May 03, 2006
Futuristic Church?
When I think of ‘targeting’ a specific group of people, the 1976 movie Logan’s Run comes to mind. Set in the year 2274, computers run the city and to maintain the population balance, all people must die at age 30. I’ve got to laugh as I imagine how a futuristic church comprised of a specific target group of people would maintain their population balance. I suppose when members no longer fit the parameters of the target audience they could be sent to the mission field, put in the nursery as an attendant, or sent to another church. Along with publishing a mission statement I’d like to see a target audience statement to help me know when it’s my time to head out to the nursery.
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1 comment:
Gail;
Actually , targeting is a Bilical strategy, as long as we target the group that the Bible targets - everyone. Targeting as performed by the contemporary "servants" is nothing more than a refusal to perform part of the service the Lord asks the real servant to do. These contemporary "servants" won't actually refuse to serve anyone outside their target groups, it is just that everyone else has to feed on the same regurgitated schlorp that they feed to their targets. They make little effort to meet any need outside the target zone. That way the church can become one big mass production line stamping out duplicated little cookie-cut Christians by the multi-dozens. These properly primped little ones are then expected to do their trained duty, which is to scurry through the neighborhoods to bring more targets to the church for more stamping.
The idea is not reaaly that far from the truth, then again, it is so far away. Jesus did not target. People came, Jesus cared. The Bible speaks very low of partiality. James calls it a sin against the law. But that is precisely what targeting is, partiaity.
Nor is it the church leaders' job to teach these people to scurry about through the neighborhoods in search of more targets. The church leaders are commissioned with the task of exemplifying new life in the Lord, teaching it, and assuring that no error overtakes the church or His little ones. That new life involves gentleness, peace, kindness, patience, goodness, sincerity, respect and honor, sympathy, generosity, looking to one another's interests, pleasing one another, and so much more. The Holy Spirit gives to the believer the measure of faith and the gift He chooses for that believer - it may be to scurry through the neighborhood, and it may not be.
Simply stated, it is the Holy Spirit who does the stamping and the mission assignments and the bringing of the teaching home to a personal level. The leader does nothing more than making example, offering teaching, and guarding for error. And in as much as the leader narrows his outreach focus to one profile, and then emphasizes one narrow function in the body till it appears as the only function, to that extent, the leader truly makes his targets to be the marks of a subtle con.
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