Reimagining the local church

In our time Christianity is a numbers game. Everyone seems to want to disappear into a mega-church with a couple thousand other people. We need more staff, more programs, bigger buildings, build, Build, BUILD! If a few churches in a community grow while the smaller churches shrink then is anyone reaching the lost? I'm not the first one to point this out but, maybe we're just moving Christians from one part of town to another?

And what about the money? We invest in programs and staff and buildings that primarily serve those who are already church members. We give to cooperative programs on the regional, state and national level where administrative costs eat away at every dollar as it is passed from hand to hand on the way to the people it was given to minister to.

And what kind of a sorry state is evangelism in? We teach our people formulas and scripts to help their share "their" faith. We put trite little pamphlets in their hands and they are supposed to use them to bring people in. Go on now! Get out there and save them and then bring'em back to the building so that we can "disciple" them!

What's the problem with the church? It is self centered. It is focused on maintaining and/or building it's numbers and most everything it does only serves to feed itself. That's a significant part of the problem as I see it. Now, I'm going to start a series of Blog posts on what how I think we can fix it.