Bob Fuhs

One..No, Two..Things A Church Should Never Do

I posted this when we first moved to Southern Cal and was recently reminded of it at a church event last night. Read to the end for an amendment to the original post.

Having moved to CA, I am now once again in the position of finding a church. One of the things I pray for the most lately is for the Lord to lead us to the place He wants us. We ended up getting involved in the first church we visited in Minneapolis-Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie. We had visited others, but the Lord led us to land there pretty quickly after moving. Wooddale was so good for us and we were very sad to have left it.

I think it's important to point out here that it's tough to be on the church end of the church hunt. What I mean is, it's hard to be insider-friendly and outsider-friendly at the same time. You have your regulars that you need to minister to and meet their needs. And then you have the "irregulars," the guests, the visitors and they have certain needs as well. And sometimes their needs don't match up. Case in point: The Sunday service is not the place to find community. It's just not. Especially if your church is over 100 people. What I have discovered (having moved a few times) is that you have to do something in addition to Sunday mornings to really feel like you are a part of the community. Check out a small group, a Sunday school class, whatever. Just don't expect to make any friends on Sunday morning. Most people are happy to get in, get something, and then get out. And if they are regulars, they probably only see their friends that one time a week.

This brings me to my point. (Yes, I have one this time). I just don't see any reason for a church that has more than say, 150 people on a Sunday to invite people to "greet someone next to you before you sit down." I know you think that it helps the new person to feel welcome, but it does not. In fact, it has just the opposite effect. It makes the new person realize just how disconnected they are. I mean, no one really asks your name or takes even a second to find out more about you. And, the times I have tried to get the person to interact with me (I am the new person in this scenario), they aren't sure what to do with that. Their task is to greet as many people as they can, not to actually learn a name and begin a relationship.

Okay, that's all I have to say about that. Now, turn to the person next to you and tell them you're glad they came today...

Today's Addendum: Does anyone else get tired of it when someone says, "Let's give the Lord a hand!" I mean, what's that all about? How about giving the Lord a "Woo! Hoo!" or a "Way to go God!" It's just silly in my opinion.  And, when are you supposed to stop?  Does it show disrespect for the Lord to have applauded for only 30 seconds? And, do you give Him a standing ovation? I mean, isn't He worth that?  Honestly I think it's just one of those evangelical time-filler cliches that just need to be purged from our vocabulary. Don't you agree? If so, then how about a hand?

A New Apporach To Time With God

You probably don't eat the same thing everyday, so why would you spend time with the Lord the same way all the time?  Variety keeps a relationship feeling fresh and alive.  To that end, I wanted to share with you a resource we developed for our CCC Summer Project in Ocean City, New Jersey. 

Each week we set aside an evening we call "Date Night With Jesus" so that the students and staff can spend some extended time alone with God.  We change it up during the week where we focus on relationships in the Body and instead have a "Communal Quiet Time."  Personally I love it (I am a very relational person). If you want to give it a try, I've included the article here for you.  Feel free to pass this resource on to others.

Communal Quiet Time -

The Grease of the Missionary Rails

This summer, Holly Sheldon (National CCC Director for 100% Sent Initiative), gave me a book by John R. Mott, the founder of the Student Volunteer Movement of the early 1900's. The book is called "The Decisive Hour Of Christian Missions."  I read these quotes yesterday:

"The missionary forces cannot win the non-Christian world for Christ until Christian nations and all their influences (italics mine) are more thoroughly permeated with the Spirit of Christ." (p. 63)

"It is much easier to bring the Gospel to bear on a heathen (not a bad word back then apparently!) in his natural state than upon the man who has become familiar with the worst side of the so-called Christian civilization." (p.62)

This is the apologetic for sending 100% of our seniors as Lifetime Laborers.  100% sent is a missions strategy wherein every area of our society is permeated with the Spirit of Christ.  It seems as though "the nations" see us as Christian, but you and I know better.  But what if the bedrock institutions of our country were permeated with men and women who love Jesus and seek to instill them with the Spirit of Christ?  I'm thinking specifically of Government, Education, and Business (specifically manufacturing and technology). Would that grease the rails of the missionary effort so as to remarkably accelerate the fulfillment of the Great Commission?

Goooooal!

There are a lot of ways to say it:

If you don't know where you're going, you won't know when you get there.

If you aim for nothing, you'll always hit it.

And, my personal favorite: What gets measured, gets done.

However you word it, it's all about setting goals. A goal stretches you.  A goal helps you and your team know what's important, so you can choose that over the urgent.  A goal keeps you focused on the right things.

Here at the start of the fall, we always had a goal for evangelistic conversations we wanted to have before our Fall Retreat, or at about the 6 week mark.  For teams that I led, that was usually 50 for the men and 40 for the women. That included me as the Campus Director.  Having a goal like that ensured that we were all focusing on the right thing at the start of the year: getting face-to-face with freshmen.

Just to be clear, an "evangelistic conversation" is any conversation with a student (preferably a freshman here in the fall), that includes Gospel content. That usually involves an opportunity to respond to the claims of Christ.  That included when I was talking with a Christian student, as well as non-believers. We wanted to share the Gospel with every Christian we met because they either needed to know where we were coming from as a ministry, and because most of them had no idea about assurance of salvation.

50 is not a magic number, but it is both stretching and realistic. And, it makes the chances that you will actually have students show up to your small group go way up. 

For you campus leaders out there, I'd love to hear how you use goals here at the start of the year to focus you and your teams in evangelism. How have you seen not having goals hurt you? Are there other things that you set goals for?

Emcee and Weekly Meeting Training Audio

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