The Church Needs To…

Posted by Scott Williams
14 Comments
October 20, 2009
Hmm | The Church

the churchLast night I sent a simple tweet that asked a simple question, here is the tweet: Fill in the blank: “The Church Needs To [Fill In The Blank]“your @ replies will be a blog post! Thx  Below will be a collage of words, phrases and thoughts from the many people that responded.   Thanks again to everyone that responded.

The Church Needs To...

Tell The Truth! No sugar-coating, quit keeping people comfortable, start sharing & teaching The Word of God, Never, ever turn away a soul. Drop their Denominational handcuffs! Remember to never be judgemental. be more relevant, stop naming themselves “Amazing Grace” when they preach this: http://tinyurl.com/ygn4pxj, Create an authentic space for people to discover who Jesus really is and how much he loves them, wake up, step up, and reach out! The hurting are everywhere and they desperately need what we have! stop being a self-help/self-improvement social club & care about the lost right in their community, not just across the globe. Re-engage the culture. Introduce the culture to the relevance of the gospel, Disciple someone, and stop being satisfied with conversions alone! Grow Christ-followers. Truly diversify and become unified…you know, like Jesus desired in John 17. Disciple, quit keeping people comfortable! be unjudgemental.

The church is the hospital for all, promote radical compassion and unmerited grace for all. promote radical compassion and unmerited grace for all. learn what cast the first stone truly means…, DISPLAY GOD’S LOVE BY SERVING, To stop bashing each other (we’re all the Bride of Christ) over style issues, and be the force we’re supposed to be together!, Let people belong before they believe., Keep It Simple! “STOP WORRYING ABOUT BEING THE NEXT GREATEST COOLEST THING AND START STRIVING TO BE AN ACCEPTABLE BRIDE” love people more, accept them for who they are, like God accepts us, needs to be less like a business, More Authentic., be less judgmental, The Church Needs To BE THE CHURCH

“The church needs to – be the people of God, on the mission of God, reflecting the character of God!”

Do any of these above comments resonate with you?  Do you have additional thoughts to add?  The Church Needs To…

  • http://blog.ourchurch.com pdstein

    All great responses! All things the church needs to do. Let’s just remember that each one of us is the church. These are not things our church needs to do, but we need to do individually. Let’s be the church.

  • Avery

    I like this…
    Short story (but long post probably) sorry…
    I grew up in a single home, with basically no father around…
    As a result I had no clue how to be a father…

    Today I have four kids, and all the time people tell me what a great dad I am …

    I believe that is true , not because I am a great dad, but because after I was changed in heart by Jesus, I started to listen to older men in Christ who would say things like , “If I had it to do all over again”, or, “I wish I would have done this with my kids”…

    Well if these men grew up in godly homes, (and I didn’t), I wanted to to know from their experience, how to be a dad, and a godly one… so I took those things to heart, and applied them…

    Our kids aren’t perfect, but they are salt and light in their schools, and leaders in their youth ministry…

    So… to me it is is always good to ask, “what should parenting, or church look like?”, and then listening and applying…

    Each and every comment is really, really, good… and if applied would make a culture changing xhurxh, rather than a church changing to fit the culture…

    I don’t want my kids to become a part of the world, but a change agent in the world, but not of it…

    I have high hopes for you Scott, and for the church in America, if we listen and figure out how to be the best for Jesus that we can be…

  • http://www.twitter.com/marcmillan Marc Millan

    pdStein- You Nailed it bro.
    Great Post. WE are the Church. OUCH!!
    WE need to____________ That is the one right there and most times that’s where most people give up, not the entire case but it would almost seem so.
    The great things mentioned above are, Tell the Truth of the Gospel, be a hospital for the hurting, radical compassion, authentic space, EMBRACE DIVERSITY SO ALL FEEL WELCOME, Love. God love his people. That’s what get’s me so excited about being a part of BIG C church and the local Church.

  • http://www.strategicfathering Jay Cookingham

    Scott,
    Great Twitter experiment with some really awesome results.
    My story is close to Avery’s (except I have seven kids)but God used a few Godly men in my church to reach out and father me. To me the Church is at its best when it’s flexing it spirit of adoption muscle. Thanks for the post!
    God Bless,
    Jay

  • allie912

    You need to convert this to a wordle for great visual impact!

  • http://www.latashamorrison.com latasha

    The Church needs to Come Together which begins with its people coming together! One church cannot solve all the issues with in their community. Its exciting to see the church come together to tackle issues, such as sex trafficking, poverty, education, sickness, national disasters etc…

  • http://www.bigmikelewis.blogspot.com BigMikeLewis

    …Preach the Gospel of Jesus by teaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins. We don’t hear this anymore. All we hear is this pseudo-social gospel where we teach that we have to fix the world. Not my job. God will fix the world when Jesus returns. Until then, it is our mission to make disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded.

  • Truth hurts

    Stop hiding in a building.

  • http://richardwestley.com RW

    Let the church say, Amen? Or will the church again keep silent? And by church I do mean the people sitting in the pews or rather, the ones replying in Twitter.
    The responses are great, but I just wonder if the ones that responded are “practicing what they preach?” my exprience has been that many who make these statements are living a contradiction themselves. I so pray that these values we hold so dear will be a guiding force in our every day decision making.
    If you are free to speak it, then be free to live it as well.

  • Patrick

    There are many good ideas listed. I completely agree with BigMikeLewis. God is the only one that can fix the world. We are the medium or the example to the world that can show the healing power of Christs blood over our condemned souls. It is by grace we have been saved through faith..not by anything else but by God alone. Thank you God!!
    One of the items that really stood out to me is “learn what cast the first stone truly means”. I think that it can go both ways. People are too quick to judge and people act to scared to hold others accountable because they dont want to judge. Both extremes need to understand what is and what isnt casting a stone.

    As a body we are called to holiness and to create an environment of accountability, out of love and grace, that encourages others to righteous living.

  • http://jimkane.wordpress.com Jim Kane

    They all resonate with me.

  • http://www.razingthebar.me Chris Sanner

    Latasha:

    I COMPLETELY AGREE! No Church can solve all of the worlds problems. If it were meant to be that way, I’d think Jesus would have probably made it so ;)

    These are all pretty much awesome with a capital a…except it’s improper to capitalize a word in the middle of a sentence. Dang those crushing demands of the English language!

  • http://navigateyourmarketing.com/blog/ David (Marketing Integrity)

    This was brilliant – well done Scott! Now, let’s go out an live up to this!

  • http://zestfullyliving.blogspot.com sarahlanier

    Wonderfully written. Every time someone I know becomes a believer it is because of the LOVE of Christ. The acceptance that we all find at the foot of the cross is unparalleled! He accepts us like we are, and HE makes us NEW. May we (the church) be more like Jesus!!!!

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