f we continue to encourage covocational ministry, more Christians will see it as a viable career path. A person can love their current vocation and see God’s call on their life to serve him by serving a local church simultaneously. Essentially, we open the door to otherwise qualified people who could have a call on their lives to serve but shut out that possibility because of perceived limitations bound by a full-time vocation-only model.
Read MoreThe Advent Christian Church is not the only network or denomination struggling with finding called and qualified pastors. I remember sitting in a Church Revitalization class at Gordon-Conwell in South Hamilton when one of our Professors would bring in the ABC equivalent to Superintendents. Each one would provide some type of insight on church leadership or revitalization but would always take 10 minutes to pitch to eager seminary students why they should consider one of their many open churches in New England.
Read MoreAccording to a paper written by Pastor John Roller in the 1980s, Advent Christians planted 100 churches from 1956-1986. Of those churches planted during the middle and latter half of the twentieth century, 50% lived past the 6th year of existence. In the 2018-2020 Advent Christian Strategic Plan, Executive Director Steve Lawson set a goal of planting twice the amount of churches as we have church closures.
Read MoreLast week I published an article titled Can Church Planting Revitalize the Advent Christian Church? Its central premise was “although church planting sometimes seems at odds with church revitalization, it can be a means to revitalize churches because it puts the mission of being Christ’s witnesses to the world front and center.”
Read MoreIn articles across the web one finds titles like, “Overcoming Spiritual Inertia in Your Church,” and the like as though all inertia is bad (i.e. not changing is a good thing if “change” means compromise with the world!). Typically, only the first part of Newton is cited. Then the argument is made that the church is a ‘body at rest’ that needs us, pastors/leaders, to get it going and keep it moving. Such is most certainly…
Read MoreIf getting out of the way is of first importance to remove friction and let God’s church burst forth, our main job thereafter becomes about either speeding it up, slowing it down (for good reason), or changing its direction.
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