Revolutionise Church

Church is boring! Often you don’t find yourself challenged by what is said and the prayers go on for way too long. There is always a technical difficulty. In the end, the church is not professional and many people don’t connect.
 

Well this is what we are up against. People turn up to church and think to themselves, “Here we are now, entertain us!”

To be perfectly honest, we will always let people down if this is how they think.

Church is not a performance.

If church isn’t about performance, then what?

Loving relationships. Ephesians 2:11-12 shows us that Christ has restored relationship between us and God and with other people. Hebrews 12:12-24 sees as the people of God who gather in His presence. 1 Peter 2:9-10 describes us as a kingdom of priests designed to serve.

The attitude we should have when it comes to meeting other Christians is “Here we are now, how can I serve?”

With that in mind, let me set how we can serve in a church service context. What I’m about to say will apply if you’re rostered on for a duty or not.

 
Pray with others
If you can see that someone is stressed or going through a hard time, pray with them. If things have worked out well for someone, then give thanks to God together. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer. It may be “Thanks God for the amazing things you’ve done in _________ life”
 

Newcomers

Be the person who goes and says “Hi” to someone new. You may find this scary, but remember, they are out there on their own on your turf. You may have to postpone catching your friends until after the newcomers have been cared for.

Singing

Forget about whether you nailed the note. Sing praises to the Lord. Show a joyful heart and teach your brothers and sisters how to praise the Lord. Joy, thankfulness and praise are the key, more than perfect pitch.

Logistics

Imagine that the service is about to start and no-one has a bulletin. Or a video is going to start and the lights haven’t been dimmed. Rather than think, “I hope someone does something” why not spring into action? If you see a need, meet it.

Discuss God’s Word

If something hit home from the talk share it with someone afterwards. If you were struck by a passage from God’s word during the week open it with someone so they too can grow as a Christian.

Bring others to your meetings

I gather you think that meeting with other Christians is important, so why not invite others to come with you so that they can discover the new life found in Christ?

Arriving early

All of this requires that we arrive not on time, but early. Say 15 minutes before the service begins?

Active listening

Energetic listening through taking notes, making eye contact with the preacher, sitting at the front, laughing at jokes (even old ones) will spur on the preacher. It also provides a model to others about how you respond to God’s word being expounded.

It also relates to our conversations after the service. If someone shares something personal we want to make a note of this, pray about it, then follow them up the next time we see them.

Stay late

Once you catch this vision of church you are always the last to leave because the opportunities to minister don't end until the last person leaves. Gone are the days of fitting church in between breakfast and brunch. Ministry of the pew takes time.

This is just the start. What I’m arguing is that we need to start a revolution where we see life as ministry. A good place to learn this is in a gathering such as the 6.30pm service. Why not try some of this stuff out on Sunday?

Systematic Theology

Systematic theology is a discipline which addresses theological topics one by one (e.g. God, Sin, Humanity) and attempts to summarize all the biblical teaching on each particular subject

Theopedia

We aren’t good at this. In fact some people have given up on trying to extract the different issues from the bible with any certainty. Now there are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, postmodernism has raised questions about whether we can understand the authors intention. Shouldn’t we simply respond to what we read?

Secondly, we’re sceptical of the pursuit. We have seen unbiblical (ie prosperity doctrine) and over-logical (God has no emotions) examples. Many in what is known as the emerging church see it as irrelevant.

2 Timothy 3:16 see the whole of Scripture as useful for equipping us for good works. That means we need to understand how to apply the WHOLE of Scripture to our lives. This will involve understanding what the key themes are and how the Bible relates to current issues.

 

Here is how many people approach Systematics

Now this is obviously a poor method.  But the number of

     books I read on leadership that refer to Nehemiah to make       all sorts of claims is amazing.
 

This method means you won’t ever learn to think God’s         way. You decide what is right and wrong and stick with it.

 

Eph 4:20-24 sees the new life as having a different attitude In our minds that transforms our lives. This can only happen when we look at issues from God’s perspective.

So how do we think through issues?   

Exegesis is the key. You allow the Bible   

to challenge you thinking as you read it in

context and see what issues are important

and which issues aren’t.

Take marriage for example. The key issue

for us is that we have strong feelings for the
person. The Bible though speaks of faithfulness
to our commitments.                     

So how do we go about studying an issue to see what the Bible has to say about it?

1)      Think of key words which relate to the issue.

2)      Look up the key words in a concordance

3)      Read each reference in context

4)      Note any other terms that keep coming up

5)      Write down what you learn from each passage

6)      Note what are the common issues from the Bible’s perspective?

7)      How do themes such as character of God, new creation, sin, the cross and love shape our thinking on this issue?

How about you have go? Why not try the issue of gambling?