In his book “Unleashing the Church” Frank Tillapaugh he
talks about the discovery by Richard Haverson who at the time when the church
had a membership of 7000, he found that if he wrote down every task that needed
to be done in the church, from cleaning to preaching, he could only find 365
roles, so with a bit of basic maths, if church members only had responsibility
for one of those roles, it would follow
that 6635 people were attending church, but actually had no other reason for
being there than actually to attend.
From this discovery he realized that very few people were likely to be
given the opportunity to serve. From
this conclusion Tillapaugh then goes on to write about what his church has done
in Denver.[1]
When people are involved in serving and in the life of the
church, it is more likely that they will attend, and contribute to the life of
the church, and that they in turn, will grow, mature, and be actively concerned
for the life and health of the church.
Some research by Fuller theological Seminary suggests that if a church
is more than 10 yrs old, it takes 85 people to lead one person to Christ. If a church is less than 3 years old, it
takes only three people to lead one person to Christ. [2]
So a summary of the treatment and prognosis:
- In the event that there is a problem as a result
of divisions, disagreements, polarizations due to members following different
personalities or groupings. This will
need a lot of prayer and wisdom. In some
cases it may just be a natural development and resulting in a church planted
somewhere else. If not treated with
wisdom and love the result will probably be a new church resulting from a
church split. A split arises when a group of people within the church has a
disagreement that becomes irresolvable and causing a lot of heartache and bad
feeling. A church plant results from the
whole church agreeing to branch out and begin a new work, where, hopefully,
there is no church or Christian witness, this can result in life and health and
growth, both for members and numerically, when approached positively. Splits arise because someone has probably
undermined leaders, or people in the congregation, and instead of addressing
the issue it has moved from a sore, to a growth and results in lack of faith or
trust in the leaders or other members of the church. This is the work of our enemy, and must be
addressed, otherwise there will be a fall-out, not just of members leaving the
church, but some even many throwing aside their faith completely. Both Jesus (Matthew 18) and Paul (1 Timothy
5:19f) give instructions about accusations against other members or leaders,
and it needs to be addressed.
Unfortunately so often today people don’t actually want to address
church discipline, or are afraid of being accused of heavy shepherding – there
is a place for it, in the treatment of a sick church if it is to recover and
become a healthy church.
-
- in the
event that people are leaving because of lack of commitment, is to get every
new member and every new Christian in the church, involved in the life and work
of the church, as soon as possible, not only will you see the new Christian
maturing, but you will see the church growing in maturity and numerically. From this it is easy to see that the
prognosis is good.
O Lord, have mercy upon us,that our church may not be losing members, but growing and we are looking to expand and start new churches.
[1]
Unleashing the Church, Frank R. Tillapaugh Regal books, 1982
[2] http://www.simplechurchathome.com/Why.html
No comments:
Post a Comment