Who do you love more: Jesus or the local church?

For those of us who spend our time serving the local church, whether on staff, volunteering or in a business that supports churches, there is a tendency to equate serving the Bride of Christ with loving Jesus. To be sure, we are called to serve and we do so out of our love for Jesus. However, we can slip into a mindset of assuming that our relationship with the Bride of Christ is the same as our relationship with the Groom of the Bride.

In trying to serve local churches and help them become more effective, I find myself trying to serve the church above serving Jesus. Said another way, I can love Jesus and out of a grateful and obedient heart, serve his Church; but I shouldn’t serve His church first and love Him second. Our time and attention directed at serving and helping churches grow is noble. It is most likely out of a love for what Jesus did for us that we found ourselves focusing on local churches. But we must be aware of the imbalance that can happen when we let our priorities get out of whack.

This slippery slope can have some serious consequences. I read something that provided me with a different perspective:

If we’re not vigilant, the cares of the world creep in with so much pressure that we remove Jesus from his rightful place as the Lord of our life. It takes tremendous faith, dedication and obedience to make sure we keep our relationship with Jesus as the highest priority in our lives, right where it belongs.

All of this becomes amplified to an unbelievable extreme when we are among those called to serve God in full-time ministry. Suddenly, we feel responsible for the welfare and salvation of all those trusted to our care. The responsibilities are enormous. And in response, we plunge into our work with selfless abandon, offering everything we have to give.

But then, if we are not careful, a shift begins to happen. We begin to measure the effectiveness of our ministry in the only way we know how. Since we cannot be certain how many lives we have helped to change or souls we have helped lead to Christ, we start to examine book reviews, concert ticket sales, web site visitors or church attendance.

Suddenly, and often without warning, those measurements become the end rather than the means. Instead of seeing ourselves as being in the service of the Lord, we risk seeing ourselves as authors, public speakers, counselors or musicians who simply happen to have chosen a Christian message rather than a secular one. We are no longer laboring for the Gospel, we are laboring for our own accomplishments and accolades. God was part of the picture when we began our ministry, but now we’ve got work to do, and that work doesn’t always appear to have anything to do with God at all. – Michael Lane, Executive Director, Delve Christian Ministries

That’s good stuff! I think Michael rightly describes the slip that can occur when we begin to make the transition of making Jesus the focus to making the local church our focus.

Who do you love more: Jesus or the local church?

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Reaching People In Motion

What kind of strategy should a local church have for reaching their neighbors and community with today’s on-the-go lifestyle? I wonder how many churches are even trying to reach this mobile society?

You know these people well. They’re neighbors down the street, coworkers down the hall and employees at your local Starbucks. Many of these people won’t take the time out of their “busyness” to find out about the churches they drive by nearly every day. From a strategic standpoint, I think local church leaders can put some steps in place in order to be intentional about reaching people in motion.

Build Relationships

“Everything rises and falls on leadership.” – John Maxwell

People, by and large, will accept personal invitations from those they know and trust. Logically, for them to know and trust you, there must first be a relationship. As leaders, we can’t expect our staff, volunteers and other congregants to be highly intentional about building relationships if we don’t model that behavior ourselves.

Think of the places you go and the people you see on at least a semi-regular basis. Chances are you’ll be able to strike up a conversation that, over time and with consistency, will yield the beginnings of a relationship. Ask questions and be an excellent listener. People don’t have a problem talking about their favorite subjects: themselves! Before long, you’ll know more about them that you might care to know, but at least you’ll be building a relationship that is the starting point for inviting them to church, a Bible study or other non-threatening activity.

Simple invites

Churches have long been using creative methods for inviting friends and neighbors to come to church. From door hangers to the now infamous church signs (with those pity sayings – ugh), it’s not hard to invite people to come to church. While this is not a bad strategy, it’s certainly one that has a high barrier-to-entry: it requires them to meet on your terms.

Instead, look for simple invites to neutral-ground places such as parks, coffee shops or social service projects. While we certainly want to be able to invite our communities to our church services, think of ways to engage them authentically in other locations where they’re not meeting on your terms, in your location. Before long, you’ll have built the relationship to a point where they trust you enough to be your guest at church.

Mobile websites

The future is mobile. With so many people on-the-go, we need a strategy to meet them while they’re in motion, not just when they check their mailbox or their email account at home. Therefore, I’m a huge proponent of building mobile websites for a church, their ministries & activities.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: a mobile-friendly duplicate of your existing church website would be massive. However, the strategy for a mobile website is significantly different from a standard website. In fact, I recently wrote about the differences and industry best-practices over at Christian Post.com. Here’s the link for that article: http://www.christianpost.com/blogs/online/2009/09/creating-a-mobile-version-of-a-church-website-23/index.html

Get Going

Given all of this information and the obvious fact that people will be on-the-go more tomorrow than they ever have been, what’s holding your church back from developing a strategy for reaching people in motion?

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