Big Church Issues

Here are two more related articles from Leadership magazine.

The first is about getting people out of the pews and to do more helping each other. To me the most interesting part is how the pastor of this church tries to train his congregants to be supportive of each other. But his summary line is:

We used to invite them to attend church; now we invite them to be the church.

The second article is about getting people out of the pews and into the community. A pastor sums up his methodology with:

We organized them into home groups that met every other week. They were so eager to grow and be together that they started meeting every week. Eventually I tried to launch a worship service, because that's what I was taught to do. People who had grown up in the church came, but none of the new believers did. I was expecting people to leave life to come to church. We learned that wherever life happens, church should happen...Three things deter spontaneous multiplication: buildings, budgets, and big shots.

It is interesting food for thought.