Today’s quote of the day comes from Dan over at Necessary Roughness in his Nascent Ideas post:"If the Church Growth movement insists on dividing people up between churched and unchurched, I would rather be called unchurched. That way people will treat me like I still need the Gospel."
Amen brother!
4 comments:
I'm no fan of the church growth movement. However, I'm not sure that I agree with "Today's Quote Of The Day" (which is redundant if you really think about it).
The church should be the church, regardless of who walks in the door--believers or non-believers, churched or unchurched, left-handed or right-handed, straight or gay, etc. The church should continue to do the things the church is supposed to do (like preaching the Word, communion, baptism, etc.) and not try to be a an outreach center. In so doing, we allow the Holy Spirit to be in control. And who says that God cannot reach the lost via his bride? When we allow the church to be the church, we're all better off and we're able to go out and use our gifts and talents in this lost world.
Big Doofus:
I wrote that quote after considering the craziness that is going on with a congregation that is adopting CG methods. They are indeed categorizing people as churched and unchurched. What's more important than the categories (crappy as they are) is what they do with the categories.
The congregation that I saw this actually adopted constitutional language that the pastor would minister to the unchurched and members of the congregation would minister to each other. The churched are directed to participate in congregation-sponsored activities such as model railroad clubs, Adopt a Highway, etc., which in all truth are publicity stunts to draw the unchurched.
Unchurched: Needs the Gospel.
Churched: Needs to get to work!
BD, in my own little corner of the world, there are folks that find even sounding like a church is a hindrance to reaching the lost. I tell this story way to much but it is indicative of what is going on; while serving on a mission board I proposed at one mission board meeting where we were discussing “vision statements” that we state that our purpose was to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments as we are called to do by our Lord. This idea was shot down and I was called (publically) a useless wordsmith.
The idea we cant even proclaim what our mission is for fear of offending the unchurched seeker should be a huge red flag for anyone. But unfortunately, so many look at the church as something to be marketed and headcount as the goal instead of being faithful servants that proclaim Christ and Him crucified.
I like the quote because so many outreach activities being carried out could just as easily be run by the local parks and recreation department or any high school glee club.
Perfect!
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