CHANGE

Someone dropped a real compliment the other day when talking to me about our church. She said, Grace Church is totally different from how it was when we started. I thought that was great - only problem was, it was intended as a complaint not a comment on the fact that we have kept moving forward since the fall of '98 instead of having rigor mortis starting to develop from Day One.

So what has changed?

1. We were a lot smaller then. Sure we had just over one hundred and fifty people there, but if everyone ever turned up on the same Sunday now there would be 500 of us.

2. We were a collection of people defining our mission. Now we are a committed group who are on mission.

3. The worship service was our whole focus. We didn't even have decent facilities for children's ministry. Now we have a well-equipped and staffed nursery, are about to launch Kidmo, Altered and a cafe-style video venue and are focusing on reaching whoever we can using as many hooks as possible.

4. There was one pastor who talked about leading the church eventually with a team of pastors. Now there is a four person pastoral team in place.

5. Then we were looking to survive - now we are expecting to thrive and multiply.

6. In the first few months we didn't look a heck different from a bunch of other local churches that the unchurched have decided are not for them. Now we have our own identity as the un-church church.

7. Then we talked reaching the lost, but had little idea how to really achieve it. Now we are totally geared towards a Sunday service that becomes the gateway to relationship with Jesus as well as to our church.

8. At the start our services were a little more Charismatic/pentecostal. Now we defer to the unbelievers as Paul suggests we should in 1 Corinthians 14 and have a separate worship night which is for those who already know Jesus to worship him extravagently.

9. We were culturally relevant if you were still in the seventies. Now we use all that's at our disposal to ensure we communicate reasonably with a short-attention-span, visually stimulated world.

10. When we started out, dissatisfied Christians came from elsewhere hoping for the kind of church they wanted and that served their requirements. Now if Christians come, they'd better care more about the lost than themselves, or they really won't stick around.

I like our church now - guess not everyone does, but ask me if that keeps me awake at night.
Pleasing God is all that matters and in doing that, some long-time Christians are sure to cry "foul". Pity I can't hear them!