Who Stole My Church? .5

Part One, Two, Three, and Four.

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?