There
once was a new church in which the people worked hard to reach others for
Christ. They called their first pastor,
bought land, built buildings and focused on worship and Sunday School as a means for
growth; and grow they did! As they grew,
they thought, “Let’s add more activities and events. Surely this is good!” So they got busy planning golf tournaments,
men’s events, women’s weekend retreats, children’s sports camps, youth
retreats, and a host of other activities.
They added church staff and became very involved in missions
activities. As they looked at all they
were doing they said, “We are doing so good; look at what we have become!”
After
a few fast-growing years, the church began to plateau. They talked
about the priority of Sunday School, but they focused the majority of their
energies toward maintaining all the other church activities.
Guests
were still attending, people were joining, but somehow they never found
their way to Sunday School. People began
to ask, “Why aren’t we growing? We keep adding people, where are they going?”
Because of the flurry of church activities, it was decided that a
focused evangelism plan was no longer effective. They felt that an emphasis on anything other than relational evangelism was no longer culturally relevant.
They then felt that, since Sunday School was not growing, the problem must be the curriculum. "Let’s just let teachers teach what they want
to," they said. But, were their teachers really teaching
God’s Word? Nobody really knew for sure
because the teachers were teaching whatever they wanted to teach.
Now, five years later, the church that was moving forward had begun to decline. What was this church going to do now? They decided they would simply focus on taking care of those who were already in the building—providing all types of programs and activities. They thought, “Maybe these were all God planned to bring down our path.” So, now their focus was on keeping everyone busy, servicing their needs, but never really expecting anything more than what they already had.
How do you think this story will end?
Now, five years later, the church that was moving forward had begun to decline. What was this church going to do now? They decided they would simply focus on taking care of those who were already in the building—providing all types of programs and activities. They thought, “Maybe these were all God planned to bring down our path.” So, now their focus was on keeping everyone busy, servicing their needs, but never really expecting anything more than what they already had.
How do you think this story will end?
