Sunday, April 4, 2010

Church Survey

Originally, I was going to write a post about The Village, what it's like to attend/serve/"do life" there... but then I realized I should probably just hear from you guys first!

I know this survey is definitely not going to be exhaustive, but I'd really like to get some insight on how you guys view church, your church, the Church, and ministry in general. Don't feel obligated to answer all of them, but I'd love to get as much input as possible!


1. What do you think the purpose of the Church is? What about the local church? Are they different? If they are different, how so?

2. What are some of the major problems you see facing the Church today? What problems do you see hitting YOUR church the hardest?

3. According to scripture, how do you think churches should be "layed out"?

4. How do you feel about multi-site churches? Small congregations? Do you have a preference? If so, why?

5. What purpose does technology serve in the church?

6. How do you think a "typical" church today would stack up against the New Testament church?

7. What do you think churches need more/less of?

8. What is it that made you decide to become a member (attendee?) of your church now?

9. In your opinion, what is the main thing that different ministries seem to miss? What are they doing right?

10. Finally, do you have any questions about The Village? I certainly don't have all the answers, but I'd love to find out (seriously, I eat this stuff up). I feel like I'm constantly fielding questions from people when they find out I'm a member there.

11 comments:

Andrew said...

1. The purpose of the Church is to serve, to proclaim the gospel and to anticipate the coming King. The local church is to do each of these things, just in its own particular context. It serves its community's needs, and provides a place of comfort, solace and celebration for whoever would like to enter.

2. Major problems: in America, all kinds of consumerism. Churches always undergo the danger of becoming politicized. When religion is driven by fear, spoken or unspoken, there is always trouble. My church is no more or less immune to these problems than any other.

3. I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you mean how should they look inside, I don't see much evidence for any layout as being better than the other. If you mean "layed-out" in terms of pastoral hierarchy, then I subscribe basically to what Paul gives us. As far as I know, most American churches follow the same basic model.

4. I prefer small congregations, mainly because I don't like crowds. I don't object to multi-site churches in principle, but I'm not really down with the whole "video-church" thing. I'd rather raise up pastors to go and take care of each congregation locally. The video-church thing kind of reinforces the cult of personality that surrounds some of the big-name pastors. It's not their faults, necessarily, I just wish more would do the really brave thing and raise up pastors to go and teach the extra-site congregations.

5. Technology can serve some purpose in the church. On a very basic level, technology allows pastors to speak to more people than they would be otherwise (microphones). In many places, people don't have to search through the hymnal anymore (power-point). I don't really have a preference on that last one, but it makes the service run a little smoother. I think churches should be very wary of appearing too tied to technology (not to mention actually being too tied to technology). There are a lot of things churches don't actually need to better serve their congregation, and when they start to pile up, some will wonder if that money could not have been spent better somewhere else. That's not to say that churches should only by things they absolutely need, but they should be very careful. Simpler is often better.

Andrew said...

6. It depends on how you define typical. If you mean an American evangelical congregation in the mid to large range in terms of size, then probably not very well. I see a whole lot of good that happens from Christian to Christian, even when the church itself bears little resemblance to the first century churches. I think there has been a big push toward emphasizing small-groups in the last couple of years. That's a good thing, if the goal is being more like the first-century church.

7. Churches need more Jesus and less of everything else. Specifically, churches need more discipleship, more service, more joy, more humble leadership, etc. They need less of trying to look attractive, fewer "visionaries" (real visionaries are good. people who only think they are visionaries are not), less emphasis on having the biggest, best show in town, less emphasis on numbers, etc.

One thing I see consistently is churches that misread their target audience. Many assume that if you put up a really good band and serve coffee, then young people will come, and not only come, but stay. In my experience, these churches tend to attract young people who have gone to church most of their lives, and do little in the way of attracting their target audience (presumably unchurched, non-christian young adults). It's problematic because people can get coffee and good music most nights of the week if they know where to look. Even when it does attract people, it does not get them to stay unless there is something real grounding the place. People expect church to look and be different than the rest of the world. And they should be, on at least one level.

[None of that should be taken to mean that all churches that have coffee shops or modern music are bad things, because they aren't. It was just a little tangent about how church "strategists" are often very bad at reading their target audience, and that growth is sometimes illusory. If Jesus is at the center of the coffee church, then more power to them.]

8. I'm not a member of any church (maybe my membership at HNW is still valid), but I chose the church I attend most regularly for a practical reason. It's within walking distance of my dorm. I chose to keep going because it was a small community filled with good, kind people, and I hear the gospel taught every weekend (they aren't reformed, so they don't always call it "the Gospel"). I think of Sunday morning as a weekly celebration of what Christ is done, and my church here does that consistently. That it is small and not far away is a great plus.

Andrew said...

9. I don't know much about the inner-workings of my own church. I know we don't have a lot of formal ministry programs, but the church itself does ministry very well. I should probably have some criticisms, but I don't.

If you meant this question more generally, then it sounds a lot like #7 ;-). Everything I said above stands here, so I'll just look at the specific issue of how the church deals with depression. I've written about it before, and so I'll be brief. The church needs to understand depression better and it needs to understand its role in combatting depression better. First, churches need to acknowledge that depression is a very real and often debilitating thing. Then, they have to acknowledge that some of their members are probably depressed. After that, pastors (I don't just mean the teaching pastor) need to be available to talk to those who come. When they come, they need to be trained to discern who needs a listening ear and who needs serious counseling and who needs professional help. It is not always easy to discern this, but a person can be trained to understand better. Churches need to be willing to recommend professional help to more serious cases, and they should be specific about who and where they recommend people to.

Finally, churches need to persevere with these people. They need to understand that just as praying for a headache to go away doesn't always make the headache disappear, praying against depression does not always relieve the pain. They need to be wary of blaiming the victim, and they need to go along side these people for as far as they can.

Some churches do this very well and others very poorly. Most churches fall somewhere in the middle.

10. I've been to the Village, before. I don't really have any questions, but if I think of any, you're the first on my list.

[Sorry to break this up into three comments. I kept going over the character limit].

Danielle said...

Thanks, Andrew! I knew you'd come through :)

I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you mean how should they look inside, I don't see much evidence for any layout as being better than the other. If you mean "layed-out" in terms of pastoral hierarchy, then I subscribe basically to what Paul gives us.

I basically just meant in terms of church polity, how each church body functions alongside the staff, community engagement/missions, etc etc. Pretty vague, but I figured it'd be better to leave it open-ended. Guess that might have backfired ;)

One thing I see consistently is churches that misread their target audience. Many assume that if you put up a really good band and serve coffee, then young people will come, and not only come, but stay.

I actually read a study a couple of days ago (or listened to a podcast...I can't remember) that said the recent trend for young adults/college students is to go for the more traditional, conservative feel in churches. Which I thought was very interesting b/c my thoughts were similar to yours...churches trying to be "hip/modern/etc" were attracting the younger crowd.

If you meant this question more generally, then it sounds a lot like #7 ;-)

I was more thinking about churches AND para-church organizations, mission efforts, outreach programs, etc. But the questions probably are a little similar. Honestly, I just hate making lists that aren't in increments of 5 or 10, so some of them probably end of up a little repetitive! Ha.

jeremy said...

first off, i commend andrew for answering as many questions as he did. i just can't bring myself to do it. i think i'll just do 1 and 10.

it's interesting that this survey hit right as i finished a book called franchising mcchurch and sat through a lecture on ecclesiology.

1. i think the local church is the manifestation/mode of execution for the Church. it exists, basically, to proclaim the Word, practice the ordinances, and grow each other up in Christ (this involves A LOT, obviously.)

10. i have questions about the governance of the village. are you guys congregationalists? if so, how does that work with multiple sites (who decides your campus' budget, etc.)? if not, how do you interpret the scriptures that point to congregationalism? what are the church's response to why they didn't just plant rather than have matt preach all campuses, virtually? if the elders of the main campus "rule" the other campuses, isn't this more of an episcopal polity? what happens if/when matt leaves for any reason? a new pastor leads all the campuses? who chooses/elects/affirms that person?

Molly said...

I may answer more later, but this is the only one I have energy to answer right now:

3. My church is considered a "cell church"; I'm not "married" to this idea, but I've seen a LOT of life and multiplication come from it, so I'm an advocate of it now. The goal is multiplication and church planting, the core discipleship and Lifegroup (small community), and the foundation, of course, is Jesus Christ ("A passion for Jesus and His purposes on the earth"). Get a group of 5-10 people, share the Gospel with everyone around you, see people accept Christ, disciple these people and then teach them to do the same thing. Lifegroup grows and then multiplies. Now you have two Lifegroups. Repeat the process.

Danielle said...

Jeremy,

are you guys congregationalists?

It might depend on your definition. Also, I'd probably have to email one of the staff members to get more clarity on all the specific details. As I understand it, our elders make most of the important governing decisions (after much prayer and discussion, AND with input from staff, congregation, etc).

what are the church's response to why they didn't just plant rather than have matt preach all campuses, virtually

Again, this is just how I understand it, the church staff might give a different answer/put it differently, but I believe it's because we still function as one church. We have events spread out across all three campuses that are open for everyone (as in things might only be offered at one of the three campuses). We allow volunteers to serve at different sites (ex. one of the 1st grade kids village teachers for the Dallas campus served at Flower Mound two weeks ago). Basically, the people at all three sites see themselves as being members of The Village...kinda like everyone is on an equal playing-field as far as membership is concerned. Just because the FM campus hears/sees Matt live, doesn't really mean anything (idk if that makes sense...that's just the general feel that I get from the other members).

We do have members from that go out and plant churches that are still associated (to varying degrees) with The Village. So it's not necessarily that we aren't planting, it's just that by providing these other campuses we are allowing for the growth that is happening within our own church.

if the elders of the main campus "rule" the other campuses, isn't this more of an episcopal polity?

Not totally sure what you mean by that. We have elders at all three campuses, and they do meet together to make important decisions for the church as a whole. But all the sites are represented on the elder board, and it doesn’t seem like a hierarchy or anything like that... just men that meet the Biblical criteria for being elders/spiritual leaders that are representative of the church congregation.

what happens if/when matt leaves for any reason? a new pastor leads all the campuses? who chooses/elects/affirms that person?

I don't know the answer to this one...and I'm not anyone does at this point. I would assume one of the other pastors would take over (Josh Patterson, Beau Hughes, Steve Hardin, etc) and lead in the same way Matt does since that's just how we "do things". And, like with most things, I'm pretty sure the elders would make that call after much prayer, fasting and time spent seeking the Lord. I feel like I’m probably making it seem like the Covenant members have no say, but in reality, I feel like we do. They’ve made it clear that there are open lines of communication with all the elders/staff members, so we can have a voice.


Okay, so did I answer most of your questions? Do I need to clarify anything... or email somebody who has more legit answers?

Andrew said...

Okay, I have a question about the Village for Danielle (and it isn't loaded, either): do you think having campuses watch sermons via video is overall better or worse for building the church? (you guys still do that, right?)

I think you hinted at your opinion in one of the above comments, but I'd like to hear your take on that specifically.

In other corners, this issue has inspired some pretty heated debate. I'm NOT trying to do that. There's no need to get defensive (there is no offense). :-)

Danielle said...

In other corners, this issue has inspired some pretty heated debate

Sorry about that, for some reason I have a tendency to come across as "heated" when I try to talk about things like this. I promise I'm not writing up a hit-list or something over here ;) I just LOVE my church and wish everyone could love (and experience) it the way I do (and I'm not just talking about loving Matt, I mean the people, the worship, the campus pastors, the service opportunities...ALL OF IT!). So don't fret, I know you aren't trying to hate on me/The Village.


do you think having campuses watch sermons via video is overall better or worse for building the church? (you guys still do that, right?)

Honestly, I don't really see it having a negative impact on the church. But I realize it's not for everyone, and it does lack some of the intimacy that "regular" church services have. The major problem I see with it is that it kind of perpetuates that whole idea that Matt is some kind of celebrity (which I know he doesn't like). As far as hindering the "building of the church", I don't think it's playing that much of a factor (then again, I might just be being naive or blind to it). Each one of the sites is led by incredible men that are more than capable of offering every pastoral "service", it just so happens that the person we hear from on a weekly basis is on a screen instead of a stage. We still have people (pastors, staff members and elders) that shepherd, council, rebuke, etc. the people at each campus. I know a lot of people don't like the idea of having sermons via video, but I don't necessarily think it's all that different than most medium-large churches where authentic relationships with the pastor are rare. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's my take on it :)

Andrew said...

Haha, I wasn't suggesting that you were being defensive, I just wanted to make it clear that I wasn't attacking the Village or any other churches that use video sermons. I'm genuinely curious. I like the Village very much, and I think Matt Chandler's a fantastic preacher.

My main concern is, as you said, the cult of personality around a pastor. My guess is that many (most?) of the pastors who use video worry about this too. I guess my main question is, if there are pastors who can shepherd and lead their respective campuses, why can't they teach, also? Will they eventually take over there?

Full disclosure: while I don't find anything wrong or even particularly unwise with video-sermons, I probably would not attend a campus where it was in use. :-)

Danielle said...

We do hear from our campus pastors a couple times a year (not nearly as much as Matt, but it's more than nothing!). Idk if they'll take over... I assume as long as all three sites stay together as part of The Village, things will stay the way they are. Maybe not though.

Oh, and in regards to your full disclosure, I don't blame you. Ideally, I'd love to have live, in-person sermons, but I fell in love with The Village before the Dallas campus ever opened and before I ever started watching the video sermons :)