The Final First Step?
I’m still pondering the thoughts of the last few days in my blog,and now I come to focusing a bit more on where I started: – The first step in New England.
Because I live in new England, I get to be used by God to reach people from new England (pretty Obvious, huh?), and one of the things I’ve been processing this week is where is the first step (as far as leadership is concerned) toward leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. In order to answer that question, I must first answer this question: What is the greatest need of our community?
There are going to be a great number of needs in any community, so right now I’m asking myself, “Where God has placed me, what is the greatest need?” And then, we should begin to tackle that issue as a church. I wish caring for people outside of our comfort zones came naturally for everyone, but it doesn’t. In fact, for years the church sat in its comfort zone, taking care of itself, and rarely thought about the needs of those outside of its own four walls.
Today there are those who would say that organization and leadership is not important, and that everyone should just do there part (interestingly enough, even saying that is a form of leadership). But if it wasn’t for a group of people in the 80′s who believed God loved everyone, not just those inside the church, and were intentional about reaching people outside of their own church, people “just being” nice to others was not going to happen. And if it wasn’t for Luther and some of the other Reformation characters in the 16th century, the church would have been stuck in an even longer period of spiritual draught.
To break the castle of the status quo, you have to first crush the large rock wall in front of you.
So the question I’m asking for Fellowship right now is this: “What is the greatest need in our community?” Understanding that we need to continue to meet needs within the body and continue to constantly move closer to a God who loves us and has our best in mind – what is the need in our community?
Don’t stop sharing now, by all means, answer the question in your community…
Related posts:
Man I miss the days where I would just say something funny that made fun of Marty and left it at that. With all these serious posts Marty your causing me to hate sharing my thoughts. Start blogging about your diet again.
Either way, here it is:
I didn’t want to post this on your blog cause it doesn’t answer the question ‘what is the most important need in the community’. Cause that is worth answering and I don’t know the answer. But I wanted to share these thoughts.
What status quo are you breaking? Are your meetings with other NE pastors causeing an ‘us and them’ mentality?
I have a feeling like the status quo you are talking about is that NE are more apathetic about their spiritual lives than people in the rest of the country?
Be careful about your use of words. Status quo’s are actually perceptions and worlviews that people have and believe in. It is a person’s mind and the way they interact with the world. So ‘breaking it like a stone wall’ seems contradictory to ‘meeting our communities greatest need.’ In fact their greatest need might be to be understood and instead of breaking down the way they think, connect with them on another level. If I were a non-christian reading your blog in Holden and knew that you viewed my spiritual experiences and expressions as a ‘stone wall that should be broken down’ I would have a big ‘@$#@ You’ sign out in my front yard.
Once you told me that you wanted FC to hold Sunday Mornings in a shopping center, I think you mentioned you didn’t like the church building you have so much cause it is kind of like a ‘country church building’. Yet you ask how you can meet the community where they are. Do people of New England really need to be broken of the idea that church has to take place in a country brick building? Is that going to lead them to a deeper understanding of God? Wouldn’t having a church building that is similar to what NE is expecting be closer to meeting people where they are so long that on the inside their is a striking difference between FC’s body of christ and a ‘standard catholic church’?
Why are you so concerned about being progressive? What if that isn’t what NE needs? What if what they need is on old school setting that they can feel comfortable in but the message they receive is different and the community surrounding it is different? Is the greatest need of the community really to beat them over the head with how behind the times they are on worshipping God?
Who is the Luther of our time Marty?
So I guess my answer summed up would be: alot of people don’t care about God, and to them maybe become a liberal feeding the homeless. Other people in NE maybe are just used to the ‘Easter and Christmans warm family Church’, maybe to an extent become that. The greatest need of the community is to get inside their head instead of trying to get them to become FC 2.0.
An aside:
“Today there are those who would say that organization and leadership is not important, and that everyone should just do there part (interestingly enough, even saying that is a form of leadership).”
Having integrity and strong character IS a form of leadership. It’s called mentorship. Jesus called it discipleship. One of the best ways you can lead someone is to set an example. Sometimes we think a thing can’t be done, like ‘I can’t stop making sexual jokes cause everyone does it, everyone is gonna think I’m weird even in church.’ Until we see one of our friends step up and do it. Than we immiedatly see it can be done. Like the dude that ran the first 4 minute mile. Everyone thought it would never be done till some dude worked his ass off and did it. And once people saw it could be done everyone does it. You don’t get into the olympics if you can’t break 4:00. Nothing changes the status quo like living differently. That is why Obama is going to change our country.
. . . just like Ayn Rand.
Ayn Rand was an ideologue in an era whose characteristic failure was the triumph of ideas over conscience. Ideology is a crutch for people who lack the courage to stand for their own convictions and is frequently used to allow otherwise good people to advance a position or policy that one would otherwise never advance.
I disagree with Darren pretty strongly. You ask any random Christian if they’re satisfied with their Christian walk, and the answer will almost certainly be ‘no.’ Of course, it’s not a fair question, but I do think people are interested in bringing their faith into their lives to a degree that goes beyond being a pleasant person who says all the right things.
The question posed isn’t easy. It’s easy for someone to say, “There are so many needs out there,” but if you ask that same person what those needs are, they’ll probably be tongue-tied for a minute or give a canned answer.
I think the fundamental problem there is that there is no general answer — no answer that can be found by navel-gazing anyways, and certainly none to be derived from ideologies that inspire complacency (-glare-). There are two vectors here. One is research. There are lots of worthy charities in central Massachusetts. Do I know what they are? No. I should find out.
Is that enough? Maybe. But then you’re stuck in a role that some other institution conceived for you. You’ll probably have constraints on your ministry. (This is why I was happy when I learned Obama hoped to open up federal money to religious non-profits.) Isn’t the beauty of modern tech that we can flip hierarchies upside down and organize more spontaneously?
That’s why I’m working on a system that will let volunteers post hours they’d be willing to work, and individuals or organizations can make “bids” for their time (where a bid is based on interest, not money). Not only does the need find the volunteer under this system, but nuanced organizations or causes that would never have seen the light of day can form based solely on the availability of volunteers in this global pool.
I think these are great questions.
I also think we need to be careful about how this conversation progresses. I’m afraid there’s a bit of conflation going on. It seems like there is an assumption that two questions will have the same answer. Question #1: What is New England’s greatest need? Question #2: How do we reach New Englanders?
It’s understandable why we’ve conflated them. There is a certain level of overlap. In some sense, our greatest need is for Jesus. In so much as we mean this as an answer to question #1, it’s closely related to question #2.
I’m afraid, though, that it’ll become easy to identify some “perfect” cause and think that this will necessarily become the way to lead people into a church service.
There’s a way in which the question “What is the greatest need” is quite silly. By definition a need is something you have to have. I don’t need air more than I need food. I just need them at different intervals. I need them both equally.
I suspect the better question to connect these two is “What about Jesus is it that the people of New England need? What is it that they are not getting? How can we help them understand? How can we help get it to them?”
How can you disagree with me? I didn’t say anything, I just asked a bunch of questions and then summed up that I thought people’s greatest need is to be met where they are instead of us immediatly trying to make them what we want them to be.
Also, Adam you are now on the top of my ‘favorite people from the internets’ list. You are also the only name on this list. I’m also having to contrain myself from responding to your first paragraph.
My ideology about self-contraint failed cause I’m a coward . . .
Ayn Rand was a product of her surroundings. She lived through the Revolution in Russia and lived their long enough to see it sucked ass. She escaped to America in a time where the political scene was contending between capatalism and the surmounting world pressure towards communism. In that time she wrote on the fundamental value systems of capatilism vs. communism and their results.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘ideology is a crutch’. If you mean secular-humanists are tools than I agree with you. If you are saying that internal convictions are the only source of truth or self-discover or standard to make decisions than I’m afraid I have to disagreee. With 3 e’s. SRS BSNS
Also, your’re a tool.
Sorry about that tool part. You’re probabaly a great guy, I was getting so angry.
Actually I need to re-work that last paragraph. Internal convictions are the only measure to make decisions, but they can be formed a number of different ways, including ideology.
Marty –
I think that the greatest need for my community is to experience the love and presence of God. From this experience spawns so many other steps. If we can SHOW people Jesus instead of just TALKING about Jesus, then that will change our world.
I was born and raised in New England and I will tell you that some of my greatest spiritual growth has come when I have been challenged to go outside of my comfort zone. That’s why I probably lean more on the side of wanting to bring people out of their traditional mindsets and bring them to a Jesus mindset. If the traditional mindsets were resulting in complete transformation in the New England area, then I would say “Let’s keep it”. However, I believe that New England still needs to experience a Jesus transformation on a cultural scale.
It’s cool that you and I have an opportunity to bridge the gap. Having been born and raised in New England, I tend to know how people who are from New England think and process information. I also know what concepts were helpful for me to step outside of the familiar to pursue Jesus. We get an opportunity to be world changers and that absolutely rocks!
Hope that you are doing well. I tried to send you an email but don’t know if I had the right one or not.
God bless! Have a great week!
Matthew Legere
Connections Pastor, Haven of Hope in Natick, MA
MatthewLegere1400@comcast.net
860-913-5032
Ooooh firey Christian controversy, nice. I especially love the name calling, that’s some sweet Jesus talk there. I wonder if Jesus ever called any of the disciples a “tool”, I mean it would’ve been apropos, seeing that he was a carpenter and all. Seriously though, I love when Christians can be real people.
Simply, New Englanders needs is Jesus. The real question is how to bring New Englanders to Him, and not just in an “I’m Irish Catholic and I wear a crucifix” kind of way. New Englanders need to know Him, befriend Him, trust in Him, surrender to Him.
I sometimes think that we have to reinvent Christ for people. There is so much negative imagery out there that just repels people away from Christ. Just think of what you thought of Christians before you were saved.
Obviously Christ is who He is, but I think we need to be cognizant of the perceptions that we’re up against as we try to show Him through ourselves. I don’t think that people reject Jesus because they don’t like what He’s about. I think people reject Him because they perceive His followers to be a bunch of weirdo hypocrites. They don’t reject Him, they reject us. Often, they don’t even know Him or what He’s about, they’re dealing in preconceptions.
All this to say that I don’t know the answer to your question; I don’t know how to reach New Englanders. If I did, my family would be saved.
“Naval gazing” – love it! Rather appropriate i should say. Trust me when i tell you that i’ve been more or less naval-gazing for 15 years (maybe longer).
The Biblical directives are numerous and simple. i believe they are such so that we can more easily figure out what’s our role and what’s God’s. Naval gazing is the frustrated response to being ineffective at doing God’s job.
Do what God has equipped you to do. Do it with grace. Encourage one another in these things and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.