It seems only natural that you would host a forum in your facility. After all, it’s not the best manners to force your friend to host a dinner party that you decided to throw. There’s responsibilities that come with hosting. It wouldn’t seem right to impose those responsibilities on someone else. But what if your friend said this scenario is actually what he/she desires most. Maybe there is an uncomfortable history your friend has with your house. Or they suffer like countless others from an anxiety disorder that cautions them to leave their home. They’d rather stay at their own house or go to a neutral site. The point is this, church forums seek to heal the divide that is our churches and surrounding community. Oftentimes for that healing to begin the church must step outside of themselves into the world of others.
This premise challenges the very idea of what we perceive church to be. What is Church? Certainly we can agree that it’s more than a building. But are we so connected to our church buildings that it can become unhealthy? We all have great memories that make a building special, but it’s wise to remember that a building is nothing without the people inside that make these memories so special. A church is more than a building. A church is a body of people who don’t have to agree on everything except their love for Jesus and for one another. At Church Forums we believe it’s important to step outside the buildings we are so familiar with. Why? For many the actual building of a church has lost this appeal. Ultimately forums are designed to connect those spiritually frustrated who are unlikely to automatically go to church with regular attendees. Forums are designed to bring communities together and it’s our responsibility as followers of Christ to take the first step in this challenge.. Don’t get us wrong, hosting a forum in your church facility can certainly work. But here’s 4 reasons why you should consider hosting a forum outside your church. 1) It is the best way to show we love people outside the church. A friend of mine is still upset about his 6th grade girlfriend’s decision to break up with him on an answering machine rather than in person (a message that his mom told him about because she accidentally erased it). With today’s technology our ability to hide from in person confrontations is only amplified. According to a Pew research poll, 78% of teens said the most desirable way to end a relationship is in-person (Link to Study). Likewise, 72% of teens said the least desirable way to end a relationship was over a text message. Despite this overwhelmingly shared value, a growing number of teens have had a relationship end over a text. How not to end a relationship reveals a lot about how we should begin one. The right way to do it is in person, in an environment that makes them most comfortable. Does churches expect people to come to their building automatically? Do we graciously ponder that people who need Jesus the most will stay as far away from the church as we can. What would we sacrifice to have the opportunity to have a relationship with someone like that. Making connections with people who are unchurched, from a different church, or different faith all together shouldn’t happen only when that person enters your building. It should happen because we lovingly step out of our world and into theirs. Just as Jesus did. Teenagers who reported using text messages to end a relationship said the biggest reason they did was because of fear. If we’re honest, fear is the biggest reason we don’t step into the world of others. 1 John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love.” Perhaps hosting a forum outside your church demonstrates this type of love by stepping out without any fear. 2) It will help us positively impact increasing skepticism that exists towards the church. As a high school teacher, every now and then I surprise myself by saying something in class that is actually funny. Some cultures refer to this phenomenon as a joke. One of the most difficult things I’ve accomplished in my adult life is getting young people to laugh. Why is it so hard? Why isn’t the question. Where is the source of the issue. When students are at school their guard is up and their perceptions are deeply ingrained that school is boring. In the psyche of a 16 year-old I will always be the teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (played by the wonderful Ben Stein of course). For many people the reputation of the church is similar. The Church is not in good standing especially with young people. The Barna group found that non-Christians from the ages of 16-29 said today’s Christians are too judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too political (75%). Surprisingly, young Christians also mostly agreed with these sentiments (Link to study here). Even more troubling was that 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young church goers say the most defining perception that describes Christians today would be “anti-homosexual.” The challenge of negative perceptions is nothing new for the church and it’s certainly nothing strange about it when you recall the experience of Jesus. Yet if your congregation shares the value of connecting with the surrounding community, than you should be educated in the presence and source of these perceptions. Imagine a new owner of an old restaurant completely unaware that his business is damaged from impressions that the store is haunted. Like the owner, we can’t afford not to know! We also can’t afford to sit in our cozy pews and talk about how these perceptions are false. It would waste time to simply discuss how we aren’t judgmental, hypocritical, etc. and that those people are wrong. If we truly have our minds made up, there’s only one thing we can do. We have to step outside our church doors and intentionally demonstrate the kind of people we really are. Our willingness to participate in a forum outside our familiar church facility is simply one idea to better connect us to the surrounding community. By doing this we are more likely to come into contact with these negative perceptions. And by entering into these relationships we can confront and begin to change them. 3) It will allow us to invest more resources into ministries that matter most: In his book Reimagining Church, author Frank Viola challenges institutional models of how we do church by promoting more biblical, organic models like the ones practiced in Acts 2. Although Viola is a controversial figure in the church, his call to abandon church buildings in favor of more home church models fascinates me. Essentially, the heart of Viola’s argument is less concerned with the where we do church but more concerned with how we do it. And how are we doing when it comes to serving and caring for the poor and the outcast? Please understand I don’t endorse one view of church over the other, but I think it’s a great thought for us to explore. What if we could transfer the time, energy, and finances that go into maintaining our church building into other serving and caring for others. This is probably the perfect time to offer several concrete examples of church communities that made a decision based on this value but I have none to offer (I’m sure there are I’m just not aware of them at the moment). I can only offer some questions: How much energy do we spend simply maintaining our church buildings? How could this energy be better spent serving and caring for the lowly, poor, widow, and outcast as Jesus calls us to do? Perhaps hosting a forum outside your church is simply one way we can practice getting outside our buildings. Again I am not endorsing any model of doing church over another. My goal is to simply help us rethink what church means. For many of us this means divorcing our love of buildings with our love of doing church. 4 )It will help bridge the gap between the church and surrounding community. According to researcher Ed Stetzer, the common denominator that makes churches successful in today’s difficult times is having an outward focus (Link here). How can you determine if your church is outwardly focused? Is most of your energy spent maintaining your facility? Is celebrating birthdays and anniversaries the major focus of your outreach? Is the passion and vision alive or is it hard to come by? Perhaps the reason why the gap between church and the surrounding community is so large is because most churches don’t prioritize having an outward focus. Hosting a church forum outside your traditional building is one way this can happen. It’s how connections are made, relationships are developed, and people are reached. Ultimately hosting a forum outside your church will narrow this church-community divide. What else can your church do to close this gap? What key relationships outside your church are you cultivating with people in your community? Although forums aren’t guaranteed to be effective, one thing is certain. If we do nothing, the gap widens. So where is the best place to host a forum outside your church? Research done by the National Church Planting Study found that newer churches that were more successful were more likely to meet in public squares such as schools or community centers (Link to study here). Where you meet is up to you. Use a place that works for your community. Once again, it is possible to make a forum work in your own church. But we must not lose sight of the goal; to get people to fall in love with church, not a building.
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