This morning I opened up my RSS reader and found this post, “Traditional church organization plants 75 house churches

In it there is the following quote from Reggie McNeal, “Probably most of the people in your city who are interested in coming to your church are already there.”

If you are involved in a church today, how does this statement make you feel?

My initial gut reaction is sadness.

If Reggie McNeal is correct, then all my efforts, all my focus on outreach and community awareness, all my visiting is all for naught.

It tells me that my efforts in changing the way we worship, the way we look at our children’s program, the way we look at music, are in vain. (I don’t believe this, but it does make me wonder)

Yet I also see a great thirst for spiritual nourishment. I see people asking faith based questions, I talk to parents who want their children to experience the moral teachings of a Sunday School environment. Yet they don’t engage with the traditional approach to Christian methods of church. That is to gather passively in a building for song, prayer and a message.

In the post I linked above, it tells of the great success the traditional church has had in offering Christian teachings in a new way. They use the house church model and it sounds like it is working very well for them.

It makes me wonder what sort of new style of church would work in the area I live in. I know of a successful house church in the city that draws young adults from far and wide. How might a house church work in my community? What about a drop-in type centre? A cafe? Something else?

It’s true, the traditional approach to church is not going to work for a lot of people these days.

What sort of methods have worked in your community? What sort of things would you like to try?

How can we help quench the thirst of those who are seeking the life giving water?

How do we bring them home?