"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* I am tired of meeting people in the community that have come to the conclusion that the church is an outdated relic because their perception of the church is that it is irrelevant.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!