General Baptist National Missions Blog
Reaching MenMay 9, 2008 It has been a while since I wrote a new blog. I have spent the last month traveling far too much. April 21-24 I attended and spoke, at the invite of Ed Stetzer, at Exponential 08. Exponential is a national conference designed with the church planter in mind. The seminars covered everything from "Nuts and Bolts" of church planting to the "Organic Church" movement. I highly recommend this conference to anyone interested in church planting. Next year's conference will have an international flavor to it as they look to understand church planting movements across the globe. So, while I sit in the airport in Tampa Bay waiting for my flight home I thought I might share a few facts I discovered while reading The American Church in Crisis by David T. Olsen. This is a must read book for anyone in the church. If Olsen is right, and the church continues on its path without a fresh vision, and drive for planting strong, healthy new churches we are in serious trouble. Planting new churches is the only way to revitalize our declining church base and begin a revival in the U.S. One striking statistic Olsen shared blew me away! The stat is so shocking I think it needs some serious attention and should spark numerous conversations about how we plant churches. Olsen reports on page 89; "A Study in 2000 from Switzerland provides insight on the importance on male attendance on the religious development of children in the country. 'In summary, if a father does not go to church, no matter how regular the mother is in her religious practice, only one child in fifty becomes a regular church attendee. But if the father attends regularly, then regardless of the practice of the mother, at least one child in three will become a regular church attendee.'" Even though that research was done in Switzerland, I believe that it will hold fairly true in the U.S. as well. The disparity between "one in fifty" and "one in three" is huge! Just stop and think about those numbers for a while. That should cause us o consider how we are designing our church plants. From the color of the curtains to the use of PowerPoint backgrounds, we need to target the men. If we are honest, much of what we do appeals more to women. While we need and are thankful for those women who have faithfully served our churches over the decades, we must reach the men. I heard Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle share on a video The Good Soldier, if want to win the war, you have to win the men. Steve Gallimore, pastor of Tennessee Valley Community Church, recognized this need several years ago and launched a NASCAR series. The church was located in an old car dealership and the stage and worship room was completely set up for this theme. The stage had a set of gummy tires from a racing car and when the service started the speaker roared with the sound of squealing tires and smoke machine added a sense of realism to the burnout. While many may find that kind of service sacriligious God used this series to bring hundreds of men into a saving knowledge of Christ and kept them active in the church. Paul tells us to "become all things to all men". What does that mean? It means, in simplistic terms, we must use the culture to our advantage and find a way to connect with people where they live. Some call that compromise of the scripture and a watering down of the gospel. I think Jesus was accused of that several times. Remember, Jesus was faced by the Pharisees several times asking him why he didn't do things the right way. In reality the Pharisees, as well as many today, have confused their tradition with biblical principles. The Gospel was not written in a cultural vacuum. It was written in a specific culture and yet transcends that culture. | |
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Posted 5/9/2008 in Stephen Gray |
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