The Program Driven Church

[prism]

My idea of Church briefly is (a place where) believers come together to receive teaching and to worship our Lord as well as tend to one another's needs. We then go out and share our faith at work, home, highways and byways etc.
It may be my imagination but it seems today so much of 'church activity' is program-oriented. Everything has to be turned into a function set up by an activity committee to get the congregation involved in things that hardly pertain to what the Church is called to be e.g. a House of Prayer.
Is this some sort of Church growth tactic to get people signed up in a program so that they form some kind of allegiance and thus stick around?
I may be exaggerating a little but what do others think? May cooler heads prevail.
Oh, here, I'll throw this in to stir the pot....
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
(Act 2:42)

 

[aspen]

My idea of Church briefly is (a place where) believers come together to receive teaching and to worship our Lord as well as tend to one another's needs. We then go out and share our faith at work, home, highways and byways etc.
It may be my imagination but it seems today so much of 'church activity' is program-oriented. Everything has to be turned into a function set up by an activity committee to get the congregation involved in things that hardly pertain to what the Church is called to be e.g. a House of Prayer.
Is this some sort of Church growth tactic to get people signed up in a program so that they form some kind of allegiance and thus stick around?
I may be exaggerating a little but what do others think? May cooler heads prevail.
Oh, here, I'll throw this in to stir the pot....
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
(Act 2:42)

Consumerism, individualism, and demand for entertainment is alive and growing in the Christian Church

 

[Prentis]

The enemy has penetrated the greater part of the church and subverted it's original purpose, sadly.

 

[rockytopva]

Guy's... Agree... I pray along with the BBNRadio.org twice every day. I have my rosary beads with me as I pour my heart out before the Lord every day at 1:15 PM and 4:00 AM (I work third). I have invited folk to pray with me in which everyone is always too busy.. But... Everyone has time to participate when there is a gospel singing going on.

 

[biggandyy]

It's worse for independant churches, without synods or presbteries or diocese. We have to rough it on our own and many church constitutions and bylaws were written in the 1950's and 1960's when fund raising for church needs was out of style.

In today's world, fund raising for these small to micro churches is necessary but the older crowd who drafted the original bylaws are still in power either as Trustees or Deacons and extremely unwilling to even entertain the necessary steps towards fund raising (in fear of looking too "catholic"). Consequently they have rushed to the church growth formulas that stress everything except the Gospel.

Bigger, more self sufficient church organizations, but at the expense of sound doctrine and fellowship.

 

[aspen]

Well, consider yourselves all invited back home to Rome!

 

[Prentis]

Well, consider yourselves all invited back home to Rome!

Home is with the Lord, and in submission to him, not in Rome, in submission to a pope. The only man who can oversee the whole church is Christ, he is the head.

 

[Angelina]

If I wanted to join a Catholic forum, I would have joined the one already functioning on the net...but this is an interdenominational forum for all believers who want to share and learn and understand each other and the things that God has revealed through the Holy Spirit...

I agree Prentis...Christ is the Head of the Church and the Church functions independently of the head at times...something that Jesus will attend to when he returns, I'm sure!

Shalom!

 

[aspen]

sorry - just a joke to cut through the tension

 

[Lively Stone]

My motto comes from the church I grew up in: People Over Program!

People are more important that programs insituted to corral them. We are to take on an outward focus in our personal lives, always seeking to bring the lost into discipleship and introduce them to the fellowship of believers. See a need and fill it.

 

[biggandyy]

+1

 

[HammerStone]

+2 on people not programs!

My pastor has begun to use this term as we continue to repot our church. I think programs in context are fine, but they are and never should be the focus. I think programs came to such prominence because we abandoned the idea that God would provide and lead us and so we (collective church) thought it necessary to come up with a program to fix things. The problem is, we forgot the Jesus guy it's all about in the first place.

The funny thing is, God will provide. We (out of necessity) had to put that to the test with our little church. We barely had enough warm bodies to make a Sunday service, let alone do anything. We had to strip dying and dead programs and go back to the barebones (thanks to our pastor who, with God's guidance, knew this is the path that we had to take). We were to the point that our pastor was doing some singing and we were piping the rest of it in on computer. That was little more than a year ago now. Last Sunday, we introduced our fourth worship band member.

It's been a crazy road, but we didn't come up with some plan to produce worship leaders or even just ok singers. God essentially dropped them into our lap. Our first leader came to us on a whim while visiting her grandmother - shes 19 and just getting started with her life and felt a nudging when she attended church in her past hometown. The second, a member of the US Army in search of a church, found us on another whim. Oh, and by the way, he sings his own songs and has experience leading. The third, his son, got some drums for Christmas and was playing on stage, after he began learning just two weeks prior. The fourth is a friend of the 2nd guy. He visited when the second guy recalled a talk they had where he could not find a local church.

None of these people are from this town. One was born, moved way off, and was brought back. The other two just came as part of their jobs and families. No plans could have accounted and established this and no program we institute can do that. It came down to people telling people and God doing the rest.

I share this story because I love rubber meets road stories of God at work.

As for my opinion, the only thing worse than a program is the committee that generally establishes it.

 

[jiggyfly]

sorry - just a joke to cut through the tension

I thought it was good. Tis good to laugh especially when things get so intense.

As for my opinion, the only thing worse than a program is the committee that generally establishes it.

Very true, and it is very indicative of where programs originate. I too like to hear about God's work and could give many accounts where I have witnessed many miracles taking place where "rubber meets the road" and had nothing to do with any kind of religious liturgy or agenda. They happen all the time @ WalMart, the grocery store, the hardware, the auto parts, the hair salon and the sports bar, when people figure out that ministry is not their life but that their life is ministry and are now led by HolySpirit.