Are You Satisfied?

As we look at the word of God and church history, there seems to be a pattern. Men and women with great visions from God started with great dissatisfaction about what they were seeing that did not line up with God’s plan.
· Moses’ complaint was God’s people should not be enslaved, and God’s response was: “Let my people go.”
· Gideon’s complaint was God’s people should not live in oppression from their pagan neighbors, and God’s response was: “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”
· Elijah’s complaint was God’s people should not be serving other gods, and God’s response was Mount Carmel.
· Jesus’ complaint was that religion was dead; God gave Him the vision of abundant life for all who would come.
· Paul’s complaint was that God’s people were reverting to the ways of the flesh and the bondage that behavior brought on, and God gave him a vision of “who we are in Christ.”
It is told that Abraham Lincoln decided to run for president after viewing a disturbing scene. He was standing at the docks observing a ship pulling in to dock. After docking, African men, women and children were taken in shackles to an auction block and sold, often splitting up families three ways or more. Lincoln was so upset he clenched his fist causing his fingernails to cut into his hand and blood was literally dripping from his fist. His complaint turned into a vision that produced the Emancipation Proclamation.
Possibly the greatest complaint since Jesus was that of Martin Luther. Luther became so incensed by inequities that he observed in the church it drove him to study, which produced his Ninety-Five Theses and his assertion that “the just shall live by faith.”
That complaint didn’t just produce the Lutheran Church, but rather is the seed for Protestantism today. As we drive along the streets of our city we go past the fruit of Martin Luther’s dream in every neighborhood. The question is: what is your complaint and has it become your vision?

Connecting to the Community

Church growth experts tell us that in order to stay the same size every church must grow six to eight percent each year. This growth will just about cover the ones who leave by natural attrition. Some go to heaven. Some go to live with Aunt Josie. Some even have the audacity to get mad at the preacher and leave for another church in town. The very idea! You have to grow six to eight percent just to break even, and if you don’t, you decrease in number. The sad reality is that most churches in America are either stuck in status quo or are actually declining. With only a few wonderful exceptions even the churches that are growing are doing it through transfer growth. We fell into this trap for a season. Maybe if we can come up with a new angle or shine a little brighter than the church down the street we can get a few families. This causes problems of competition and territorialism among churches that hurt our reputations and hinder our efforts for the cause of Christ. Instead of seeking sheep from other pastures, we want to focus our attention on the power of connecting. We must get out there and connect with the community if we are going to do what our Lord commissioned us to do…”make them my disciples”.

"Been There, Done That, It Didn't Work"

A while back Randy and I were having lunch with a friend of ours. He is a seasoned pastor who has been in ministry for nearly fifty years. As we talked, he shared stories with us from His years of experience. Stories about the Sunday School revival, the Charismatic Movement, the Healing Movement, the Faith Movement-- he had been there to experience them all. His experiences watching the development of the church growth movement from his perspective were interesting. After he had shared for quite some time our friend announced to us, “I am going to write a book, and the title will be Been There, Done That, It Didn’t Work.” We said a collective and resounding Amen!”
As church leaders we are always listening for ideas, looking for tools, wanting to be sure that nothing happens to keep us from being in the know concerning trends in the life of the church. The problem is too often we only come away from those experiences with another chapter for our friends book, “Been there, done that, didn’t work-- or at least it didn’t last. If we are not careful, we will find ourselves with a fatalistic attitude towards much of what we see in ministry development. The concern is “this won’t last either.” We must be cautious against becoming a “negative” complainer about church life in general. The list becomes exhaustive:

* I am tired of the methodology of the month.
* I am tired of reading the statistics about transfer growth in the American church, and I am much wearier of experiencing it.
* I am tired religion.
* I am tired of territorialism in a church that is actually supposed to belong to Jesus.
* I am tired of an over emphasize on sensationalism.
* I am tired seeing pastors enslaved by church leaders who feel they must control the direction of the church based on their own personal whims, traditions and legalistic points of view.
* I am tired of seeing the church react to every little blip in culture instead of taking the lead to offer culture the claims of the Gospel.
* I am tired of meeting people in the community that have come to the conclusion that the church is an outdated relic because their perception of the church is that it is irrelevant.

These are problems in the church that are all too real for those of us who face them every day. Are they problems? Yes, but not “the” problem. The problem is that people are not connected to God or each other. Connecting Points comes from a sincere love for our people and a deep rooted desire to be more productive in reaching our community. At the center of every visionary leader and at the center of his vision is a deep dissatisfaction with the status quo. If you look at the men and women who have changed history there was anger with the way things were and an unwillingness to leave it that way anymore. May God help us to do the hard work necessary in building an atmosphere where people can get connected!