B. Temsuinba Longkumer
Rethinking has not been limited to specific field alone but in every sphere of our modern world. Rethinking fundamental issues such as structure and strategy has become absolute necessary not merely to prosper but to survive. Studies on church growth indicate that for the vast majority of churches membership, members have either flatten or are declining. Why the decline? Many would be tempted to believe of having a notion that it is due to increasingly secular nature of our postmodern world. While there can be a little doubt that this is a factor, it is not the sole reason. A survey was conducted to answer a single question: why don’t you attend church? Here are the results:
There is no value in attending- The number one reason people give for not going to church is that there is no value in attending. These people feels that church does not do anything for them and they don’t get anything out of it, so why attend? While many people who do not attend church are interested in spiritual things, they do not feel that the church has very much to offer them in their spiritual pilgrimage.
Church has too many problems- People also choose to remain outside the church because they feel churches have too many problems. Division and discord are perceived to be more present in churches than in many other groups. Their assessment is that a typical church is made up of people who are inflexible, hypocritical, judgmental and just plain mean.
Churches ask for more money too frequently- People claim they do not attain church because churches seem more interested in their money than in them as people.
Church services are usually boring- People choose not to attend church because they think church services are usually boring, predictable, and lifeless.
Christian churches hold no relevance for the way I live- Irrelevance is the word; these people feel that the Christian church is simply out of touch with the life in the modern world. The sermon topics, music, and language make them feel as if God is buried somewhere in the past or is removed from the world in which they live.
I do not believe in God, or I am unsure that God exists- The final answer is surprising; disbelief in God, only a small percentage said they do not attend church because they have rejected God.
This result indicates clear and specific reasons why most people do not go or attain the church. Their problem is not with Christian theology; it’s with how we do church. In many churches there are many indications that those who remain in the church are also frustrated by the nature and experience of their ministry involvement, a lack of effective discipleship, worship services that are not truly worshipful, and internal politics. A woman once commented “I go to church because I feel like I have to, not because I want to.”
In such a state, it becomes important to rethink our church ministry. It is not totally wrong when many church leaders focus on how their ministries can be run more efficiently. But along with it, much more important focus must be on the foundational question, the basic questions we should be asking but the church just hasn’t answered them recently in light of the changing realities of our modern world. Questions of: Why do we have this ministry? then, Why do we do this ministry the way we do? Is it effective and is it relevant? Many churches do ministry but are irrelevant. Time and again we should go to the basic questions of doing ministry, whether it is: evangelism, discipleship, ministry, worship, community. We should be able to break old mould,
The answers have been layered beneath tradition and habit, custom and rituals, convention and routine. The biggest dilemma facing the church is the past success of the church. A set of methods and practices set down in a previous generation has shaped the ministry, evangelism and organisation of churches. Many churches are so much caught up with past success that has blinded them from seeing the implications of the changing world and unwilling to consider the future by coming out of the comfort zone and take up the risk. On the other hand, the churches very survival in recent history has been tied to its willingness and ability to adapt to the unique conditions of the day. The survival and success can only be continued through appropriate, thoughtful adjustments to our processes and methods.
Rethinking the fundamental questions will help individual churches remain clear about what they are fundamentally trying to do as a church. Once this is understood, then there is a foundation for creative and effective rethinking of how best to do church. The essential questions a church needs to consider on a continual bases:
What is the purpose of the church? What is the church mission? What are we trying to reach for Christ?
What is the business, or purpose of the church?
Purpose is decisive to human life. Allan Cox states that “an organisation that has lost sigh of its purpose has no soul”.
From Acts 2: 42-47. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (Discipleship) and to fellowship (Community), to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Worship). 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common (Ministry). 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved (Evangelism).
Here we fine that there are five activities taking place with the early church; discipleship, community, worship, ministry and evangelism. These five constitutes the biblical business or purpose of the church. It is what the church does. But many churches forget this fundamental purpose. Rather than worship or evangelism, a church fall prey to thinking that its purpose is keeping up tradition, holding a regular meeting, budget or maintaining a building.
What is the Church mission? It is one thing to know the purpose, it is another to know the specific ministry target the church is trying to tackle. This has to do with mission. The church might understand its purpose but not know what it is trying to accomplish through this purpose. What specific objective is the church devoted to accomplishing through the purpose?
Matthew. 28:18-20 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
According to this passage, the mission of the church is to reach out to non-believers and develop them, along with the existing believers, into committed followers of Christ. This is the mission the purposes of the church are intending to accomplish. How many churches are doing or carrying on the mission according to the Scripture?
Yet many churches have their own other missions in mind. Such as wanting people to “believe like us” doctrinally, “to behave like us,” morally, to “have experience like ours,” emotionally, “to become like us,” culturally, to “support the church like us,” institutionally through time and money, or to “participate with us” sacramentally through baptism, confirmation or communion. These goals are not themselves wrong. The problem is, it would be possible to realize most of these goals within a life and still not be a Christian. In other words, they have little to do with the actual mission of the church. The church should not only focus in maintenance and keeping its members within the church but focus on training and equipping its members, commissioning and sending them to reach out to the nations to make more disciples.
Whom are we trying to reach for Christ?
The power of light depends on focus. Light that is diffused does not make much of an impact. Just as light becomes more powerful as it is brought into focus, so the church becomes more effective as it clearly defines what it is trying to reach. The more focused the church is on whom it is trying to reach, the more effective it will be at reaching them. It is only when church knows whom it is trying to reach, it gains enormous insight into how to go about achieving its purpose and mission. There are four types of people a church can focus on reaching. Is your church trying to reach out to Church believers, church nonbeliever, unchurch believer, unchurch nonbelievers. Many a times church tries to be all things to all people but no single church can possibly reach out with equal effectiveness to every conceivable person. It is no wonder that from the early church as recorded in the New Testament there is wide variety of churches in order to reach wide variety of people. Just like in the market place, once you know who your customer is, you know what is it you are offering, whom you are offering it to, how you should go about offering it, and where you should offer it to them. Knowing whom it is you are trying/target to reach will affects not only what you do but also help how you do it.
Church goal is to reach out people for Christ, therefore there is a defined target of whom it is, a church is trying to reach. We should remember that both the “efficiency” which is doing things right and “effectiveness” which is doing the right things, is important. But sad to see that many churches ministry is based on efficiency and no effectiveness. The church must rethink its current process in order to determine if it will effectively fulfil the great commission.
Quoting from Proverbs 21:31- “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the LORD.”
Here we should learn the balance, victory rests with God, but we must prepare the horse to the best of our abilities. “Change” is one of the scary word and difficult one, cause it has to do with coming out of the comfort zone. Difficult as it may be, it is essential or else we are faced with the possibility of dying because of our unresponsiveness to the changing world. In the end i should say, radical as may be that “anything that hinders our spiritual growth we must do away with it.” Be it with the methods, the past success and glory, tradition and habit, custom and rituals, convention and routine.
