I love this time of the year, the annual celebration of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and the start of the Christian church.
Here is some humour for this time…
I found this over on Human3rror. Great blogger, with great posts.
Tag Archive - church
Structure
So, carrying on from my post the last 2 day, this will be the final instalment of my posts coming from my original post 3 Things The Church Could do different, IMO.
So let me start off by saying that I love structure. I am the type of personality that does not make it, if there is not a logical plan in place to do something. But…
When it comes to the work of the Lord, and church, I have been challenged to step out of the box of predictability, and to let the Holy Spirit surprise me, if He feels like it.
This has, on many occasions, since this challenge came to me, led me to be frustrated with the church, when there is an obvious need to just keep on worshipping or to just let the congregation sit and pray together, even if that means the sermon is not going to happen, the pastor making the decision to preach in any case.
The little church box of doing a sermon, worship at the start, sermon, collect the tithe, sing maybe another song, go home, simply does not work for me any more. We need to be open to the workings of the Holy Spirit, and when everybody can feel that we need to keep on worshipping, because that is what is needed for today, we need to do just that. Next week, that need might not be there, and then we can do a sermon in the old traditional way.
I really think the church needs to rethink the whole strategy on putting a service in a box, if you have not gathered that already.
I sometimes feel we are missing out on SO much by doing this, and imagine what could happen if we allowed the Spirit to work in His way, and not in our way?
Toe stepping
John 2:13-22 (NIV)
13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”17His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[b]
18Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
This post will have some relevance to a post I wrote earlier about being Nice, and comes from my post yesterday about the 3 Things the Church could do different.
The question for me is, why are we as Christians always afraid to step on other Christians’ and non believers’ toes?
If we look at the passage in the beginning, it is clear that Jesus had no qualms about be very blunt about the fact that He did not like what was going on.
There is also numerous other incidents in the gospels where Jesus would go face-to-face with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and pretty much crush their toes.
The church has become so focussed on keeping numbers in the church building that they have stopped to preach about the unexplainable, like where the angel of the Lord came and freed Paul from prison, or when Phillip was walking and the next moment he was standing in another town. When last have you heard a sermon on these topics?
I really feel that the church should start preaching more on the supernatural happening, spiritual warfare etc.
How do you think?
Church Focus
As I mentioned in my previous list post 3 Things the Church could do different, IMO I am now going to focus on the first thing, as promised.
The bigger church, especially in South Africa, tends to focus on teaching the people that already come to church. With this I am not saying that all the people in the church building is a reborn Christian, but if not, they will be in the minority.
Churches focus on creating great content for the sermons, great worship for the sermon and getting everything just right for the people that will come to the service. They will create sermon series with catchy titles, create great video introductions for the series, etc.
Churches will spend thousands, or millions, if they have that much, to have the best gear in the building. HD projectors, the biggest and best sound equipment and great lighting.
But I can’t help but ask the question, should this money not be used for uplifting the poor, orphans and widows? For getting missions started that will reach out and preach the gospel to the unsaved on the street, or in the house next door? Use this money to equip your people to be able to really spread the gospel, and not have to feel like they know too little of the Word to actually go out and speak to a stranger.
This is something that has been nagging me for the last couple of weeks, and it really gets me hot under the collar when I really sit down and think about it.
Yes, I love my church, I serve at my church. Yes I serve the very saved that I feel should be replaced with the unsaved.
I do however know that I have a calling on my life to go up in Africa and to serve orphans. Money is just a big issue, since this needs to be done out of pocket, and the time has not yet arrived for me to get into a Cruiser and drive the distance to get to where I will eventually end up at.
Will I still feel like this about the church come the time that I leave the church, and move out in faith?
I sincerely hope not…
3 Things the Church could do different, IMO
So, part of the 31 Day to Build a Better Blog challenge, is to write a list post for my blog. Since I have not done this before, this is a bit of a stretch for me, because I like to write as and when the inspiration and content come up in my mind, but sitting here thinking about what I can write a list post, and carrying on from my Elevator Pitch from yesterday, I thought it might be a good idea why I have some issues with the church as an institution.
So here goes…
The church tends to focus on the saved in the building, and not the unsaved and needy outside the building.
This is the fact that even though most churches have some movements that reach out to the community, it is a select few that actually partake in this, and in general the church does not do enough to equip people to reach the unsaved.
The church is too scared to step on the toes of the congregation, so it is sometimes easier to preach the easy to comprehend stuff, and to look over the difficult to explain stuff.
Too many times have I sat in a church service to feel like I have heard this before, or read a text in church, and finding the pastor to preach over the difficult things in the text and preaching on the easily explained stuff.
Structure
The structure of the church, for me, limits the efficacy of the service. Because we have a structure to adhere to, we sometimes rather decide not to let a prophet stand up and speak, or let the worship carry on longer, because we have to get to the sermon.
As I sit here typing, I feel that each of these numbers must be a separate blog post, each on its own, so we will stick with just listing them here, for now.
Acts 2
Acts 2:42-47 (Amplified)
42And they steadfastly persevered, devoting themselves constantly to the instruction and fellowship of the apostles, to the breaking of bread [including the Lord's Supper] and prayers.43And a sense of awe (reverential fear) came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were performed through the apostles (the special messengers).
44And all who believed (who adhered to and trusted in and relied on Jesus Christ) were united and [together] they had everything in common;
45And they sold their possessions (both their landed property and their movable goods) and distributed the price among all, according as any had need.
46And day after day they regularly assembled in the temple with united purpose, and in their homes they broke bread [including the Lord's Supper]. They partook of their food with gladness and simplicity and generous hearts,
47Constantly praising God and being in favor and goodwill with all the people; and the Lord kept adding [to their number] daily those who were being saved [from spiritual death].
After having to write my Elevator Pitch for the 31 day to Build a Better Blog, this theme got stuck in my head once again, and this has been my main passion the last year or so.
Why is it, that we as a church deviated from the way church was in Acts 2? Why are the Christian faith declining in number lately, and not growing like in Acts 2, when new believers were added to their number daily, and they grew by the thousands?
What went wrong?
I am planning to explore this a bit myself over the next couple of posts, and be sure that this will probably become a recurring theme from here on in.
I dream of a church, where we are so fired up to spread the Word, that we will add thousands to our numbers, DAILY!
A new beginning
Isaiah 44:3-5
For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants.They will spring up like grass in a meadow,
like poplar trees by flowing streams.One will say, ‘I belong to the LORD ‘;
another will call himself by the name of Jacob;
still another will write on his hand, ‘The LORD’s,’
and will take the name Israel.
At our church, we are in the process of getting a new pastor to lead us into a new season of faith and growth. On Monday night, when he was introduced to the people involved in ministry, he gave us this scripture with the words following, that we as church need to live to the outside, and not in to each other.
What was amazing, is that out Worship Pastor got this exact same scripture, with the same revelation just a couple of days earlier.
I love the way that these people are starting to think, and I am super excited about this new season our church is entering. I am fastening my seatbelt for the ride, and believe that God is going to do great things still.
The Plunge
So, this evening, after we had a discussion meeting in starting the planning around how we as Doxa Deo Midstream Campus, are going to take the year of 2010 head on, I just had the conviction from God to speak out about the challenges and convictions He placed on my heart the last couple of months.
Luckily, our campus pastor wanted to discuss something else with me as well, and the floor was set for me to take up the conversation in transforming what we as a church in South Africa use the internet for.
He, as I thought, is not the right person to talk to when it gets to details, but I knew he would be able to get me into contact with the correct people within the church’s management structures. But, what was great for me was that he seemed very keen on the idea that we need to look at the internet as a tool in the church more, and not just see it as a informational website.
I am so excited about this, and I truly believe God gave me the time tonight to take this matter further, as I have been praying for this for so long.
Now, I need to get all my ducks in a row, and get everything on paper, with pictures and everything, and then I can go and present my vision to the church leaders, and hopefully take things further from there.
The BIG question
This will somehow tie in with my previous post of where you want to be in 5 years time…
After havng had that very confusing question asked of me, and actually sitting down and really thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that the path I have walked in the last 10 years as far as career goes, was not for nothing. And why can’t I use the skills that I have developed over the years to further the Kingdom using that.
Now, South Africa is far behind the rest of the word as far as technology goes. Yes we have internet, and everything else, but we don’t have the bandwidth that first world countries have, and we don’t have the online community thing as a culture yet. Facebook has become big in South Africa, but the rest of online community has not really started to catch on really.
south African churches also have not yet caught on to really using the internet to further their ministries. Websites have become informational tools only, and I see a future of furthering the online community thing for the South African church, as a whole.
So, what I want to ask of you is, what kind of things would a church web space need to have to really make you sit up and look/listen. This is, at this stage, stopping short of a Church Online. I would love to hear from you on this, as the more I pray about this and sit and think about it as well, the more excited I am getting about it.
