If Jesus Had A Website

As my wife and I continue our search for a new church home, I have continued to learn more about different churches and their approaches.  One of the things that I have found a bit alarming is that there don't seem to be many who emphasize learning.

While worship, prayer, ministry and fellowship are essential to being a well-rounded Christian, education in the gospel should be the core of our faith.

To give some background, I've been to several different “styles” of churches.  I've been to ones which have hour-long services where 40 minutes is taken up by the sermon, and I've been to ones which have hour-and-a-half-long services where 25 minutes is taken up by the sermon.  Both can work.  For me, it's always come down to the content that the pastor provides in their sermon.

That's why when I hear a sermon about a handful of verses, which may even be taken out of context, or a very superficial exploration of a Bible chapter, I'm often put off by that church and am less likely to come back.

You might be thinking that I'm forgetting bible studies and adult education classes.  Nope.  While these groups are great for further educating the congregation, that does not mean that sermons should be a “light” version of education in the gospel.  Many people have a hard time generating interest in these groups, and even more have a hard time finding time for them.  Therefore, I would argue that we have to work to educate the congregation as much as possible during the sermon, and then allow bible studies and classes to build upon this in more detail.

After all, Jesus didn't tell people just the basics and ask them to come to a class if they wanted more information.  He went to the masses and shared the Word of God with all of them.  He was trying to reach as many as possible and tell them as much as he could!

Being not too far removed from college, I am well aware that many students who have been raised in the church often struggle when they get out on their own.  The reason is that many of them do not have the proper education about their faith to refute false claims and otherwise defend their faith.  This leads to them questioning their own beliefs, and often being pulled away from God.

This can often be directly tied to the lack of proper education in our churches.  If the point of our schools and universities is to educate students to make them better members of society, shouldn't the point of our churches be to make their congregants better members of the body of Christ?

This past Sunday, my wife and I, in our search for a new church, made a second visit to a local church.  We had had a fairly good experience on our first visit, so we went back hoping for more of the same.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and we got an hour-long sales pitch on the importance of the ministries of the church.

Now, I do believe it is important to support your ministries publicly.  However, there are good and bad ways to go about it.

For starters, it's important to differentiate between ministries and fellowships.  In my book, ministries are activities designed around the idea of reaching out to non-believers.  Conversely, fellowships are activities designed around building Christian community and bonds amongst fellow Christians.

It's because of this difference that I was rather bothered that the church listed basketball and softball, church teams formed of church members to play teams from other churches, as ministries.  I'm sorry, but an activity where 99% of participants are expected to be Christians doesn't fit as a ministry.

Another suggestion would be to avoid talking too much about financing your ministries in a public forum.  For example, I'd avoid phrases like “Only 5 of our 90+ ministries received more than $24,000 for the year.”  They may not be received as you intend.

To most people, a figure like that is pretty substantial.  I'd estimate that for 70% of that congregation, that figure is at least half of their annual income.  Coming from a small church, my wife and I were flabbergasted by the figure, because we weren't even able to pay our pastor that much, and the churches operating expenses were around $80,000.  Yes, they were different neighborhoods with different demographics, but they were the same denomination and only three or four miles apart.

When you represent your church, in person or online, make sure that you do so accurately and realistically.  Don't call things something they aren't so you can brag about numbers, and don't use superlatives with figures that don't match (i.e. “Last weeks tithes were only $100,000″) or don't use them at all.  You're more likely to find people respond to opportunities than the pressure sell.

Well, it's been almost a month since the completion of my Advent Project here on IJHAW, and I guess it's time to bring my “blogging vacation” to an end.

In the end, I managed to learn a lot through the Advent Project.  First of all, daily blogging can be a bit of a challenge, especially when you work full-time, try to exercise, and have to take care of those daily errands.  It really forced me to plan ahead and budget my time to be able to put together a post each day, especially during the busy holiday season.

Second, I got to do some more research about different aspects of the nativity story, like finally learning what frankincense and myrrh are.  I always enjoy learning new facts.

Third, I learned a lot about how I view Christmas and the world.  It's amazing how simply writing thoughts down can help you better formulate what's going on in your head.  It really got me thinking about the things that are important to me, as well as the kind of characteristics I'm looking for in a church as my wife and I continue our search.

I hope that some of you got something out of this exercise as well, and if not, well…at least I did!