With more than half of LCMS congregations in rural areas, which is defined as fewer than 15,000 people, and leadership looking to revitalize congregations, LCMS World Mission--National Mission Team is looking to hire a “"catalyst" to identify and coordinate resources for existing congregations and for starting new ministries in rural areas and small towns.”
According to the Reporter; organizers are looking for “ "a teacher, organizer, go-getter, entrepreneur, and ordained -- someone with a history of starting new things." ”
Isn’t it amazing that to grow the church and reach the lost we (as a denomination) continually seek out new-fangled ways to do what we used to be really good at. It seems to me that “your grandfather’s synod” had a few more members than we currently do. With those who want the church’s mission to look more like church being labeled museum keepers who cling to dusty old confessions that just get in the way of outreach openly, I can’t help but wonder how many members the LCMS is willing to lose before leadership realize that the brand is being harmed.
Heck, I'd be happy if the LCMS just started talking like a church instead of a fundraising corporation speaking through public relation department press releases that have been cleared by legal teams.
Read the whole article here.
3 comments:
These folks are feeling 'desperate'. They look at the stats and see that mainline churches are dying. They figure that they have to deviate from "traditional church" to get them in and keep them in.
What they fail to realize is that by gaing in that area you are losing in another. And that other area is the gospel itself.
To do what they want to do, you water down the gospel and shift focus to 'the self' and 'the culture'. Sure, you might end up with greater numbers, but so what? Is this whole operation a numbers game?
Our culture does not value the Church anymore. Period.
In the old days you could open the doors of a Lutheran church and they would just flock in... have lots of babies and the church would grow.
That is not the case any longer.
But the cure that some of these folks offer is worse than the disease.
Rick Warren brags that "his church is a church for people who hate to go to church."
Is that what we want? Unfortunately, some of us do.
Thanks!
Isn’t it interesting that ordained is list AFTER teacher, organizer, go-getter, and entrepreneur?
I don’t remember Jesus telling the disciples to find entrepreneurs with a history of implementing successful strategies so the church could grow.
I'm catching up with the rest of the blogs I like, sorry I'm late to the party -- been engaged in a couple of blogospheric shoot-outs lately, contrary to my fundamental nature.
Now, most of the guys who run blogs I like are 10-20 years younger than I am. That's good, because now I'll feel better when the rest of my generation gets carried out of the offices they hold as eternal 1968 becomes just eternal, and the church passes into their hands, administratively.
But in the meantime, holy crap, when these guys post about the music they like, I would never in a million years associate that junk with someone who's about to chant fully vested in church. Saw two such posts earlier in my catching up!
Now somewhere in there there's gotta be the secret to reaching the unchurched by looking unchurched ourselves!
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