Over two years ago someone gave me a small potted pine tree for Christmas. It has stayed for almost thirty months on top of my filing cabinet in my office, in the small, plastic pot it came in. It stayed small, that is, until about three weeks ago when I put it in a larger pot... In the past three weeks, this little pine tree has almost doubled in size! It is much sturdier, hardier, and healthier that it ever was in the smaller pot. It has new green growth on the branches, and I think I can tell that it is generally happier than ever. He is glad I put him in a larger pot. He is happy for his Miracle-Gro potting soil. He is now, finally, going to be a big boy!
You know where this is going, right? Other than I use personification when talking about my plant. It is a "he" you know. But, other than that, Jonny was in my office the other day and told me that plant was a great illustration of what we try to emphasize at 200churches. The smaller the pot, the smaller the plant will be, and growth will be necessarily limited. The larger the pot, the larger the plant can grow, and the potential for growth will increase. So it is with our churches! How big is your town, your pot? If it were 750,000 or up, the potential for you to grow your church would be greater than if your town were only, say, 500-1,200. Then, you would by virtue of sheer numbers, have a smaller congregation. My 200church has 3.3% of my community in attendance. In comparison my friend's church of 2,500 has only .5% of his community attending. What does this teach us? One thing, respect your 200church and do not downplay the importance of your leadership in the Kingdom of God!! As we look toward Wednesday and Episode 20 of The 200churches Podcast, I want to ask you to think about the demographics of your church. Do you have a lot of older people? A lot of younger people? A lot of middle age people? Isn't it true that many smaller churches suffer from a younger generation shortage? On this week's podcast we talk with a recent new attender to our church who is 28 years old. Our conversation revolves around what the church is doing that is not relevant to the current generation, the twenty and thirty-somethings. We hope you are able to listen, because all of us 200church pastors need to know the generation we are trying to reach. They are different. It is a great conversation that will get you thinking about your 200church. Guess what happened today, Good Friday?! Remember that baby that Jonny and his wife were expecting… for the last nine months? He made his arrival this morning, joining Mom and Dad, and big Brother! We actually had two babies born from moms in our church today, two hours apart, in the same hospital, just across the hall from each other. It was a good day in our community! Normally we publish a blog post on Friday mornings, but we were all a little busy “integrating” with our community today – so here is a special Easter weekend edition!
We began a discussion about Integrating with Our Community this week, and we will continue it in the future for sure, but for now, let’s wrap up this week’s topic with four “community laws” I try to live by as a pastor. Community Law #1: Love what your people love. If we as pastors are really going to love our people, that includes loving what our people love. I have never liked it when pastors told me that they have moved into a community to pastor a church, but they did not particularly like the culture of the town or the church. In a couple weeks our theme will be Staying Put – the Benefits of a Long Ministry, in that podcast we will talk about long term ministry, and how we must love our people, and love what they love! If we choose to mock and laugh at the culture of our people, or to stand on the sidelines and watch their lives from afar, we will never have an effective ministry. And, if we can’t even integrate into the community of our own church family, we’ll never have the heart, desire, or commitment to reach into our neighborhood community. In our town we have an annual five day Tulip Festival. The first year I was here and experienced it I did so as an outsider. I thought it was strange. Nice, but strange! After two years I realized the positive outcomes and benefits this Tulip Festival has on our community every year. I also realized how proud our people are of their town and how much they love the Tulip Festival. I chose to love what my people love. Every year I look forward to the Tulip Festival, I participate in some way, and I get to live life with people in our community. I am better for it! Community Law #2: Love what your community loves. What are the things that set your community apart from other communities in your region of the state? Are there certain restaurants, attractions, or events for which your community is known? Is there a sports team, Philharmonic Orchestra, or other community attraction in your town? You can choose to love what your community loves. Perhaps in your community there is an annual event or tradition at which most of the town shows up, or there is a national landmark, local attraction, or the commemoration of an historical event which draw lots of people and about which your community is proud. You can choose to love what your community loves, and in turn, love your community! Community Law #3 - Go where your community goes. Where does your community go? Do you pass up local businesses to get a “better deal” in the next town? Unless it is absolutely cost prohibitive, you should shop in your community, and go where your community goes. Is there a park, library, or restaurant where a ton of people from your community can be found? Then you go there too! When you go where your community goes, you will be able to integrate with your community that much better. Community Law #4 - Do what your community does. Do people in your community take care of their lawns, then take care of yours. Do they take walks in the park? Then you take walks in the park too! Do people in your community recycle, cycle, watch movies, go to the Y, attend the Opera, shop at the Farmer’s Market, walk their dogs, or fly RC planes through the park? Then you do it too. Do what your community does, and you can begin to integrate with your community. Really Pastor, it starts with you. Will you love your people enough to love what they love? Will you love your community enough to love what they love, go where they go, and do what they do? You can do it, and you’ll be better for it, as a pastor, and as a person!
As we begin this discussion, we have to admit that there are many Ideas, both in the church and in society, that work to divide us, to separate people in their Monday – Saturday world, from any reality in their “Sunday” world. Many, of course, don’t bother with Sundays because they have ideas that make the integration of church life into their real life unsustainable. They just cannot see how faith could ever plug into real life. What are those ideas that divide?
Here are five ideas that discourage integrating:
All of these ideas and more exist in our culture to deeply divide the two realities of religion, and real life. It would be good to ask that age-old question: If your church closed, would anyone even notice? Would the community miss your church, or would they simply be glad to rezone a property to receive more tax revenue? If you would not be missed, your church is likely living up to those above bad ideas. When we talk about our church integrating into our community, we really have two ways this happens. First, we can refer to the individuals in our church being dispersed throughout our community when they are not engaged in corporate worship or mission. Second, we may refer to the corporate expression of our church when we gather for worship, service, or mission. In today’s podcast, we are referring more to the corporate expression of our church in the community. Three challenges to integrating: We have to decide if we even want to integrate. We need to count the cost, and honestly ask the question – Are we really ready to make church “not about us”? For most churches, what they do, the programs they develop or adopt, the services they plan, and the way they spend their money all point to a group of people who are making it all about themselves. This is hard to admit, and even harder to recognize in your own church. To be fair, this is normal and natural for how groups and people cycle. But we cannot accept it if we are to make a difference in our community. Let’s also be truthful about the fact that to integrate into our community is going to be hard, will require intentionality, and necessitate long term perseverance. As we said on Monday, it should be viewed in terms of years, not weekends. Are we willing to put in the time and make a church-wide, lifelong commitment to the community? Can we make the investment that will be needed to move the ball down the fields in terms of making a difference? We just cannot think that our corporate investment into the community on Sunday mornings is going to be enough. It won’t be! Five steps toward integrating:
This is going to be an ongoing conversation on the 200churches Podcasts. In the coming months we will return to this discussion from time to time. Read Matthew 28:17-20. We must integrate into all communities in order to make disciples. Let’s just start with the one we’re in! One of the hardest things for a church to do is actively participate in the life of a community. Churches are excellent at creating communities, at drawing the community in, at building programs targeted at a specific community, but the task of actually going out and integrating into a community is a tricky thing. Our "church" is in the community in the form of people, but how are we corporately involved? Our starting place this week is the cliche question: if your church closed tomorrow, would anybody outside of it notice? Last week, our podcast guest talked about how important it is for church leaders to recognize the leadership that their church members demonstrate in their everyday lives. He challenged us to think beyond "church" and see people as fully integrated; to break down the divide between church on Sunday and living as the church every day. We believe that our corporate body should be as integral to the community as our individual members are, but we recognize that it's difficult to accomplish.
As leaders, we often want to start our planning, by planning our programs. But programs are usually designed to bring people into our buildings or onto our properties, not to take our body out into the community. It's tough to admit, but we can't programmatically approach our desire to be a part of the community. We need to practice a relational approach, and be emotionally invested in people. We should be comfortable up front with a commitment not measured in weekends, but in years. We hope this week to start a conversation that won't get wrapped up by Friday. This is an issue we want to continually wrestle with here at 200churches, because we believe that the church should be an integral part of the community. Corporately and individually, we are called to be salt and light in this world. We want our 200church to be missed if it closes, and we want yours to be, too. So we hope you enjoy the Podcast and blogs this week, and please chime in about your own struggles and triumphs integrating your church into your community. This week we have been talking about finding balance between our personal lives, family lives, and ministry lives. In the future on 200churches.com, we are going to try to spend one week on one theme. We publish a blog post on Mondays and Fridays, and our 200churches Podcast on Wednesdays, and we thinking spending the whole week on the same theme will be helpful and encouraging to you.
So for this week here are our final four thoughts on balance: |
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