Restoring Kingdom Builders

Over the past sixteen months, my wife and I have been visiting various churches in the greater Phoenix area.  For ten of those months, we’ve been attending CCV – Christ’s Church of the Valley – a mega church in the northern Peoria area.  CCV knows what they’re doing and does it all extremely well.  We love everything about the church and try not to compare it to other churches that we visit from time-to-time – but sometimes, it’s hard not to do so.

Since all of my pastoring has been done in small and medium-sized churches, I understand them very well and have a good idea of what they need to do to reach the next level.  As Rick Warren is fond of saying, it’s harder for a church to go from 100 to 300 in attendance than it is for that same church to go from 1,000 to 3,000.

Let me share with you five ways that a smaller or medium-sized church can make some simple improvements that will help them reach more people for Jesus.  This is not intended as an exhaustive list but just some things I’ve been noticing recently:

First, station greeters outside from the parking area into the worship center.  Kim and I visited a medium-sized church yesterday and no one said anything to us until a woman gave us our bulletin at the door.  Then after we sat down, the pastor’s wife came and said hi to us.  But we would have felt much more comfortable with a greeting and a handshake before we got to the door.  Even though I’ve been a pastor for eons, I still feel nervous walking up to a new church for the first time.  Strategically-placed greeters help alleviate that anxiety more quickly, and a host of good things happen with guests once they relax.  CCV does this expertly.  We’re greeted by five or six people before we even get to the lobby.

However, these greeters need to just say “hi” or “it’s a great day” or “welcome to our church” rather than do any prying.  Whenever people ask our names, they love to say, “Oh, Jim and Kim!  That rhymes!”  A staff member at a church recently went on-and-on asking Kim about herself and he was practically hyper-ventilating in the process.  “It’s SO GOOD to have you today.  We hope you’ll come back and see us again SOON!”  We couldn’t leave that guy fast enough.

Second, do whatever it takes to have outstanding music.  If I were starting a church, the first person I would hire would be a worship director who could attract people who could sing and play well.  We live in the American Idol age where everybody expects great music and everybody thinks like a critic.  If the music isn’t good, people cringe.  If it is, they relax and might sing.  From what I’ve been noticing, the better the music is, the more the people in the congregation sing.

I realize that there will be days when the music director is gone and the quality of the music will suffer.  But this just argues for the importance of having a deep bench.  At CCV, they rotate the worship leaders, the band members, and the vocalists and spread them all over the stage – but they always have at least two guitars.  Kim and I recently visited a church where the band used a keyboard, drums, and a bass guitar but didn’t have any guitars – and I cringed all through the worship time.

Third, the service can run between 60 and 75 minutes but not too much longer.  If a church is trying to reach Christians, then a service can go on for hours.  But if you’re trying to reach unbelievers, 60 minutes is best, and 75 minutes is as long as you can go if the service is good.

The last two churches that we visited had services that both went 90 minutes.  Again, that’s fine for the people who go there, but if a church wants to grow, it needs to tighten up the service, especially the transitions.  At CCV, every service lasts exactly one hour and you’re left wanting more.

Fourth, avoid mentioning the denomination during the service.  We live in a post-denominational age where people care much more about the quality of the local church they attend and far less about the affiliations that church has with headquarters.  At a service we recently attended, several of the announcements specifically mentioned denominational doings.  Because we aren’t a part of that denomination, the references made us feel like outsiders.

I have a theory: the better a church is doing, the less it mentions its demonination, and the worse its doing, the more it mentions it.  (Or the worse a denomination is doing, the more it asks its constituent churches to promote it.)  Think about it.

Finally, tell us what the Bible means.  Decades ago, I learned this little truth: there is one accurate interpretation of a biblical passage, but scores of personal applications.  One interpretation, many applications.  When the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of Scripture, He did so with a single intent in mind.  John 3:16 doesn’t mean whatever you want it to mean.  It means whatever John – as inspired by the Spirit – meant it to mean.  When I study a passage, it’s not my job to impose my own views on it (called eisegesis) but to take out of the passage what is actually there (called exegesis).

Let me give you an example.  In Revelation 3:20, Jesus spoke these familiar words: “Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”  Who is Jesus talking to in context?  Many people believe that Jesus is encouraging unbelievers to open the door of their lives and let Him be their Lord and Savior.  But Jesus is speaking to “those whom I love” and those whom “I rebuke and discipline” (verse 19) instead.  In other words, Jesus is talking here to believers, not unbelievers – and specificially to believers who have shut Him out of their lives.

We can’t twist Scripture into saying what we want it to say.  It’s our job to discern and discover what the Spirit meant by a passage and only then to apply it to our lives.

Why bring this up?  Because we’re living in a day where too many preachers are coming up with their own thoughts and then scouring the Bible for support.  And in the process, we’re getting borderline heresies and novel teachings that make the teacher famous but cause God’s people to starve spiritually.

The first four ideas above are just my ideas.  Feel free to disagree with them.  Better yet, prove me wrong.  But the last idea is non-negotiable.  Surrender that idea and we’re going to have syncretistic Christianity – and we’re already headed in that direction because many pastors only preach what’s culturally acceptable so they can stay popular.

That’s why Jeremiah is my favorite prophet.  He told the Lord, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak.  I am only a child.”  The Lord replied, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’  You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.”  After touching Jeremiah’s mouth, the Lord told him, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth.  See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Talk about an impossible assignment!  It’s far easier to build and to plant than it is to uproot and tear down.  But Jeremiah was faithful, and he got a book in the Bible for his trouble.

And that’s where I’m headed right now – to Jeremiah 32.  This is “A View from the Pew” signing off.