what sort of church dont you want?

                  I was sent an article by a member of the church and have been really challenged by it as I have read it over a number of times now. It was written by Paul Scanlon, pastor of the Abundant Life Church in Bradford, a thriving and active fellowship in the midlands which has experienced considerable change and growth in recent years.

     Scanlon desribes the church as it was as “introvert, safe and exclusive” until with fresh vision for the lost and a desire to reach out to their community they experienced what he calls their “crossing over” which has led to the significant growth of the church. As he has traveled around all manner of churches and failed to be inspired by what is going on there, he has had cause to ask the question, “ what is wrong with the church?” and in this article he answers that question by asking another one, which I have been pondering. What sort of church don’t you want? Isnt that a fascinating question? How would you answer that?

 

   He has twelve observations. Here are just a few. He noticed in the church a culture of lateness, lack of enthusiasm, passionless worship and unresponsive people. Of little responsibility given to younger people and to women, with little laughter and fun, irrelevant preaching, no vision and, coming out of his charismatic background “ too much weird, flaky stuff being allowed to happen” in the services. Wow!  Filter us through that and what do you get??

 

   Scanlon’s heart for the church is summed like this, towards the end of the article, “ To build a soul-winning, lost-bringing church. To outlaw “virtual reality” evangelism and refuse to weep over anything we wont do anything practical about.”

 

     So, why not complete this sentence and share your vision. “ The church I see…….”    

 

Gordon  McDade