WHY WE ARE NOT GROWING IN OUR CHURCHES
I have been thinking about what it takes to change our churches & produce growth. The unchurched will not come to a local sanctuary, but will come to football games and keep on coming. Evangelists are discouraged when it comes to empty pews. Meanwhile, the church in the Third World is exploding! There are several things they are doing that amazes me. Here are some of them:
1-A small church of 200 members will have 40 congregations. This is where they put their money… small congregations which are being planted in needy areas.
2-The church is open to blacks, whites, indigenous people & visitors…there are no “white only” churches in South America.
3-There is no discrimination to singles: single women, single men, single mothers, single elderly.
4-40% of all attendees are below 26 years of age.
5-The pastors will visit people of the church all day and the associates handle the office.
6-The pastors will preach out of the overflow toward needs & salvation…..80% of the time.
It seems to me that our churches here in the US are in need of a revival of grace. When my father began his ministry, he brought to church all the women who worked in the streets along with the drug addicts. Salvation came to those in need first and then to the rest. We in America have specialized in “normal people.” If there is anything about someone needing to be built up or healed, we call for the doctors and psychiatric care.
We need a revival of grace and love to common people - and to those in the greatest need. Jesus, speaking about the greastest commendament, said:
“Love your God will all your heart, all your mind and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31).
50% of what is considered sin by God is related to you and others. Here is what can increase grace in us toward OTHERS:
1-Allow self-expression in worship and cut back liturgy (we have too much of it).
2-Permit worship music to be creative and led by those called to do it. Dismiss the professional musicians (most of them are boring). Simply to play well does not mean you are called. God is tired of fake worship. In some cities there is more life in the bar across the street than in the sanctuary of God.
3-Hire pastors who are called and saved by grace. Dismiss those who just need a job.
4-Change the time of worship. What we have now is Wednesday 7:00 o’clock and Sunday 11:00 o’clock. How about a worship for working people from 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm where you serve free lunch?
5-Cancel all public offerings. Make a hole in the wall in the back of the church and teach about tithing and offerings. People will give more if they are free to do when they want to, all through the week.
6-Make it mandatory that every new member should go on a mission trip. Teach them to understand the global village and how the world feels about us.
7-Remove all clocks from the sanctuary… tell members that if they have to go to leave quietly… and let the Holy Spirit keep moving.
8-Teach the ministry of Jesus, the real Jesus, the Son of God, the worker of miracles.
Since I believe that no one has the whole truth but Jesus, take it and use it or leave it. Hallelluia!!
Rick Bonfim
AMEN AND AMEN!!!
Comment by jeanne spradlin — May 27, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
AMEN AND AMEN!!!
Comment by jeanne spradlin — May 27, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
What a good word this is Rick, given in the grace and love of the Lord. Young and old alike are starving for a church like the one you are describing, where the Kingdom is preached and the people walk hand in hand with the King of the Kingdom with signs, wonders and miracles following. May the Lord birth such churches empowered by the Holy Spirit and propelled by the love of the Lord! Amen!
Comment by Kay Harris — May 27, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
Dear Rick, How in the world are you? Thanks for the above article. Keep on preaching the truth. Would love to see you.God bless. LeRoy and Peg
Comment by LeRoy V. Jones — May 27, 2008 @ 4:50 pm
Your thoughts are excellent and in Truth, Rick. I would just like to add, remember the “odd shift” workers who need to worship. Working Saturday 7pm - 7am and going back Sunday 7pm - 7am means a “normal worship” day is impossible. Single adults, esp.older ones, are made to feel like something is wrong with us by the church - I have experienced this everywhere I have attended for various reasons. The only time I have ever been honored by the church was when I was with you in Brasil. Your people know how to LOVE and WORSHIP. Here in the U.S. the “World” got into the church, and the church must kick “worldly ways” out - then JESUS can be LORD of HIS BRIDE. Currently, there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a “Come as U R” Florida Revival with the preacher tatooed, pierced, and in t-shirts - (I confess that I wasn’t drawn to him as I didn’t see his heart and the music was too youthful) - construction workers, bikers, drunks (ex. due to death of son in Iraq), men who avoid the church … coming to Jesus, broken by the world, in need of a God who loves them. I worship nightly in my living room with these seekers via GOD TV, as I have not found a church home here in my new community that accepts me and worships during the week. The Methodists here don’t speak in tongues, and they only fellowship and eat on Wednesday nights. Thank You -for “THINKING”! GOD SEND REVIVAL! AMEN.
Comment by Elizabeth Chapman — May 27, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
WOW!!! This has needed to be said for a long time. I hope all churches and pastors will read it and apply it to their ministry in some way. Thank you
Comment by Angela Roark — May 27, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
Halleluiah Pastor Rick………….
Preach the Gospel, I miss it so… Everything you say is the truth. Each day when the news comes on I want to turn it off. We are the most influential and richest country in the world and we are daily as Christians and Citizens watching our country go straight to excuse me but Hell.
We are to Love our God with all of our Heart, all our mind, and all of our strength, and love your neighbor as we love our selves. (Mark 12: 30-31.)
Almost impossible for us to do isn’t it? I can’t even pretend to imagine where I would be
#1) If it were not for his Grace!!
#2) If it were not for those that have chosen to follow his greatest commandment, and
Love others as much as or more than they do themselves.
Over the last months I have been so near death that I can honestly say; there were times that I do not consciously remember anything. But what I do know is during those times I subconsciously knew where I was going if I didn’t remain in this world, and when I woke up and was told how miraculous it was that I was still on this earth alive. I knew there was a band of missionaries praying for me, I knew there were people in Brazil praying for me, I knew there were people all over the world whose lives had been touched by the hand of this ministry whether they knew me or not, wasn’t’ important. I was and am loved, and I am a Daughter of the King of Kings. So without question, people prayed. People who didn’t care who I was, except that prayer had been asked for and prayer would be received.
#3) A little tiny statue of a woman, Bigger than any Giant, I can imagine, loves me.
Took me in her arms one day, when she had no idea who I was, where I came from,
And didn’t care. She prayed over me, she placed her hands on me, she wept for me,
She loved me and knew me not. Her name is Mary Lucy Bonfim.
To this day, my life was forever changed, not because of who I was, not because I was good or bad. But because of Grace, she obediently loved her neighbor as she would herself; actually I’m convinced even much more. She knows if I am down, she knows if I am sick, she knows if I am happy, does she have some special connection?? You bet she does, she loves as Christ and she lives it every moment of every day of every breath she takes. That is Love…That is a Christian…… She is a child of the King…….
Talking of Pastors visiting their people, they don’t do it anymore.
Many have to go to the fitness center after lunch, much more important to work out. than visit an elderly grandma that can no longer go to church, bound to four walls and a wheelchair.
Or a single mother with five children, because of what someone might say instead of the pastor and his wife visiting this family whose father left them with nothing….
They don’t visit in hospitals anymore; the hospital hires a pastor to do that, so pastors don’t minister to their sick and dying members… Their too busy at the office doing???what????
I was in the hospital for almost two months, and do you know not one pastor entered my
room to visit. But my Pastor called from Augusta almost every single day, some days
three of four times a day.
I agree remove all the clocks, remove the professional bands, stop being afraid of preaching on tithe because it offends the seeker, if you don’t start giving him the first 10% he just might decide to keep all of it. Then what will we do.
Preachers should start preaching to their congregations again, instead of guest that probably aren’t in the congregation anyway. If they become offended then they probably needed to be there. But they aren’t the ones that come up and complain after service, that’s usually the regulars that do that.
I want to reach the unreached for Christ more than anyone. But you preach it and they will come. And it just might mean that a few sitting there that think they already have a reservation, just might find out they don’t have a TICKET!!!!!
Teach the ministry of Jesus, the real Jesus, the Son of God, the worker of miracles….
Since I believe that no one has the whole truth but Jesus, take it and use it or leave it. Halleluiah!!
Praise God Pastor Rick
In Service Together For the King,
Judy Williams-Mason
Matthew28: 16-20
Comment by Judy Williams-Mason — May 27, 2008 @ 11:35 pm
YES! YES!! YES!!!
Rick your last 2 blog posts are Rock Solid!
Comment by Carol Fleming — May 29, 2008 @ 3:47 pm