This chapter is seriously going to give me the irrits.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that the word "organizing", along with many other words ending in "izing" or "ize" is something that just doesn't look right to me. I grew up thinking that Australians use "ise" and Americans use "ize". However, I know now that there's serious debate all over the world about which is correct and why. The result of this, therefore, is that these wretched words look wrong no matter HOW they are spelt. Grrrr.
More seriously, though, I am not an organiser[1]. I don't like being organised. I prefer to just let stuff happened. Now, don't try to explain the benefits to me. I understand them, and even submit to organising when I have to. I just don't like it. And I don't think I ever will.
So this chapter is going to be a difficult one for me. Well, it won't get easier if I don't start, so let's go.
The starting point is personally interesting to me because George Whitefield is an ancestor of mine. Warren compares Whitefield and Wesley, noting that Wesley was an organiser as well as a preacher, and noting that his influence has gone on for longer than Whitefield.
Structures must exist if a church is to complete its mission.
Warren notes that there are five kinds of churches, which tend to reflect the gifts of their leaders:
1) Soul winning churches - the leader focuses on evangelism. Such churches are always reaching out to the lost.
2) Experiencing God churches - the leader focuses on worship. Such churches tend to be built around their worship service.
3) Family Reunion churches - the leader focuses on fellowship. These churches are typically small, but almost indestructible. (Sanctuary is easily seen as one of these. . . )
4) Classroom churches - the leader focuses on teaching. Most of the emphasis is on Biblical truth.
5) Social Conscience churches - the leader focuses on ministry. The church organises around injustice and/or moral decline.
The point of recognising all of this is to note that a church needs to be doing ALL FIVE of these things to be a truly effective church. There needs to be a balance.
Similarly parachurch organisations tend to reflect individual purposes. I'm not going to go into as much detail here, because Warren refers to the American context; still, the key movements seen are the Lay Renewal movement (Ministry), the Discipleship movement (Discipleship), the Worship/Renewal movement (Worship), the Church Growth movement (Evangelism) and the Small Groups movement (Fellowship). All of these are useful and have played a role in giving the church a wake-up call.
Church leaders tend to see that the area in which they feel the most gifted is "The KEY" to church growth. The truth is that each of these areas are important, but there is no one key. A balanced church will be a healthy church. This is the image projected by Paul's "body" analogy in 1 Cor 12 - like a body needs ALL its parts working, so too a church needs to be meeting all of the purposes God set out to be healthy.
The key is recognising that people are at different levels of commitment - all of us are unique - and the purposes correspond to where we are in that process. Warren uses a diagram (reproduced roughly here) of five concentric circles. As we mature as Christians, we move from the rim through to the hub.
The community is the starting point. It's the pool of lost people living in the church's area. The focus for these people is on EVANGELISM.
The next circle, the crowd, is the people who show up on Sunday. They are regular attenders and may be Christians or non-Christians (most likely Christians in the Australian context). The focus is on WORSHIP.
The next circle are the congregation, baptised church members. The focus is on FELLOWSHIP.
The next circle in is the committed circle, maturing members. Their focus is DISCIPLESHIP.
Finally we have the core group, whose focus is MINISTRY.
[1] I'm using ise. I hope you don't mind. If you do mind, deal with it. :)
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