This is Not Your Father's Oldsmobile

The Oldsmobile line is dead.

An automobile business that was once representative of America's middle class no longer manufactures vehicles. Things like extra wide, cushioned seats, a huge trunk and extra suspension have given way to fuel efficiency and cost effectiveness. Oldsmobile was never able to reconcile its image, and the kinds of vehicles it produced, with the demands of a rapidly changing market and foreign competition and produced its last automobiles several years ago.

The dealership at the corner of US 59 and Airport Blvd., which I pass every day on my way to work, added Acura and Nissan to its line of new vehicles about 10 years ago, and has made a nice transition as it slowly faded out its GM lines, including Oldsmobile, over a two or three year period. They have a great location, and they seem to be doing very well. They've made a successful transition.

So why can't the church make a successful transition and adapt its ministry to share the gospel with the unchurched people who now make up the majority of the community around it?

I think it can.

For a long time, the churches in America operated on an attraction model. The idea was to get people to "come to church" where they could hear the gospel message preached, where they would be inspired by worship that was "done well" and thus be convinced to walk the aisle, make a decision to follow Christ and join the church. There are some who think that model worked pretty well, the numbers were good and churches seemed to attract more people than they could handle. But the problem was that church growth fell behind population growth, and the number of unchurched people in the culture continued to increase. Somehow, we forgot that the model for church in the scripture was small groups in which the intimacy and friendship that occurred also strengthened discipleship.

As we grow in our faith in Christ, our responsibility changes, and as we are discipled, we are also to become one who disciples. Our ministries need to reflect the fact that we are following the scriptures instructions to build community in the church so that those who are brought to faith in Christ can have the same opportunity to grow in their faith that we had. The worship needs to focus on bringing us to the point where we have an encounter with the Holy Spirit, a fresh experience every time it happens. In order for Bible study to be effective, those of us who are more mature in the faith need to be spending a lot of time on our own in the depths of the word, in order to be able to teach those who have less familiarity and experience with it.

We need to think about taking our small groups ministry to the next level. Like most other things we do in the church, we have adapted them to meeting our own needs. They have served two observable purposes during their existence. They helped to attract some younger families into the church, though most of these were already "in the kingdom," and they helped assimilate them as members. They have also facilitated fellowship and relationships between those members of the church that have become involved in them. In some cases, they did produce some evangelistic results, though not consistently.

Are we ready for the next step? Are we ready to form groups that will take risks, identify lost neighbors and work on cultivating relationships that will lead to fulfilling the Great Commission? Are we ready to think about small groups the way the New Testament writers thought about the church, as functioning bodies of Christ? In order to penetrate the culture with the gospel message, we need to be ready.