My City: God’s City

Church as

Bridge

Tithe envelope

Three Key Questions1.What is the church?

2.Who is the church for?

3.Who does the church belong to?

Three Key Questions

1.What is the church?

Movement

Body

Grace is lived out

Your church is perfectly designed to achieve the

results it is presently getting.

Three Key Questions

2. Who is the church for?

1. What they hear.

1.Do you keep the service positive? Is the Sabbath school director happy about the ones that are there,

or is complaining about the ones that aren’t?

2.Are you prone to speaking adventese or can guests clearly discern and understand?

3. When offering time comes, does it paint a picture of vision and progress or is it a list of complaints

about bills, past dues and lack of commitment from members? People give, are attracted to, and

inspired by a positive vision, not a litany of complaints..

Preaching emphasis on sin produces

sinners. Preaching emphasis on Christ

produces Christians.

The first word, from the first sermon from Jesus was…

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven..

Mathew 5:3

Note the emphasis in

Jesus’ preaching.

Luke 4:16He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read

Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

Isaiah 61 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,

"Of all professed Christians, Seventh-day Adventists should be foremost in

uplifting CHRIST before the world.“

Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers, p.156

2. What they see.

1. No clear signage. You know where bathrooms, children’s classrooms, the sanctuary and the

fellowship hall are. Do they? No!

2. Clutter. The longer you are in a church the less you see it.

3. The message that sends is this: We don’t care about our church. Neither should you. Please don’t come here.

Were good.

3. What they smell.

9.99 out of 10 bathrooms I use in churches smell bad, look bad, and would never be acceptable in

any of the members’ homes. Churches with musty smells, that reek of unattractive odors, send the message: today’s service is to be

endured, not enjoyed.

Andy Stanley in his book Deep & Wide, says it best: “the physical environment does more than leave an impression; it sends a message.” In many churches the message is: “We aren’t expecting guests. What we

are doing here is not all that important. We expect somebody to clean up after us. We don’t take pride in

our church.”

Three Key Questions

3. Who does the church belong to?

“Change will come, when the pain of losing our children is greater than the desire to do things the same way we

have always done them.”

1. Overprotective

2.Shallow

3. Anti-science

4. Repressive

5. Exclusive

6. Doubtless

Conclusion

Different Menus, Melting Pot,

Salad Bowl.

If we would humble ourselves before God, and be kind and courteous and tenderhearted and pitiful, there would

be one hundred conversions to the truth where now there is only one.

9T 169

www.leadsu.org