10 SIGNS THAT YOU ATTEND A GREAT CHURCH

From ChurchLeaders.Com comes this important checklist which originated with Greg Stier of Dare@Share, a great youth ministry resource. - STEVE

When you're plugged into a church that's focused on the things of God, you can tell the difference.

I love the church. She is Christ’s bride and the key to cultural transformation. In that sense, every church is great. But let’s be honest, there are a ton of churches that leave much to be desired when it comes to truly making a difference in their congregations and communities. So, when you plug into a church that is getting it done, it’s a true blessing.

Of course there are no perfect churches, but there are many that are pressing toward the high water mark we see in Scripture.

Here are 10 signs you may be going to a great local church:

1. It is lead by a team of godly leaders not a Lone Ranger pastor who gathers Tonto-type leaders around him to say “Yes, Kemo Sabe” to his each and every idea (Titus 1:5-9).
2. The Gospel is central to every sermon, program and meeting (1 Corinthians 15:3,4) and the advancement of it both locally and globally drive strategic initiatives (Acts 1:8).
3. People are using their spiritual gifts not just watching the “stage team” exercise theirs (1 Corinthians 12:12-31), resulting in disciples being made and multiplied (2 Timothy 2:2).
4. It, like the early church, is integrated, fully representing the demographic of the community in which it resides (Ephesians 2:11-21). By the way, my buddy Derwin Gray has got a lot of great material (blogs, sermons, etc.) on this particular point.
5. Love, demonstrating itself in friendliness, generosity, internal/external care programs and community involvement, dominates the atmosphere (1 Corinthians 13:1-8).
6. Most likely there is a thriving small group program where members truly can have great biblical conversations, share struggles and pray with/for each other (James 5:16).
7. The people are being inspired and equipped to share their faith relationally, resulting in more and more new believers being added to the church (Acts 2:47).
8. The teaching/preaching is biblical, theological and immensely practical (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 4:1-4).
9. Ministry to children and teenagers are top priorities, not afterthoughts (Titus 2:1-8; Deuteronomy 6:4-9).
10. Intercessory prayer fuels everything. It’s the engine, not the caboose, of how the church rolls from top to bottom (1 Timothy 2:1-8).
These are 10 signs you may be going to a great church. What are some other signs?  
© 2014 Dare 2 Share Ministries. Used by permission.

SELFISHNESS UNDERMINES SERVANTHOOD

 by Steve Dunn

People often criticize the church planting initiative of their denominations by saying, :"We have too many churches now that are in trouble and need help.  Why can't we concentrate on helping them grow again instead of investing so much time in creating new congregations?"  Unfortunately, such an attitude is often the front-edge of an inward-focused church more committed on maintaining the comfort of its existing members instead of making new disciples.  It is too often a maintenance or survival attitude instead of missional one.

It is a little bit like the same attitude that is expressed when so much of the church's emphasis, the leadership's time, and the pastoral focus is spent on reaching new people for Christ.  "We need to take care of the people will already have first before we try to get new people."  At heart it is an anti-evangelism attitude.

Both attitudes tend to reinforce an inward focus and a prioritizing of ministry that causes the church to have less and less impact on their community. "As long as we are satisfied that our needs are met" is the measure of faithfulness and fruitfulness.

When this is true--selfishness replaces servanthood as the character of the congregation.

And when that is true, Jesus goes in one direction and the church in another.

If you take the words of Jesus seriously, it is a no-brainer.  "Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." - Luke 17:33

God does not bless a church that forsakes its first love--that makes evangelism/discipleship a competitor for its priorities instead its reason for being.

This means churches let go of what they often sinfully believe they need in order to pursue what God has called them to provide others.  The measure of their fruitfulness is not self-satisfication or preserving your comfort.  It is what they have given up or given away that is what God is looking for.

It means that churches begin to affirm that "lost people matter to God" and begin honestly asking, "what must we be prepared to give up in order to have the time and resources to help people outside the church become reconciled to God.

(C) 2013 by Stephen L. Dunn

AMAZING GRACE

LOST PEOPLE MATTER TO GOD

“Lost people matter to God.”

I still remember Bill Hybels utter that phrase back in the 1980′s, as I watched him on tape providing the scriptural and motivational foundation for doing the work of evangelism. Famously building upon the three parables found in Luke 15, Hybels reminded us that we should never consider anything more important than helping reconcile people to God. In the ensuing two decades I have heard many a pastor, from prominent podiums to small, almost unnoticed pulpits; echo Hybels’ words.

The natural inference from that statement is that “Lost people ought to matter to God’s people.” In 39 years of ministry, I have no doubt that lost people matter to God; but I deeply question whether lost people matter to God’s people. Oh, on an intellectual level when we are trying to be theologically correct, we will all say that lost people matter to us. Our actions and our attitudes put the lie to such assertions.

1. Do we really believe that people are lost without Christ? Christian Smith has coined the phrase “moralistic, therapeutic deism” to describe what passes for the gospel in many churches today. The moralistic dimension affirms that people really can be right with God (and spend eternity with Him) if we are simply good enough. Goodness has been substituted for holiness and so we seem to believe most people who try hard enough will earn a passing score. Or we operate from some deep conviction that a loving God would never make us live with the consequences of choosing sin over His love. The Cross may make great jewelry but it is optional in terms of salvation.

2. We act as if the already persuaded are more important than the yet to be persuaded. Too many Christians and too many churches take care of themselves first, giving it the bulk of their time, their passion, their attention, their resources. Evangelism gets what’s left over. And Heaven forbid we step out of our ministry or worship comfort zones to make the Gospel accessible to those who do not yet know Jesus.

3. We celebrate birthdays but barely speak of New Birth. Maybe that’s because we have more birthdays than New Births. We make elaborate provisions to celebrate one more year on this planet but rarely make any provision for a person experiencing the first year of their eternal life on this planet. In fact, we grieve when someone forgets to give us a gift for another year of being “absent from the Lord”, but seem unperturbed when the gift of eternal life goes unclaimed.

Do you have a plan for building redemptive relationships with people so you might help them become reconciled to God? Or are you too busy with work, church programs, and personal trivial pursuits to give the lost a real priority? Does your church have a strategy for going and sharing the Good News with those who do not yet know Jesus? Or are you too busy with bake sales, class parties, prayer meetings, making the church’s trains run on time?

Lost people matter to God.

Lost people should matter to God’s people.

Would your priorities and actions reflect that?

Posted by Dr Steve Dunn, Lead Pastor at the Landisville Church of God and Chairperson of the Commission on Evangelism of the Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God.

NO VALUE IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA? THINK AGAIN

Kem Meyer is on the staff of 80 year old Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana. This church has a powerful reputation for innovation in its outward focus. In response to people who believe the church does need to bother with the social media, Kem wrote this in his blog:
"In an effort to tangibly demonstrate to my church the magnitude of the people around us who don’t have any connection to church, I developed a billboard campaign that shows a head shot image of an expressionless middle aged man along with the

"THE QUESTION: Nobody is ever going to search for our church Twitter account so they can follow it. Why would they? And since only a few of our people even know what Twitter is, our church membership certainly isn’t going to follow it. So why then should I spend any time at all working on it?

In an effort to tangibly demonstrate to my church the magnitude of the people around us who don’t have any connection to church, I developed a billboard campaign that shows a head shot image of an expressionless middle aged man along with the simple question:
simple question:

Where can I find hope?

Below the question, this appears: Text GOD to 25827.

This single billboard, located at the second busiest intersection in the city, went up on Jan. 27, 2010. As of noon today there have been 1,214 specific cell numbers gathered from this effort that are not registered within our own database already. This tells me that nearly 25 new people a day, who are nameless to us, are taking the time to stop and send a text message to find out the answer to that question. This billboard is less than a mile from our church.

No effort in the history of this 80 year old church has garnered that number of potential candidates for salvation.

MY ANSWER TO THE QUESTION: There is a lost and suffering society all around us without hope. A high percentage of them actually use Twitter and Facebook. Since I know they don’t have an interest following our church, I’m going to follow them instead. Using the search tools, I’m going to purposely follow anyone and everyone who posts anything on Twitter within 10 miles of our zip code. I’m going to do this with the prayer that some of them will in turn follow us. And even further that some of the people who follow the people we follow will want to follow us (confusing I know…draw a picture if you need to).

In all honesty, much of what is posted on the twitter accounts I’m now following is very objectionable. I want to lead old school believers to an understanding that not only is it okay for the church to do this, we’re supposed to. What I know to be true is the best way to fill your own cup is to fill someone else’s. Since I know these people are not going to come to me, I’m going to go to them."

For more of this post go to:http://kemmeyer.typepad.com/less_clutter_noise/2010/03/there-is-no-ministry-value-in-twitter-one-church-responds.html

EVANGELISM IS CONTAGIOUS

Steve Sjogren is one of the high impact leaders for the whole concept of the Outward Focused Church. In particular, Steve, then Senior Pastor at the Vineyard Fellowship in Cincinnati, popularized the concept of Servant Evangelism. We continue to use his classic Conspiracy of Kindness in the School of Evangelism of our Eastern Regional Conference. Recently Steve posted an article at on-line site of LEADERSHIP JOURNAL.

Steve writes: "There's an upward spiral effect, an enthusiasm that builds. People start laughing and telling stories and evangelism becomes easy because the courage is contagious. I think in our day there's a chronic shortage of joy in evangelism. The whole idea of having fun and high-fiving each other is almost completely foreign to us. But it is out there. We just have to find people that are willing to go out with us and find joy in doing these things together."

For the complete article you can visit: Courage is Contagious | LeadershipJournal.net

As my own Church of God of Landisville began looking at an outward focus, we found that making OUTREACH our brand through servant acts to the community, created a tremendous springboard for connecting people to Jesus Christ.

In my first summer at LCOG, I offered the training class Becoming a Contagious Christian At that point we were averaging perhaps 165 people in worship, but 14 of them signed on to participate. Armed with the understanding, tools, and passion to build redemptive relationships (Mittelburg and Hybels approach to evangelism), servant evangelism became the vehicle to get people out of the "box" (literally) and into the community in practical ways. As those ministries created relational intersections, it became possible for people to actually begin building redemptive relationships and introduce their new friends to Jesus Christ in an effective way. Outreach partnered with building redemptive relationships helped make evangelism both contagious and a joy.

THE MISSIONAL CHURCH ... simple

Recently Dan Masshardt, the Associate Pastor of our Fairview Bethel Church of God posted this video on the blog CGGC IN THE EMERGING WORLD. This is a great description of the paradigm shift that traditional and inward focused churches must make in becoming outward-focused ones.

SOCIAL MEDIA - WHY YOU NEED TO USE IT

This video is from the web site of Glenn Smith, a church planting consultant from Houston TX, who works with my denominational group, the Churches of God, General Conference. I have seen on it on at least one another blog and played at a recent leadership retreat for clergy types.

Effective ministry in 2010 requires effective communication tools. Tools that allow you to "listen" and then connect. The social media is the 2010 form of "Go ye into all the world ..."

Do you have a website? Do you blog? What are you doing to connect with the unchurched? This video which can be found on You Tube says why.

A STRATEGY FOR JOY

This You Tube video was made in March 2009. That morning in the Antwerp, Belgium Central Train Station, a sound track of Julie Andrews singing "Do Re Mi" began coming through the loud speakers. Then 200 dancers (who had just two rehearsals) began this demonstration of joy.

Dan Kimball notes that too much of the world has never met a true biblical Christian because so often we live in our Christian bubble with little regard for touching the lives of the world around us. In fact, we are more concerned about not letting their lives touch (and corrupt or trouble ours). When we do come out of the bubble it is like Jonah, angrily pronouncing judgment on the world. The world things of us as negative, angry people. Christians are not associated with joy.

An outward focused church wants to share the joy of Christ. It things of concrete, visible, irresistible ways to share the Good News. Maybe it's time for us to have a strategy for sharing the joy?

By the way - enjoy the video.