SLLCS Board of Directors

 It's been a little hard in this book when I don't think we are the church he is describing.  We (the Lutheran church as a group) doesn't jump to change with the trends.  We might be 20 years behind the trend but our changes are slow and deliberate.  Definitely a temptation to make decisions on the numbers and to always get that +1, one more, mentality. I think we get orthodoxy and I think we show orthopraxy and I believe we we're pretty okay in the orthostasis area.  (I didn't really know what all these words meant, just wanted to throw them out.)  😉 So how would you answer the questions on page 138 about St. Luke's?

 Since Romans 1:16 is my confirmation verse, Mancini's question has been mine many times:  Am I ashamed of the Gospel?  (p 118)  I do like the summary of the connected gospel for disciples on page 126.  The question of the chapter:  Are we relying on relevance or are we relying on the Gospel?

So we are now starting the discussion of the 7 laws of the Upper Room.  The subtitle here is: Real Church Growth Starts with a culture of Mission, not Worship. I like that we are reminded here that the mission is to 'go'.  We have our signs to remind everyone that they are now entering the mission field yet I know that coming to church is a comfort.  Which it should be!  This is where the Lord comes to meet us.  So there isn't anything wrong with coming to church and I liked the quote on page 110 about Acts 6 - "We are going to delegate our internal activities in order to devote ourselves entirely to external activities."   Is our worship helping you go out and live the Jesus Adventure?  If not, what needs to change?

 Three Pills Prescribed by Church Pharma "Christian publishing....caters to leaders' FOMO (fear of missing out)."  p 75 Growing attendance.  More locations.  New pastors.  ....  It is important to me that all of us - staff, Board, membership - keep looking at our church and evaluating how we might help share the Gospel in better ways.   The quote on page 87 --"They do not sufficiently grapple with the oppositional forces church are facing today that were not so strong even twenty years ago."   Are we grappling with the right things?

 I was never much of a student of history but I have loved the study of generations.  In that study, I see that we do tend to repeat history over the generations.  As this chapter walked through these 20 year timeframes, it is easy to see the influence of the culture on the church.  I have obviously been a part of the 20 year cycle where they church being more "for the outside, not the insider" (p 69).   As you look at the chart on page 71 and the assumptions on page 72, are there any that stand out to you?

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.  Colossians 1:28 It is so hard for me to think about the input results and output results presented in this chapter.  I would like to call attendance and giving output, but they are classified here as input.  Being a math person, I love things that I can graph and chart to see a trend.  I also know that interpretation of data is a whole different matter.  Where is that faithometer?   :)

 This chapter is divided up into the three ideas that: Program Churches many times are organizations that have a lot of activity but are not making disciples House Churches are doing the disciple making part but don't have any organizational structure Future Church that focuses on disciple making while using the programs and structure to make disciples There is a lot more to come in the next chapters about this.  Are we the type of program church as the book defines it?  What do you think of the House Church concept?