A Little Comment on Church

In the last post I shared what we said together about what the church is and does.  In the notes you can see we made it a location and facility.  We made it a group of people doing the will of God.  Giving it that people definition means church, while being location and facility at times, exists beyond location and facility as well. 

Under us being a group doing the will of God we put sharing the Good News.  The Great Commission says making disciples.  Same thing.  But I want to niggle us on point here and I am right there in the thick of it for being responsible for this issue.  The point can be made this way.  Let's say our business was to be a pregnancy center, let's say, helping people get pregnant and then helping those babies develop in a healthy way.  And there are a 100 of us employed there and we know that that is our business.  We like our office space.  We like our co-workers.  We like our employee banquets and our employee study sessions.  At the end of the year if no one got pregnant, if at the end of five years it was the same, and so on, then using our business heads, we'd say something was wrong.  But this is the case for church after church.  People show up already pregnant and we help them.  Sometimes it is not even that.  Most of the time, however, there are ... no adult baptisms (indicating someone who wasn't a disciple becoming one).  ie, a key, if not the key, product of our business is not getting produced. 

There are lots of complicated reasons for such a state of affairs.  They're valid.  Maybe we let it be too complicated.  I'm not sure.  If we go back to Peter Drucker's two key questions for any organization (What's your business?  How's business?) and keep the answers pretty basic and simple, then many or even most churches are not doing so well.  If we were a business, needing to pay for inventory and overhead and taxes and salaries, we'd need to close. 

I don't mean to be doom and gloom or point the finger.  I am, as I said, right in the thick of the responsibility for this problem.  It does keep me thinking about how I can reach out.  It does keep me thinking that session's should spend at least a few hours each year, before doing anything else almost, in developing this year's plan for making new disciples, getting those who were'nt pregnant with Christ, pregnant with Him. 
And, of course, then a few hours on how we can do worship really well in the coming year.  Then what this group of disciples needs equiping in. 

Peace.