Donna Thomas' tremendous book on Missions
A lot of people read my post about being upset with their churches. In fact, it was the most popular post I ever had.
Many people have ideas about how to improve their churches.
When I was a College Hill Pres we had a dynamic and very successful program of selecting and training Evangelism Teams. It was developed by Ron Rand.
One time we were asked to train a church that was losing members fast and said they needed help. George Bass went over to meet with them and discuss how to proceed. He asked them a simple question.
"Who is your target for outreach?"
They said, "People over 60 years of age with a German heritage."
Some Pastors, Elders, Deacons and people do not want to change. They want the world and culture and sinners to change. I am not interested in working with those churches. They are stuck and will very likely die.
Let us know the ways you would like to help a church become more effective. What would you do?
I have consulted with and taught hundreds of churches and thousands of church leaders how to effectively bring people to their organizations. I have my ideas but I want to hear yours.
If you want to see my ideas plunk down a small fee for an eBook on a downloadable PDF. You will love any of them. I guarantee it. (If you read them!!!!)
2 comments:
Gary,
If churches would start focusing on the following five things, I think we could make great strides in restoring the Church in America:
1. Get rid of the multimdedia "dog and pony" show. If you want to blow people's minds, do it by being an authentic place where God manifests among his people in power. Everything else is inauthentic and a sad replacement for the real "fireworks."
2. Bring back extended corporate prayer and open up all prayer times to the people so they can pray for each other's needs among the assembly of believers. Ensure no one suffers in silence or alone.
3. Take the emphasis off the gifts of the leaders and instead turn the use of spiritual giftings back to the assembly of believers for them to use (and practice) on each other, with the leaders as true identifiers, moderators, and shepherds of the people's gifts.
4. Preach the Gospel of Grace and not the gospel of "Here's a Dozen Things to Do to Be a More Successful Person by the World's Standards."
5. Never stop praying for humility.
I like these ideas. I hope some leaders tune into them and comment as well as consider changes.
We need dialogue on these very important matters.
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