Comeback Churches, Continued...

“My church always has communion on Sunday mornings.” “My church will not allow anyone to sing on the worship team that is not dressed in their best clothes.” “My church will not baptize babies.” Is it possible for two churches to do two different things and both of the churches remain successful? Of course it is possible. It is more than possible. It is effective!

In his book, Comeback Churches, Ed Stetzer says, “The answer is not to make all churches look alike and use the same techniques. The answer is to have everyone seeking the same thing: to glorify God by being an indigenous expression of church life where they are.”

That is one of the beautiful things about church. Churches have the freedom to act and be all that God has called them to be. There really is no true rule about how many hymns should be sung or what translation of Scripture is best. Churches need to understand who they are trying to reach, and from that they develop the needed strategy of how best to reach them.

Every church should be an ‘original.’ Perhaps one would look at Rick Warren and Saddleback Church and say, “I want to share his vision for Africa” or at Nelson Searcy at The Journey in New York City and say, “I want to share his vision for assimilation.” There is nothing wrong with ‘sharing’ a vision. It is wrong though not to have your own vision. One must look at the context of the community in which they live and develop that vision in their own circumstances.

Rick Warren says it this way, “God is like Baskin Robbins. He has 31 flavors and more.” It is nice that in a community people have a choice between a traditional style of worship or a contemporary style of worship. They can choose between liturgy and no liturgy. They can choose between adult baptism and infant baptism. All of these choices have a place in evangelical Christianity. God did not call us all to be vanilla. He allows some of us to be strawberry.