Getting People to Church
0 comments | Posted by Steven Layson on 10 Sep 2010 in From Steve's Study ::
I wonder if you’ve ever visited the sydneyanglicans.net website? It’s a great way to keep in touch with issues of faith from all round the world, as well as being an excellent source of thought-provoking articles. I thought I’d just give you a short excerpt from the article “Getting People to Church”, by Craig Schwarze from Wednesday of this week:
“It’s always been difficult to get Australians to church. Back in the early colonial days, church attendance was so poor that the government occasionally made it compulsory. This had mixed results. Governor Hunter, an evangelical, issued just such a directive in 1798. The convicts responded by burning Sydney’s only church to the ground.
Lord Hobart, secretary for the colonies a few years later, never visited Australia, but he seems to have understood the Australian soul. He also insisted the convicts attend church, but added that all who behaved themselves during the week should be given “a pint of grog” upon showing up on Sunday.
Leaving aside the “free wine” strategy, how do we get people into church? It’s the perennial question. A few years ago, people started comparing the “attractional” and “missional” approaches to evangelism. The attractional approach tried to draw the world into the church, to hear the gospel from the pulpit. The newer, missional approach, wanted ordinary Christians to inject themselves more deliberately into the world, bringing church to the people, rather than the people to church.”
So, what do you think? How do we help people into church? Should we sit and wait for them to come to us, or go out to where they are? Whatever the case, what would that look like? Most importantly, how can we introduce people to Jesus, so they might respond to him? After all, as the Apostle Paul writes, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Rom 10:14)
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