StretchyChurch

A friend of mine just e-mailed me this cartoon. What’s so sad is that this is a fairly accurate depiction of the church….

A few weeks ago, I posted some of my thoughts on the concept of church membership. As I mentioned in that post, there are definitely positive aspects to having people become members.

But my question in this post is this: Should we call them “members” or is there another word we can use to refer to those who have taken a vow of commitment to the local congregation?

The reason I ask this question is that the word, “member,” I think, carries some negative connotations. I think “membership” implies, for instance, belonging to a club with benefits. I believe it’s American Express that advertises with the tag-line, “Membership has its benefits.”

The concept of having benefits is, I believe, contrary to what the church is really all about. One does not join a church to start receiving certain goods and/or services. A person joins a church because he or she is making the commitment to contribute one’s own goods and services to the community.

In other words, church membership is about giving, not receiving.

I also think that the idea of “membership” suggests that all you need to do is pay your dues. And that’s all that tithing, then, comes down to–paying your membership dues. But giving ought to be something that overflows from a grateful and generous heart, with a desire to see people blessed regardless of how the gift benefits oneself.

Again, I don’t think it’s wrong to have church members. I just think that the word, “member,” doesn’t really communicate clearly what a committed Christian is.

Mosaic, in Los Angeles, calls their members “Volunteer Staff.” Wow! Now that adds a twist to membership, doesn’t it?! It completely reverses the expectations. When you’re on staff, you have certain responsibilities. You discover your spiritual gifts and you use those to honor God and love others through the ministry of your church–which is the same thing that a paid staff person does. In fact, I’ve got a friend who is a “Volunteer Staff” at Mosaic and every week he serves on the video team.

I bet that Mosaic doesn’t have very many “inactive members.”

Another word that I started thinking about is the word, “Partner.” I was at Starbucks with Robin, my brother, and his wife while we were in San Diego back in April. Sarah, my sister-in-law, works for Starbucks and was telling me that all employees are called “Partners.”

I thought that was really cool because that immediately gives all employees a sense ownership in the company. I mentioned that to my brother, and he told me that that’s what their church calls their members.

I really like that word, “partner,” as a reference to a church member. Just like with Starbucks, there’s an inherent sense of ownership built into that word. When you’re a partner, you don’t just belong to the organization–you’re responsible for the continued growth and well-being of the organization.

And when you’re a “partner” in a church, you intrinsically understand that you are there to contribute to the ministry of the church–you’re not there to “get something” from church.

I’m curious if anyone else has heard of any creative words used for members in other churches. Let me know if you have.

Alan Roxburgh has an interview with Rev. Graham Cray, who is the Bishop of Maidstone in the Church of England. He has recently published a book called The Mission-shaped Church.

The huge challenge for the church in England is that England has become almost completely “post-Christian.” That is, almost no one goes to church anymore. A 2001 statistic showed that barely over 6% of the population attended church–that means 94% of the population does not attend church of any kind.

As a result, the Church of England has found itself in a place where it has no choice but to adapt to the culture. Notice, I didn’t say “change it’s message” for the culture. But it is beginning to adapt the way it reaches out to its culture.

Here’s a quote from the interview with Graham Cray:

Church where people are, when they can attend, that is authentically church, has become the crucial thing. We have several hundred projects running. We have church in skate parks; we have a Eucharist for Goths; we have cell church amongst the Greater Merseyside Police that happens in the police station in the lunch hour or after work. One of our missionists said to me, “I discovered where all the de-churched are. They’re at work and they haven’t got time to come on Sundays.”

And here’s an excerpt from a story he told about an older congregation he serves:

I remember when…the Women’s Institute, the older ladies—and, really, to be an influence in the Women’s Institute you’ve got to be over eighty in our village—summoned us to introduce ourselves to them. And we told our story a little. And one of these ladies—and they’re fairly formidable—said, “It worries us that our grandchildren don’t ever come to church. Do you think they would come to a church like ours?”

It was very formal and the congregation was very elderly. And we looked at one another and thought, “Well, we’re new here. We might as well be honest.” And we said, “We don’t honestly think they would.”

And they said, “No, we don’t think they would, either, and we need to find how to do something.”

Now if you asked them to do it, most of them probably couldn’t. But they no longer refuse permission for someone who can.

He goes on to talk about the kind of ministry they’ve developed in the local school and then finishes by saying, “And the old ladies are thrilled. But if you tried to put them all together in the same place at the same time it wouldn’t be fair to any of them.”

I think it’s exciting to hear about an older generation of Christians reaching out to a younger generation in the language that that generation understands!

To see the entire interview, click here. (It’s just over 11 minutes.)

What do Presbyterians and Britney Spears have in common? You’ll never guess! They both contain exactly the same letters! Take a look at this diagram!

I have to admit that this is probably the coolest thing I learned at The Great Escape this week–something I learned from one of our 7th graders!

I love how kids come up with the most random stuff. Our group was hanging out together last night before heading off to bed, and out of the blue Hunter says, “Hey, did you know that ‘Presbyterians’ and Britney Spears’ have the same letters?”

I think Jesus heard Hunter say that–and had a good belly laugh!!

Not that I post all the time, but my posting will be even less for the next two weeks. Tomorrow morning I head down to Cleveland, Tennessee, with our middle schoolers to The Great Escape, the middle school summer camp of Youth Conference Ministries (the youth ministry division of Presbyterians for Renewal).

I’ll be there most of the week, and then I head out to again for a week, this time to West Virginia to do a mission trip with our high schoolers.

I’m really looking forward to these trips. Not only are they the last trips I’ll get to do with the kids from Union, but The Great Escape is always tons of fun! The mission trip is also put on by Youth Conference Ministries, so I’m expecting that it’ll also be a great time.

If you think of it, keep Robin in your prayers. I feel kinda bad leaving my wife–seven months pregnant–alone with my two-year-old son, Micah, for almost two weeks. I know they’ll be ok, but… y’know….

And keep me, our leaders, and our kids in your prayers, too, if you think of it! Over and out.

Should a church be “attractional” or should it be “incarnational”?

In other words, should it focus on getting people to come to the church or should it focus on going out into the community and being the church there.

Here’s what I think: A church should be both.

A church should absolutely go out into the community and serve people who aren’t yet connected to God. But a church should also do its best to make its worship services something that truly blesses people–one of the worst things for a church is for people to leave thinking, “What a waste of my time.”

My friend, D.G., just e-mailed me a link to a poll that was done by Church Marketing Sucks in which they asked people what would bring them back to a church. The number one response for what would bring someone back to a particular church was…

Authenticity.

I think that’s awesome! And that’s the kind of “attractiveness” a church needs to focus on. Are we really being who we say we are. Being “incarnational” is “attractive” to people because people want to belong to a movement, not just a church service.

The number two answer was having teaching that was engaging. And I think that’s important, too.

Here are two questions that I think a church needs to ask itself

1) Are we really being the church in our community and in the world, and do people recognize that in our worship?
2) Is our teaching moving people to respond in such a way that they, too, want to become a part of what the church is doing in the community and in the world?

And there was much rejoicing in the land!!

Early this year I read most of a book called The Missional Leader by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk.

The book is 206 pages long. I misplaced the book after reading 193 pages. Frustrating!! To be so close to finishing and then to leave it dangling…

But yesterday afternoon, while straightening an cleaning in preparation for having to sell our house, Robin found my book! And this morning I finally finished reading it!

And I gotta tell you it’s a great book! It focuses on what a leader needs to do to cultivate a church’s missional imagination. In other words, how can a leader help a church discover its calling as a missionary people in the world?

Here’s the cool thing: Based on the conversations I’ve had with people at Northminster Presbyterian Church (the church I’ll be leading starting in October), a lot of folks at that church are coming–or have come–to the realization that a church needs to be more than a place you go to on Sunday morning. A church needs to be God’s missionary people in its community and in the world.

I’m excited that the church and I share a mutual mindset–at least among those I’ve gotten to know in the last couple of months.

My plan is to review this book over the next few weeks, and hopefully post some of the really good stuff here.

So I’ve been playing around with what the Core Values of a missional church might be. To see some examples of core values from other churches, check these out here, here, here, and here.

This is what I’ve come up with so far…

The Core Values of a Missional Church are:

• To be relevant to the culture in which we live today,
• To be incarnational in our approach to ministry within our culture and community,
• To be open to being transformed by Christ from a religious organization into a living organism willing to be creative and to make adjustments in order to reach out to our community, and
• To place a greater value on people than on programs, on love than on practices, on innovation than on tradition, and on faith than on fear.

I’d be curious to hear what any of you think about this. Feel free to be as critical as you’d like.

What do you agree with? What do you disagree with? What sounds trite or overused? What isn’t clear? What’s too long? What’s too short? What questions are raised for you?

A little over a month ago, I had some great conversation about the idea of church membership with some friends in the car on my way to see Spider-Man 3 at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood.

Here’s how the conversation started. My friend, Scott, mentioned that he is not actually a member of Glenkirk Church, even though he’s been actively involved since he was in high school. My comment to him was that he’s probably more of a member than many of the actual members at his church–he has attended faithfully (I put this in past tense because he’s working as a Jr. High Director at a nearby church, but he still considers Glenkirk his home church), he attends the college group, he attends a guys’ small group, and has served in missions several times through the church.

But Scott has never sat through a “Membership Class.”

So, let’s think about membership. What are the pros of having people become church members?

1. Membership helps churches keep track of whether or not their church is growing.
2. Membership helps people make a commitment to the church.
3. As Presbyterians, churches pay a “per capita” amount to the denomination each year (roughly $25 per member). This helps fund the denomination.
4. Going through a membership class helps people discover “in a nutshell” what the particular church stands for.
5. The word, “member,” is a reference to the fact that we are all members (i.e., body parts) of the Body of Christ.

I’m sure there are other pros, but these are some off the top of my head. But what about people like Scott–people who are faithful in their service and ministry in a congregation, but have never sat through a Membership Class?

Here’s what I think: I think Scott is a member of his church. He is everything that a faithful member is–he just hasn’t jumped through that one hoop called “Membership Class.”

So this is the question I’m wrestling with: Are there ways for people to become members other than sitting through a Membership Class? For instance, can a person be considered a member after, say, five years of faithful attendance, giving, and serving? Or are there other ways for a person to become a member?

I guess I just have a hard time imagining the apostles telling new believers that they need to sit through a 3-week class before they can be actual members of the church.

One other thing to consider is what exactly the word, “member,” suggests. But I’ll get into that in another post.

I’ve been thinking about church websites for the last couple days. In my church site surfing I realized that big churches don’t necessarily have good websites and some small churches have great websites.

I really think that a great website is critical for a growing church these days. I don’t have a statistic to back this up, but I suspect that most people who are considering attending a church will look at the website first. And I bet for a lot of those people, what they find will determine whether or not they actually show up on Sunday.

Some will say, “But you can’t judge a book by its cover!” I agree. Some great books have bad covers and some bad books have great covers (I recently had to stop reading a book halfway through because it was just, well, not interesting–but it had a really cool cover!).

But if a church is worth visiting, why shouldn’t that church do its best to reflect that on the website?!

I’m sure this kind of stuff is nothing new to most of you, but I wanted to pass on a link that I found and thought was pretty helpful. It’s a website called Great Church Websites. Unfortunately, you have to register and pay to get the full benefits of this site (something I haven’t done), but they do have a pretty helpful page with a ton of design tips/things to consider for churches. Some of my favorites include:

• Most church websites are designed entirely for their members, or unwittingly exclude non-Christians because of their choice of language and content.
• Avoid all ‘churchy’ jargon and ‘Christianese’ language throughout the site, especially on the homepage.
• Include some ‘meet our members’ pages.
• Consider a ‘New to this site?’ visitors link on your homepage. This enables you to offer a particular welcome to an outsider.
• Do not place too much information on your homepage.
• Avoid ‘churchy’ graphics – open Bibles, stained glass windows, doves, candles. And appeals for money.
• Use at least one graphic of a person’s face on the homepage.

There are a ton more tips like this, but these are just a few that I think more churches need to consider.