Take Two

I have been on a three day blogging hiatus which is about all I can stand.  I wanted to share some thoughts on the evangelistic church in general and our church in particular.  There has been a movement for some time to take church out of the walls of the church and take it to the people.  For the last year or so, we have been putting this theory into practice with good results.  Currently, we have three church extensions that meet either weekly or bi-weekly.  Much of this is geared toward 1) reaching folks who can’t or don’t come to a regularly scheduled service and 2) trying new methods of outreach to be deployed later on a larger scale.  Most start slow but, as with any task, if one plants and another waters God will eventually give the increase.

As a side note, I had forgotten how much I enjoy teaching.  I am doing a four week Bible Study (which will clearly take 6-8 weeks at my current pace) that is a basic Christian living introduction.  Currently, whenever I get asked to preach somewhere, I normally preach (with the foot all the way to the floor).  It’s the nature of what I do.  But I enjoy teaching in a small group environment with a vibrant give and take.  I find that I learn as much as (hopefully) the folks in my class do.

One other thing we’ve been doing is having open gym on the third Monday of the month (which is today).  We will have north of 100 kids, over half of those “bus kids” who will come and be fed and have a great time making more noise than a jumbo jet taking off.  It is truly a sight to see.  Many of the kids who started coming through open gym now come to Sunday School.  It has proven to be an effective outreach method.

Finally, I was taking note of our altar service last night and saw the implementation of something my pastor has been preaching for at least ten years.  We have several licensed ministers in our church (I think 6).  Most are involved in some area of ministry outside the three main services.  We had a vibrant altar service with a number of guests who had made their way to the altar.  Each guest had a minister praying with them.  It was awesome.  One of the goals we had for our revival was to not let attrition bite us, that is have folks come in, experience God, and leave due to lack of follow-up.  I think we’re doing a much better job of addressing this than ever before.  It is encouraging.

These are just a few of the things we’ve been experiencing here.  It has been a great ride thus far.