Let’s Break The Mold

The following is an excerpt from my recently released book entitled Is This The End . . . Or Just The Beginning?

We could break the mold and try a different approach. Invite them to a home meeting where food is served. Meet them in a coffee shop or restaurant. Pick a location that is neutral and non-threatening.

I am convinced that one of the reasons for Substance Church’s rapid growth was that for the first ten years, they met mostly in high school auditoriums, not a traditional church building.

Mark Anderson of Youth With A Mission for several years produced large evangles outreach events. In a meeting in which he was introducing his methos to a large group of pastors, he said,

“Don’t try to bring a new Christian immediately into a church. That’s a year or so down the road. They should first be mentored in the homes.”

The Story Of The Soundman

On a trip to Bemidji, I was offered free lodging in a pastor friend’s church where they had built an apartment for travelers. When I approached the entrance of the church, which happened to be an old school building, a large man was standing by the door.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

It took a moment or two. Then I realized who he was.

“You’re Greg, the soundman,” I replied. I was excited to see him again.

“Because you came to Clearbrook, three people are serving the Lord,” he said.

It had been about three years since our Reach For More event in Clearbrook, Minnesota. Greg and I went to my room in the back of the building and we talked for an hour. Passion for the Lord poured out of this man as we talked about his new life in Christ. He explained that since he made his commitment to Christ. He explained that since he made his commitment to Christ at our event, two of his kids had followed in the faith and were now living for Jesus.

The story behind Greg’s commitment to Jesus is very unique. He was a sound and light contractor, and I hired him for the Clearbrook event. When Brooks Gibbs gave the invitation to receive Christ, people started coming to the front as music played in the background.

“Can we have the sound down?” Brooks asked, and then followed with, “Oh, never mind. He’s at the altar.” Greg, our soundman, had left his post at the sound board and come to the front.

I interviewed Greg almost one year after the event. He said that after his commitment to Christ, he was not ready to attend church. Jim, a pastor who counseled him at the altar, began visiting Greg at his home every week, and there he led Greg through several Bible courses. Greg said that only after a year of meetings with pastor Jim, was he ready to attend church. When he was ready, he became the bass player for the worship band.

We lose many new believers because we attempt to bring them immediately into the church service. It’s too big a leap. In many cases, it frightens them, and they drop out, returning to their old life.

The Unchurched Don’t Like Church

A big part of the church’s decline in reaching the hardcore unchurched is that the church building has become the center of nearly all the church’s activities. We Christians “hole up” there and don’t spill out into the community outside its walls.

The first 300 years of the church was arguably the most successful years of the the church . . . and the church had no building in which to meet. T. L. Osborne in his book Join This Chariot, hits the nail on the head.

“A church building serves one purpose to keep you from getting cold in the winter and hot in the summer, or wet when it rains.”

The speaker of a pastor’s conference I once attended in the Seattle area, had been a church planter for many years. He stated that church plants are made up almost entirely of backslidden Christians. “It is very rare,” he said, “that a hardcore unchurched person becomes an attendee of a new church plant.”

Just to be clear, young children can be attracted to activities in a traditional church building. Children up to the age of 12 to 15 can successfully be attracted to vacation Bible school or youth groups. The dividing line seems to be when they form a worldview, which occurs at a younger age than in the past. Teens typically have formed their world view by the time they reach middle school. After they have formed their worldview, it is much harder to draw them to a service in a traditional church building because church is no longer “cool.”

In my years of producing evangelistic events, I learned very quickly that if you do an event in a church building, it will be very hard to draw unchurched people. You will draw almost exclusively Christians. Now, what sense does it make to create an evangelistic event to draw the unchurched and then end up preaching to a crowd of Christians? Churches fall into this trap all the time.

Take that same event and hold it in a neutral location such as a high school gym and you will have five to ten times as many unchurched. For this reason and others, sometimes at our Reach For More events, half the audience is unchurched.

(End of book excerpt)

Leadership

Leadership is basically about having courage and being obedient. Many assignments in the kingdom are daunting, sometimes terrifying. You must have the courage to attack them and not hang back. You may make a lot of blunders along the way (who doesn’t?) but if you have passion to do the Master’s work, your leadership will prevail.

A man who researched corporations for ten years to find out what makes a successful leader came to the following conclusion.

Successful leaders, “do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done whether they feel like it or not.”

As you may know, there are different seasons of life that God takes you through. There are seasons of life that God takes you through. There are seasons of preparation and there are seasons for action, when whatever He prepares you for needs to be done.

Part of the preparation for action is being organized, having your ducks in a row, taking care of all the little details ahead of time so they don’t vex you when you need to concentrate all of your energy on the war, the battle you will engage in. Some of these tasks seem to be “putsy.” but they are necessary.

Need Book?

I urge you to order a copy of the book. Maybe you can wake up a few people . . . or just one! If we all do our part, we can turn the tide, stop the destruction of the Marxists, and stand tall again as a nation.

Make your check to Rise Up America for $20 (15 for the book and 5 for shipping).

Rise Up America, P.O. Box 41291, Plymouth, MN 55441

You can also request/order your book on our web site. Please visit our store to place your order.

We are speaking and performing music at the following:

Saturday, October 12 at the home of Steve & Cynthia Boughan, 105 Nelson Ave, Dresser, Wisconsin. Begins at 3 p.m. Meal provided. Worship begins at 4:30 p.m.

Sunday, October 20, 9 a.m. – Waskish Baptist Church, Waskish, Minnesota

In His Service,

George and Lorraine Halama

Photo designed and taken by Lorraine