Have a family culture.
I have just finished reading the book of Genesis. The whole
book gave me the feeling that no matter what the outcome God was always in
control. There is also a human face to the book, the stories of the great
patriarchal families for example and their struggles with nature, their
neighbours and each other. The one thing that struck me was how dysfunctional
these families were. There was adultery, deceit, trickery and sibling rivalry
to name but a few of their many flaws.
This got me thinking about our church family and the fact
that this too is made up of all sorts of dysfunctional people. Charles Spurgeon
once said that there is no such thing as a perfect church and if you find one;
don't go because it will no longer be perfect. By their very nature therefore
churches should not exist, but they do.
How do we as Christian Leaders help our dysfunctional church
families grow and prosper in their relationship with God and each other? Here
are some of the ways I think that we can do this:
1. Encourage a friendship culture in the church, not just a
friendly culture. I have been in many churches that say they are friendly but
in reality they are not. Visitors are sometimes over looked and even ignored,
because we feel uncomfortable speaking to strangers. The sooner a leader can
stamp this out and encourage their congregation to engage with strangers and
develop a friendship culture the more people will feel inclined to become
involved.
2. Having a friendship culture will quickly lead to a family
culture, where people become involved in serving Jesus Christ and his church and become part of
a group, that is full of different people but is potential focused rather than problem focused.
3) If you emphasis a high friendship culture you will have a
low pastoral care input because the friends the new converts are making will be
putting positive things into their lives. Churches that just claim to be
friendly inevitably have a high pastoral care input, where pastors and leaders are run off their feet trying to solve peoples problems.
4) A Friendship based culture leads to a family culture that
encourages dysfunctional people to be functional and grow in their potential along with the rest of their new family
5) Our jobs are to make disciples of people, in other words
we need to get them to become lifelong learners, in the right sort of lifelong
relationship, with Jesus.
6) The way we build relationship is that we are real and
authentic with people just the way Jesus was authentic with us.
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