Design of a church

A short history:  Willow Creek Church developed a survey (REVEAL) to see how spiritually mature its congregation was.  They were shocked to find high levels of dissatisfaction with the church, and a big lack of correlation between church activity attendance and spiritual growth.  Granger Community Church (about 6000 members) recently completed the survey, and also found some facts that shocked them.  Attenders indicate they have very little spiritual maturity: minimal Biblical worldview, minimal ability to spiritually grow on their own.

Today’s post:  I’ve been watching the video of the midweek service where the pastor of Granger is telling the midweek attenders about the changes to the church in response to the survey.  It’s powerful, because he’s a dynamic speaker.  But I want to get to the meat of what I’m learning.  My hope is writing this will clarify how a church could arrange itself to maximize the spiritual growth of its members… and how a class like my new one might be part of such an arrangement.

What Mark Beeson said:

• Culture changes, but the Word of God does not.  We need to make the Gospel available to today’s culture.
• People who visit a church today are intrigued by the idea of experience (worship, commitment) more than seekers 20 years ago. Don’t be afraid to maximize worship.  Also, make parking better.
• Focus on spiritual growth.  Granger is creating a mid-week worship (1 Wed) / growth (3 Weds) night.  The classes for growth are called: Encounter, Empower, Engage.
• Encounter:  study the Bible, take notes, create a Biblical worldview.  Classes on books of the Bible (Matthew, Ephesians, etc).  Learning how my story intersects with God’s story.
• Empower: spiritual disciplines.  What should I do (or stop doing) to make room for spiritual growth?
• Engage: Applying God to my daily life.  Marriage, budgeting, parenting, addictions.
• BE CHRIST CENTERED.
• Have youth also do Bible training on Wednesday night (save fun-n-Jesus for Sunday afternoon)

My thoughts:

• How much are people attracted to teachers, rather than the work and discipline itself?
• How can I break through the barriers to reading the Bible that people have?  How can people become excited about READING?