find their way around – signs, greeters, signs, welcome centers, signs.
· Welcome people, but don’t overdo it by hugging strangers or having 10 minute long greet one another times.
· Periodically have a big day or special event where everyone is inviting their friends. Have food. Don’t go too long. Announce a new sermon series starting next Sunday. Find a way to follow up.
· Don’t embarrass guests by having them stand or tell their name or wear a visitor badge.
· Put yourself in the place of a visitor. How would you like to be treated? Do that. Brainstorm with your people how new people would like to be treated.
· Plan the service with the goal of a worshipful atmosphere.
· Preach truth with love, passion, illustration, and application. Don’t be boring! Aren’t you sick of boredom in churches? So is everyone else!
· Fight for unity in your church. Nobody wants to invite people to church if there is division and strained relationships.
· Have a plan to help people build friendships in church.
· Give everyone a card where they can list 3 to 5 friends who aren’t in church. Ask them to pray for them, do good and build relationship with them, and invite them.

People invite their friends to parties, to watch the Super Bowl, to go play golf, to go out to eat. If they think it will be a good experience for their friends, they will invite them to church, too.

IS IT OKAY TO INVITE UNSAVED TO CHURCH?

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog talking about the purpose of church. He asked whether we should invite unsaved people to church. Here’s a link to that blog:
http://thebrinkonline.com/blog/read/a-thought-on-the-purpose-of-church-services
His basic thought was that he had been taught all his life to make the service appealing to unbelievers so we could reach them. But he was afraid this was not Biblical and would hinder Christians from witnessing outside the church.

Here is my comment:
I'm glad you brought this up for a couple of reasons. This is very important and we need to be talking about it. And I'm glad you are willing to separate tradition from the Bible. Tradition is not always wrong, but let's be willing to ask why we do something. However, I don't see most churches really changing their services to reach the unsaved. I know some churches do things like leave out a cross or some songs for fear of offending people. But I've never been to any of those. I'm afraid that most churches aren't really thinking about the unsaved at all. Or at least not very much. I've got so many thoughts on this that I'll probably write a blog about it myself. I'll send you a link. This is an important issue for the home missionaries that I work with. Personally, I want to get more unsaved people in church and want to see us all to a better job welcoming every newcomer. I think we can do this without compromising. Thanks again for your good thoughts.

That’s the end of the comment that I posted. I have other thoughts on the purpose of church. But I want to say a few things specifically about having unbelievers in our services.

I do believe it is Biblical to invite the unsaved to church as a way of evangelizing them. Psalm 40:3 says “And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.” Seeing our praise of God can be a testimony to unbelievers. In I Corinthians 14 we see that the unsaved can come to God through preaching: “24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. 25 And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you.” When Jesus tells His followers to love one another, it is a testimony to all. 35 "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." Hopefully, the people we invite to church can see this in our church.

I can see a couple of dangers associated with this. One is pragmatism. The dictionary defines pragmatism as
a philosophical movement or system having various forms, but generally stressing practical consequences as constituting the essential criterion in determining meaning, truth, or value.

Pragmatism = whatever works.
That philosophy could lead to appeals to the flesh that gather a crowd, but don’t build a church. We could be tempted to change our message for fear of offending someone. (I believe that many people want to hear the truth preached. Mainline, liberal denominations are hemorrhaging members. Who wants to waste time being a part of something that isn’t real and doesn’t matter? I think a lot of people in America are tired of cotton candy and want some meat.)
But you can make people feel welcome without compromise. When my wife and I have someone visit our home, we don’t compromise what we believe. For the last two years, we have hosted a Christmas dinner for students at the local International English Institute. 25-30 students show up along with the teachers and a few people from our church. Several of these students are Muslim. We sang Christmas carols, prayed before we ate (in Jesus’ name), read the Christmas story, and gave them a Christian tract along with some goodies. We hope that we sowed good seed into their lives.

Another danger of relying on inviting people to church as a means of evangelism is that Christians won’t obey the command to preach the gospel. My friend fears that we’ll just let the preacher evangelize. I don’t believe it should be either “Come or See” or “Go and Tell”, but both. All Christians should be involved in outreach. Preachers should be teaching people ideas on how to sow the seeds of the gospel in people’s lives. When people do speak to their friends and family, it will usually progress naturally to an invitation to church.

I don’t see churches changing their services that much for the unsaved. What I see more is churches not reaching sinners at all. Many churches haven’t baptized anyone in a year or two or three. Why not? Why don’t Christians in many churches invite their friends and family members to church? That is the subject of my next blog.

LOMBARDI’S 5 RULES FOR SUCCESS

The Colts and the Saints are in the Super Bowl this year. I’ve been a Colts fan since I was a kid in Maryland, so I’m glad. The trophy given to the winner of the Super Bowl is the Vince Lombardi trophy.
Vince Lombardi was the coach of the Green Bay Packers. He led them to 5 championships in 9 seasons. Under his leadership, the Packers won the first two Super Bowls. There’s a book out now about the 26 Rules of Lombardi. But I was cleaning out my files recently and came across notes about Lombardi’s 5 Rules for Success. I know starting a new church isn’t exactly the same as football, but I think we can see some application.

1. Lombardi had 1 goal – to win.

“Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything.”
“If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”
We Christians know that it is hard to keep score on our work for God. Our goal is to be faithful. But I think I Corinthians 9:24 says something about our attitude in our faithful work: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.”
As an athlete denies himself and gives his all, so should we. I like a guy to be aggressive. Don’t wait for things to happen. (The verse about waiting on the Lord doesn’t mean we should never do anything – the Bible is filled with action verses.) Plan, visit, study, pray, call, talk, write, email, preach, teach, mail, do. Then God has something to bless. It’s like having a garden. There is no life apart from God (God gives the increase - I Corinthians 3:6), but somebody has to plant and water. God will grow our church, but we must sow the seed.
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”


2. Lombardi built an organization that shared his philosophy.

“Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.”
“Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity.”
You can’t please everybody. And neither can you have a church going in 10 different directions. Know what you believe. Teach it. Get people of a like mind to work with you. For those who can’t work with your philosophy and beliefs, let them exit gracefully. There must be a sense of unity and oneness for your church to prosper.

3. Lombardi taught his players the basic fundamentals.

“Some people try to find things in this game that don't exist; but football is only two things - blocking and tackling.”

We need to teach people the basics of doctrine. We need to teach people the basics of Christian living. Instead, many churches waste their focus on politics, the environment, convictions that are not Bible-based, endless disagreements on the end times, etc. No wonder many Christians are ripe targets for cults. They don’t know what they believe or why.

4. Lombardi trained his players to execute 6 basic plays to perfection.

“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
Sometimes the difference between and ho-hum sermon and a great one is taking the extra time to find the right illustration or think awhile to come up with a good application. It’s tempting sometimes to blow the dust off a message we preached a few years ago and taking 15 minutes to review it. But that can lead to a dull, lifeless message. Our people need better than that.


5. Lombardi instilled in his players enthusiasm.

“If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
People want to follow someone who is passionate about what they believe. You don’t have to have a life of the party personality to do this. People are looking for something that you really believe and that comes from your heart. Be an encourager. Build faith in your people. Here’s a quote from CS Lewis that I like:
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
If you are starting a church, you are one of the most important people in your town or city. You are making an impact on the lives of generations of people. You are speaking for God and dealing with eternity.
That’s something to be enthusiastic about!

PLANTING FAST-GROWING CHURCHES


Planting Fast-growing Churches is the title of a book written by Stephen Gray. He is the Director of National Missions for General Baptists. He is also a former church planter. Dr. Gray sent questionnaires to 336 recent church plants in 5 denominations. The criteria for churches in this study: 1. At least 3 years old, but no older than 6 years; 2. Had to be led by a first-time church planter; 3. The new church must have been started in a city of at least 30,000 people. He separated the churches into two categories: Fast-growing and Struggling. A fast-growing church reached an average attendance of at least 200 and was financially self-supporting by 3 years from its public launch. Only 7% of the 2285 churches that qualified for this study were fast-growing. All other church plants were labeled struggling.

Here are some of the conclusions that the author reached from this study:

FINANCES

· Churches that received no additional startup money didn’t grow as fast as those that could get some help. But churches that received over $50,000 in additional funds (after salary) did worse than churches that received less than $50,000. Dr. Gray was concerned that new churches that received too much money or received support for too long could develop a welfare mentality.
· A significantly higher percentage of fast-growing churches taught financial stewardship within the first 6 months.
· Churches that gave a greater percentage of their income to outside causes did better.

LAUNCH

· The new church should have between 25 and 50 adults prior to launch.
· Both small groups and preview services should be used to build the core group.
· Many fast-growing churches had preview services every other week instead of once a month.

MINISTRIES

· 97% of fast-growing churches had a children’s ministry, while only 42% of struggling churches did.
· 92% of fast-growing churches offered 3 or more ministries at their opening. The most common ministries were worship, children, and teen.

This book was interesting to me. But that doesn’t mean that I have to agree with every conclusion. I would like to know more about the fast-growing churches. In what region of the country were they located? Did they have significant number of other members of their denomination or a mother church help them? Were some of these statistics the cause or the result?

However, this book can help us think about what we need to do to have faster-growing churches. It would especially be good for new church planters who haven’t had their first service.

I’ll end this with a quote from chapter 1:
“Church planting will make you feel alive, and it can push you to the brink of insanity. It will give you a new sense of God’s presence and convince you that Satan is alive and well. You will celebrate the birth of a new church will unearthly joy, and experience betrayal from friends and family in ways you never thought possible. As a church planter, you will experience high highs and low lows. It’s dangerous and dramatic. As they say on television – kids, don’t try this at home.”

THE NONES ARE COMING


DISCOURAGING THOUGHTS

The “Nones” are people who claim no religious affiliation. According to an article in The Week magazine from November 6, 2009, a study by Trinity College found their numbers are increasing. In 1990, 8 % of Americans claimed no religious affiliation, while in a recent survey that number has climbed to 15%. Their numbers are higher in the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest. Nones also have a higher percentage among younger people.

Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods says,
“Philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you do not claim it to be true.
Morally you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim that it is a ‘better’ way.
Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ in to it.”

Another survey by the National Opinion Research Center says that regular church attendance has fallen in the US. In 1971, 41% of the population attended church regularly, while in 2002 the number had dropped to 31%. Denominational loyalty has also eroded with churchgoers shopping around. Southern Baptist researcher Brad Waggoner says, “There’s no simple answer why people are so restless.” Since younger people tend to be more nonreligious, some are concerned this may be a growing trend in America. Trinity demographer Ariela Keysar says secularism in the US may one day rival the famed religious indifference of Europeans. “We’re not there,” she says, “but we’re going in that direction.”


ENCOURAGING THOUGHTS

A slim majority of the Nones believe in God and a third say they pray weekly or daily. Fewer than 10% call themselves atheists. Even though over 3 million people in America claim to be atheists, that number is only 1% of our population. This, in spite of an almost all out war by evolutionists and atheists in books, curriculum, TV shows, etc.

A lot of these people leaving organized religion are leaving liberal, unbelieving churches and the Catholic church. Erwin Lutzer says the persecution in China during the Cultural Revolution wiped out theological liberalism. Maybe the Catholic church’s scandals and the liberal church’s lack of answers is starting to do that here.


It has looked tough before. Spreading the gospel in the first century Roman empire looked daunting. In the 1800’s infidel Robert Ingersoll claimed that “churches are dying out all over the land.” A 1966 cover of Time magazine asked, “Is God Dead?” In each case, the church of God preached the truth and endured.

The devil would like us to be discouraged and overwhelmed so that we would quit before we got started. God is alive and well. He is working in America and in your town. Let us be realistic and admit we have a challenge in America. Let us also remember that people still have needs that only God can answer.