like a fire

Center for Church Communication: About

If you are a Christian, then hopefully you think that you have heard and believed the best news anyone has ever heard or spoke. If the story of God’s kingdom is so great, why is it so easily dismissed or even worse ignored? Are we really that bad at telling our story? Is the good news we heard such bad news to others?

The link above is for a site dedicated to helping churches communicate better. They challenge and try to help churches with the messages that they try to market among the communities across the world. They provide examples, offer feedback and suggestions for church websites, print media and other forms of communication such as “word of mouth”. Check them out if that sounds like something you could use. They are really great.

Yet, I’m not sure that is the problem with so many churches across the USA. We surely could do better in our approach to marketing, but it seems that this is a newish idea that churches have of reaching many with effective communication. Marketing the gospel isn’t very new, but thinking of it as marketing might be.

What I’m thinking here is that Jesus reaching many people with the message of the kingdom. Most responded either by accepting it or by rejecting it, but most who heard had a very clear response. The message was very effectively marketed in those days as it is in some places today.

But I don’t really think that is what many churches really want - and if it is, it isn’t enough.
First I don’t think most churches are looking for the most effective communication of the gospel. What I do think they are trying to get is the best response to the gospel. They want as many people to accept the gospel in their response. Secondly, most ideas of communication start and end with church leadership. That isn’t enough. In marketing, if only the leaders of an organization do WOM marketing, it is a failure. It takes the leadership inspiring the rest of the users to be excited about the message or product.

Even Jesus realized that he couldn’t continue his message by spraying and praying. He very startegically selected twelve men to carry on his mission. It worked. If we want to have a lasting impact on or communities through the church, then I think we have to get very serious about the process of discipleship and by discipleship, I don’t mean small groups or Bible studies. I mean deliberate investment and training in people in how to follow Christ.

So communicate well, but know that lasting impact happens over time and through investment in the few over the many.

OK, so this is a late entry into the post a while back. Somone asked me in a comment if there was any youth ministry magazine I recommended. At the time I couldn’t think of one, but now I have it.

This is the Network Magazine published by the National Network of Youth Ministries. Though only 31 pages, it packs a lot of useful information in it for the youth guy. I say useful, and that’s important, because there are so many out there that actually have very unuseful material in them (at least for me).

What kind of useful stuff you might ask? Articles titled Jesus-Grade Unity, United or Untied, Why Churches Should Adopt Public School Now, leave little to figure out what they are about. Also relevant articles like What Will We Do Wth The DaVinci Code?, and Make Reaching Every Teen a Reality also make this magazine a great resource for the guys in the trenches. Best of all, this resource if FREE. That’s right, absolutely right on track for youth ministries and FREE. You can even download PDFs of the articles if you don’t get a paper copy.

If you need a good resource, check this out. While you are there, register for the NNYM’s site and find people near you who you can link up with to do kingdom work.

Leadership Blog: Out of Ur: Beyond Bodies, Bucks, and Bricks: Jim Collins on how churches should measure success

This article belabors the point that so many in our culture operate under. Should the success of a church be measured through the counting of
bodies, bricks and bucks? I am constantly amazed at the pedancy of the Urs. Is this really a question to most church leaders? I hope not, but some part of me thinks it just is.

So pursuing the question, if progress in the kingdom is measured by these three criteria, then Jesus ministry on earth was a complete failure. He had no building, he lost all of his disciples’ commitment for the short term and the majority as well for the short term and he lived completely of the benevolence of others instead of a banked stable salary. Paul’s ministry would have to be looked at in a similar fashion. I guess the argument could be made that those weren’t typical or church ministries, but that would relegate them to either para-church or missions oriented ministries and I’m not willing to go there.

So where does that leave the church of today and the measurability of it’s success? I don’t think you can measure kingdom success by visuals alone, especially in the short term. Faith is looking beyond what we see, and spiritual growth must do likewise. Through the story of God, there are times of what we would consider moving forward and times of moving backward, but both seem to be necessary to grow. If growth is based on numbers (any kind of numbers) then when pruning happens, the temptation will be to call it something other than growth. To borrow from Richard Pratt, God’s benevolence always brings blessings and curses. We often get the two confused though. Lots of money might actually make us rely less on God and be the opposite of growth. More bodies might actually dilute to the penetration of the mission and be the opposite of Jesus ministry to his disciples. More bricks might actually become more of a burden to a community than a resource as is the case with most churches who are struggling with money.

So measuring growth isn’t all that hard or complicated although we make it that often. It can’t often be seen in a short amount of time either. And here is where I get all presbyterian. If everything works for the good of God and those who are called according to his purpose, then why are we trying to measure it? Is that distrust?

I think this sums up my whole soap box on process over outcomes.

Airstream :: International CCDOK, I’m not planning a tour anytime soon, but if I ever went on the road again, this is the beast I would want. It sleeps five, has hot water showers, a kitchen, and A/C. Most impressive is the look. Chris Deam did a great job with this one.

Options include curbside patio awning, a solar charging system, premium A/V package.

I defintely need to put this in the budget for the next youth campout.

HT: CPU

I have been reading this book for a couple of days now. Not a serious read, but I kind of glance at it occasionally and let it simmer a bit. It has proven to be a great experience for me. It could be that I have been in a very different situation lately being in another country and culture, but I have really enjoyed it and how ideas from it come out in my life.

Last night was the first TNL for high school since returning from London. We talked about how we say we want to be close to God, but we actually run from true intimacy with him. I used a lot of clips from a movie called Powder. I was really surprised by the response to the clips and how well they progressed along with the story of how we fear what we don’t understand. It’s great when things come together like that. Even more surprising was the group we had. I wasn’t expecting many teens since there is a pretty major event going on this week in Myrtle Beach called Getaway. We actually had a pretty good crowd and a couple of new people.

I have seen that I often make God safe and it plays out in my expectations of what he will do. I expect too little and see even less of what God can do. My only reassurance lately in that is that I am progressing towards more risky business in the kingdom.