Towne Hall Meeting – Keep the Information Flowing!

Thursday’s Scripture Readings:
OT: Ezekiel 14-15
NT: 1 Thessalonians 4
W&W: Psalm 118.15-29

Friday’s Scripture Readings:
OT: Ezekiel 16-17
NT: 1 Thessalonians 5
W&W: Psalm 119.1-8

Today’s Reflection:

Finishing up on the questions submitted to the Towne Hall Meeting, following is my response to the question asked about getting people connected to the church:

I have said a lot about what I believe to be the necessary marks of a disciple. A follower of Jesus Christ is one who…
· Knows God in Worship
· Shows Love in Relationship
· Grows Up in Discipleship
· Goes Out in Citizenship
· Sows Seeds of Partnership (praying, giving, inviting, serving)
· Flows Out in Leadership (This sixth component is not requisite for all Christ-followers because God does not call everyone to lead.)

With that in mind, I believe we should design the ministries and programs of the church to develop all these ingredients of the Christian life. But, we also need to be simple in our approach and not duplicate our efforts. I believe we should plan one main activity to provide for expression of each of the first 4 marks of the disciple. Something like…
· Know – our worship service
· Show – our Sunday school
· Grow – our Sunday night (used to be “evangelistic hour, but no longer…”)
· Go – Wednesday night ministries and Mission and community involvement
There could be other ways to meet these needs, but we must keep the structure simple and communicate it.

These 4 ministries would grow out of the seedbed of…
· Sow – pray, give, invite, serve

And the first 5 would be overseen by identified leaders:
· Flow – equipping God’s people for works of service

More important than the ministries and programs themselves, however, are the transitions between ministries. We not only need to plan good ministries, we need to be purposeful about how we are going to get people to transition along the path of spiritual development. For example, one of the main concerns during our worship time should be how are we going to encourage people to move into small groups. We need to make a structure for that to happen and build it into our weekly ministries.

In summary, I plan to increase member engagement by:
· Doing what we do best
· Getting everybody in small groups
· Focusing on transitions
· Planning clear and positive methods of communication

I hope these blog postings have been helpful to you – both Bethel Nazarenes and others who have kept up with them.

This Week’s Scripture to Memorize:
Matthew 16.25: For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.