Simple Church - 1st Glance

For Christmas I received two books. For my birthday I received four more books (or will... as soon as they arrive in the mail). Right now, I'm not reading any of them. Oh well. Right now I'm going through a book with my pastor called Simple Church. You can read about it here. We're a little slow, as there are often things that distract us, like talking about how to care for families in the church, and little things like that (yes, there was sarcasm in there). We're on chapter four right now. I thought I'd share a couple of things that struck me so far from the book. Here are a few quotes that caught my attention.

"To have a simple church, you must design a simple discipleship process. This process must be clear. It must move people toward maturity. It must be integrated fully into your church, and you must get rid of the clutter around it."

There are many names for this: vision, mission, philosophy of ministry. Whatever you call it, you've got to have it, keep it simple, and communicate it... often!

"A simple church is a congregation designed around a straight-forward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth."

The authors then go on to define the key words there: designed, straightforward, strategic, moves people, and spiritual growth. A few things that caught my eye:

"Spiritual growth is a process."

"Programs are used as tools to promote this movement."

There are four steps to making a simple church happen: clarity, movement, alignment, and focus. Without all four of these things, church becomes more and more program oriented and too complex for people to grow in their faith. It becomes more about people taking part in the programs rather than people getting to know God and pushing back the gates of hell.

A church should be pushing back the gates of hell in the community it's a part of. If it's not, it's not doing what God intends for it according to His Word. That means it should be alive and growing spiritually. I like the authors' definition of what "alive and growing" means:

"Guests are coming regularly. Many people have been converted to the faith. The church baptizes people regularly. People are growing and serving."

Other things I read in here so far:

The vision of the church has to grip the whole staff. That would include - for most churches - the elders and deacons. It can't be something that only one or two people are behind, and the rest kind of put up with.

People need to understand how disciples are made, not just be told to go and make disciples. Jesus' disciples understood this. We don't necessarily understand this, and need to be taught.

It must be communicated that spiritual growth -movement towards Christ in relationship and service to Him and His church - is expected if you're going to be a member of the church. If they don't want to grow, they probably should find another church. This isn't commenting on hurting believers, or those who have yet to surrender to Christ. This is more about the general attender who wants to become involved in the church.

Expectation leads to action. If we don't communicate what we expect, we probably won't get it.

Semantics matter.

I'm enjoying the book, and I'm praying that it genuinely helps LCC become a church that begins to push back the gates of hell in Lolo. I pray that God would raise up Godly elders who will not be afraid to implement these ideas, even if people choose to leave the church because it no longer fits their idea of what a church should be doing, or because their favorite program is being shut down in order to become more focused on the mission.