Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations

Robert Schnase – Lecture Nov. 14, 2009 at Mansfield FUMC

 

Radical Hospitality

• Goes to the very root of our beginnings 1000’s of years ago.
• We were all once strangers
• Matt 25
• Angels unawares – Hebrews 13:2
• Radical is from the word roots
• Check the minutes of the last few months Ad Council – is there radical hospitality?
• Listen to the Pastoral prayer – does it include the needs of others outside of the congregation?
• Radical hospitality shakes every attitude of the church (Sunday School, Choir, Bible study groups, etc.)
• How do we open the door for radical hospitality?

1. Do we have VBS so that our children and grandchildren can learn the stories of faith or do we offer VBS to the community and take every measure to assure that the invitation has been extended. (by removing all the barriers that prevent attending).

• Has the Board of Trustees reviewed the condition of the whole church plant?

1. How inviting is the church to a 25 year old, most think the church is “quaint”.
2. What facilities are provided for physically challenged?
3. Cleanliness

 

Passionate Worship

• Worship is the most important thing to happen this week
• It requires carefully planning
• It should look real easy because worked so hard in preparation
• Evaluate every element
• What is God intending to say during worship
• It should have an ‘air’ of expectation

 

Intentional Faith Development

• Ways we learn outside of Sunday worship
• Are there small groups that support ministry and help people grow in faith?
• Is faith the pathway we are on?  Are we doing community?
• Where do we learn things like the “fruits  of  the spirit”, etc.
• We have made this so difficult because we have to have a committee to start anything.  The committee becomes so bogged down and nothing is accomplished.
• What are we doing for even 2 pre-schoolers or does it require 200 pre-schoolers to count.
• Just get permission to do – then do it, nurture it, etc., etc., etc.

 

Risk-Taking Mission and Service

• Risk taking makes a positive statement for people who will never be a member of our church.
• Risk taking is when you have the strength to do mission or service even when people will never love you.
• Risk taking is the things we do out of our obedience to Christ.
• A food drive is not risk taking.  Bringing 2 cans a week during a four-week food drive is not risk taking mission or service.
• Risk taking is going places where we would never go.
• Risk taking is serving “those kind of people” and going to their places not having them come to us.

 

Extravagant Generosity

• What ever it takes I will give.  Remember the story of the good Samaritan.
• It is preaching, teaching, and practicing the tithe.
• If you are an active United Methodist and you don’t tithe, why not?
• Our affluence has shaped us more than our generosity. 
  1. We have been shaped as greedy, self absorbed, and wasteful
  2. We have learned discontentment.  Always wanting more.  More income,        more things, more clothes, more electronics (we want things).
  3.  Most of us want more income and usually we lust for 20% more.

Example is wanting $120,000 when we have $100,000.  We spend like we have the whole $120,000 except when it comes to our giving and we are content to give God much less than a full tithe. 

 

Core Process

• The fundamental activities that are so critical to a viable congregation as opposed to a dying congregation.  
• When a congregation doesn’t do mission, outreach, or evangelism
  1. Every 10 years the average age of the congregation goes up by 7-8 years. 
  2. Is that why the Church is a graying church?  Eventually you’ll have a congregation with nothing but 70 and 80 year olds, and the church slowing dies off. 

• Friendly hospitality doesn’t work but Radical Hospitality does.

 

Adjectives

• The secret is the adjectives
• All the adjectives are inter-changeable
• Such as passionate hospitality, passionate faith development, passionate mission and service, or passionate generosity, etc. 
• The ministry of Christ was:
  1. Radical
  2. Passionate
  3. Intentional
  4. Risk-Taking
  5. Extravagant

• If we continue to do the same old thing, the same old way, we will get the same old results.  Don’t do things that the results can already be predicted.  (get outside of the box).

 

Mission of the Church

• Practical
• Understandable
• Doable
• How does the UMC make disciplines for Christ?  Some denominations make disciples because you were born into the church.  Maybe some United Methodists are like that too.  
• Help people to grow in their faith and serve others
• Sometimes we have 35 years or more to grow our faith, for some maybe 5 years, and some maybe 5 months, but some we have one Sunday, the one worship service that was attended.  We owe the very best to our visitors.

 

Practices Distinguished 

• You don’t play little league one day and the very next day become a major-league baseball player. 
• Practice
• Always strive to go to the next higher level

 

Common Language

• Changes how everyone does their work. (pastor, secretary, teachers, etc.)

 

Figuring Out

• Learning is the challenge
• We have to learn the problem and then figure out how to change it.
• Example of a problem is “why don’t we have children here?” What is it going to take to change that?  Are we totally committed to the task? 

 

Fruitfulness and Excellence

• Okay is never acceptable
• In the church we settle for mediocrity
• Fruitfulness is actually the results of work
• How do we measure fruit?
  1. How many are you reaching?
  2. How is it impacting their lives?

• Stop doing ministries that don’t have impact.  We don’t have the time or resources to waste. 
• Mission should be so good that it is like promising a little leaguer that if he comes to one practice then the majors will want him. 
• Radical Hospitality at the coffee table is not putting a new skirt on the table.
• Got to keep the conversations on going.  Can’t stop.