POP GOES THE CHURCH

"Would your community be any different if your church disappeared tomorrow? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Have you ever considered it with others at your church? If your church suddenly disappeared, could the community even recover? Or would they go on as though nothing at all had changed?

What is happening at your church that is worth talking about? When people leave your service, are they thinking about the e-mails they need to send and the football game they want to watch—or are they thinking deeply about their own choices and thinking how they might make a difference in some one's life this week?

Sadly, for most of us, the answer is a resounding “no.” We didn't even have to think that long about the answer. Our church is great for our friends, our family, and us, but there is little measurable impact on the community. There is little happening that is making a difference outside of the few dozen or couple hundred who regularly attend.

Wouldn't it be great if a local church had a vision big enough to capture people's hearts and motivate them to action, so it had an impact on the community? Wouldn't it be awesome if a church was so effective people began following Jesus, growing in their faith, and as a result, the community was being loved and served?


I love the way John 1:14 is written in The Message. It says Christ “became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” He came to us—met us where we were. In Jesus' case, the neighborhood was a rural, agricultural society in first century Palestine. He immersed himself in that culture. He wore the clothes, used the language, and illustrated his stories with the signs and symbols of the day to communicate the Gospel of an upside down kingdom here on earth.

If Jesus physically entered twenty-first century America, I believe he would do much as he did in the first century. He would hang out with normal people in the real world, and he would reserve his strongest words for the entrenched religious leaders who love their traditions more than they love their people. I believe he expects no less from us.

The goal of Pop Goes the Church is to stretch your thinking. If you have bought into the belief that church is exclusively for building up the believers, I want you to reconsider. If you think a church service cannot help believers grow AND be attractive to non-believers, I want to convince you that it can. If you have never experienced a church service that stays true to the Bible AND is comfortable for your non-religious friends and you don't think it is even possible, I want you to explore the possibility. The community around you is dying without Jesus, and it is your God-ordained duty to wrestle until you find the best way to reach them. And once you do, don't apologize. "

Check Out the book POP GOES THE CHURCH by Tim Stevens, I dare you!

My Comments:

It is time we valued our neighbours relationship to God more than our own needs for religious comfort. It is time for the church to learn to colour outside the lines of our narrow mindedness about what is or is not worship. It is time to get real and be relevant about our relationship to Jesus Christ and His relevancy to the "pop culture" of today.

It is pretty scary when the American Idol contestants can sing a worship song as their opening number and the church is still debating about the relevance of POP CULTURE in our services. Even the great Idol marketing machine understands the significance of relating to various cultural groups to get their message out!

Get relevant, get real or go home...actually it is DIE!

The church has a God given obligation to reach this generation,with out compromising the truth that she has inherited. Methods change,the message remains the same. Methods change, the mission must never change.

The Age of Entitlement is Dead

The age of entitlement is dead. People in positions of leadership should no longer expect preferential treatment due to their positional authority. If anything there has been a major decline in societies view of its' leaders. Just check out the late night circuit and check how often people in once esteemed and untouchable positions, are now routinely criticized and made a mockery of. The president of the USA is made out to be a dummy with a less that average I.Q. Here in Canada the leader of the opposition, Stephan Dion is portrayed as a "dorky" school boy.

Once upon a time society respected its leaders and were delighted at the thought of rewarding them with the odd perk now an again. Well, that day is gone. Maybe that's a good thing! Perhaps some people in positions of leadership have brought this on themselves. Or maybe times have changed, maybe we are tired of the abuses of power.

There was a time right here in Sudbury Ontario where my Dad would receive a complimentary 10% clergy discount from such establishments as Eaton's and Silvermans ( down on Elm).
Parishioners would bring in the odd chicken, or a dozen eggs, even a roast or two. But in those days wages for clergy were sub standard and people did what they could to help out. In those days public service was just that, public service. People provided perks for hard working underpaid servants of the public good. Well, hard working may still apply ,but underpaid has gone the way of vinyl records.
Even most clergy in this modern era receive a reasonable wage for their service to God and their parishioners.

So where does that leave us with this entitlement issue. If you expect it, you are probably out of luck. If you think you deserve it, you are definitely out of luck. What do you think if we just become equals. And if at some special time we receive some special treatment that is over and above our expectations we can learn to be grateful again and rejoice in the unexpected love shown to us by people who think enough about us to let us know we are special to them today.