by Ken Morgan | Jul 30, 2024 | Uncategorized
“Church is not working.” I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard or read the statement. The statistics would seem to confirm that things aren’t working. In 1959 about 41% of Australia’s population was in church on a Sunday. In 2016 it was 7%. However, not everyone is lamenting the ineffectiveness of the church. Pentecostal movements are continuing to grow and multiply new churches. While these attract some of the people who decry the failures or irrelevance of their prior church, Pentecostal churches are also reaching unchurched people. Likewise mainstream denominations are planting new churches and a good proportion of these grow to viability by a combination of transfers and new believers. Many of these newer churches are more-or-less contemporary versions of the established model – a weekend public worship service with music, prayer, preaching and perhaps eucharist – combined with weekday small groups and other activities designed to engage and serve both believers and those yet to believe. There’s also increasing interest in small forms of church: micro churches, missional communities and house churches. These have shown almost viral growth characteristics in non-western settings. The results in western contexts are more patchy. Many of the proponents of small-form churches are those disillusioned with big-box formats. When it comes to revitalising existing churches, it makes sense to look at what seems to be working and try to emulate it. When we say ‘emulate’, we tend to mean ‘copy’. We’ve all heard the war stories of well-meaning ministers who’ve tried to re-engineer traditional worship services into something more contemporary. There’s also been a...
