Everyone’s doing it.

This is good stuff.

Craig Groeschel has announced that LifeChurch will no longer have “church members”. What I love is that they are killing it because

the reason is because for years and years we’ve done it, and we just did it because other people did it and in my mind, it always kind of bothered me some because I thought, ‘Well, if you are a believer, you’re already a member of the family of God, but you still join a church because that’s what you do,’

How many other things do we do in the name of doing church that simply get in the way? Is church the way it is because that’s how God wants it or because that’s how everyone else is doing it? If we got rid of some of these things, like membership, would we create something more authentic with less of us and more of Him?

Does the special music during offering bring people closer to God?
Do you have to have a bulletin?
What would happen if there wasn’t preaching every Sunday?
Could we survive without the clever signs? (that’s a rhetorical question)

One of the churches we work with, a college ministry, just moved their service from Wednesday to Thursday. Is it weird to have church on Thursday? Yep, but for this group of college students it works since they don’t have classes the next days and also allows them to spend time hanging out afterwards.

Don’t get rid of things just for the sake of slimming down, and certainly not for the attention it might get. I’m just suggesting that you look at your ministry and things that surround it and make sure that everything has purpose…if not slim down.

Thank you Terrace for pointing this out, I hope it shakes us up enough to get us thinking about how we can change the way we do church.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 9:27 pm and is filed under growth . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • I often wonder how many things we do "just because"...and not just because other are but because that is the way it has always been done.
    Still great thoughts...it's good to challenge others to think through the ministries and actions of their ministry to see what fits, what works, and what is there "just because"

    Thanks.
  • Lifechurch always breaks new ground and that's one reason I love those guys (and guyesses).

    Another way of doing it is over at Mars Hill in Grandville, Michigan. They ask people who feel like the church is a major part of their life to make a one-year covenant. Everyone renews the covenant each year, or not.

    Here are the benefits a church gets from signing up members:

    1) In some states a non-profit organization needs to quantify their membership in their corporate filings.

    2) You know who your members are and have contact information so you can "motivate" them.

    3) Potential members go through classes, during this time the church can tell them what is expected of members, and giving is normally high on the list.

    4) At the classes, people might make new friends -- this is good but you could have other opportunities for friendship making.

    there must be others... but I've been a member of more than a few churches, and only one church did the membership thing well.
  • That's awesome!

    Church Membership is a burden. You feel a sort of obligation to do things for X church when you're a "member." You feel like you're cheating when you visit a friend's church on Sunday.

    I believe the less we try to control God, the more we'll realize the worth in just having a relationship with him. That's all he requires, right?
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