What Do You Expect From Your Church?

You’ve heard it before: “I went to that church for a while, but I left because I wasn’t being fed.”

The prevailing attitude that the Church exists primarily to feed Christians the Word is one of the primary reasons most churches in the U.S. are not growing, or if they do, they do so through transfer membership, not conversions.

Church growth guru Ed Stetzer asserted in Breaking The Missional Code that the Church is one of the few organizations in the world that does not exist primarily for the benefit of its members.

Think about it: Jesus was primarily about reaching the lost (Luke 19:10: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost”), and the Church is the body of Christ. So, what should the Church be focused on?

One of the things I love about my church is we have made the shift from the iChurch paradigm to one focused on our guests. Our pastor and our leaders do not speak Christianeese in our services because it creates an unnecessary cultural hurdle to our non-Christian guests. We don’t talk about politics from the pulpit, not because we are do not have opinions or because politics is not important, but because the Gospel is more important and our guests are not there to hear about our politics but to hear about God.

If our guests get offended, we want it to be over one thing: the Gospel. If our guests stumble over the Gospel, we’ve been faithful. If they stumble over our politics we’ve been foolish.

Oh, and regarding being fed, I like what my wife says. She says there are only two kinds of people who can’t feed themselves: babies and the disabled. So, open your Bible, learn to feed yourself, and begin to help your church fulfill its purpose of reaching non-Christians with the Gospel. GS

Leave a Reply