Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The Business of Winning Souls

Here's an interesting article (link expires one week from today) from an area newspaper about megachurches applying business practices in order to get people in the door. The director of administration of one church that has tried to attract new people by holding rock concerts said, "If you can't get them into your building in one way or another, they're not going to hear your message." That's quite an overstatement but it reflects the commonly held view that the church building is the locus of evangelism. Why does it seem that we're often more interested in getting non-Christians into our sanctuaries than we are in equipping Christians to get the message out?

4 comments:

Milton Stanley said...

Spot-on, Keith. I quoted liberally from your post at my blog this morning (with proper credit to you, of course). Peace.

jeff said...

Thanks Keith. I also quoted you and had some fun with the article you linked to.

M. said...

People in the building means money in the collection plate.

Seems to me that the church today thinks we need money to do God's work...and provide a fitness center for the members.

Mark Hunsaker said...

Good stuff Keith, as usual. American Christians grew up in a naturalistic and materialistic culture and thus, by default, think in those terms.

When I asked my home Pastor about the possibility of me entering the ministry he jumped out immediately and suggested an undergrad degree in business prior to attending seminary. "Churches today are more like businesses than they are churches" he spouted. I asked, somewhat naive at the time, "well, don't you think maybe they need to become more like churches again?"

He just looked at me like I wasn't listening and shook his head. "Just trust me Mark, you need a business degree to succeed in ministry!"

Yikes.