Internally Strong, Externally Focused by Mark Spence

My longtime friend, Mark Spence, recently wrote a blogpost I'd like to share called "Internally Strong, Externally Focused." This is posted with his permission. Enjoy:

In the book, The Externally Focused Church by two pastor-theologians, Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson, coined the phrase “externally focused” that defines a church that equips, empowers and encourages church members to be missionaries to their community, particularly through service. Before going deeper into how a church can be internally strong and externally focused, I would like to take a brief look at other types of churches that maybe aren’t as interested in practicing both internal strength and cultivating an external focus.

Internally strong, internally focused

An internally strong and internally focused church is mainly interested in itself.  This is a program heavy church with a full church calendar.  The goal is to keep members busy and to attract new members by offering as many events, ministries, programs, etc. as possible.

A sign that a church is internally focused is that although it may be adding new members every month, the new members join by transfer from other churches.  This type of church may baptize many each year as well but it is likely that the baptisms are of members’ children.  So the church may seem evangelistic due to its new members and baptisms, but in reality, it is not reaching non-Christians outside of the walls of the church campus.

This type of church is more of a Christian country club than it is a church on mission with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

---

Internally weak, externally focused

An externally focused but internally weak church is outstanding at evangelism.  This type of church attracts a huge crowd at weekend services and consistently witnesses many adults, students and kids come to saving faith in Christ.  The majority of the church’s time and resources are poured into making the worship services as exciting, creative and attractive to the lost as possible. Using a tired cliche, this type of church is a seeker-oriented or seeker-friendly church.

Because the focus is on the worship services, an internally weak church has a huge “back door”.  Meaning that while it sees many new Christians come to faith, it also sees many members looking for a church that offers more depth in discipleship.  The disciple making ministries, such as small groups, are an afterthought of an internally weak church.

---

Internally weak, externally unfocused

An internally weak and externally unfocused church is an unhealthy church heading towards closing its doors.  The age of the church members tends to be older, with little interest in doing what it takes to reach new people with the gospel.  While the church may have small groups and other discipleship ministries, the small groups have not added new members in recent memory.  Unfortunately, the baptistry is dry with members unable to remember the last time it was used.

The scariest aspect of this type of church is that far too many churches in America are both internally weak and externally unfocused; too many churches in America are more likely to close their doors within the next generation than they are to reach people with the gospel.

---

Internally strong, externally focused 

Externally focused churches encourage members and leaders to become involved in the community. Service, outside the walls of the church campus, encourages members to build relationships with the unchurched.  As relationships are developed through community involvement, hearts will be opened to the gospel. Service allows Christians to be the salt and light that Christ has called them to be.

Church members can discern where to serve through their personal interests and proclivities.  For my family, this means that I coach my boys’ soccer team.  For others, it can mean active engagement in scouting, service organizations like Lions Club, dance troupes, bands, sports at all levels and ages, PTA, biker gangs, gaming (video game)…things…, etc.   The sky is the limit and creativity should be encouraged. 

Community engagement and service, when done with intentionality for the gospel, has great potential for the church to the unchurched with good news of Jesus Christ.

An externally focused church will have fewer activities and events.  Some events, such as Fall Festival, may have to be sacrificed in order to free church members towards externally engagement.  Ministries, such as upwards sports, may also have to be given up so that a church member can enlist their children in a local sports league and for parents to help lead the team.

Even though there should be fewer ministries and a cleaner calendar, the church will have to prioritize disciple-making ministries in order to be internally strong.  When someone is lead to Christ through community engagement, there has to be a process in place through the church to help the new Christians to reach spiritual maturity.

In addition to a strong disciple making process, the worship service will have to be engaging, sermons will need to exposit the scriptures faithfully, small groups must be a place for fellowship, community and accountability, the pastors will have to take their responsibility to shepherd the church seriously and the church must have a means to equip church members to share the gospel.  In short, the church must be internally strong in order to fulfill the great commission’s command to reach people with the gospel and disciple them.

Also, pray for Mark today (9/25/14), he is having knee surgery.

A Heart Like David

Sunday, October 21, 2012, I had the opportunity to preach on “The Heart of David.” This was part of our 50Days Toward Spiritual Fitness Challenge we have been doing as a church. God revealed five characteristics of David that were used to challenge the church, they are: Humility, Example, Adoration, Repentance, and Training. In order to obtain a heart like David, I followed the lead of the author of the devotional book we are using for this study and challenged the people to increase the personal devotion in Scripture disciplines (reading, studying, and memory, prayer, and fasting. God taught and challenged me greatly in this message and it is my prayer that resonated within the hearts of the church as well. Click here to listen to the message.

Book Review: Real-Life Discipleship by Jim Putman

-->

Real-Life Discipleship is a book about how Jim Putman’s church (Real Life Ministries) makes and trains disciples. Putman has a gift for explaining and communicating how discipleship should occur within a church context. While his model is specific to his church, there are many great things to learn and apply from this book. His hope from the book is stated that the reader will begin to intentionally, relationally, and strategically disciple others.

This book is broken down into three different parts. The first part is about setting the stage for discipleship. He states that discipleship requires real teaching and real learning (conversation, modeling, encouragement, etc.) in the context of a relationship. His definition of a disciple is good too, “A disciple is one who is following Christ, being changed by Christ, and committed to Jesus’ mission to save people from their sins.” Following principles he studied from the Gospel, he points towards three keys to success: intentionality, relational environment, and having a process.

He uses the following stages of a disciple’s growth: Spiritually dead; Spiritual infant; Child; Young Adult; and Parent. Since Putman places discipleship within the context of a relationship he discusses the importance of a relational environment that includes real teaching, shepherding, transparency, accountability, and guided practice. Within the relational focus, he specifically addresses the importance of church and the necessity to be engaged in a local church family.

True to form, Putman explains the process disciple-makers follow to make disciples. His reproducible process is for people to share, connect, minister, and disciple. In the second part of this book he explains each one of stages. Before he gets into that though, he gives the reader a reminder that they must understand they are only responsible for their part in the process. God has His part, the disciple has their part, and we have our part! We cannot control or dictate anything other than our own actions; a good reminder.

He then details his strategy by identifying people at different stages of spiritual growth. Without giving a full rundown of everything included it would be best just to look at the diagram he provides that I found online:

Putman states that they need to keep Bible central to what we are doing in our small groups (Good Call!), so they partnered with Avery Willis (creator of MasterLife) to develop Storying thru the Bible. Basically, instead of a printed material, they read a Bible story, have someone recite a Bible story, discuss how that person did (if they added to or missed anything in the story) and then ask discussion question to dig deeper and apply the lesson. They love the model and have seen many benefits from this style of learning including that it makes the story stick, easy to recruit leaders, meets people where they are, arms people for service, helps disciple kids, evaluates where group members are, keeps groups from getting boring, and helps people get to know one another.

The final part of this book is about letting disciples emerge as leaders. He communicated the need to disciples to grow up by relating to the development of a child, into a teen, young adult, and then a parent. It is unnatural to stay in one stage of life and that should be true about our spiritual growth as well.  He said, “God gives specific gifting to people in the church in order to help the church work together effectively.” This statement speaks to the fact that God calls upon every one of His followers to be used and useful for His purposes.

This was a great book, with a phenomenal and tangible explanation for how to make disciples in a church small group setting. Putman is able to clearly communicate what his church does to the reader, therefore it is no surprise that Real-Life Ministries has grown from 12 people to over 12,000 members. I love the heart, detail, and functionality of this book. It is a must read for those who want to make disciples.

Book Review: Church Is a Team Sport By Jim Putman

This book starts off with a lengthy introduction to tell the reader how the author got where he is and the motivation behind the book. Putman is a wrestler and former wrestling coach who views the world and church through the lens of sports. He views himself as a new kind of coach, most call his role a pastor though, but he has several other coaches on his staff as well. He sees his church as a team, which should be a natural link. As a sports fan this is something I rather enjoyed.

Throughout the book he also talks about winning, something he majored on before Charlie Sheen broke on the scene with his drug-inspired freak show! One of the things I really enjoyed was how he made clear that churches should seek to win. He also defined winning by stating, “Winning is making disciples – converts who are disciple onto God’s team and taught to take part in Christ mission” (70). He showed how pathetic the state of the North American church is too through the Barna Groups research/ Of the 360,000 church in America, only 2-5% are experiencing conversion growth. Also, 50% of all evangelical churches in America did not have a single convert last year – pathetic! There are more stats, but that is enough to get a Christian fired up!

He also talked about the need for churches to win, because we belong to God and God has given us the keys to prevail over the world – in short, every church should be seeing people coming to faith in Christ and developed into disciples. Putman makes it clear that winning starts with coaches. Coaches need to move beyond their comfort zone and discover God’s purpose for the church. He views relationship, real, authentic, vulnerable relationships where you really know people and they really know you as the key for this to take place.

In his 3rd portion of the book he outlines what his church does and why. Everything is connected to the main purpose of the church. There are no independent programs or ministries, everything is interdependent and fruitful to the primary purpose of the church – in short they are a focused church. The primary method or means to make this happens is through small groups. Small groups are the fuel for making disciples and everything they do points towards getting people in small groups, so they can be involved, serve, and eventually start leading their own small group. Their goal is to develop players and them set them loose to play.

The fourth section has to do with making sure everyone is on the same page. They are all aligned for reaching the victory they have in mind. He encourages unity and the church values unity above most everything else when it comes to having everyone on the same page. It is refreshing to see the value he places on this necessity. From coaches to players, his church makes sure everyone is able to read from the same playbook. While he views theology as highly important, he is intentional to avoid useless disagreements about minor aspects of the Christian faith.

His final part of the book summarized the book and provides useful information for leaders. He speaks to hiring and recruiting new leaders. He also places a high value on constructive criticism. One of the things many pastors do not talk about is their inability to handle criticism. Putman encourages pastors/coaches to create an environment where staff and members can offer suggestions for how a pastor can improve (he really includes everyone). He says, “A coach must allow others to evaluate him; there must be a culture of accurate assement in an organization. A coach must become vulnerable and positive when he received honest feedback, or the process ends right there… An accurate and honest assessment encourages better leadership” (208). He ends the book with a challenging pep talk.

Overall, this was a very good book. He sticks to his personality and is true to himself. It was easy to read and beneficial for any church leader. The most insightful thing I read from the book was his outline of the discipleship process. He lists it as 4 Phases of Discipleship:

1. Share-Phase: knowing Christ or hearing of Him (no real difference between praying a prayer or hearing the message – I know my explanation is not what he means, but I am not elaborating here!)
2. Connect-Level: Being involved in a small group, sharing life in a Christian community
3. Ministry-Level: Serving others, moving from the consumer level (connect-level) to being a contributor
4. Disciple-Level: Training others to do what you do.

Developing a Multi-Generational Vision

Recently, I have been thinking about how to bring different generations together for the purpose of sharing insight and life together. This afternoon, this article spoke to me in such a way I wanted to share part of it with you. If you are a member of my church, begin thinking about having a Mulch-Generational Home Group this year!

We Must Think Long-Term

Having a multi-generational outlook means thinking long-term. Thinking long-term is difficult in a society that worships speed and efficiency. Many parents cannot wait until retirement to hop in the Winnebago and drive down to sunny Florida. Many of our nation's senior citizens have already done this, proudly displaying the bumpersticker, "I'm retired and spending my children's inheritance." In Deuteronomy 6:2, we read that God specifically tells parents that their responsibility extends to the third generation. God wants parents to see their responsibility as a long-term commitment that does not end when the children leave home or retirement.

Having a long-term perspective is crucial to raising children for at least two reasons. First, without it, many parents surely give up. Second, to produce faithful generations requires us to be oriented to the future, eagerly anticipating how our lives can contribute to God's work in the future. It will be difficult to expect our children to have a hopeful vision for the future if we are reluctant, passive and without hope ourselves. Short-term thinking is a perfect setup for failure. God continually reminds us to have our eyes on the future.

To help keep our thinking future-oriented, the Bible uses the following words: "remember," "testimony," "covenant," "generations," "inheritance," and "heritage". A long-term focus is crucial to persevere through the trials that we all encounter (Philippians 3:13-14; Romans 5:1-5). By thinking long-term, we can have hope. Our children can succeed where we have failed! But for this to happen, we must not let a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year distract us and lead us into a detour of despondency.

One of the hallmarks of a great leader is his ability to offer hope to those who have no hope. Hope is an increasingly scarce commodity. But our God is a God of hope! As God's children and as leaders, we must share this sense of hope with generations.

� Copyright 2002 Institute for Uniting Church and Home, all rights reserved. The Institute for Uniting Church and Home is a trans-denominational ministry.

Book Review: The Prodigal God by Keller

Timothy Keller’s work, The Prodigal God, focuses on The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Although it is not the most exciting or entertaining book I have ever read, it is very though provoking and stirs one’s mind to think about the life you live – whether or not you live it for God or to get something from Him.

He introduces his ideas in a way I have never heard the story framed, by those hearing it. It seems funny for me to say that as I like to be one who follows proper hermeneutics, but in reality it is true. The primary focus is always on the lost son, and I have never heard any preacher talk about the perspective of the hearers of the story. In reality, that is what makes this book great as it opens up the heart of what Jesus was getting at.

Keller intentionally labels the brothers the younger brother and the older brother… eventually adding another brother to the story – no this is not heresy, it simply is an addition to illuminate what could have or should have been. He concludes his book with a Gospel presentation and challenge. This is a book I would recommend to anyone preaching, teaching, or wanting to get to the heart of The Parable of the Prodigal Son.

(here is a link to the parable)

MENTORING MINISTRY STRATEGY

1. Define success by relational connection

2. Help older believers embrace their responsibility

3. Invest in families (partner with entire families)

4. Value differences in a healthy way

5. Allow younger people to have a voice (we have to listen to what they are saying)

8 THINGS A MENOTR SHOULD DO

1. Start with someone you know (if you are not approached by someone and you desire to mentor)

2. The mentor should be further along in life and the Christian walk

3. Ask Questions

4. Share experience

5. Learn Together (books, resources, Bible study)

6. Look for “real life issue” to capitalize on

7. Keep Growing

8. Connect the mentoree with your family

6 ROLES OF A MENTOR

1. Treat the mentoree like a person, not a project
• Projects, not people, require agendas
• God is working in that person, our job is not to force them in a direction we think we should go
• Think relationship, not and end goal

2. Ask, “What is God already doing here?”

3. Understand the difference between beliefs (biblical) and opinions (personal)

4. Understand the difference between spiritual maturity and maturing
• A person is moving closer to God or further away – relationship with God

5. Trust God to carry the mentoree to completion

6. Participate in experiences together (with your mentoree)

WHY MENTOR?

Starting next Tuesday, I will have 3 posts concentrating on mentoring. My ideas have been generated and/or taken from The Slow Fade by Joiner, Bomar & Smith. For today, the focus will be on getting you to think about the topic and why you should be mentored and/or mentor someone else.

WHY MENTOR?

• To join God in the work He is already doing in someone’s life.
• When we discover who we are in God, we discover our purpose and find meaning.
• Teach them they can never outrun the arm of grace!
• Mutual transformation; God transforms you, not just the mentoree!

4 Constants in Family Bible Study by Mark Driscoll

From Mark Driscoll: I’m not a hugely formal student. I study a lot, read all the time, and in our family, things flex from week to week, season to season, and as the kids age. Upon reflection, though, four things are constant:

1.Lots of Bibles
We have tons of Bibles all over the house. We have Bibles for every age, lots of translations, and lots of formats. To be honest, if a member of my family finds a Bible they like that is faithful, I am not at all legalistic about which one they prefer. Most days, every room of the house has a Bible of some kind in it, ready to read.

2.A love of Bible reading
I love to read the Bible and want my family to love reading in general, and Bible reading in particular. It’s not a forced rule, but a fun part of life. Everyone in our family likes to read the Bible and does so daily. I’ve never made a rule about daily Bible reading, but we all do as a habit that we enjoy by God’s grace. We all read Scripture and pray at night before bed as a sort of wind-down wrap-up to the day and the kids like it a lot.

3.Life integration
Throughout the daily moments of life, the window of opportunity opens up to sit down with Grace and the kids, either one on one or as a group, to open the Bible and apply a particular portion to something happening in their life. As a parent and a spouse, it is a great honor to be on watch, appointed by God to capture these sacred moments of bringing Scripture to bear on a teachable moment.

4.Age-appropriate discussion We eat dinner together and have a Bible at the table that I use to lead discussions. We also keep a notebook of prayers for people and the kids really like seeing prayers answered and checked off. Some nights the family gets down some rabbit trail of conversation that is not overtly theological, and as a dad I don’t force a big theological discussion upon them, but rather follow the Holy Spirit as we just enjoy one another. Other nights we have some big theological discussions that I lead out of the Bible. After church on Sundays, since I’m still working, Grace is faithful to ask the kids what they learned in the service or their class and draw out of them what God revealed to them from Scripture. Anyone wanting to grow in this skill can read Big Truths for Young Hearts by Bruce Ware, in which he shows how to teach theology to kids in an age-appropriate fashion.
With our children (ages four to twelve), Bible reading really varies, but here is what is going on presently in our home:

Gideon (4) gets read a lot of Bible stories (especially at night) and asked fun Bible questions that I probably need to compile as a free e-book. I’ve done this with all the kids over the years as a sort of Bible Jeopardy for kids. He likes The Jesus Storybook Bible, The Beginner’s Bible, and The First Step Bible.

Alexie (6) is reading well so she reads to her mom and me from an age-appropriate Bible every day. No matter what, this includes snuggle time before bed, which is a big deal to her. She likes The Jesus Storybook Bible, as well as reading on her own from The Beginner’s Bible, and The First Step Bible.

Calvin (8) is reading well and has a good Bible for his age that he reads each day, and we discuss with him what he’s learning. He is enjoying Mighty Acts of God by Starr Meade, which is an age-appropriate book for him to read. Previously he read through The Jesus Storybook Bible on his own multiple times, and now he needs something a bit more suited for his reading level, so we’re trying other additional Bibles to give him some variety.

Zac (10) is reading through the New Testament right now in the New International Reader’s Version (NIrV), an age-appropriate version for him. He also is reading for fun from The Picture Bible, which is set up like a comic book. He also enjoys books such as Ten Boys Who Changed the World and Ten Boys Who Didn’t Give In, which are short biographies.

Ashley (12) read through the entire English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible last year and is reading through the entire ESV Study Bible, including the notes, this year and so far has finished up the Pentateuch (first five books). She is an avid reader who reads a lot of fiction for fun, loves Christian biographies, and also has chosen to read through my new book Doctrine and write a report on it for school, which means the world to me. She keeps joking that one day she will be my research assistant and copy editor, as she’s a very gifted writer and we may have her start blogging for teenage girls and are praying it through.

Momma Grace and I are constantly reading and, it seems nearly every day, discussing what we are learning. Date nights and other extended times together are usually spent talking about people we are ministering to, the kids, and what we are reading and learning. This is pretty much a lifestyle for us that has been in effect for many years. We study very differently and so it works best for us each to study individually and then share together what we’re learning and discuss it. The Bible studies that had the biggest impact on Grace personally were on repentance and regeneration. She also loves the biblical counseling that comes from www.ccef.org, enjoys Carolyn Mahaney and has particularly enjoyed doing her Girl Talk study with Ashley, which is great for moms and daughters.

Lastly, I highly value reading. When I was a little boy, my mom took me to the library very often and helped birth in me a great love of books and learning. So, in our home we each have our own library. Every bedroom has a bookshelf with a small library for each family member. We have a small family reference library downstairs off the reading room, where there is good lighting, comfy seating, and a fireplace, and no technology resides (e.g., TV, computer, stereo). That family reference library has commentaries, Bible dictionaries, concordances, Bible background information, and so on to help anyone get basic Bible study done. My rule about books is that if it’s decent and you’ll read it, I will buy it. My personal library is pushing five thousand volumes in print and many more than that in Logos Software and other digital formats. The other members of my family have maybe a combined thousand or more books. It has taken years to collect them all, and many come from friends who donated them or used book stores, but, bit by bit, you can build a decent library and continue to encourage reading by making it interesting with lots of options and fun

Book Review: Forgotten God by Chan

I thought Crazy Love was crazy good, so my expectation was high for Forgotten God… it did not live up to that expectation for me. While I think Chan is a great man with admirable passion, this book simply did not do it for me.

With that being said, there were some good points in the book. Starting off he throws down intense exegesis (letting the text speak for itself) verse eisegesis (making the text say what you want it to say) explanation which is not only relevant, it is needed. He is dead on accurate with his statements that we tend to leave out the Holy Spirit and rely on what we can do as well. His work has some great thought provoking points as well.

Chapter 6 was my favorite chapter, although the title is a bit abrasive for some in my opinion. So in short, if you want a contemporary view of the Holy Spirit, read this book… Just enter into the pages with a different mindset than that of Crazy Love.

Book Review: Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions by Barna

As a minister, Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions is the best parenting book I have ever read. Not only would I recommend it for anyone who works in a church, I would strongly recommend it to parents as well. We have a tendency to pawn off the responsibility of our children’s spiritual formation onto the church, when that is in fact anti-biblical and anti-productive.

Barna lays the groundwork for this work by establishing clear facts through research. From there, he lays down a Scriptural mandate for how God instructs us to raise our children. Then he provides solutions to the problem areas.

Not only that, the book also points out of failure to measure the effectiveness of our children’s spiritual development and just assume church’s are doing a good job, while giving quantifiable means by which to measure that process. Herein lies the true nugget of this book, it constantly provides solutions to real problems that come with raising Spiritual Champions.

For me, this is a book that will affect the way I do ministry in the future. It will cause me to think through the biblical role of the church and the biblical role of the family. While reading this book, I kept thinking I had read parts of this before. It would appear that Family Driven Faith (by Baucham) mirrored this book (written 4 years prior to his) in regards to philosophy and practice, although never specifically cited (Baucham did cite other Barna works).

Anyway, if you liked Family Driven Faith, you will love Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions.

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 7

Today we started off in Monastiraki, which is the major tourist spot in Athens, to grab a quick lunch and a couple of things for our family. After a short period there, we hiked up to Mars Hills to a time of Bible study, prayer, and reflection. It was fantastic to have such great reason to praise God and to talk through our trip. For me personally, I also enjoyed working on my sermon for Sunday from that key place in Greek Christian history… hopefully, the message will be as inspiring as Paul’s unknown God message!


Anyway, once we finished our time at Mars Hill, we made our way to Holargos. Today was different at our main campus because the students were receiving their marks or grades. Due to “report card day” they did not have the usual sports programs, but we were able to talk to the kids and say our goodbyes for now.


At 5:00, Sophia (the primary basketball director) drove us to a school we had never been at before to allow us to lead basketball with those children. The kids in this program were in 2nd and 3rd grade (7-8 years old – younger than our normal group). Unlike the other school, all of the parents came with them and we had a brief time to meet all of them. It was fun playing with the younger kids, and being able to lead the entirety of the session. We were not expecting to be given the reigns in this school, but we were elated to do so – we will definitely have to think through some age appropriate drills for next time!


Another cool thing about today was that our friend from America that has recently moved here joined us today; his name is Ryan. He has a very good heart and great mind for how to Shine in this country. We are excited to see how God uses him here and what will come of our newfound friendship. Fortunately, we were able to introduce him to Sophia, and he might even be able to enroll his own children in the sports academy of Holargos! It would be incredible for them to have an ongoing relationship with the workers and municipality – please pray this works out!

Ryan was also able to meet Bill. We stopped by Bill’s restaurant and introduced them to one another. Bill has a very busy schedule, but we are hoping he makes time to study the Word with Ryan and develop a friendship with him as well – please pray for this too! Our time with Ryan today, playing with children, introducing him to our friends, and dialoging about our work here encouraged our hearts greatly. It is our hope to continue this partnership and watch what happens!

Whenever I return home, I will do a summary of our trip. As a final prayer request, please pray that God would bless us with a safe and uneventful trip home. God is good, and He is definitely moving here!

Getting People in Small Groups is Not the Goal

I'm sitting in a conference listening to a real-life case study. A pastor from Texas presented his problem: "How do we get more people in small groups?" He went on to explain that only about 500 of their 2200 attendees are involved in small groups.

The conference participants then helped this pastor find a solution for getting more people in small groups.

But to me, it seems like the wrong question. Why is the goal to get more people in small groups? I'm sure his goal is bigger than just getting people in close proximity to each other. There must be something that happens in small groups that he really wants people involved in. Perhaps it is Bible study, or deeper relationships, or perhaps he knows that spiritual growth happens better in the context of those relationships.

Asking "why aren't more people in small groups" seems like a newer version of the question, "Why can't we get more people to attend Sunday school?" It doesn't really get to the real desire.

Maybe it would be better to ask, "How do we get more people to study the Bible?" or "How do we get people to take spiritual steps in deeper relationship with others?"

Maybe the answer isn't Sunday School...or small groups. Maybe it's something we haven't even thought of. Maybe it is 50 different answers for a church of 2200 people.

It is so easy to get stuck on a method. That which is innovative today can become an idolatrous method tomorrow.

from Tim Stevens