Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Bringing others to Worship

You know our desire should be to bring others to worship in more than a metaphorical sense. I’m talking literally. It is like pulling teeth to convince someone of their need to overcome their fear and begin witnessing...but how easy is it to just simply invite someone to church? I had a great idea this morning. How would it be if in our affluent nation, every Christian who drives, would with God’s help purchase a 15 passenger van and submit himself/herself in accountability to others (who also have their 15 passenger vans) to fill them up with people that they know who are unchurched, in order to bring them to worship. Let’s bring it down a notch, what if every person in your church with a drivers license, did this?

Every chauffeur would be exposing people to the Gospel, building community, and using their time and resources every week in an active ministry. They would be making disciples of those who routinely ride with them by encouraging them to purchase their own van and to do the same thing, as their lives begin to show signs of a commitment to Christ and spiritual fruit. IT’S THE CELL CHURCH MODEL ON WHEELS!!!

I know that in reality the 80/20 rule would play into this, but what a difference it would make if the twenty percent of those in the congregation doing the work (aside from the paid clergy) committed to doing this?

You might be saying Buddy I am in no position to purchase a 15 passenger van. I understand that. So then for your sake, let me ask you to consider a little different tack. How many spaces for passengers do you have among all of the cars in your driveway if every one of the licensed drivers in your family drove a separate vehicle to church, instead of riding together? What if you started by committing not to allow one of those seats to remain empty on Sunday morning? I know in my family between our Yukon and Infinity we have twelve seats available, for our family of five. Cherie of course is picking up others every week, but I need to get busy filling up my vehicle so that corporately we can make up for those other seven spaces. How great it would be if the Christian community embraced this and we actually got to the place where we were embarrassed before the Lord to pull our vehicles into the church parking lot with the passenger seats empty!

Cherie told me this morning, that my idea reminded her of one of those sects where none of the ladies have "bangs cut in their hair", but I think she was venting, probably because I woke her up (way to early) to share with her this great revelation! :) What do you think?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

We could even push for those with the van to have a closer parking space near the front or something. I think it is a great idea. Lets do it.

Anonymous said...

I think it's a great idea. Imagine what the church could spend the van payment money or the gas money on...if the church would all volunteer to pick up those that don't have rides. I bring my car most days by myself and have room for 4 other people. Good blog..got me thinkin!

Anonymous said...

How about one of those old school buses? We could paint it orange and blast Common Saints Praise Team music over the loud speakers?

Anonymous said...

I'm feeling the bus thing...We could have shag seats and everything! :) Could we take up a love offering for that?

Buddy said...

Ok...I'm not sure about shag seats...I think that is a totally different kind of van than what I am thinking. I do like the idea of of Common Saints music blasting though.

However, it does occur to me, that in order for that to happen it would require that someone get into the studio to lay down some vocal tracks...hint hint!!! ;)

Anonymous said...

Ok...stab, stab, guilt, guilt. I will do my best to get to the "studio" asap :)

Anonymous said...

I'll grab a twinkie and Diet Coke and be over there to record today! Is that better?

Buddy said...

Julie and Kenya..If I would have know that a guilt trip would have been so effective I would have done that a long time ago...:)