Comments for How To Choose A Church at http://www.johnsmulo.com , comment 1 to 32 out of 20 comments http://www.johnsmulo.com Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:49:50 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7159 Those present themselves because that's the fundamental struggle most churches have - to pay the bills, staff and buildings. Of course, we don't say that's the fundamental problem and we might want to be focussed more on mission or care, or whatever. But property and pastors are the hole that "needs" to be filled. And, I think that's what creates the perception that the church exists to serve itself. I'll be honest, I can't think of a solution beyond becoming "lighter," which in the most obvious sense means avoiding extra spending on property and staff. It's probably too big an issue to go into in detail in a comment, but I'm disinclined these days to see a growth either in the number of people in "fulltime" ministry or any increased spend in new building. If we want to give the impression that we are about more than staff and property, then we have to reduce the drag those have on us. As long as we carry those as our primary commitments (or are tied to them by existing arrangments) then we will forever be weighed down by them. - fernando Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:44:51 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7146 Fernando, That's a painful story. Pastors can not only be out of touch at times, they can also think everything should be centered on their's or the church's time schedule. This isn't always practical for people who work. - John Thu, 29 May 2008 08:19:06 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7145 Matt Stone, I absolutely agree with the need for partnership in this regard. Pastors don't know it all, shouldn't pretend to know it all, or be expected to know it all. The best solution is often for pastor's to get out of the way of others who are more gifted and experienced to teach, lead, whatever in certain areas. - John Thu, 29 May 2008 08:11:09 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7144 Fernando, I struggled even as I was including time, service, and money as something rubs me the wrong way with this. But I can't put my finger on it, and I can't see how things can work practically speaking without some level of each of these from most people. Any thoughts on this? - John Thu, 29 May 2008 08:05:02 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7142 Once upon a time some denominations used to knock people back for not having experienced full-time work. When I was at theological college, I could count on one hand the number of students *I knew* that could point to having held down a job for five years. An awful lot couldn't even point to five years of work even if you tallied up all the part-time jobs and bits and pieces. Heck, some had never even held a full-time job - ever! In those years of "theological education" the question of what people *did* in their working hours was, at best, peripheral, floating on the edges of pastoral care and ethics courses, but never really getting near the core of any subject. To be fair, I think some of the faculty did take it seriously themselves. But, I never felt like most students really did. I don't want to paint all pastors as out of touch, but more than a few I've known just don't really get what it means to commit 10, 15, or 20 hours a week to church *on top* of a fulltime week. The last church committee meeting my wife attended (five years ago now), she had left for work before our daughter woke in the morning, ground out a 12 hour day, didn't make it home in time to see our daughter before she went to bed, skipped dinner and walked into the meeting 5 minutes late. The minister then made a snide comment about people not showing enough dedication to turn up on time. - fernando Thu, 29 May 2008 07:49:30 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7124 Fernando, I remember being involved in a workplace ministry once and getting a little frustrated with how disconnected it was from workplace realities. At one point I voiced the frustration and said, "Anyway I'm not sure how much I have to learn about workplace ministry from ministers who've never worked in the secular world." One guy got really, really upset and defensive. Guess what? Unbeknown to me he was... I didn't last in the group much longer My point here is, I think clergy do not give enough credit to lay insight when it comes to ministry beyond the Sunday service and what we really need is more genuine, authentic, bona fide partnership. And that first means clergy need to care about what they can do for us and not just what we can do for them. It needs to be more reciprocal. So yes I agree with you. - Matt Stone Mon, 26 May 2008 21:39:15 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7116 John, these are timely questions for me. It's interesting that you put time service and money at the top of the list things to be given to the local church as they really are the typical price most churches expect you to "pay to play." The transaction typically promises worship, "teaching" and "friendship" in return. For me worship is way down on the list of my wants from a church and what I expect in worship is pretty low key and easy to deliver. Like Matt, I'm suspicious now of the biblical teaching mantra. It's good in theory, but I've seen far too many examples where it just doesn't translate. What we need is properly theological teaching that is oriented towards living the faith *outside* the church and typically in a working context. I feel that requires ministers who understand what it means to work and church leaders who understand how to build relationships outside the church. Sometimes those are in short supply. For me the conundrum is that church really should be outwardly focussed, but so much of the "needs" of the church are about maintaining and supporting inwardly looking structures. - fernando Mon, 26 May 2008 04:10:29 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7075 Oh, neither am I, that's why I am toying with the idea of some sort of open source project that multiple people can contribute to. - Matt Stone Wed, 14 May 2008 15:20:30 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7074 Matt, Even those who might want to go to xian colleges frequently cannot afford to do so. So, when do you start publishing, you have great ideas, would like to see them come to fruition. I am not educated enough to be as holistic as I would like in designing an education series. - Elaine Wed, 14 May 2008 07:29:05 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7073 John and Elaine, I think there is a need for some sort of structured "intermediate" training, whether you call it a catechism or something else. The problem seems to be, at least in the churches I've known and/or been a part of, is that we offer structured "introductory" training for those new to the Christian life, and structured "advanced" training for those moving into Christian ministry, but nothing but disconnected adhoc teaching for people in between. Now this ad hoc teaching, absorbed through sermons and small group Bible studies, can be very good in some ways, giving people tools for living the Christian life and tools for exegeting books and passages. But systematic? Training that addresses holes in the overall picture? Where is that? So we end up producing Christians that have all this nice info but no idea of how to join the dots between it all in any sort of truly integrated fashion. Those that want more get told to go to college. Now this problem is sort of what led Rick Warren to produce his Purpose Driven Life (TM) stuff. But the problem there is its a proprietary thing that comes prepackaged and internally resistant to local contextualization. What I think we need is for some of us to get together and develop some open source / copy left training material that can be shared and adapted to each of our contexts without each of us having to reinvent everything and worry about copyright issues. It is a scandal that there is no free teaching about Christianity anymore. - Matt Stone Tue, 13 May 2008 20:52:06 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7070 johnman, I agree with your statement, " i figured how were things ever going to change if no one new stayed long enough to get involved and help change some things." People seem to want to run rather than put in a conscious effort to help grow a church in a healthy way. John, I believe mentoring is part of healthy teaching. With good mentoring, people should grow. I want to beleive I am optimistic about God's ability to move the people if we are focused on Biblically based preaching and teaching. - Elaine Tue, 13 May 2008 06:33:49 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7069 My Dad is in the Air Force here in Australia, so I have lived in many cities whilst moving around with my family and as well moved cities a couple times since leaving home. I find that there are differing factors at different times. When me and my siblings were young say 7 and under we didn't have too much impact on what church we became apart of as long there was some sort of sunday school that was us sorted and my parents just looked for somewhere they could serve in their sining and drama. As we got older in primary school and later on in highschool we would visit a church and my parents would ask us to see if we liked the sunday school/kids church program, if it got a no, well that was a pretty big factor for my parents wanting to help their children grow in faith in Jesus. And if we could make friends with the youth of a church and didn't find it to be too uncool than that would be a factor. My parents once went to a church service without us to check out if they thought it met what their theological view was, it didn't and they told us it wasn't an option. My parents often looked for opportunities to serve as a big factor, when my father gave up volunteer leading the childrens ministry in the church we were leaving because of a move interstate, that a church in the town we moved to needed someone to take on this role was a big flashing fluro sign. Six months after being there he was in. For me when i moved out of home there were some deciding factors, i had moved to a university in a country city with limited public transport especially on Sundays and no churches in walking distance. So that some people i met at a university christian meeting offered to drive me to a small group and church on sundays i was in. That i didn't really like a whole bunch of stuff with this church didn't put me off though, i figured how were things ever going to change if no one new stayed long enough to get involved and help change some things. My most recent move to a new city the things i looked for were in no real order: Near to where i was living Had missional focus People my age i could relate to Good core beliefs Somewhere i could see God use me Somethings that put me off churches i visited: Service went for too long and no one made eye contact with me Church seemed to have no future direction and too churchy and not enough real authenticity Weird feeling as i walked toward the building from car park, felt like God was saying go back to your car and drive off (just being honest) My parents went there (i got over this one and this is my Church, Dad got moved over a year ago now so they aren't around anymore anyway) Seemed promising but too far to travel - ¿johnman¿ Tue, 13 May 2008 03:12:11 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7068 Duncan McFadzean, Definitely have to add the missional part. I include that in my thinking with the equipping for all of life, but thanks for raising it. - John Mon, 12 May 2008 18:52:35 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7067 Elaine, You're more optimistic than I am about the response to good teaching :D What I've observed is people saying "good sermon" and doing nothing about it 99 out of 100 times. - John Mon, 12 May 2008 18:50:05 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7066 Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Thanks for the helpful distinction :) - John Mon, 12 May 2008 18:47:33 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7065 7catz, Thanks for your additions and input :) - John Mon, 12 May 2008 18:07:43 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7064 Webb Kline, There's a lot of control problems that go on out there. A church is healthiest when everyone is contributing their gifts. - John Mon, 12 May 2008 18:03:39 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7063 Matt Stone, Sigh. You bring up real problems. I've helped out a few churches over the years who have offered more in depth courses on theology, mission, apologetics, etc. I think this helps. I've also participated in "outreach" events that I've felt are helpful. But I think there's more that we're missing. Any thoughts on what local churches can do to rectify the problems you raise? - John Mon, 12 May 2008 10:15:31 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7062 K.W. Leslie, I agree. Love needs to be at the center of all we do. Sadly, I think that word has lost its meaning somewhat though. We "love" each other; "love" Pulp Fiction; and "love" Italian food. - John Mon, 12 May 2008 10:11:33 +0100 http://www.johnsmulo.com/how-to-choose-a-church-2.html#comment-7061 I think I'd add that it had a vision to be missional. If it's just about serving each other, that kind of misses the point I think. - Duncan McFadzean Sun, 11 May 2008 04:54:10 +0100