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.

Though many Americans will go to a church that preaches this…MOST don’t feel that’s really the only way to eternal life according to a new survey by the Pew Forum.

57 percent of evangelical church attenders said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life

The whole report is disturbing…another stat shows that anywhere from 10-27% of people (Catholics being some of the lowest) who regularly attend church are not absolutely certain that God exists. These are the people who you see week after week in church, are leading Sunday school, small groups, etc….and they aren’t certain if God exists.

The survey also points out that the church is still failing at reaching the crowd of 18-29 years old as they make up between 14-17% of those attending the church, that number jumps to 36-39% at 30-49.

Now I realize this is just a survey and certainly wouldn’t bet my life on the findings, and I’ve just begun to dig in but this is disturbing stuff…but it’s clear there is still much to do.

So please, take a look at the survey…I’d love to hear your take on it.