How to Make Your Ministry More Effective!
Maybe it is just me, but does anyone else get tired of all the media available to be a better pastor or better church? It is bad enough getting several forms of advertisements, but we also get hundreds of pieces of mail from our denomination. Apparently, direct mail is still alive and well, much to the chagrin of the receivers.
I wonder how many of these products that we could buy would actually help us? I know for fact a few of them would, but the majority of them get a quick glance at best and are tossed in the recycling bin. To be fair, though, every time I receive a pen I usually cannot find one at the moment.
It makes me wonder sometimes as I receive pieces of mail from other churches announcing such and such a program how this is helping build the kingdom. I realize churches should work together and that's fine... but how many of these events are meant for church fellowship instead of reaching out?
If I was a non-Christian and I heard that a group from a Christian university or church was coming to perform "X", would it really inspire me to make plans to go? When I lived in OKC and Dallas, I would get anywhere between 5-10 postcards a quarter from all of the big churches telling me what the next sermon series would be. Not to be rude, but as a non-Christian, do I even care?
I had a talk with a man who is the kind of guy you want in your church. He has a heart for the lost and wants to help his church move to reaching out. This year, he is leading a group from his church into doing a new reach out kind of thing by watching the Super Bowl breakfast and inviting people from the community to come. The Super Bowl breakfast takes place the day before the Super Bowl and has various Christians from around the NFL talk about God and football. I believe that Tony Dungy is a stand-by for this breakfast. Anyways, the guy talked about contacting the Christian radio station and some other Christian businesses for support. He asked what I thought?
I had to pause for a moment, because I sometimes get looked at weird when I share my thoughts. Finally, I asked why advertise a reach out event on a Christian station/business? Why not contact a secular station/business? I think he was testing my parameters, and said that he thought about putting some ads up in a bar restroom and I told him that's a great idea. He said I was one of the first people that didn't hesitate when saying it was a good idea. Others balked when he mentioned something like that.
This is exactly what gets me upset. My church does not need stained glass windows, a cd duplicator, new sound system, church database software, t-shirts, calendars, jewelry, or even pens (though they come in handy sometimes) to make ministry more effective. We need living, breathing people to be willing to go to bars and put up ads for a Super Bowl breakfast. We need people to place ads on secular stations letting people know that we want to get involved in their lives. Even better, to make our ministry more effective, let us live like... *gasp* Christians! What does that mean? Well, there's this guy named Jesus... let us live like him.
I wonder how many of these products that we could buy would actually help us? I know for fact a few of them would, but the majority of them get a quick glance at best and are tossed in the recycling bin. To be fair, though, every time I receive a pen I usually cannot find one at the moment.
It makes me wonder sometimes as I receive pieces of mail from other churches announcing such and such a program how this is helping build the kingdom. I realize churches should work together and that's fine... but how many of these events are meant for church fellowship instead of reaching out?
If I was a non-Christian and I heard that a group from a Christian university or church was coming to perform "X", would it really inspire me to make plans to go? When I lived in OKC and Dallas, I would get anywhere between 5-10 postcards a quarter from all of the big churches telling me what the next sermon series would be. Not to be rude, but as a non-Christian, do I even care?
I had a talk with a man who is the kind of guy you want in your church. He has a heart for the lost and wants to help his church move to reaching out. This year, he is leading a group from his church into doing a new reach out kind of thing by watching the Super Bowl breakfast and inviting people from the community to come. The Super Bowl breakfast takes place the day before the Super Bowl and has various Christians from around the NFL talk about God and football. I believe that Tony Dungy is a stand-by for this breakfast. Anyways, the guy talked about contacting the Christian radio station and some other Christian businesses for support. He asked what I thought?
I had to pause for a moment, because I sometimes get looked at weird when I share my thoughts. Finally, I asked why advertise a reach out event on a Christian station/business? Why not contact a secular station/business? I think he was testing my parameters, and said that he thought about putting some ads up in a bar restroom and I told him that's a great idea. He said I was one of the first people that didn't hesitate when saying it was a good idea. Others balked when he mentioned something like that.
This is exactly what gets me upset. My church does not need stained glass windows, a cd duplicator, new sound system, church database software, t-shirts, calendars, jewelry, or even pens (though they come in handy sometimes) to make ministry more effective. We need living, breathing people to be willing to go to bars and put up ads for a Super Bowl breakfast. We need people to place ads on secular stations letting people know that we want to get involved in their lives. Even better, to make our ministry more effective, let us live like... *gasp* Christians! What does that mean? Well, there's this guy named Jesus... let us live like him.
posted by Mike W. McVey @ 11:06 AM
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