Who Stole My Church? .5

2008 May 05

by Tyler

Who Stole My Church? by Gordon MacDonald

This will be my last post on this book and also my post for Creative Chaos. If you are totally confused with what I wrote here, head back to post one, it has a lot of the book’s background info.

I want to end with a part of the book that allowed the discovery group to see that changing can make a difference in reaching younger people. Ben is the nephew of one of the ladies in the discovery group. He is 28, divorced and jobless and just started going to the church.

All of you are expecting that Ben kept coming back to the church because he liked the style…you would be wrong. While Ben did like the way church was “done” on Sundays, he didn’t keep going because of the style of music or because the pastor dressed in “normal” clothes (I will say that it was important that everything about the church was different than his childhood. If it would have been the same he would have even been more closed off). He kept going because he made relationships. A few of the men in the discovery group reached out to Ben and began to invest in him. It was these relationships that not only turned Ben’s life around but also helped him establish roots at the church. I think Ben is a great example for us to see what is important for churches to focus on.

In light of the story of Ben and the earlier posts, here are some things I take away from the book:

Relationships are always the key to growing and fulfillment within a church.
Change will happen, but it doesn’t have to be negative.
You can either welcome change and reach out to the next generation or you can be against it and by doing so reject the next generation.
Young people are dying for someone older to care about them. To enter into their world and invest in them. More and more, kids come from broken homes and are looking for the parents they never had.
Program should never trump people.

Thoughts?

Filed under: the rest... Tags: books, Christianity

http://www.investingworldtoday.com Allen Taylor

Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.

Allen Taylor
http://newheights.wordpress.com/ Darin

Great closing thoughts.
Debbie Stewart

Ditto Darin.
Thanks for the hi yesterday. Sorry if I was a little distracted….and you confused me—-sometimes glasses/sometimes not. My old brain has trouble computing!
Debbie
http://manofdepravity.com Tyler

haha, no worries debbie.
Miranda

hmmm interesting. i think sometimes our goal is that we want people to step foot in a church and that a light bulb will go off in their spirit, prompting them to suddenly feel a connection that they can’t deny. while this can happen, it isn’t just gettting them to go to church that is the ultimate goal, and hoping that they can figure it out on their own from there… people need encouragement, support and friendships with other people in the church to help their walk grow and thrive.
http://manofdepravity.com Tyler

for sure.

i think we need to keep in mind that first few posts though as well. this group would not have been able to reach out to ben before they started meeting. they were totally closed off to anything that wasn’t like them. sure they would support a missions team that was doing some radical things, but they were very very turned off by ben at the beginning.

my point was that it takes people for people to change. i can’t blog about the emerging church and expect people to come to grips with the facts of it. i need to build a relationship with people so they can see and respect the realities of it. that is what happened with ben.
http://www.jimkastkeat.com jimkastkeat

I love your last bullet point – “program should never trump people”

so true. and sadly, so difficult to remember and/or implement at ‘big’ churches where programs seem to drive the machine…
http://asad123.wordpress.com Asad

These tips would be helpful to congregations of any faith. Thanks.
http://manofdepravity.com Tyler

Hey Asad…I appreciate you coming over here and commenting. Glad you liked the series on the book.
http://www.bslash.typepad.com b/

hey great site. Appreciate the depth you are taking and the open mind you have for both sides of things while still seeking to remain scripturally sound.

Random thought of agreement. Loved the comment about young people looking for older people to care about them. I’m 25 and have been saying for the past 4 or 5 years that the one thing my generation missed, and the one coming (and I guess most people in most generations) is someone to mentor/disciple them. I’ve always been seeking those younger people to do this with as I have three or four guys that consistently pour into me and God has recently brought those younger people in my life. Teaches me more about me than it teaches them I think.