The what is your church up to thread.

[GodsoldierClintus]

Following the "Restriction on the Gospel Thread" I would like to discuss with my fellow brothers and sisters what their churches are doing to "be salt and light" and how they are doing in terms of the great commission etc. How is your church (that's your congregation) impacting on your community?

I'll start.

Just attended a 6hr church leadership meeting so quite errr tired today. As a relatively new church plant we've probably not had the growth we've wanted but that comes down to planting a new church and moving forward and improving and following God's guidance. We witness to families, uni students and the elderly in our community. We do some community service but there's probably not enough, and not enough witnessing into the community. We are going to be working on more community engagements next year, addition to Red Shield. We want to organise a stop the traffik evening in our suburb to gain more contact with community. We hold trivia nights each year and stuff like that. The new mothers at church have started a Music themed thing for the mothers and their children. We as the youth almost caused a riot among the new church plant when our youth study actually exceeded church numbers...we've been given a bit of free reign but haven't been very productive in *conversion* or even motivating other youth. There's been 3-6 of us that have been driving us and that's pretty much the same. I spoke today to the corp officer and the other church leaders and it looks like I should be able to gain support to go across corps to build an evangelical mission.

Apart from that the entire church structure is changing next year and I'll most likely get stuck into evangelical pursuits, particularly working with the homeless. I also want to get myself into the brass band, cause it's cool and has absolutely nothing to do with anything. (Really it's just the special red uniforms)

We want to get our entire community involved in our mission to the phillipines next year and hopefully bring a few non-Christians to see what the heart of the gospel is about.

Overall I feel we are not engaging enough with community, but we are working on that and as the smallest Salvo corp/plant in Brisbane I think we are doing okay.

 

[ebia]

You say you are a new church plant, but you didn't say how long you've been going?

It sounds like you are doing the right sorts of things, but without some indication of timescale it's impossible to have any idea of what sort of growth you reasonably could have seen.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

Been going for three years. I have no idea how many people started it, cause I myself only joined the church a year ago.

 

[ebia]

Been going for three years. I have no idea how many people started it, cause I myself only joined the church a year ago.

Ok - that's a reasonable time to look at. You say you haven't seen the kind of growth you hoped for - what growth have you seen, and what growth were you expecting?

I'm interested because we are in a vaguely similar position (a new parish, but based on an existing congregation & building. A new vision, but some continuity of people), but earlier in the process, so discussing some of the issues could be productive.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

We've had a lot of people coming through the church. What I mean is they come in and then move onto other ministry based things which is great...it's just that the church itself doesn't grow in numbers. It'd be nice to have our own building instead of hiring one because it'd be more obvious the Salvation Army is in this suburb. If we have more people, we'd be able to reach out to more people. In terms of growth yeah I guess but that I really mean people, and by that ultimately meaning more people coming into the kingdom of God.

 

[ebia]

We've had a lot of people coming through the church. What I mean is they come in and then move onto other ministry based things which is great...it's just that the church itself doesn't grow in numbers.

Do you mean that it's all 'existing' Christians coming in, doing some ministry with you, and then moving on, and you aren't producing any new converts?

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

Yeah thats what I mean

 

[ebia]

None at all?

Anyone progressing in that direction at all - even if they might continue the journey with some other congregation?

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

hmmm...hard to say...I'd say as a church..that is a members of the body we would probably have converted people. I was "converted" at another church before I became a soldier and I guess the only convert so far would be my friend who I brought to the church. Most of the church are already people involved in a lot of other ministries.

It is a bit of a worry...we're just not good at bringing people into our church...although half the church now are the students who have joined in the last few years.

 

[ebia]

hmmm...hard to say...I'd say as a church..that is a members of the body we would probably have converted people. I was "converted" at another church before I became a soldier and I guess the only convert so far would be my friend who I brought to the church. Most of the church are already people involved in a lot of other ministries.

It is a bit of a worry...we're just not good at bringing people into our church...although half the church now are the students who have joined in the last few years.

It could be that your collective call to ministry is not so much to add to the numbers as the quality - to grow the discipleship of those who pass through, who will then go onto other things.

But, assuming that's not the case, what are you doing to attract outsides in?

And how easy are you to join? I don't mean in the sense of membership requirements, but in terms of initial welcome if someone new does show their face, and how easy is it for someone new to build relationships and friends? Bob Jackson suggests that if someone hasn't started to make friends within 3 weeks they won't stay. A friendly church is not necessarily one that allows newcomers to make friends.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

It could be that your collective call to ministry is not so much to add to the numbers as the quality - to grow the discipleship of those who pass through, who will then go onto other things.

That's certainly how my friends would put it and there are a lot of other churches in the area. What you said about welcoming people is interesting...I think that we're probably not very good at doing that since we are such a tight bunch. Keeping in mind there's probably only 30 of us at most and every week there's probably around 15 of us at church on the weekends.

It's just that I know this suburb needs us...I went to the uniting church once or twice and found the stuff they discuss completely irrelevant. It's hard we just need more people within the church to make a greater impact on the community. But we did discuss ways to make that happen in the meeting, even without limited numbers.

 

[ebia]

That's certainly how my friends would put it and there are a lot of other churches in the area. What you said about welcoming people is interesting...I think that we're probably not very good at doing that since we are such a tight bunch. Keeping in mind there's probably only 30 of us at most and every week there's probably around 15 of us at church on the weekends.

I can understand why that would make for a close group, but if that's the case you probably want to think actively about how you would draw any new faces into the group.

It's just that I know this suburb needs us...I went to the uniting church once or twice and found the stuff they discuss completely irrelevant.

Out of interest, what do you mean?

It's hard we just need more people within the church to make a greater impact on the community. But we did discuss ways to make that happen in the meeting, even without limited numbers.

We all feel like that sometimes, but there's a good deal of experience, statistical evidence, and theoretical explanation that shows it's actually easier to grow small churches than large ones.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

Out of interest, what do you mean?

Well it mightn't be reflective of the activities of the church or even thr group but on the times we went was when due to the Red Shield appeal we didn't have church so we decided to go to the young adults night of the uniting church. And they were talking about demons and stuff which I'm not sure is like even within the top 100 topics you can draw from the bible. It was just really speculative about what demons could be like and stuff. I mean is there any real need to discuss that kind of stuff?

Maybe I'm just a really practical kind of guy.

 

[ebia]

Well it mightn't be reflective of the activities of the church or even thr group but on the times we went was when due to the Red Shield appeal we didn't have church so we decided to go to the young adults night of the uniting church. And they were talking about demons and stuff which I'm not sure is like even within the top 100 topics you can draw from the bible. It was just really speculative about what demons could be like and stuff. I mean is there any real need to discuss that kind of stuff?

Maybe I'm just a really practical kind of guy.

OK... I see your point.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

Anyway this wasn't just meant to be about my church..how is everybody elses going?

 

[ebia]

We've only been going since Feb, so it's a bit early to say too much.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

O really, that's great. Are you a pastor of sorts ebia?

 

[ebia]

O really, that's great. Are you a pastor of sorts ebia?

No, just a lay member of the leadership team.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

That's cool. I think I will apply to be the youth rep on the leadership team soon since the last rep is leaving.

Comeon there's more of you people in churches...why is it just me and Ebia discussing this?

 

[emmanemena]

My church has continually grown in numbers for the last ten years (We've been around for 15) and we've had over 5 baptisms in each of the last 3 years. This year alone we had 12. However, most baptisms are for youth who had never really thought about it before our new youth pastor brought it up and most new attendees have just moved to the area and found our church to be a good one. My area is one of the fastest growning in Australia so it's not a surprise that we have so many transfers.

My church moved into its own building 3 years ago and hasn't had much of a vision since then but next year we will be focused on Vision08, the details of which we are being told on Sunday but my Dad who's on the Leadership Team has said it is a big focus on merging with the Latin church that meets in our building. That is going to be a huge thing for many people in the church but the youth are already merged and are loving it!

The youth groups (high school and young adult) are booming, not so much in numbers but in spiritual growth and next year we are going to get into schools ministry and community outreach events so that the community knows that we exist and what we're here for. We got a new pastor at the start of last year and he is so enthusiastic to see us focused and being a missional group and I think we are actually doing better in that way than the adult/family church.

The church is also going to start doing this more but we already have a Mainly Music, Girls' Brigade, Craft and Quilting groups that are all big outreach programmes through which several people have come to faith.