Borg-Church: Perfecting Assimilation

One of my projects at the moment includes cultivating a more newcomer-friendly culture at church, together with helping us put things in place to welcome newbies and follow-them-up with excellence. The literature refers to it as 'assimilation'. Scary, huh?!

Ed Stetzer (borrowing from Win Arn) has a great list of eight characteristics of newcomers who have really made it 'in' to a church:

1. New members should be able to list at least seven new friends they have made in the church.
2. New members should be able to identify their spiritual gifts.
3. New members should be involved in at least one (preferably several) roles/tasks/ministries in the church, appropriate to their spiritual gifts.
4. New members should be actively involved in a small fellowship (face-to-face) group.
5. New members should demonstrate a regular financial commitment to the church.
6. New members should personally understand and identify with church goals.
7. New members should attend worship services regularly.
8. New members should identify unchurched friends and relatives and take specific steps to help them toward responsible church membership.

from Planting Missional Churches, 280-81.

The Pastor and Frontline Evangelism

I've heard it said that a pastor need not necessarily pursue personal evangelism as something beyond their regular preaching, because their regular preaching is evangelism.

Chewing on that this afternoon, two things sprang to mind:

• It rests on the assumption that significant numbers of non-Christians are actually coming under your preaching. So, are they?
• I'll let you decide what 'significant' means (--that's a conversation worth having). But let me say: don't just look to the number of 'visitors' (which most churches track somehow). 'Visitors' includes genuinely converted Christians holidaying, church-shopping, or just plain 'passing through'--none of whom are relevant to this discussion.
• It means you're expecting your church members to do something you're not modelling: namely, getting non-Christians to church.
• Let me say: I don't think that's a fatal flaw with the proposal. But, I do think you need to be able train people to do it, and training usually includes being able to point to people who are modelling it. Some people are natural bringers. Who can you point to?

Even with both of the above issues addressed, I reckon the 'idea' serves one situation well, and another very poorly:

• If you're feeling totally inadequate as a pastor, because you're comparing yourself to some gun-frontline-evangelist, then let this be a comforting reality check: you evangelise as you preach.
• If you're feeling comfortable as a proclaimer of Christ's gospel, while evangelising the 'lost' appears to exert little control over your diary, then let this be a reality check: people are headed to hell.

Those Ingenious Swedes

Kate reminded me recently of a little method that her Bible Study back in Sydney used to use to structure their learning in a very lo-fi way.

The Swedish method requires almost zero prep (though prep obviously helps!), it's simple enough to hold in your head, it encourages people to ask their questions of the text (with the attendant benefit that they'll actually want answers), while at the same time still prodding people to figure out what a given passage is actually saying on its own terms.

Check it. I like.

Crumby Interviewing, and how to avoid it

A while ago I watched this video featuring Andrew Zuckerman on the creation of his "Wisdom" project.

Out of it came this paraphrase (quote?) of Michael Parkinson on interviewing.

"What's a bad interview is when you come with questions and you shoot them at me, and you want answers. What's a great interview is when we go on a journey together."

Parko should know.

Video Killed the Blockages

One of the best bits of advice for writing sermons I was ever given came from Dave Thurston: write your entire sermon--beginning to end--in one sitting.

There's just one problem.

• I usually have only enough creative energy to get me through about two-thirds. Then progress slows to a crawl, quality takes a dive, and I'm basically creating work for myself.

Last week I made a breakthrough: Video.

That's it. Fire up Photobooth, hit 'video', and record yourself explaining the idea you're trying to get across. No, not reading your notes, just ad lib. What I find, is that something I say to the video 'works', something comes out 'right'. And then I just play it back, and take notes from what I said.

Clunky? Perhaps. But it's moving creative blockages. And that I like.