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When it comes to Christian-themed drama, the church has moved a long way from 1970s flannelgraphs and campy skits with cardboard scenery, or have we?
For eight years we attended a small, especially friendly Methodist church. A year and a half ago, we left to find a church where our oldest daughter would no longer be the only child in her grade attending Sunday School, and where we didn’t feel like the youngest people in the pews.
It was no small undertaking in bringing Hollywood actor Jim Caviezel to the campus of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship earlier this year, but the effort for the church was worth it. More churches are reaching their communities through special events, performances, and services focused to unbelievers who wouldn’t otherwise step foot in a church.
When most churches think of a building project, often images of bulldozers, fundraising consultants, bricks and mortar come to mind but rarely a Web site. Although, countless studies have shown that the Web site is the first stop for many people looking to discover more about the church and determine if it might be a place where they could belong.
Bob Johnston does not shy away from change. He accepted a calling to the Episcopal Priesthood that had been persistent, and left a position with the largest patent law firm in Dallas, uprooted his wife from a medical practice and, ultimately moved his family to London where he would do his final training before ordination.
I’m not telling your church that it should change its name. If anything, I’m telling you not to. But if you should consider changing the name of your church, you should do so slowly, carefully and with much thought and prayer.
I enjoy going to Starbucks because I know I will be greeted by a barista who is going to make me coffee exactly the way I like it. I like to shop at Wal-Mart because I know I am going to be welcomed by a smiling face and made to feel like I made the right choice in shopping there.
The simple act of extending the right hand of fellowship to visitors to our churches is fraught with difficulty and ineptitude, and many first-time visitors won’t come back as they experience a cold or indifferent church.
The church potluck supper, still a staple in most congregations, is cooking up something bigger in larger churches today. Food service is becoming a department in its own right in not only bringing people together in fellowship, but as a support ministry and outreach tool with other ministries of the congregation.
