It seems that Micah 6.8 is quite clear and straight-forward in its summary of living as God’s People in this world:
He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Yet, for some reason, many Christians, and too many churches, operate as if doing justice and mercy are components of some sort of optional deluxe Christianity plan – something for those who want to enlist in a branch of the spiritual special forces, but not something expected of every ordinary follower of Christ.
“Celebrate deeds of mercy and justice. We live in a time when public esteem of the church is plummeting. For many outsiders and inquirers, the deeds of the church will be far more important than our words in gaining plausibility (Acts 4:32–33). Leaders in most places see “word-only” churches as net costs to their community, organizations of relatively little value. But effective churches will be so involved in deeds of mercy and justice that outsiders will say, “We cannot do without churches like this. This church is channeling so much value into our community that if it were to leave the neighborhood, we would have to raise taxes.” Evangelistic worship services should highlight offerings for deed ministry and celebrate by the giving of reports, testimonies, and prayers. It is best that offerings for mercy ministries are received separately from the regular offering; they can be attached (as is traditional) to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This connection brings before the non-Christian the impact of the gospel on people’s hearts (i.e., the gospel makes us generous) and the impact of lives poured out for the world.”
What do you usually do immediately after your Sunday morning church service ends? If you’re like most of church-going humanity, you probably have a routine. Upon the final “Amen”, you arise from your regular spot and your body follows a subconscious script. You may go to the nursery to pick up a child, maybe you have your weekly chat about the high school sports team with the person seated in the row behind you, or perhaps you hightail it toward the coffee to snag a to-go cup on your way out the door.
There’s nothing wrong with being a creature of habit, but many of us have the same routine at the end of a church service as we do at the conclusion of a sporting event or any other public gathering. We gather our belongings, utter some niceties, and shuffle toward the exits. That’s a problem. More specifically, it’s a bad habit.
Since the church body is a family of brothers and sisters in Christ, the end of the formal part of a service is not the end of church but rather the beginning of a new segment of the family gathering. When the structured gathering ends, an indispensable aspect of Christian vitality and growth—fellowship—continues.
Don’t get the wrong idea. You don’t have to be an extrovert who seeks people out like a goldendoodle puppy to faithfully participate in the fellowship of the church. You just have to be intentional.
If you’re one of the many believers with a bad habit of neglecting the broader fellowship of the church after the service, here’s one simple suggestion: set apart ten minutes after the gathering concludes and devote that time to getting to know others in the church family. This is a ten-minute commitment to invest in your eternal faith family and show hospitality to those not yet in the family.
To help set these ten minutes apart, it may help to consider what not to do, in order to be free and available for fellowship with the body of Christ.
1. Don’t Talk to Your Besties
There’s nothing wrong with having close friends in the church (in fact, there’s much right about that), but the weekly gathering is the one time each week when all the people you don’t naturally bump into are gathered in one place. Don’t miss that opportunity to experience the fullness of the body of Christ by getting to know those who are unlike you or from different life stages and interests. Not only will you benefit from a more diverse fellowship, but over time the supernatural unity of the Spirit will be gloriously on display as members of a church family have genuine care and concern for those outside their immediate circles. Let your closest friends know that right after the service (and, ideally, before the service as well), your aim is to engage the larger fellowship of the church family. Maybe this will encourage them to do the same!
2. Don’t Talk to Blood
Similarly, in those first ten minutes after the service, skip the chit-chat with your family. This is not to denigrate your family. If you get to regularly attend church with your extended family, that is a gift from God to be cherished. But very often, one’s family becomes the relationally safe enclave that undermines more intentional branching out into the broader church family. If your habit is currently to huddle up with your family to chat after church, it’s time to replace that habit with a better one. You’ll talk to your family later, so in those first moments after the official time is done, reorient your family outward toward the broader fellowship of the church family.
3. Don’t Talk Shop
While circumstances will arise that need the attention of a staff member or ministry leader, the goal in the minutes prior to and following the service is to be freed up for fellowship. It’s common for those involved in the formal functions on a Sunday (music ministry, kids ministry, elders, deacons, staff, etc.) to ‘talk shop’ with others who are also involved in leading and serving. But again, this is the one time each week that the building is filled with the faith family! The shop talk can wait or be accomplished with an email. You might even need to politely tell a fellow ministry leader, “Let’s discuss this later. I want to go meet those people before they leave.” In doing so, you’re not only prioritizing what matters, you’re setting the tone for a culture in which all the ministry leaders are flock-oriented.
Habits are what we do without noticing. Most people are not actively trying to have shallow relationships with the church family. But without realizing it, many people are missing the gift of rich church fellowship due to unexamined Sunday habits. I encourage you to devote ten minutes after the service for conversing with others in the faith family—and soon you’ll likely find that ten minutes is not nearly enough.
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This post was written by Andy Huette, Senior Pastor of Christ Community Church in Gridley, Illinois, and orignally published by Mattthias Media. Here is the link to the original post: The Ten Minutes After Church Ends.
Since February is designated as Black History Month in the USA, I wanted to take the opportunity to post something that might be helpful in the ongoing discussions about Racial Divides and Racial Reconciliation.
Racial tension and racial division are major issues in our culture – and, sadly, still issues in the American Church. This is not a new problem. Racism was also a problem in the Early Church. But since it is still an issue, Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus are relevant for us today:
“Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.” (Ephesians 2:12-14)
Whether one sees racial division as a “gospel issue” or not, racism and racial division are inarguably Kingdom issues. And these are issues that the Gospel – and only the Gospel – can resolve. Only the Gospel has the power to make us one in Christ, regardless of race or culture.
Therefore, as tensions linger, and even at times intensify, the Church has the ability – and therefore the responsibility – to show that only Jesus has the power to break down the dividing walls of hostility and bring Shalom – true and lasting peace. In a culture that often, and increasingly, views faith in Jesus to be irrelevant and unhelpful, we have an opportunity to be “Salt & Light” by actively pursuing peace and friendship between all races and cultures in our communities. (Matthew5.9; Matthew 5.13-16)
“Racial reconciliation is not the goal of a gospel-centered church and life, but it is clear from Scripture that it is a beautiful fruit of it.“ ~ Jarvis Williams
A Biblical worldview responds to every circumstance with love, empathy, and understanding even of those different from us, instead of letting popular culture and news soundbites define our attitudes and beliefs. When we listen to more voices, sometimes especially some that sound different from our own, God often reveals to us some of the blind spots in our own hearts.
What does this mean for God’s People, living in our present time and culture? As those who are part of God’s “Royal Priesthood” (1 Peter 2.9) we must be committed to mercy and justice. (see Micah 6.8) As those who have been the recipients of God’s mercy and grace, we are to those who now demonstrate and extend the grace and mercy we have received. (1 Peter 2.10; 1 Timothy 1.16) And grace changes everything! The gospel frees us, compels us, and empowers us to seek justice and reconciliation in the midst of brokenness. This is gospel work – work that, as Christians, we must be committed to doing together, even as we learn, lament, repent, and – by faith – move forward. But “to do justice” and “to do mercy” requires both humility and understanding.
With the hope of moving forward toward better understanding, I have compiled a list of Racial Reconciliation resources. This is in no way an exhaustive list, but these resources are among those I have found helpful. Some are from my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, others from the broader Evangelical church. Some of these resources may resonate more than others; and some even express viewpoints that I cannot entirely endorse. Nevertheless, there is benefit from listening to a broad range of voices and seeing from a variety of perspectives.
According to Thom Rainer‘s research, the 10 Sundays each year when church attendance is most noticably down are:
Father’s Day.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving day.
Memorial Day weekend Sunday.
Labor Day weekend Sunday.
The Sundays before and after Christmas.
The Sunday nearest the Fourth of July.
The Sunday nearest to New Year’s Day.
Time changes: spring forward.
Spring and fall break Sundays.
Summer Sundays, particularly in July.
Of course, as Rainer also points out, each church and every community has their own peculiarities. Younger congregations, especially in more affluent areas, are likely to be more effected by youth soccer and baseball/softball seasons. Some more rural congregations may see increased absensces during deer hunting season. When I was in college, I remember reading of a study that showed church attendance across Knxoville decreased signifcantly the day following a loss by the Tennessee Volunteers football team. When I surved as a pastor in Pittsburgh, we saw a dip in attendance on a Sunday the Steelers were playing in the Super Bowl – even thoiugh kickoff was not until 6:30 in the evening! And, of course, there are always the weather factors…
Certainly there are a number of plausible reasons that might hinder or prevent even the most ardent church-goers from participating in corporate worship on any given Lord’s Day. Still, the urging from the author if the Book of Hebrews rings out:
“Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not neglecting meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10.24-25)
“The responsibility of the church is to declare to each generation what is the faith… This is always a fresh task in every generation… No verbal statement can be produced which relieves the Church of the responsibility continually to re-think and re-state its message. No appeal to creeds and confessions can alter the fact that the Church has to state in every new generation how it interprets the historic faith, and how it relates it to the new thought and experience of its time… Nothing can remove from the Church the responsibility for stating now what is the faith. It belongs to the essence of a living church that it should be able and willing to do so.”
At the risk of being self-serving, I want to commend an article recently posted by ByFaith magazine, written by Walter Henegar, titled Your Pastor Needs Pastor Friends. I recommend it not only for those who are part of the congregation I serve, but also to all who regularly read this blog, as well as to those who have just stumbled upon it. Most if not all of you are part of some church; and if part of a church you most likely have a pastor. What this article does is offer a peek behind the curtain into the life of your pastor.
Getting a glimpse into someone’s life can be somewhat like looking into the closets and junk drawers of any family home – it does not usually offer the prettiest picture. It may not be shocking, it may not be scandalous, but it contains some things that might be preferred not to be put out for public display. This is certainly true if you have the relatively rare opportunity to look behind the scenes into the “real” lives of most church pastors.
In recent months I have participated in a number of gatherings with fellow ministers. What I have heard and seen is evidence of what has been widely reported, especially in the wake of the havoc COVID has wreaked in many churches: Pastors are tired. Pastors are burning out. Pastors are breaking. Many pastors have already walked away; many others are seriously considering throwing in the towel. I am not one of them. Not today, anyway. But I understand. I have been there. I have had such seasons – and likely I will again. It’s just not where I am today. Some of those who are on the brink, or who have already walked away, are far wiser, gentler, and godlier than I am. So it breaks my heart to see them so deeply wounded. And I know it breaks the hearts of many in the pews when it is their pastor who breaks. “If only we knew…”
I do not know Walter Henegar (though I do know his Dad). But I appreciate Walter’s transparency in this article because it offers an opportunity for many godly people to know how to care for and pray for those whom God has raised up to be shepherds for their souls. (Hebrews 13.17)
My thanks to Jared Wilson, not only for another thoughtful book, but for expressing many of the very things I would like to express. In his 2015 book, Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto Against the Status Quo, Wilson has written a book I wish I had written.
Leonce Crump’s bio, from the Race and the Church RVA web page:
Originally from Louisiana and raised Catholic, Léonce began following Jesus at age 16. Always an athlete and a talker, Léonce outran his first mall security guard (and pregnant mother) at age 3, and spent most of his grade school years talking with his principals on the subject of public speaking during class. He has been in ordained ministry for 9 years, is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma; and holds Masters degrees in Criminal Justice, with a focus on Case Law, from the University of Tennessee, Missional Leadership from the now defunct Resurgence Theological Training Center, an; is currently finishing his Masters of Divinity at Reformed Theological Seminary.
At Oklahoma he was an All-American wrestler and played a short while on the Sooner football team. He experienced an extended time of rebellion and running from God during college, but after 22 months of living as though he were not a Christian he surrendered to Jesus and ultimately to God’s calling into ministry. After college Léonce competed to make the world team in wrestling, played professional football for the New Orleans Saints and coached collegiate wrestling.
Prior to planting his present church, Léonce had served in 3 churches, starting and leading 3 college and young adult ministries. In 2006 he felt called to plant a church and settled on the under-served area of downtown Atlanta; and in early 2008 he and his wife began the process of planting Renovation Church, in partnership with Acts 29 and Perimeter Church.
A prodigious reader and engaging speaker, Léonce regularly speaks and preaches across the country at conferences and churches of all denominations. Léonce enjoys boxing and MMA, studying theology, history, leadership, church structure and poetry. He likes Soul music, jazz/standards, and Bossaniva. He also loves to lift, keep up with wrestling, football, and rugby, playing with his kids, hanging with the homeless dudes.
To view the first two gatherings of Race and the Church RVA:
The second gathering of Race and the Church in Richmond, Virginia took place on Saturday morning March 12. The theme was: Why Do We All Look the Same? A Cultural & Theological Analysis of Underlying Church Dynamics; featuring speaker Dr. Alexander Jun.
Alexander Jun is a professor at Azusa Pacific University, a TED Talk speaker, and author. He has published extensively on issues of post-secondary access for historically underrepresented students in under-served areas. Jun is also a respected Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
Dr. Os Guinness speaks to Acton Institute, a message titled: The Power of the Gospel No Matter How Dark the Times. This message, though long, is powerful, and is related to a post I published earlier this week titled: Culture Shaping Power of the Church.
Os Guinness, in his excellent book, Renaissance, concerning the church in midst of the present challenges unprecedented in Western Culture, notes the culture changing and culture shaping power of the gospel, when the gospel is both declared by God’s People and is actively shaping God’s People. When many of our churches are caving in pursuit of “relevance”, which is hoped will cause people to “like” the church, so we can keep our numbers up, I think Guinness offers a both prophetic and strategic word:
What we have here in the teaching of Jesus and the Scriptures, and amplified in Augustine, is the very heart of the secret of the culture-shaping power of the gospel in the church. When the church goes to either of two extremes, and is so “in the world” that it is of the world and worldly, or so “not of the world” that it is otherworldly and might as well be out of the world altogether, it is powerless and utterly irrelevant. But when the church, through its faithfulness and its discernment of the times, lives truly “in” but “not of” the world, and is therefore the City of God engaging the City of Man, it touches off the secret of its culture-shaping power. For the intellectual and social tension of being “in” but “not of” the world provides the engagement-with-the-critical-distance that is the source of the church’s culture-shaping power.
In short, the decisive power is always God’s, through his Word and Spirit. But on her side the church contributes three distinct human factors to the equation: engagement, discernment, and refusal.
First, the church is called to engage and to stay engaged, to be faithful and obedient in that it puts aside all other preferences of its own and engages purposefully with the world as the Lord commands.
Second, the church is called to discern, to exercise its spiritual and cultural discernment of the best and worst of the world of its day, in order to see clearly where it is to be “in” and where it is to be “not of” that world.
Third, the church is called to refuse, a grand refusal to conform to or comply with anything and everything in the world that is against the way of Jesus and his kingdom.
I had the privilege last week to meet a man convinced we are headed for revival. He is a gentle man, who thinks often of God, wishing for a return to some semblance of the way things used to be – minus the overt sins of racism and sexism that were so widely tolerated in days gone by. But the basic reason for his certainty is simple: We are in desperate need of revival. He had other reasons, of course; supporting reasons. Among them, through his examination of of history he has concluded that God works cyclically, and that we are presently overdue for the next revival.
I share his desire to see God bring revival. I can’t argue that we are overdue and in desperate need. And it is not just America that needs to be “revived”. More than our culture, I believe the American Church needs to experience revival. And when God works, he works through his church. So if revival is to occur, reorienting the cultural drift, renewing God as the rightful object of our collective affection, it is going to be at work in and through the Church.
But still, what does revival actually mean? Of course it means “to make alive”. But what does it look like? Do all revivals look alike? What are the characteristics?
I suspect the answer the the question “Do all revivals look alike?” is likely a “No”. Cultures are different. God seems to bless different expressions of evangelism and ministry approaches from one generation to the next; one culture to the next. So to assume when revivals hit they will be uniform seems a bit of a stretch to me.
“Revival is God accelerating, intensifying, and extending the work of grace that goes on in every Christian’s life!”
In his book God in our Midst, Packer suggests that, among the variety of God’s ways, there are at least five constants that seem to always appear in biblical revivals:
1. Awareness of God’s presence: “The first and fundamental feature in renewal is the sense that God has drawn awesomely near in his holiness, mercy and might.”
2. Responsiveness to God’s Word: “The message of Scripture which previously was making only a superficial impact, if that, now searches its hearers and readers to the depth of their being.”
3. Sensitiveness to (Our Own) Sin: “Consciences become tender and a profound humbling takes place.”
4. Liveliness in Community: “Love and generosity, unity and joy, assurance and boldness, a spirit of praise and prayer, and a passion to reach out to win others, are recurring marks of renewed communities.”
5. Fruitfulness in Testimony: “Christians proclaim by word and deed the power of the new life, souls are won, and a community conscience informed by Christian values emerges.”
I hope my new friend is right, that God – who is always at work – will soon be at work in unusual ways. These are some of the signs I will pray will be evident in our culture, and in our church.
If our congregation were to be a church with the gospel, plus a group that enjoys being together in community, but we were not on mission to reach out to our neighbors and the Nations, for the sake of advancing Christ’s Kingdom, then we would just be another social club for people to attend.
Gospel + Community – Mission = Club
If we were to be a church with the gospel, and we were actively engaged in mission to our neighbors, but not together in community, then we would be like a bunch of silos that aren’t truly showing off the body of Christ. We could not be considered like a city on a hill.
Gospel + Mission – Community = Para-Church
If we were to become a church actively on mission, serving together in community with one another, but we had no gospel, or we were careless about the truths of the gospel, we would then merely be just another non-profit organization.
Community + Mission – Gospel = Non Profit
To be the church, to be what Jesus calls us to be, what he created us to be, is a Gospel-centered, missional, gathering of people living life together, sharing one another’s joys and pains, serving together in various ways for the good of our city, expecting nothing in return, all for the glory of Jesus, the joy of being together, and love for our neighbors.
We must be a church that is gospel centered, on mission in community so that we can be the organism, the family, the church that Christ gave the Spirit to empower, and of which he said could not be stopped. (Matthew 16.13-18)
“There are four things which are absolutely necessary if we as Christians are going to meet the need of our age and the overwhelming pressure we are increasingly facing.”
No doubt that the Church, in our culture as well as other cultures, faces increasing and overwhelming pressure. Pressure to cave. Pressure to capitulate. Pressure to compromise. These pressures come from both subtle and overt threats from the culture and from the government, as George Orwell predicted in his classic 1984. Perhaps even more devastating is the subversive seductive pressure. The craving of the church to be “relevant”, to fit in, to be liked, so people will come in great numbers, so we can be considered successful, has seemingly replaced a commitment to faithfulness and fruitfulness. This mindset seems in line with Aldous Huxley‘s “nightmarish vision of the future” in his opus Brave New World. And while there is certainly nothing wrong with a desire to be liked, nor to see our churches full, these consuming desires are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, and consequently, I fear, resulting in an increasingly impotent Church.
So what are Schaeffer’s four things?
Schaeffer labeled them Two Contents and Two Realities.
The late great John Stott was asked: “What are the top three needs of the church today?”
Here is Stott’s prophetic three-fold response:
The church’s most basic need is to remember what kind of community it is, and in particular its double identity. For God calls his people out of the world to belong to him and sends them back into the world to serve and to witness. The first calling is to ‘holiness’ and the second to ‘worldliness,’ using the word as the opposite of ‘other worldliness,’ and meaning ‘involved in the life of the world.’ So the church is called to ‘holy worldliness’, for this is its double identity. It needs constantly to ensure that neither identity smothers the other.
The church’s second need is to be what it claims to be, and so to allow no dichotomy or conflict between its profession and its practice. Without this the church lacks authenticity and so credibility.
In response to the challenge of pluralism, the church needs to be faithful in defending and proclaiming the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ. If it does so, it will certainly suffer for its faithfulness. If we compromised less, we would undoubtedly suffer more.
GRACE & PEACE 