Links
Archives
OUR PURPOSE is to create the environment and relationships necessary to equip, empower, and engage Christian mission and ministry in the city cores that is characteristically incarnational and transformational. WE WILL pray for kingdom power, pursue kingdom values, partner for kingdom goals.
1/23/2004
Monday Morning Memo 1-19-04
MONDAY MORNING
January 19, 2004
35Jesus traveled through all the cities and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And wherever he went, he healed people of every sort of disease and illness. 36He felt great pity for the crowds that came, because their problems were so great and they didn’t know where to go for help. They were like sheep without a shepherd. 37He said to his disciples, “The harvest is so great, but the workers are so few. 38So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send out more workers for his fields.” Matt. 9:35-38 (NLT)
Community Transformation
The pastor said, “I’ve been at my church for 14 years. I have always pastored large city churches that have grown. However, this is the first time that my church has declined every year. A couple of the churches our church help start over the years are located out on the bypass and they are really growing. Our church made a commitment to stay downtown, but we cannot attract new people.”
This story can be echoed a thousand times over by pastors of downtown metropolitan traditional churches that have consciously chosen to remain downtown when other churches were choosing to relocate to the bypass or suburbs.
Are these pastors and staff less capable?
Are these churches less spiritual?
Did these churches make a mistake in judgment?
Is it fair that others grow and they don’t?
Is it just not possible to have a growing downtown church?
Is this the price of faithfulness?
Did Jesus have this type situation in mind when he said the laborers are few?
All across Texas, downtown churches are grappling with issues of maintenance and ministry. Pastors, missionologists, and church growth consultants, alike, are scratching their heads over what to do. Books have been written. Consulting firms have been developed. Conferences have been conducted. Yet, over and again, the only solution for the vast majority of downtown churches seems to be relocate or decline.
These churches are often stuck with facilities that accommodated more than twice the number that now attend. The cost of doing church has robbed the budget of money for missions and ministry. Pastors begin to evaluate themselves poorly. And, there is a general melancholy that settles over the church like a heavy dew. It’s like an aging person who can only find joy in their memories.
For sure, there are no quick fixes. There are no easy solutions. But, one key to recovery may be found in our selected Bible text from the Gospel of John… Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields are ripening all around us and are ready now for the harvest. John 4:35 (NLT) This key is to “focus on the harvest.” Churches that focus on the harvest tend toward becoming healthy growing churches. Obviously, in itself, this does not solve all of the institutional issues facing downtown churches, but at least this focus should divert negative thinking and give occasion for a fresh sense of purpose. Focusing on the harvest must permeate all aspects of church life to have the desired renewal effect.
Next week I will look at another key to be drawn from this text for downtown churches.
Best Practice
Read the book, Sidewalks of the Kingdom, by Eric O. Jacobsen, published by Brazos Press, 2003. The author writes from his experience as pastor of an urban downtown church. He says in the introduction, “We have been abandoning our strategic locations within city cores and traditional neighborhoods, and we have tried to create for ourselves a new kind of society in the form of suburban megachurches. And as individual Christians, we have marched right along with the rest of our culture and moved our homes outside of the urban core into the sanitized world of the suburbs… But, some Christians and some churches have hung in there and are continuing to be a part of the urban fabric in historic cities and traditional neighborhoods.”
January 19, 2004
35Jesus traveled through all the cities and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And wherever he went, he healed people of every sort of disease and illness. 36He felt great pity for the crowds that came, because their problems were so great and they didn’t know where to go for help. They were like sheep without a shepherd. 37He said to his disciples, “The harvest is so great, but the workers are so few. 38So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send out more workers for his fields.” Matt. 9:35-38 (NLT)
Community Transformation
The pastor said, “I’ve been at my church for 14 years. I have always pastored large city churches that have grown. However, this is the first time that my church has declined every year. A couple of the churches our church help start over the years are located out on the bypass and they are really growing. Our church made a commitment to stay downtown, but we cannot attract new people.”
This story can be echoed a thousand times over by pastors of downtown metropolitan traditional churches that have consciously chosen to remain downtown when other churches were choosing to relocate to the bypass or suburbs.
Are these pastors and staff less capable?
Are these churches less spiritual?
Did these churches make a mistake in judgment?
Is it fair that others grow and they don’t?
Is it just not possible to have a growing downtown church?
Is this the price of faithfulness?
Did Jesus have this type situation in mind when he said the laborers are few?
All across Texas, downtown churches are grappling with issues of maintenance and ministry. Pastors, missionologists, and church growth consultants, alike, are scratching their heads over what to do. Books have been written. Consulting firms have been developed. Conferences have been conducted. Yet, over and again, the only solution for the vast majority of downtown churches seems to be relocate or decline.
These churches are often stuck with facilities that accommodated more than twice the number that now attend. The cost of doing church has robbed the budget of money for missions and ministry. Pastors begin to evaluate themselves poorly. And, there is a general melancholy that settles over the church like a heavy dew. It’s like an aging person who can only find joy in their memories.
For sure, there are no quick fixes. There are no easy solutions. But, one key to recovery may be found in our selected Bible text from the Gospel of John… Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields are ripening all around us and are ready now for the harvest. John 4:35 (NLT) This key is to “focus on the harvest.” Churches that focus on the harvest tend toward becoming healthy growing churches. Obviously, in itself, this does not solve all of the institutional issues facing downtown churches, but at least this focus should divert negative thinking and give occasion for a fresh sense of purpose. Focusing on the harvest must permeate all aspects of church life to have the desired renewal effect.
Next week I will look at another key to be drawn from this text for downtown churches.
Best Practice
Read the book, Sidewalks of the Kingdom, by Eric O. Jacobsen, published by Brazos Press, 2003. The author writes from his experience as pastor of an urban downtown church. He says in the introduction, “We have been abandoning our strategic locations within city cores and traditional neighborhoods, and we have tried to create for ourselves a new kind of society in the form of suburban megachurches. And as individual Christians, we have marched right along with the rest of our culture and moved our homes outside of the urban core into the sanitized world of the suburbs… But, some Christians and some churches have hung in there and are continuing to be a part of the urban fabric in historic cities and traditional neighborhoods.”
Comments:
Post a Comment
