Please remember
“Jubilee Chapel”
our LPD “Church” of the Week.
Thanks to Anna (Ben) Crumback at Sointula Community Church for producing the Church of the Week!
Good morning friends,
Do you desire to see your church grow?
You might take this question in a couple of ways…
Either way, do you really desire your church to grow?
On Tuesday evening of this week, our district hosted a Principles for Healthy Church Board Workshop, with EFCC Leadership Catalyst, Dan Nicholson. Board members and pastors from eleven mainland LPD churches attended – we will take this to the Islands soon too! It was a worthwhile evening for all, and we trust that this will be the beginning of healthy dialogues in district churches.
One of the items that Dan touched on was the concept of organizational life cycles. Every organization, churches included will tend to follow a life cycle that ranges from birth through maturity, to eventual old age and death. Unless intentional efforts are made to rejuvenate, the organization and church will eventually decline and fold.
We focused on this theme at our LPD Conference in 2015, and we invited churches to participate in a self-survey to discern where their church was on this life cycle. While some churches will assess themselves honestly and take action, others might be inclined to live in denial, and will likely continue on the life cycle toward old age and decline.
Here are links to two resources:
Please take time to read/re-read these articles, to consider where your church is on its life cycle, and to prayerfully consider what the Lord is calling you to. If you did the survey in 2015, compare where your church is today compared to then.
Change, health and growth are never easy! They require intentional assessment, concerted prayer and determination to put mission before methodology.
Thom Rainer affirms such thinking when he writes, What [Some] Church Members Really Mean When They Say “We Want To Grow!”
He challenges our thinking about growth and states that growth always comes with a cost. Here’s the link to this: church-members-really-mean-say-want-grow/
Please click this link to this week’s Five Minutes on Friday with the LPD – SEE reflections on Remembrance Day and of being Gospel Sharing People – Five_Minutes_on_Friday_Nov._10_2017.pdf
