February 15, 2007
Parade
When I encounter someone new to the community who’s looking for a church home it’s hard to recommend a church when I know so little about other congregations. For instance, if someone were looking for a charismatic church all I could tell them was what I’ve heard through the grapevine. I think the religious community should take a page from the Parade of Homes and do a Parade of Churches. I’d like the opportunity to visit other churches without having to miss Sunday services in my own congregation. Guided tours of community churches would allow us to see different facilities and what they have to offer. We’d have an idea about programs for children and teens, and the adequacy of the nursery. Just like connecting names with faces, it would be helpful to match a pastor with his church. How about an open house for the Lord’s House?
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3 comments:
Gail;
-----I have always felt that the churches in any given community should become an open house. Church leaders have become totally territorial about the people in “their” congregations. I don’t know how many years I have been inwardly chuckling at the dim mentality it takes for a minister to on the one hand think that his church is the right place for all the people attending there, and yet think that most all of the other churches are part of the Lord’s body too. (Of course there are those totally dim few who think their church is the only right one.) If other churches are also part of the body of the Lord, and if as a minister you are supposed to have a refined and expanded capacity to love those in your care, I flat out don’t understand why that love would not beg those people to go out into the community and make relationships with the other churches in the body.
-----I am currently reading an article in Scientific American about galaxy clusters that so much reminds me of the situation with our churches in any particular community. All of the galaxies in the cluster are made of the same thing - stars, just as the whole body of Christ is made of believers in Him. All of the stars in any particular galaxy are kept within that galaxy by gravity, like all of the members of a particular church are kept in that church by love. All of the galaxies, likewise, are kept buzzing around each other in their own little cluster by that same gravitational force as are all the churches in a community kept buzzing around one another by love. And although a couple churches here and there in the community may come into contact with each other and merge - just like a couple galaxies in the cluster occasionally do - the rest of them are held apart by the strikingly similar forces found holding apart the clustered galaxies: a lot of distance, some amount of dark matter, and a whole lot of super hot gas.
www.paradeofchurches.org
Anonymous,
Thanks for the web site. It just goes to show that if it's a good idea someone else is already doing it!
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