This video is an attempt to answer the question of “why a new church” in Carlisle??
Here are some random thoughts. Top 7 reasons why we are starting Engage! Enjoy. I would love any feedback or thoughts. jon@engagecommunitychurch.com
top 7 reasons to start a new church.
10. Look, there is no such thing as a one size-fits-all anything these days. Everywhere you go you find smaller niche’s. This is because as the world grows more diverse (even in Central, PA) we form smaller communities or tribes of people who share common interests, hobbies, tastes, and the like. We need all kinds of churches to reflect the many different kinds of people in our world. Starting something new is an attempt to help people cultivate meaningful faith in Jesus for those who currently aren’t connecting with God through church as they’ve known it. This is a tradition that has been a part of the Christian story for the past 2,000 years. This is how the message of Jesus finds its way into the places and people who have yet to experience the gospel of Christ…even in our own backyard.
9. New churches can innovate and re-imagine how to be the church in our world. New churches can change and adapt faster than more established churches. Tim Keller says, “New Churches are the Research and Development wing of the larger Church.”
8. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, most people can only handle a closer friendship network of 10-15 people. Most people have a capacity to stay somewhat connected with up to 150 people. This means that new churches offer an easier way to stay connected with the other people in the community of faith. We believe church is not simply an institution. It’s more! It’s allowing people to know you well enough to share your struggles, support you, and walk with you on the journey of faith. We say all the time, ” You can’t really know Jesus without the church.” And the church is people in meaningful friendship with each other.
7. We believe the church exists primarily for the benefit of its non-members. It is easier for new churches to be focused outward on meeting the needs of people in our community. Church is what happens during the week, not simply some songs and teachings on Sunday. Those are important and helpful. Church is an incubator, a place people are nurtured by Scripture, Worship, and Friendships to be extensions of God’s beauty, generosity, and self-sacrifice to the rest of the world during the week. ( i know this is an run-on sentence, of which i am king)
6. New churches best reach a. new generations. New churches are one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Church. New congregations tend to attract a higher percentage of venturesome people who value creativity, risk, innovation, and future orientation.
5. New churches tend to be an easier place for new residence of a community to find meaningful friendships. Not all, but many established churches tend to be friendly, but saturated in their friendship networks. This can lead to the feeling of it being hard to “break in” to the established friendship communities.
4. New churches best reach new groups of people who currently don’t have a vibrant faith in Jesus. Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10-15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other (mostly dying) churches.
3. Jesus gave his followers the mandate to multiply communities of people who are seeking to follow the ways of Christ. Yes, we really believe that knowing our Creator through Jesus causes us to be people who deeply reflect the life of God from the most to the “least” significant aspects of our lives. We live under the conviction that we need to live in relationship with God to be the best of who God created us to be. We simply can’t and won’t experience the fullness of what our Creator intended for his creation if we live independently from God. This doesn’t make us judgmental of people who aren’t “like us”. It’s the opposite. This actually causes us to love better, respect more, and self-sacrifice deeper for those who are not a part of the Christian community.
We hope you can join us on January 11th for our Day of Beginnings Celebration. We will celebrate the official start of Engage with a meal to follow after our gathering.
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This entry was written by , posted on December 31, 2008 at 8:52 pm, filed under blog and tagged bad religion, carlisle, church, church plant, church start, pa, religion, Video, video church. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
