Friday, September 04, 2009

Vitality in the Local Church

As I was sitting down to a piece of homemade chocolate cake the other night, I ran across and article reminding me that I needed to put down the cake, slim down, exercise more, and do more eating right and generally be a better person. And the writer was correct. I need to do those things.

Amazingly, that was not the force of this particular article. It was more about church health and what kinds of things a pastor was deriding in local churches, to shut them down. And I'll be honest, there have been times when I have made some of the same statements. So I needed not only to hear the "put down the cake" lesson, but also the deeper lesson of transformed churches.

The keys the author pointed to were:
-Some healthy churches need to go through decline and financial hardship to come to grips with life as it is currently. St. Andrew -Check
-For both new and old churches the primary issue is "Leadership and Vision" (I would add to that a statement that says it must extend beyond the clergy of the church, and a few select "leaders") St. Andrew - Check
-A challenge of Discipleship must be laid out and taken up with the membership, "raising rather than lowering the bar". St. Andrew -Check

And if you think (as you well should) that you need to check the facts of my edits, then go right ahead. Click here

HT: DD

1 Comments:

At September 04, 2009, Blogger john said...

Being honest sure can hurt. Many times we're happy with thinking we're doing things "right" instead of challenging where we are and considering what directions God might be leading us.

thanks. Stay blessed...john

 

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