here's the beginning of our missional conversation! below are a few links you can go to and read what others are saying about this movement. it's bringing me great hope to read these other posts. so take some time away from your myspace and join this conversation.
http://missionalstudents.typepad.com/missional_students/
http://www.friendofmissional.org/
http://www.meremission.org/
7 comments:
At big churches it's the youth group, the ladies ministries, the LAY ministries, the spanish ministry, the kids church...And if we really want to be missional, we have to be ONE. People look at our church and say "Man, thats a big church, money is all they want."
I've heard alot of that feedback from people, like that when they were there, all they talked about was money. That pushes people away. That can't be the focus, the focus is Christ.
great comment...how do you see ways we can bridge that gap and become more like one within a larger church? Is it that those specific ministries are the wrong way to go about it or is it changing our perception amongst the community? What could we do/be to engage the community so when they see our church they don't say "money is all they want", but they say "that church has changed this community"?
This is great conversation...thanks for commenting, whoever you are!
Im in agreement with the first comment, there are alot of ministries which is good, but thats almost as if the church split up in to smaller churches within. You have your mens crosswalk ministry and they go and do stuff together. Got your ladies SHE ministry, what ever they do. Kids church and their own thing. Its awesome that we have that but we do need to engage into something as a WHOLE, where the whole church can go out and DO something. All those ministries, they attract people, which is good, but then when the person comes they need to see that the church is missional. That we get up as a WHOLE body and do something. Attraction is what got me into this church, i'll be honest, but now im more into missional and i want to do more of that.
oh...one more thing, its good that the chruch teaches about tiths and whatnot but when it gets talked about alot, that does scare people away. people will look at the church and say 'well they ask for money all the time, people are 'brain-washed' so they give the money and thats how they are so big and have all that stuff going on. im not going there' thats all i have to say
So, it seems that there is a feeling that the church asks for money too often...is it that the church is asking for something unreasonable or that we're just being obedient to scripture? Is tithing a "church" thing or is it a Biblical thing? How do we balance that so un-churched people don't feel taken advantage of or that we aren't just after their wallet?
In order to make a trasition from attraction based type ministry to more missional...does that require more activities? The way I see it is that it's a mindset way more than more events...that we're living in a missional way not just doing missional things...it's transforming us from the inside. Does that make sense?
having a youth group that seems attractive to "outsiders" is a good thing because it can pull them in. it can become a bad thing if the attraction of the youth group is the only focus/concern...SO, at elev8, which do we care about more? being missional or attractional? personally, at first glance, the fancy lights and displays could seem more attractional than missional for obvious reasons. that's a suggestion for being less attractional, but then how would we become more missional and not just less attractional? does being less attractional automatically make elev8 more missional?
and yes bobby, what you said makes sense
Post a Comment