Whether you’re the leader or not in your church, I want to ask you one question: what’s the next big thing for your church?
I’m not talking about doubling your worship service or something like that. But what’s the next significant step you would like to see your church take? What do you think is the next thing your church needs to work on?
Just curious.
[image by mr pins]
Well, since we are new and only a year old… we haven’t yet asked anyone to officially “join.” Next weekend we will be organized as a company by our parent conference, so I’m going to use that as an opportunity to call people into making a decision of commitment and to become partners with the faith community we call FUSION. On the local level we are calling our folks “partners” instead of “members” because we feel that the idea of membership can lead to an arrogance of entitlement associated with the elitist mentality of being in a club, and that’s not what joining a church is all about. Partners, on the other hand, leads to the idea that we are willingly in a community to contribute and to join others in a mission. The beauty of contributing in a community, is that if everyone is there doing the same, all of our needs are met.
So I’m creating Partnership Classes on what it means to join this faith community as a Ministry Partner. I’m currently doing research into other churches that I respect to see what they are doing, so if anyone is willing to share with me, I’d love to hear how your church handles new members/partners. I’m not so much interested in how you indoctrinate people, although not opposed to hearing, as much as what is expected of people: serving, growing, loving, nurturing, supporting, etc. Do you use a covenant? What process do you use? What is involved in becoming a member/partner?
That sounds great, Chris! Yeah, I’d love to toss some ideas back and forth. I know some churches are also doing these “ten minute” parties. Not sure if you’ve heard of them. I have a membership class that I’ve whittled down to one hour. The people do sign a covenant. Yeah, outside of here we can touch base with more details. Sounds like some exciting stuff. I also like the word partner. Just sounds cool and does convey a lot more 😉
And just to share some myself. We’re starting a full-time children’s church program that we’re launching this easter weekend. Parents with kids come all the time, and we haven’t been able to serve them well. This will allow the parents to actually hear a clear message without distractions. So, for us, I think this is our “next” big thing that we’ve been thinking about and preparing for.