I’m sitting here reading a “Community Assessment Profile” packet that my boss gave me. It was prepared by Tom Crites of Research Services of the Georgia Baptist Convention. It’s basically a collection of a lot of numbers and statistics, displayed different ways in order to highlight certain trends in the community in which our church exists.
It’s got some pretty cool bar graphs that show statistical information of age, race, housing situation, income and several other criteria. The packet’s use is to help church staff decide on how and what kind of strategy they’ll use to reach their community.
Much of what Tom says in this packet sounds like generic Christian pat-answers. But then I see this gem of a quote:
The Great Commission commands us to go! Building structures as an evangelical strategy for reaching people for the kingdom [of God] has some flaws because newer and larger facilities often breed complacency among Christians. Also, the idea of “if you build it they will come” rarely holds true with unbelievers, unchurched and the de-churched. If the facilities where you worship are either intimidating to people or insufficient for drawing in the community, then you must go to where they are. The church (structure) ought to serve as a training grounds for the real ministry that needs to take place when the church (people) walks out the doors each week.
Tom Crites
So true. Will thinking like this eventually change the church (building) landscape in the U.S.? I wonder.
3 Comments
That is a great quote, and something that a Pastor friend and I talked about at great length a few years ago when I was working at a FBC in Alabama. The church was a massive brick building in the middle of town, and was quite intimidating when you walked in. It was so large it felt quite cold (emotionally, not physically) when you walked in, especially since it was quite empty (average Sunday attendance was 40-50, but the church could hold 1200 comfortably).
I would suggest that “church buildings ALWAYS breed complacency” along with other components of institutional SBC church life: monologue sermons, age-graded Sunday School classes, event-based evangelism, pews & pulpits, and a performance-oriented worship service. That’s why you need the denominational experts to help churches decide “how and what kind of strategy” they need to reach their communities, ‘cause what they’re already doing (all the above), ain’t working.
Ugh… event-based evangelism makes my butt twitch.
Amen, Bill!