For what it's worth, my church has gone through some difficult periods in recent years. We established a "vision task force," and your "major functions" sound very much like what we developed in our document over a year or so. After that, we went through what I term as our "dark period," in which our pastor retired shortly after completion of a major building project and we lost many people. For a while, we weren't sure that we were going to survive. We were under the oversight of a group of pastors and ruling elders from our denomination (PCA) to help us through this difficult period in which we didn't even have the finances to pay a pastor's salary, so we worried about how we might grow ourselves out of our troubles - that was what we saw as the need - grow or die. So, we were thinking of programs that might appeal to visitors. A very wise pastor, though, pointed us to Acts 2:42, which we now have on our church's letterhead:
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."
This great man of the faith showed us that there are only three things necessary to grow a body (see Acts 2:47):
1. The Word of God rightly preached (the apostles' teaching); 2. The sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) rightly administered (fellowship and breaking of bread) 3. Prayer ('nuff said, right?)
While we aren't "anti-program," we try not to focus on programs per se but try to turn back to Acts 2:42 every once in a while and make sure that we don't eat ourselves up with the less important things, as I understand your article to say.
This application holds true not only for the church, but for individual Christian's lives as well, as your article illustrates. A dear friend shared this tidbit of advice with me recently, as I contemplated taking on another area of ministry: "You must remember that every good thing is not necessarily a God-thing. You must be sure you are hearing His call to you, before you say 'yes.'"
For what it's worth, my church has gone through some difficult periods in
ReplyDeleterecent years. We established a "vision task force," and your "major
functions" sound very much like what we developed in our document over a
year or so. After that, we went through what I term as our "dark period,"
in which our pastor retired shortly after completion of a major building
project and we lost many people. For a while, we weren't sure that we were
going to survive. We were under the oversight of a group of pastors and
ruling elders from our denomination (PCA) to help us through this difficult
period in which we didn't even have the finances to pay a pastor's salary,
so we worried about how we might grow ourselves out of our troubles - that
was what we saw as the need - grow or die. So, we were thinking of programs
that might appeal to visitors. A very wise pastor, though, pointed us to
Acts 2:42, which we now have on our church's letterhead:
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to
the breaking of bread and to prayer."
This great man of the faith showed us that there are only three things
necessary to grow a body (see Acts 2:47):
1. The Word of God rightly preached (the apostles' teaching);
2. The sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) rightly administered
(fellowship and breaking of bread)
3. Prayer ('nuff said, right?)
While we aren't "anti-program," we try not to focus on programs per se
but try to turn back to Acts 2:42 every once in a while and make sure that
we don't eat ourselves up with the less important things, as I understand
your article to say.
Hope this is helpful.
This application holds true not only for the church, but for individual Christian's lives as well, as your article illustrates. A dear friend shared this tidbit of advice with me recently, as I contemplated taking on another area of ministry: "You must remember that every good thing is not necessarily a God-thing. You must be sure you are hearing His call to you, before you say 'yes.'"
ReplyDeleteI found some good history in here as well as some good instructions. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete