I’ve mentioned before that at Sun Valley (the church I have the privilege of serving at) we routinely gather the staff from all of our campuses together for a time of worship, celebration, communication, training…and of course a good meal. Recently we had the opportunity to spend some time with Dale Peterson who serves as the Executive Director of the Eagle Brook Association. Here are some of my notes from the conversation.
- The demand for people to know Christ is greater than our current capacity…so what are we going to do?
- Acts 2:
- The first church was a megachurch
- They grew numerically daily
- Will you be a church where people follow Jesus and a church that I can actually invite my friends to
- People don’t invite people to things that are average
- You can’t hire average people because average people get average results
- Spend time with God
- If you know God’s heart you’ll make decisions based on God’s heart for people
- Connect in Community
- Serve Others out of our giftedness
- Life Generously
- BUT what the church wants:
- Bible study and that’s not bad, unless it stops there
- Fellowship with people that look and act like us
- Help out (out of guilt)
- Give 2.5% of their income to make sure their favorite ministry programs happen and the pastor gets a paycheck so we can keep the doors open
- 80% of churches in America are plateaued or declining and see 1 conversion a year
- 3,500 churches in America die every year…last year was the first year church planters kept up with the death rate so it was a zero sum game
- And there are more people on earth than ever before…the harvest is greater than it’s ever been
- Passion alone is not enough to motivate the church to go and reach people for Jesus
- Most Christians are more worried about their bible study than their neighbor
- Most Christians are sitting around praying and waiting for God to do something at their church…and He did 2,000 years ago…stop praying and do something
- Most people in ministry are relegated to zookeepers…they feed the church and clean up after it…but the church has nothing to offer outsiders
- People drive by the church and never think the church has anything to offer them
- Vision statements don’t change the church
- Churches that get it done build the right kind of culture
- Building a vision culture
- Beliefs: foundational beliefs, what we’re wiling to die for…just a couple (let’s not be willing to die for everything) there’s things we’re willing to die for, there’s things we’ll defend, and there’s things we’ll discuss
- Values: (beliefs and values answer the question of who are we) – these are the desired behaviors that we’d like the whole church to act like…then we create ministry programs that produce the behaviors that we value most
- Purpose: Why…Reunited in relationship with the Father (lost people are what Jesus cares about) Matt. 22
- Mission: What we do…Matt. 28 (reach)…the front door into the church
- Strategy: How we do it here (is this still working?…and how do you know?)
- Goals: tell you where you’re going and when you’ll get there
- How can 3,500 churches die every year while doing their bible studies when there are 7billion people on the planet
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