churches

I am on vacation so here are some top posts from the past years. This one fits in with us joining with other One Prayer churches...

When we started the Journey, some people were fearful that we would steal people from their church. There is this weird attitude in the church world of competition - when really we are all on the same team. We weren’t worried about it because we are trying to connect with unchurched people. However, with this attitude comes some smack talk and bad mouthing too. I think it is weird. 

I came across this Facebook group the other day - the whole thing was christians bad mouthing and working against a well known pastor. While I do always agree with methods, I think we should be more encouraging than discouraging. That is why we celebrate new churches in our area (high five for the launch of Renovate this month) and even help them launch (the Deep). We are all on the same team. 

We got a comment with no return address or name attached this week about how the Journey isn’t deep enough. Not the first time I have heard this - we have heard it from people who have never been to the Journey even. I laughed when I saw it, mainly because it had all the classic terms and phrases of that complaint. I have seen more life change in my 4 years at The Journey than I seen in my whole life in church. I used to hear people bad mouth Kainay in town...they can reach people, but can’t disciple them. What the comment really means is...I’m not reaching people so I will just complain. Every pastor gets this same comment and they all say the same things...we have heard some big guys like Ed Young, Andy Stanley, Rob Bell and many others share how people say they are not deep and it was the same words as the email we got...funny. Anyways, we need a variety of churches to reach a variety of people. We know that The Journey isn’t for everyone and we like to be supportive of churches. So, if you can’t connect with God or connect with others at The Journey or if we haven’t motivated you to  live out your faith - there are lots of other good churches in West Michigan. We are all on the same team.

Comments

[Terri]

The not deep enough comment (referring to The Journey) always gets me as well. And my response to that is to tell them about how my mother-in-law (a pastor's wife) still talks about the message from the Easter service at the Journey from 2008. It touched her so much that she tells people about it.

[benjamin berry]

I have experienced this as well. I have never felt like the journey is in a competition and I applaud the leadership for making that apparent. I believe that we need to be supportive of one another even with our resources. I have served places for free giving all of my time and energy but when I helped another church which lacked good funding I asked my brothers and sisters to lend me some tools to fullfill my current service, I was genuinly surprised by their lack of cooperation. I felt guilty for asking and even guiltier recieving. As a youth director I felt isolated and many of my attemps to work in conjuction with other small youth groups met roadblocks. Other small churches where interested in having me work for them while continueing on with my current youth group but they did not want the two groups associating with each other so I said no. I was comforted and immpressed when Matt and a number of other youth pastors welcomed me into their "association" and allowed my youth group to participate in events. We need to stop acting like doing church together will result in weaker local churches. Peoples hearts will be ignited for christ when they see his power evident in our lives as we come together and serve him. Instead I think we are all to often lead by fear. I know I am often all to afraid. I thank the leadership at the Journey for their courage and their openess.