A great quote

I was listening to a Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast the other day and he said a great quote by Craig Groeschel.

"If we are going to reach people nobody else is reaching then we are going have to do what no one else is doing."

Think about that. Where do church people get ideas on how to reach people? Often, they get thier ideas from other church people, not the people they are trying to reach. The churches in this area are already doing a good job reaching the people they reach, but there are thousands of people in Suffolk who still don't have an active faith in Jesus Christ. Who is going to reach those people?

We are.

That means if we are going to reach them we are going to have to do some things that no other church is doing. We're going to have to make mistakes. We're going to have to risk some things. One thing is for sure. we have to do something different. We might do some things that make the traditional church cringe. Good.

This brings up another thought concerning new church work. Many times a new church will attract people from other churches because of the freshness, or the cause, or whatever. What happens many times is they bring along the ideas from their other church to place on the new church. What they don't understand is the church was not started to reach people like them, church people. It was started to reach preople the other churches in our community are not reaching. Church ideas will not work in our church.

What does this mean? For example, if you are thinking that once we get into a building that we are going to become a traditional church with Sunday evening services, Wednesday night dinners and other traditional church programs you are going down the wrong track. We're thinking inthe direction as our church building as being a safe place for homeless people, victims of domestic violence, and the like. We want it to be a place where the community truly comes to, and not just church people.

Why?

If we are going to reach who no one else is reaching we will have to things that no one else is doing.