Toward a Philosophy of ministry...and Vision

One very helpful distinction with which Bruce Finn challenged me in recent months:

In light of the emphasis in Mt. 28:18-20, on "as you're going, make disciples..." the way this mission church is developing, we are conscientiously praying about the Church on the GO. There are roughly 2 ways to see the church planting models:

A) Coming Church Concept. This necessitates an attractional church which currently is very popular, in which everything is done with the question, "Whom have we targeted to come to us?" What do we do so that they will come to us?" This idea comes from the 80's when Barna predicted that 4 out of 5 neighbors would come to church if invited. In other words, "if you build it, they will come." So, just how attractive can we make us?



B) The Going Church Concept. In the face of the trends out there, Jesus says, "Go." We have to go! To go is really the Biblical pattern, after all, in order to meet the growing needs (as our beloved US grows more and more post-Christian), and in order to take an aggressive part in winning the 92,000 unchurched in our county. We at Christ Coastal mission are with God's grace, committed to be part of His going vanguard to engage an unchurched world.



The generation gap is supposed to have been invented in the '70's, but I know as an ex-hippie of a decade before then that we were well aware of all sorts of gaps. Presently I am experiencing first hand the gap between the 15-24 year-olds, and the "old guys"---it's a much larger gap than merely generational. God, help us. That is why we are so grateful for the cooking class and Bible Study for high-school guys at our house (please click on some of those pics on this blog site). May the Lord help us to find more venues to reach the youth of this Southport area.