Pastor Receives Threats Over American Flag At Church

I have a feeling we are going to hear more stories like this one. The pastor was just trying to make some changes and and someone threatens his families life. Now that sounds like good Christian ethics. Orlando has already had interesting events of pastors getting raked over the coals because of changes they are trying to make in their churches. They just don’t always end up on the news. I’m guessing some of the same things may be happening where you are. Frankly it’s sickening. Church goers bunkered down in their churches acting this way need to get a life. O’ I want to say more but (red faced with indignation).  For pete’s sakes, my non believing neighbors behave better than this. If someone had done that to me, my whole family would have stood our ground and called them out.

Here an excerpt from the story.

- A Central Florida pastor has taken a leave of absence from his church after he received threatening notes and letters, including one placed in his hymn book, following the removal of the U.S. flag from the sanctuary… Read the rest of the story here.

 

Discipleship

The Provocative Church blog wrote about thoughts on Discipleship. Since it was so well written I am gleaning, simplifying and adding some of my own thoughts. Check out his site for other insights as well.

• Disciples aren’t made effectively in classes. Jesus didn’t disciple in a classroom. Disciples are made within the messiness of real life. There is no substitute for it. People want to see how faith intersects real issues, struggles and challenges in life. You can’t teach that in a classroom.

• Never equate longevity with maturity. It is possible to be in the church a long time but not have increasing evidence of Jesus’ indwelling. Any congregation can become a spiritual club, where graytops are merely infants in diapers.

• Charisma doesn’t guarantee transformation. Having spiritual manners — even some spiritual sensitivity — doesn’t make you mature. Nice people are adept at fooling others.

• Effective Discipleship is measured not by church attendance, but by the spiritual and physical transformation that happens around us in the environment we live in. Isn’t this want we want to duplicate?

• Spiritual Transformation. Dramatic changes in purpose, attitudes, behavior and lifestyle, characterized by actions of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control that reflect a commitment and obedience to Jesus Christ.

• Disciples create spiritual movements, the results of ordinary everyday followers of Jesus taking adventurous steps of faith in a grass roots environment to help facilitate spiritual and physical transformation. Changing lives is why most of us got into ministry. Running a Church has trapped us under its own load of responsibility making it difficult for most of us to thrive in a grass roots environment.

 

How the American Church Can Survive - Part 3

Lets look at some more basics.

Spiritual Movements usually burst forth at the grass roots level and usually stop within the limitations of the corporate or institutional level.

Here are some of the obstacles that limit the average Church from succeeding at the grass roots level.

• Structural and staff maintenance costs and debt
• Institutional corporate and legal limitations
• Higher Fuel and food prices and lower wages
• Hierarchal Control
• Loss of Integrity
• More focus on assimilation (inside the walls) vs discipleship (outside the walls)
• Competition - Did I mention Control?

Next we will discuss the good stuff. How to’s and risk taking.

 

Most people go to Church because?

Quote of the Day

“I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please - not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make me love a foreigner or pick beets with a migrant worker. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of a womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I’d like to buy $3 worth of God, please.”

- Wilbur Rees

Sound familiar?

 

How the Church in America can Survive - Part 2

Sometimes, someone hits it out of the park. Here is a post at that does just that in this discussion. Below is a tidbit of article. Read rest of the post at cindybryan.blogspot.com

“..we also need to get the heck out of the church building and live lives that show we care about somebody in addition to the people we worship with. we must address this corporate addiction to church that we ourselves have created. call it a church intervention, maybe. and if we succeed, the withdrawals will be ugly, angry, and very messy. If we don’t succeed, thousands of local churches just like ours will be gone in 20 years or less. I’m not even sure if that isn’t what should happen.”

The truth is whether we do or don’t succeed, thousands of local churches will be gone in 20 years anyways. They will either die and not be replaced or behave differently and succeed whether they have a building or not. We have no choice as to whether change will happen. We do have a choice as to whether we become architects of the change.

 

How the American Church can Survive - Why churches Don’t Have to Close

I will be doing a series that is a ground breaking strategy your church needs to look at before having to close it’s doors and turn out the lights. I will be discussing how to transform a church with four walls, no matter what size it is, to a church with unlimited possibilities. It’s time to stop the bleeding. Get ready to have your world shook to its foundations.

Here is a great group of individuals that had to close their church doors like so many other churches across the country are having to do. I honor thier service and dedication. To me it is like a death in the family. It breaks my heart because of all the people affected.

I hope they keep this video online. It has an incredible value to the church world.

I pose a question to my church friends. What if you had a way to stay together as a church and become more effective without having to worry about the costs of running a church? This is a discussion worth having.

 

Why People Don’t Go to Church

The people at Oak Leaf Church went around the town asking people why they don’t’ go to church. As you listen to the answers, try to put yourself in their shoes vs thinking of good comebacks. You may find you will see and hear more than what’s being said.

 

How Church looks to My Neighbors

To most of my neighbors Church is viewed as “out there”. “Come to us, get saved, give us your time and money” is the message they hear. That message is not relevant to most people, but it is the message we the church are sending. That’s a key reason why churches in America are struggling.

My neighbors want a safe and vibrant neighborhood to call home, raise their families or retire. The question for me changed from “How do I get my neighbors to go to church?” to “What can we as individuals in our church (including the staff and pastor), do to make the neighborhoods we live in a healthier more vibrant place to live?

Jesus tells us. “Go into.., Love God, love your neighbor and make disciples. The message is simple. The course of action easy to understand. Discipleship is not about filling up the church seats but making active Jesus followers. The neighborhood is the perfect environment to accomplish this because its where we live 7 day a week.

Click here to join the discussion

 

Is Your Church Really Making a Difference?

Get the hard cold brutal facts about your Church.   Click here for the Video

 

What Do People Experience When visiting Your Church?

I’ve been hearing a lot about the book, Jim and Casper go to Church. It’s about an atheist and a Christian who decide to go visit churches all across the country? Below is a video where they talk a little about the experience. It wasn’t too far from what I have observed when visiting various Churches throughout the country.

 

Does your Church site get Peoples Attention?

This got my attention. Meeting needs of people first. Click here to see what a ministry can do to make an impact for people who won’t step into a church.

 

Mad Church Disease “Beat Up, Burned out

Click the Icon to learn more.

 

Why do people leave the Church?

Click here for an insightful website that has people writing why they end up leaving Churches.

 

Church Planting Anywhere, Anytime, by Anyone ?

Imagine planting a Church anywhere you want including the neighborhood you live in, the neighborhoods surrounding you, campuses, restaurants, board rooms, hotels, mobile home parks, cruise ships, without having to worrying about the cost of staff, a building or trained leaders.

Here is an intriguing example of a Church Planting concept that is so simple to use, anyone, anywhere, anytime who is or desires to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus can do it.

We are using it in our area and the feedback so far has been enthusiastically positive. The sky is the limit with what a person can do with a concept like this.

Check out the site at www.simplechurch.tv for more info

 

Has the Church forgotten how to rescue?

I loved this video.

 

It reminds me of the lyrics to an old Keith Green song, Asleep in the Light.

 

“Do you see, do you see, all the people sinking down”.

“Don’t you care, don’t you care, are you gonna let them drown…”

~Thanks to our Canadian friends at Campus Crusade for Christ for producing this clever video.