There's an issue that many churches face that's reached epidemic proportions. For one reason or another, too many congregations have become islands within their communities. The community has changed, but the church hasn't. Usually that also means the congregation has fallen behind in actually engaging &
ministering to its immediate community.
Each week members & attenders drive in from other parts of town to worship, study, & serve. Then we drive back to our neighborhoods while the neighborhood around the church becomes increasingly neglected by the church. This almost never happens intentionally. It's usually the result of not knowing what to do as things change & usually change rapidly. However, the end result is a congregation that becomes more & more obsessed with themselves rather than the mission to reach those far from God. That's a recipe for disaster: the community is abandoned by the church & the church slowly begins to die.
"Churches Need To Replace Church-Wide Ministry
With Community-Wide Ministry."
The only cure for what ails the church that finds itself in this or a similar situation is a radical shift back to mission focus instead of me focus. Everything a local congregation does should seek to serve not just its membership but its neighborhood. Our family ministries shouldn't simply serve our families. They should serve the families of our community. Our student ministries can't just serve our teenagers. They need to engage with & serve the teenagers in our churches' neighborhood. Our benevolence ministries can't simply be about feeding & clothing the less fortunate. They have to be about seeking to feed & clothe the lost with Christ. All of our ministries need to become radically Gospel-saturated. Every penny we spend should have a Gospel focus, whether that be a direct Gospel focused outreach or the clear equipping of the church for Gospel ministry to the congregation's community.
Many churches in America are in desperate need of revitalization. They're sick. Some of them are dying. Many of those struggling churches find themselves in the situation of being in the middle of a neighborhood they aren't serving or reaching. Attendance is declining. Giving is down. So we begin to try to figure out how we can salvage things. Meanwhile, the answer is literally all around the church. Perhaps the reason why our congregations are struggling is because we've abandoned many of our communities. A radical return to the mission is in order. It's time for our congregations to recognize our communities are our mission field. To ignore them is to ignore Jesus' call to His church & to deprive our neighborhoods of the hope found in the Gospel. Let's get rid of church-wide ministry & replace it with community-wide ministry.
