Wednesday, January 26

Phenominal Impact

Andy Stanley is a great speaker and a good leader. His church in Atlanta, Northpoint, has been growing in leaps and bounds.

Thanks to the internet, I can experience the tremendous power of his messages through the online Sermon Archive, and right now I am working my way through his seven part series on creating a church experience that is "Simply Irresistible". So far its all about service, and getting people involved. Some stuff I can act on immediately, and other things I need to talk to others at the church about. But its interesting to contrast the approach at Northpoint with the approach at my own church.

The general population believes that the Church was created so that Christians would have a place to go to hear a sermon about living a life more pleasing to God. The only problem is that this is completely wrong. First of all Jesus never started a Church, he just taught others (the Aposiles) to teach others (the Disciples) to teach the world God's way. The Church got started after he left, and unfortunately, over the years it has turned into something much different that how it started out.

Since Christians don't have a large impact out in their communities, church is the one space where we try to get the unsaved in the community to come to us so we can try and have an impact on them. That's why our church focuses so much energy on its youth and children's ministries: so that people in the community bring their children here to learn about God, and have a break themselves for an hour or so. Our opportunity is to both get through to the kids the basic messages of God, and occasionally, even have some impact on the adults.

In Northpoint's page about its history, Lane Jones explains what drives their church:

Our real mission is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. That's not just a slogan on our wall. We have measured our success by that standard from the beginning. If we ever stop hearing stories of life change, I guarantee we will stop what we are doing and regroup, no matter how many people are attending.
Currently, North Point Community Church has over 10,000 adults participating in three morning worship services, of which about 4,000 are members. Sounds a little heavy on the membership side, but pretty good altogether. I wish our Church was reaching the un-churched as well.