Church chat

Spiritual resource to share: growing church

I've been giving lots of thought to church in these last three years. Organized efforts toward noble ends are always worthwhile.

I came across a letter I wrote to a friend, one who was giving church lots of thought and prayer like me. I thought you might enjoy it.

Hello!
....

I was re-reading our class notes (from our class on Christian Science healing) and found something very relevant to the issue you brought up about small churches. Our teacher said, If we are not seeing mankind fill our churches, we must fill mankind with church!

So what about dwindling numbers in churches? Well, it is dwindling in some churches, not all. But I think it is a call for renewal in our churches, for us to fully embrace our responsibility to our community and to mankind.

When I worked (at headquarters) with churches worldwide, it was evident that those churches who were “filling mankind with church” ( ie loving and actively caring for one another and for their community) were the churches that were thriving. (Sometimes these were churches with three members, sometimes hundreds of members!) Those who weren’t focused on serving, for whatever reason, were the ones dwindling and closing.

I have asked myself, what is the mark of a successful church? Is it in the number of seats that are filled every Sunday and Wednesday? Certainly that could be heartening to see. But large churches aren’t always a sign of healthy churches.

I think the measure of a successful church is one where there is much healing going on IN the church, with the members. Are there more members looking to go into the healing practice? Are there members looking for ways to increase their study? Are we hearing fresh new testimonies of healing at every testimony meeting?

A successful church is one who has a commitment to actively serve the community resulting in activity IN the community. We might look to see the role our Reading Rooms have. Are they set up to serve the members, or the community?

Or we could look to the community as a whole. Our measure of success might be: are our schools teaching a more spiritual concept of man? Are our local hospitals ushering in a higher, more spiritual form of care? Is the media celebrating good solutions and what is working well in the community? Is there less crime, disease and discord in the community as a result of the healing work of our church?

Could it also be that the face of church is changing? Just like methods of communications have changed from scrolls, to tablets, to books, to the internet, so may the form of our churches be changing. Hmmmm……

Well, thank you for letting me go on and on about this. Much love and I hope to hear from you soon!

Love,

Kim

Your thoughts??





To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.