The following notes are from "Simple Church" by Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger. I in no way take credit for any of it, but do take full responsibility to 'lead up' in order to implement the strategy at my church.
Pastor Rush's work week:
Wed pm: 1. Lead prayer meeting, 2. return calls, 3. finance team meeting
(This is the day he returns from a conference too!)
Thurs: 1. Breakfast with one of the men on the church board, 2. Staff meeting 3. hospital visits 4. Small group 5.
Fri: 1. Disapoint a board member by passing on high-school game to date wife instead (and probably feel guilty during the date!)
Sat: Prepare message for Sunday (yes the day before... no small feat physically, emotionally, and creatively!)
Sun: 1. Preach in the morning 2. Preach a different message in the evening (with guilt due to lack of quality in evening messages)!
He has no time to meet neighbors due to constant late nights coming home. Prepares for staff meeting too quickly! Decides he doesn't have time or emotional energy to deal with staff issues so he will not deal with them.
He begins to ask himself questions: "Are the people in his church being transformed? Is his church making real disciples, the kind of disciples Jesus made? Or is everyone just busy?"
Quotes:
"People are hungry for simple because the world has become much more complex."
Over 400 churches surveyed.
Matt 11:28-30 Jesus' yoke is easy... living as a disciple is not complex. Does our church reflect that? "Jesus is adamantly opposed to anything that gets in the way of people encountering Him."
"Many people are busy doing church instead of being the church."
Pg 21 "Ministry schizophrenia." "It occurs most often when churhces attempt to blend multiple churhc models into one."
"Parts are evaluated but never the whole." pg 22
"Simple church leaders are designers." "They are concerned with what happens between the programs as with the programs themselves." pg 25
No comments:
Post a Comment