The Bible reveals two main purposes for church meetings. The first is to teach and encourage each another to become more like Christ. The second is to look after the needy and reach the lost.
Australia’s past successes in these areas have been increasingly eclipsed by its failures in recent years. Some of my previous articles for Christian Today covered the sharp moral decline in Australia in recent times, and as the saying goes, “As goes the church, so goes the nation”.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the church straying from the biblical model has been the astonishing decline in church attendance over the last 50 years*. According to ABS statistics released in 2016, Many Australians no longer want to identify even with the core tenets of Christianity, the very values once thought indispensable to a good life and honourable nation*.
This failure has extended to our decreasing influence over entertainment (immoral shows), fashion (increasing nudity in the public sphere) and lifestyle (living for self and transgenderism).
The most grievous moral implosion occurred at the end of last year with the change in marriage laws, as our society decided to go against nature and God by changing the makeup of the family unit.
Our collective salt-like influence as a church is losing its saltiness, and our light not reaching where it should. This means one thing: our way of ‘doing’ church must change. It’s no longer enough to simply meet in church halls for ourselves; we must meet to ‘Go’ for others.
Let’s get practical
In my last article, we saw how the teaching-serving model of church should imitate Jesus’ earthly ministry with His disciples and the Acts church. I called this ‘outside-in church’ where members meet to serve out in the world as much as they do to meet with each other. I then covered the distinguishing features of this biblical church model.
At this point you may be saying, “This sounds great in theory, but how on earth do churches today ‘Go’ when we’re so used to sitting behind pews and so busy with our own lives throughout the week?”
The beauty of the outside-in church is that it doesn’t require extra meetings and programs; instead, ‘Going’ becomes part of why we meet in the first place.
Although there may be many forms of ‘outside in church’, let me offer one example of how I’m beginning to implement it as a youth pastor.
Outside-in church in action
Each month my youth group meets once a week. Two meetings for the month are set aside for teaching and training, while the other two we use for serving out in the community (one teaching night, then an ARK night, then repeat). The teaching and training nights balance giving a biblical word with training drills for how to use what’s learnt.
As an example, for a couple months last year the youth not only revised the gospel message and its wider Biblical context, but also practised sharing the gospel with each other in pairs and in simulated situations we anticipated could happen when sharing in the community.
The teaching and training nights also occur in small groups which, led by other adult leaders, plan what they want to do the next week to serve-share in the community.
Before we began regular outreach, we designed a ‘connection card’ and outreach t-shirts so people would instantly know who we were and what we were doing. The connection card offers prayer, food, or assistance (helps). We also bought gospel tract cards and booklets which complement our gospel sharing.
The gospel-service nights we call A.R.K. nights for ‘Acts of Random Kindness’.
A.R.K nights have not only been incredibly empowering, effective and Spirit-led, but full of creativity, teamwork, and fun. Whether it’s been going from street to street handing out our gospel-service cards and offering help, blessing the local school and service-industries in town with treats and encouraging notes, visiting the local hospital to pray for the sick or play games with those in the elderly care facility, the Youth Group has been making a real impact for Jesus—the kind God always designed His church to have.
Making service-outreach part of why we meet together means the emphasis is taken off the one ‘special’ minister and ‘gifted ones’, as the whole body of Christ works together and is made equally valuable in that work.
What our Youth Group is doing isn’t a sacred application of the biblical model but it does provide an example of how churches can come up with their own strategies and Spirit-led creativity to regularly gospel-serve their own communities.
God’s kind of church: a ‘going’ body of Christ
God’s kind of church is an outside-in church: a church that doesn’t only meet for each other, but in order to ‘Go’ for a needy and lost world. Jesus’ earthly life, ministry and sacrifice taught us that the body of Christ was never just designed for its own nourishment and growth, but to serve and save those who don’t yet know Him.
An increasingly broken and wayward Australia is waiting for the healing hands, gospel feet, and selfless heart of Jesus. If we as the church are really the body of Christ, we’ll go to them just as He did.
Article source:
*Rethinking how we ‘do’ church – Part 1 http://christiantoday.com.au/news/rethinking-how-we-do-church-part-1.html (article source: Australian Bureau of Statistics – abs.gov.au)
Tim’s home till last year was on the Gold Coast in Australia. His current residence is in Minnesota, America. He has a Graduate Associate of Theology degree, completed a year of Masters of Divinity in Theology, and has just over six years teaching experience in Christian Education. He enjoys being a Youth Pastor, Christian writing, and spending time with friends.
Tim Price’s previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/tim-price.html