About 5 or 6 years ago I was asked to write a book helping churches rethink their strategy. I thought it dead by now, but John Gardner told me today that some of the new materials sent out by LifeWay are promoting the book again.
We had worked with many churches across the country and several on an intense level locally to help them re-think who they were and how they were going to accomplish their mission. I was honored to be asked to write the book. I hope some churches have found it helpful.
But here's the thing. If you have ever written a book, you know what I mean. There are some things I would change if I were writing on the same subject today. But once you put it in writing and it is published, there is no retraction. The changes would not be dramatic, but there are some adjustments I would make to the content. Anyway, sounds like the LifeWay team feels it is useful enough to continue to provide it to churches.
You can read a synopsis and gander at the cover here. It's my only book ... so far :-)!
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Found this on a blog by Steve Taylor in NZ. He is starting a spiritual journal with four of his parishoners about what God is doing in his life each day.
Worth checking out:
http://www.emergentkiwi.org.nz/archives/discerning_kingdom_signs_as_the_practice_of_a_community.php
Am trying the same thing. May be worth doing.
Dan Phillips
http://danphillips.blogspot.com
Didn't know you were an author. So what is our strategy for ClearView Baptist Church, beyond that of building buildings? I noticed this past Sunday that the temporary church signs out front indentified us as "ClearView". What happened to Baptist? Obviously we will require new signage eventually. Will it have the name "Baptist" on it?
Today's paper (Tennessean) contained another of those articles describing how churches are trying to attract worshipers (I use this term loosely). It is frightening to think that a church would camouflag its identity for fear of scaring off folks.
Just keep preaching the Word of Truth and they will come.
Anonymous,
The heart of the strategy for ClearView is stated in a post dated April 21, 2008 posted on this blog by yours truly [you can read by clicking on the link to the right]. The title of the post is, Recovering Church Growth Addict. I would only add, we will focus on three things as primary: 1) Corporate Worship; 2) Small groups (SS for now); and 3) Missions.
While I have not yet stated our core values succinctly, I would add it would be obvious to most anyone attending on a regular basis that God's Word is held high. This would be in addition to evangelism (NOT a program!), community (authentic relationships within the body), missions (global mindset), and tranformed lives would definitely be a part of any such list.
As fas as the "baptist" on the sign ... ClearView is baptist by heritage and I am baptist by conviction. I was raised in a baptist pastor's home since before birth. I went to a bapitst seminary. My ordination certificate is from a baptist church. I studied baptist history ad nauseum.
I do not intend to ever lead ClearView away from its baptist heritage. And you are right, the name on the sign probably would not make a difference to lost people, if we were bringing them with us to the church (which we are not yet doing), it only matters to those on the inside. The only people who really care are baptists. The temporary sign is just that: temporary.
To take the "baptist" off the sign is not a hill I want to die on. In fact, whether it is on there or not is not a hill worth anyone dying on.
You mention camouflaging who churches are in order not to scare people off. All churches I know of that do not put their denominational affiliation out front do so in the interest of doing all they can to reach people for Christ. As Paul said, if Christ is preached, I'm for it.
Thank you for the encouragment to continue preach the Truth. However, they will not come unless we invite them, no matter how much Truth is spoken. There are churches all over America where the Truth is preached every week but they are dying. I have preached in some of them. Unless we get serious about investing in the lives of lost people and inviting them, it won't matter what's on the sign or what's taught from the pulpit.
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