Reaching our culture

In a previous entry I talked about how God never changes, but I believe that we need to change the methods with which we present God to others.  We need to stay relevant to today’s culture and present the truth in a way that people can understand.  This blog entry, Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes from Relevant Christian says it as good as it can be said.

Church Media Team Volunteer Burnout

Along the lines of my last post.  How many times have you gotten just burned out as a volunteer?  It’s happened all too often to me.  I guess I brought this on myself by my desire to get involved in the first place, but now I get phone calls from church staff members telling me what I need to do.  I love the staff, they’re great people, but they need to understand that this is not my job.  I don’t get paid to do what I do, I’m a volunteer!

If I had the time, I would love to create graphics, videos etc. every week, run powerpoint and audio for all those little events that happen each week, but it’s just not possible.

If you’re a church staff member or pastor and you’re reading this, please make sure you consider that your tech volunteers are just that: VOLUNTEERS.  They most likely love to help you out, but can’t always do what you’d like them to do.

More churches need to consider hiring technical people.

Media Team training

I’m a volunteer at church for audio and visuals.  My time has always been somewhat limited to spend in training and recruiting new people to help with media, but it’s not been more limited than it is now.  With my kids so heavily involved in activities, I just don’t have a lot of time.

So in talking with my associate pastor last night, he helped me figure out how to get the ball rolling on training new people.  We’re going to get a big boost in the number of people to help out in running things on Sunday mornings, as well as to create the content during the week.

We have several hundred people who come to church on Sundays and aren’t involved in anything.  I know there’s a few who want to do something but just haven’t been asked. 

Is Church Relevant to you?

I’m very much involved with my church and we have a service we call Eleventh Hour that’s been a big part of where I spend my time.  We try to make it not like a regular church service.  It’s held Saturday evenings at 6:00 pm.  We really try to focus on building relationships with people and not try to spend our time “Preaching” to people, but we do want people to know who God is and how much He loves them.  We want people to understand that God wants a personal relationship with them, He doesn’t want us to be drawn into legalism and praying certain prayers and doing certain things to win favor with Him.  God wants a relationship with you; He wants to know you, and He wants you to know Him.

Our Eleventh Hour service is focused on relationships: We sit at round tables and have plenty of time to discuss issues at the tables.  We have plenty of coffee and snacks and plenty of time to just hang out before and after the service.

I’ve come across a great blog called Relevant Christian that really hits me with its content.  I especially liked what was posted today called They Like Jesus…Not the Church which references an article from Outreach Magazine.  It’s well worth reading.

So is church relevant to you?  How do you think of church?  I’d love to hear comments.