More Churches, Different Churches

Ask someone why they go to their church and every time you would get a different answer. I love the worship, the preaching, the programs. Regardless of how great we view our churches, and how perfect they are for our personal spiritual growth, if we stepped back and took an objective look, we would have to admit, firstly that our church isn't perfect and that it won't work for everyone. In fact for as many reasons as we like our church there are an equal number of people who don't.

"Some people prefer to go to churches that preach heresy, or the

theology of the month..."

In being part of a vineyard church I recognize that our worship just really doesn't connect with a everyone. It is too loud, too repetative etc.. , but i love it (apart from being a little too country). At the same time vineyard worship has led a revolution in the way churches universally understand and express worship. And brought countless people to the church who loved the refreshing sound of rock music. Does this make vineyard worship critics insane? Not at all! Everyone has their preferences. Some people prefer to go to churches that preach heresy or the latest theology of the month, or places where the preaching is so boring-not me but others love it. I say this to highlight the fact that most people go to churches not because of quality, not because of calling, or high religious ideologies, but because of habit and preference. Whether we like to admit it or not the number of people in our churches bent on, changing, improving, making things more inclusive, complaining about 'the why don't we....'s?', are evidence we don't fit everybody.

One approach pastors take is to ignore unpopular comments like, 'why isn't your church.....' or 'your church doesn't.....'. They defend their style and programs by saying that it is about God and not your personal preference- often this is taken as a defence of irrelevance. Church goers also gloss over the churches rough edges by pumping up their churches good points, making excuses for their shortcomings.

" I think the heart of Paul's words were about reaching everyone,

not about bringing everyone in."

I wonder though if we need to admit something different. Paul takes about becoming all things to all people in order to reach people. Perhaps our emphasis on church improvement is not the answer at all. Perhaps rather we need to create more churches, and different churches so that everyone can have a place to worship that expresses their heart, their motivations, their needs. What we don't need are places that make everyone comfortable, but churches that communicate differently- we need more rave churches, churches for bikers, churches that speak different languages. We need churches for every nationality, every neighbourhood. The bane of the church today may be its commitment to all people, and it's sacrifice of creating worship communities that are unique, and missional to peculiar communities. I think the heart of Paul's words were about reaching everyone, not about bringing everyone in.

In having several church planters as close friends I realize that despite their best efforts the people they think would be great for their church won't come. But in every case I know of people that come to their churches who you would never expect. Why? God only knows. I recently switched to a church not far from my old church. My new church in many ways has tons going for it that the other didn't yet, not one of the people from my old church followed me. This highlights to me that what we need is not fewer, bigger, or better churches what we need is more churches and different churches that we might be able to help everyone understand who God is, to encourage them to worship and to grow in their relationship with God. Perhaps the next time I as a pastor here someone complain about a church need to here the words as an opportunity to help form a new community and not as criticism. Now is a great time to plant a church.