Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Successful Church

Putting on my leadership hat to share this recent post from Craig Groeschel of lifechurch.tv. (Check out his blog here.)

This really, REALLY made me think today.

I'm glad when God kicks me out of my comfort zone.

But it ain't comfortable....

I will never be satisfied with a church filled only with people who know Christ. God longs for the “lost to be found.” But for years I found the greatest joy in more people coming to church.

Today, I’m redefining success to not just more people, but different people.

A few years ago, our church was experiencing record crowds of people. But we also had many people who’d been with us for years falling into major sins.

We seemed to be effective at getting people into Church, but were we truly getting people into Christ?

I’ve been set free from being totally driven by attendance. Instead I’m asking God to take those we have into a deeper place of intimacy and knowledge of Christ. I’d rather have fewer and totally committed believers than a large number of lazy, apathetic, carnally minded and unproductive cultural Christians. - Craig Groeschel
What do you think? What makes a church "successful"?

4 comments:

Tommy said...

Couldn't agree more. I believe the church is so focused on methods and content. That was never the intent. We are to be focused only on Jesus and his purpose "to seek and save that which was lost." When our focus is clear, we become an authentic expression of His love, and that love drives our content, and effective methodology becomes a part of our ethos.

Connie Kottmann said...

The last paragraph says it all.

Julie said...

Connie, I agree with you. His article is right on the mark.

The Dude said...

Double dittos for Connie.

Although I do there is a thin line in trying to reach all possible folks who don't know christ yet. Sometimes being a "lazy, apathetic, carnnally minded, and unproductive cultural Christian" is a stepping stone or like a Christian adolescance* that leads to being a fully devoted motivated follower of Christ.