Meet the Needs

It is so easy for a church to become busy with all kinds of programs that are basically irrelevant, including worship services and sermons that are basically irrelevant to the people in the pew. It is time for us to be on target and relevant to the people we serve!

The methodology for this is simple. We must meet the needs of the people where they are hurting or where they are struggling.  There are multiple crises in American society today-family problems, social problems, depression, financial crisis, individual conflicts, etc.  It is time for us in the Church to understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ comes to meet these needs!  The exciting thing about doing ministry to meet needs is that people will come, their lives will be changed and our ministry will be revived. The goal should be to simply help people out with their lives by showing them the gospel of Jesus Christ through the lives of his followers.  When people experience the love that Jesus taught through the sharing and caring of others, they come to know Christ as he wants to be known.   

In order to do this, the planning of church programming must always include the question:  “Is this going to meet needs?”  Or better yet, “Whose needs will this programming serve, and is this the focus we are willing to maintain?”  (This includes worship planning! But that’s another topic.)  If there is not a good answer to those questions, then the planning for that program should be thought out again and perhaps be taken in a new direction.

So in our highly secular society, how do we find what those needs are? We look around us at our friends, family, co-workers and community at large.  Where are people hurting?  What is lacking in the community?  What is causing a conflict or difficulty?  What are people saying?  We need to pay attention to the people around us and listen and observe.  Ask questions, offer ideas, think outside the box for solutions to problems that will help and serve others. 

Single mothers, teen drug use, family conflicts, grandparents raising grandkids, cancer victims and their caregivers, dementia patients and their caregivers, disabled children or adults, --the list of needs within our communities goes on and on.  And the Church can provide help and support in many ways to these problems.  Sometimes it is simply a support group organized, and sometimes it will require a more concentrated effort to establish a rehab center, or an urban garden to provide fresh vegetables for an area.  But a group of committed Christians who truly want to share the love of Christ can come together and find ways to meet the needs of people in their community.

In our rapidly changing society the Church should be the constant stability and source of help and hope for the future.   We will do this by consistently bringing the gospel of Jesus to our world through meeting the needs of people.

How To Reach The People

Like Paul and the early Church, we are involved in reaching new people. The great commission that Jesus gave is to go and reach new people. This should always be at the front of every pastor’s mind. But too often, our goal is simply to maintain, to avoid criticism by key leaders in the local church, to make sure our denominational leaders are happy with us and hope that our Church will do well enough to pay the bills and the local pastor.

This is not the goal of being a pastor of a local church! Our goal is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. It is time that we make evangelism our priority again. It’s time that we started evaluating our worship services, church activities, sermons and programs on the basis of whether or not we are reaching new people and making new disciples of Jesus Christ. I have found in our society that many of the techniques we have used in the past, such as simply inviting people to church, are not adequate to reach the secular community that we are a part of today. It is not the goal of American society to go to church on Sunday mornings. There are too many other options for what to do on a Sunday morning. We are no longer in the 1950's. Our world has become increasingly secular and the things that the Church is doing is often thought to be totally irrelevant by our secular society.

So, what are we called to do? The answer is simple. We are to follow the teachings of Jesus, and bring his love to people through helping and servicing their needs.  We are to teach people how to follow Jesus Christ, and deepen their spiritual work and understanding of his gospel. We are to be a Good Samaritan Church as Jesus taught in Luke 10. In this way, people can find success and a deep satisfaction in their lives.  It is time that we as pastors become enthusiastic about reaching new people for Christ!

Keeping Church Relevant in the 21st Century

Sunday I attended the closing worship service for a mainline protestant church in a busy part of the city. Certainly it had ceased to grow and the number of participants had declined but that was not because the church was not needed. It was because the church was not being presented in a way that is relevant to people of the 21st century.

This church was start in 1948 and was a church that grew just by inviting people to come. The main way the church related to the community was simply by having worship and Sunday School classes on Sunday mornings.  You gained new people by simply inviting them and it worked! Churches grew all over the country by doing this.  However, times have changed!  The old techniques can work for some but not for most people today. The old techniques simply do not cut through all the cultural changes in this century. I’ve found that in order to help contemporary people find Jesus Christ in their life, they need to not just hear about it but to experience that life changing power.  They need to experience the ministry and love that Jesus taught.

In the 10th chapter of Luke, Jesus made it clear that, to be his follower, we must care for and love other people. We must be like the Good Samaritan and stop and help. Churches today have given up that Good Samaritan ministry and too often just opted for having worship. Worship in some churches is stable and acceptable, in some it is profound and exciting, and in some it is entertaining. However most of the approach to worship today is still out of the 1954 model --singing the hymn and songs and saying the scripture. This is just not reaching new people!

The tragedy is that the best way to reach new people is by communicating the basic message of the gospel -- that being a follower of Jesus Christ allows you to be successful and happy.  It works, but we have to deliver the message not in a guilt-driven pattern but in a way that shows how the gospel of Jesus Christ helps all of us in every day of our life. It help us do parenting better, it helps young adults work through major adjustments, it helps retired people put their lives together after they no longer have a vocation, etc.

It is time for the Church to do ministry that reaches out and really helps people where they hurt, just as the Good Samaritan illustrates.  We have to emphasize the results of following Jesus Christ.  When people experience the love of Christ in their lives, they want to know more and want to spread that experience to others as well.  This is how the church will bring new people to Christ today.  All of the worship, programming and ministry of any church must flow out of that understanding and that mission.

The Power of Bible Stories

Stories are such an important part of the Bible. The Old Testament is filled with the practical stories that have become the foundation of so much Christian teaching. There are some great stories like David and Goliath, Moses and the 10 Commandments, and Joshua and the Wall of Jericho.

New Testament stories map out for us the basic experience of the Christian faith. Such as, The Birth of Christ, The Crucifixion, The Resurrection and all of the different miracles that Jesus performed. They all become classics for us. Just as important are the parables that Jesus taught.

Any speaker today, that wants to be heard, knows that utilizing stories helps the listener to remember the message much better. We hunt for good illustrations for sermons, or speeches. We cherish the classic stories of our own journey through faith which we use to explain our convictions, who we are and where we are going. It’s so important that we realize how precious these stories from the Bible are.

It’s interesting that the stories that stick with us and are our favorites are the same ones we use to teach others. I’d like to hear your ideas about the importance of stories and which stories you have found most influential for your Christian Journey. For me, the story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection are, of course, the key to my understanding of salvation. But it’s the story of The Good Samaritan that Jesus uses in the Book of Luke that I use to illustrate what we’ve come to know as “The Great Commandment”; to love God, love our neighbors and ourselves. That story, in many ways, explains so much of what it is to be a Christian. 

What are your favorite Bible stories?