Category Archives: church renewal

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Sunrise, Sunset, Sunrise

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Most Sunday’s I arrive early to prepare the church, my mind and my heart to lead worship. I try to make a habit of praying at each doorway that every soul that enters the building will experience the presence of God in some way through worship, fellowship time or a Sunday School class. This morning I had my phone with me as I made my rounds and snapped this picture of the sun coming up on our entryway.
It was a beautiful and crisp morning in Olathe.

We are in the midst of many changes at the church. New colors in the building and new stacked stone walls being erected. Some of the changes are hard to make. Taking down the curtains in the sanctuary was a big change. Moving the cross and frame out of the sanctuary today was bittersweet. Many babies have been baptized and young people have committed their lives to Christ in the shadow of that cross. We’ve celebrated the lives of many saints under that old cross. The changes we have initiated have been a result of a season of discernment for the church. The people of Aldersgate’s desire to grow in numbers, in faith and disciple making. These hopes have required us to adapt, to update and to renovate our outreach into the community.

In spite of all of these changes, one thing is certain—the heart and soul of this church is the people. It is the relationships, friendships and supportive culture we have nurtured from our foundation. These things will not change, just like this beautiful sunrise on a Sunday morning. .

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Church Rescue

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During my recent recovery from surgery I have had a chance to watch some television. My DVR is full of episodes of my favorite shows. In surfing the channels one day I came across a show called, Bar Rescue. The concept of the show is a business intervention makeover, only the process is done on bars. I spent an entire day watching “Bar Rescue”.

At first I was turned off by how much the host of the show, Jon Taffer, gets in the face of the owners and yells at the bar owners about their habits. The longer I watched the show the more I understood why he used such an abrasive approach. When people get in comfortable ruts they do not want to get out of that rut. I’m convinced we actually like ruts, even when our ruts aren’t bringing us the results we want in life.

In my 26 years of ministry in the local church I’ve found that we open prefer our ruts to change. Maybe we need to begin a show called “Church Rescue”, where hard hitting church savers come into the local church and force people to change. How would we feel if there were more coffee hour with only talking to your favorite people, no more sitting in your favorite pew or chair and no more of your favorite songs or programming? I imagine we would not be very happy.

A smart lay leader once told me that ruts are really burial plots in disguise. Ouch. I hope I’m not serving a rutted church or a place that’s becoming a burial plot. I actually believe we are working as hard and as smart as we can to serve the people in the little corner of the world.