Conference yukon::christian_v7

    I have much the same feelings as Jim, however, I do not associate them
    with the building - but the people inside.  I can have those same
    feeling of warmth and acceptance when I am in their fellowship just
    about anywhere.  I pass by our building every morning on the way to
    work and it just looks like a white building sitting in the corner of
    the lot.  Sometimes I wish I had the talent/money to really dress it up
    nice (landscape etc) and the regulations (we can't pave the parking lot
    because of the wetlands, so it looks a little sloppy in my opinion).
    
    (ps, I do acknowledge that jim pointed out the difference between
    church building and church people) FWIW.
    
    -sjd
    

  
  I've always applied the following verse to "good" churches, where there is
  agape and little or no backbiting, etc. Those who are Christians; 
  called by His Name.

  The Name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it 
  and are safe. Proverbs 18:10 NKJV.

  Hank

Thanks Jim,

I can feel that intense sense of belonging, love, family, whenever I'm with
a fellowship which emanates the love of the LORD.  This, especially when
I've been on a business trip, and find an oasis of real life in the welter
of more limited communications. 

My own church ... is in an interesting state (for us) at the moment.  The 
building is being renovated, so for 6 weeks we're meeting in a school on 
the outskirts of town (actually close to where I live).  It's meant a lot 
of extra scurrying around to prepare for each service; 'clearing away', as 
we're not the 'only' users ... ;-) etc etc.  And it's been tremendous.  
People have been pulled together as never before, we've met members of the 
congregation we didn't know existed when we sat on two levels (the balcony 
regiment mixed very incomletely with the ground floor folk).  The place is 
light and airy, the environment surrounded with open space and trees... Why 
are we moving back???? ;-)

Some who felt the temporary move was a totally unnecessary upheaval have 
really thrown their weight behind it in appreciation of the good it's done 
us, necessary or not....  And we've still the renovated church to go back 
to...

In planning the renovation, there was some strength of feeling on whether
we should replace the pews with chairs.  This was favored by the leadership
generally, though it isn't writtin into our doctrines.  Yet.  ;-)  However,
an old guard contingent came to light who felt the glory would depart for
ever, were we to change anything.  We brutally went ahead with the cleaning
and redecorating, but renovated the pews instead of replacing them.  I
can't help wondering whether the weight of opinion on even this small
matter might have been different if people had met for a few Sundays in the 
school before discussing it... ;-)

Oh yes - another spin-off seems to have been the number of visitors in our 
temporary residence.  Not all just come down out of the rafters... ;-)

							Andrew

 This past Wednesday night we sang a hymn which was new to most of the 
folks in attendance, and which called for some fairly high notes..by the
 time we reached the last verse we were all laughing so hard we had to
 stop ;-)




Jim

    
    My church faces a tough choice next week that is the first issue 
    since I've been there were there has been some disagreement.  Our
    church has grown considerably which of course some people don't
    like.  They miss the closeness and intimacy of a smaller church
    family, but God's spirit is at work and we have grown.  The pews
    are about 80% filled which church growth people will say that 
    growth stops because it looks like their are no seats.  We have
    even had visitors who almost walked out because it didn't look 
    like there were any seats.  Our leadership has prayed and want
    to move to interlocking chairs.  Same amount of seating, but set
    up with more aisles so there is more access points to the all the
    seats.  I pray that this week our group will once again be united.
    At the least meeting some traditionalists got bent out of shape.
    We had enough votes to swing the decision for the chairs, but the
    Pastor didn't want the disunity over a simple thing like chairs
    so he asked that people pray about it for a month and we meet next
    Wednesday.  
    

 We will be facing a similar situation in my church..we are approaching
 a point where we may have to consider the chairs.  As an usher it presents
 a real challenge, particularly when visitors show up a bit late.  We've
 told the regulars that they have to scoot in and they reluctantly do, and
 we've set aside 2 pews as "reserved"..but some of the regulars seem to 
 think that the "reserved" means its for them, though we've told them 
 many times that its for late arrivals/visitors..


 We are on a growth spurt right now and we have a couple plans for handling
 any real big growth..we're also about 2 years away from our new building.



Jim

    Hum, nice topic, didn't realize it was here.
    
    My church (well, not really mine, but I "belong there") is an
    incredible place, with warmth and incredible people who support
    and are always there if/when you need a helping hand.
    
    Until this church, I really never felt I truly "belonged" to any 
    church, even the one I grew up in/with.
    
    With this church I am always involved and always included. Everything 
    I do revolves around the church.
    
    We are expanding our building due to an incredible growth. It is just
    amazing that in two years we have grown 3x (or better) in size. Two
    years ago is when I started my new walk. There were only about 90 
    attending one service. Now we have two services with over 150 most 
    often, for each service.
    
    I just can't say enough about the church, but will stop now.. 8^)
    
    Our plan to move back to New England always becomes a sad plan when we
    think about the fellowship of friends we'd leave behind, once/if we 
    actually move... The church would be one of the only reasons we'd stay.
    

    
    Our current attendance is around 500-600 each Sunday in the service
    (actually that's the total of 2 services).  It's a good size church
    but if God keeps working we're going to grow out of it soon. We bought 
    10 acres ajoining our property about a year ago.  We have 3 more 
    years before that's paid off and then we'll start to build.  
    
    Jill

    When our church started holding the two seperate services, we started
    to have a problem staying in touch with those at "the other service".
    
    Right away we fixed that problem... We have a monthly fellowship
    {something} to insure everyone stays in touch. We also adjusted the 
    time between 1st service and Sunday School for fellowship time. We 
    also offer coffee and donuts to help bring folks early enough to be
    able to talk and fellowship...
    
    It has worked famously, even though the building is much to small for
    the entire membership (plus guests), we do it anyway... Try it, it does
    work....
    
    

 We're considering 2 services, but I think we'd like to avoid it if
 at all possible.  We usually run ~250 (in the auditorium) and ~220
 or so Sunday nights..any time we have something special going on
 we get pretty cramped..Praise God!



Jim

    
    Well Jim, it does take on different dynamics when you go to
    2 services.  Different is not necessarily better or worse,
    but it's a change that isn't easy for everyone.   I find that 
    I don't know everyone nor do I know people as well without 
    making more effort than I used to have to.  That isn't bad
    though.  It's just a matter of all members picking up the 
    guantlet and making sure people are welcomed and tied in
    to a fellowship group.  Special events help to get to know
    others too.  Recently I went on a women's retreat and got
    to know many women I didn't know.  It was great.  Plus you
    meet more people when you serve.  I work in the nursery, the 
    singles group run a Parent's Night Out babysitting ministry 
    once a month, and I work in Awana.  So I'm very tied in with 
    the kids in our church and their parents.  That's where I'm 
    called.  Others have a different niche.  
    
    Jill

We went through the pews / chairs decision a year or two back.  The
leaership was pretty keen on having chairs, for the flexibility.  As there
was an 'old guard' faction who reacted against chairs, we went for having
the pews refurbished instead. 

Our church has about 320+ membership, which we find large (for the UK, 
generally).  Over recent years we've had quite a turnover in congregation, 
which has meant that it's not that easy to keep track of everyone.  This is
a difficulty in growing in fellowship.  I agree that being involved helps 
to get to know people - at least, those who are involved as well (depending 
on the sort of areas you get involved in - most of my involvement is in 
outreach type operations).

							Andrew

    Re .11
    
    Well, the church I am a member of is considering going to 3 services,
    as both the 9:30 and 11:00 are getting pretty full (approx 1100-1500
    per service).  We used to have 3 services several years ago.  It seems
    like a lot for a pastor to preach 3 sermons every Sunday.
    
    >I work in Awana.
    
    Ah... another fellow AWANAite.  This is late, but Welcome Jill!
    
    Bing

   Interesting... you might even consider the following...
   
   When you reach some sort of critical mass - whatever that is for your
   church - then you start looking at geographic distribution, and you
   start talking about planting a new church.  I don't think we've
   actually consciously "tried" to get people to go away, but it has
   happened anyway.
   
   You know - things change -- people have more kids, or their schedules
   change or the church leadership changes -- there are eventually enough
   people showing up from a particular area to consider planting, and,
   well, it happens.  I know that they worked with the deacons and the
   pastor before actually doing this, but I believe it has worked out
   well in our case.
   
   You might want to consider that part of your church's missionary work.
   I believe that planting a new church - even if its 2 towns away -  is
   still missions-type work.
   
   Peace,
   
   - Tom

	Our church went to two services this fall.  Services have
	about 250 each, I think.

	We'll be beginning a major building effort in the Spring.
	The entire Christmas Eve/Christmas offering was devoted
	to the building fund, and $37,000 was given!  God is good!
	
	I believe the goal is to return to one service when the
	building is complete.  Seating is supposed to be for 750.

	Karen

I like Tom's thinking rather than three services.

I am coming to the opinion that Bigger isn't better, but there is a
"critical mass" to support the five functions of the church.

Instead of a big church, aspire for a "complete" church (which may
be big or not).

Mark

 Our church has sent one family out to begin a new work and its going
 quite well..we anticipate another (our associate pastor) leaving soon
 to begin another.




 Jim

    
    Thanks for the welcome Bing.  Nice to hear from another Awana leader!
    
    Our church has grown and that's one of the reasons the leadership would
    like to go to the flexibility we'd get with the chairs because they 
    are hoping to put off going to a third service right now.  This summer
    our Pastor of Worship and Music took a job in Texas, so we are short-
    staffed right now.  The staff has even thought of adding the third
    service on a Friday or Saturday so the pastor wouldn't be doing 3
    sermons on Sunday.  
    
    I agree that churches should be planting other churches and missions,
    and my church supports other smaller works that have branched off.
    But I'd have to say I disagree with there not being a place for large
    churches.  Just like everyone in the church has gifts to build up
    the church, not all of us have the same ones.  A large church has the
    capacity to do things a small church couldn't do on as large a scale.
    Many people will go to a large church so that they can be ministered
    to for a while and not have to feel like they need to be working and
    in many cases it's because they were so taxed at a small church that
    they are just burned out and need to be nourished.  I will be going
    to a Grief workshop at a large Presbyterian church downtown that 
    many other churches wouldn't have the capacity to do or to do as
    well as they do.  All churches don't need to be exactly alike in size 
    and ministries, what we need is to be proclaiming the gospel as Christ 
    taught us and listening to how He wants our specific church to join
    Him in the cause of world redemption which is what we are saved to do.
    
    Jill
    
    

    Well, our church has gotten passed phase one of the plan to build our
    new building. Phase two is now underway. This phase is to have the
    architect complete drawings and models of the additions and return to
    present them to the planning committee.. The project will cost in the
    neighborhood of $700k to complete. 
    
    The Lord has presented us with a challenge... We will succeed in this
    effort, I'm sure of this...
    
    Bob
    

 
 Yesterday we had a total of 67 bus kids in Sunday school.  This is a low
 number as we usually have closer to 100.  "Bus Kids", are kids we bring
 in from some of the inner city areas of Manchester and Nashua NH.  Most
 of these kids come from single parent homes and the siblings in most cases
 have different fathers, most of whom are not involved in the childrens' 
 lives.


 Once a month I work in our Sunday School department, supervising the classes
 and helping out when kids need a little "attention".  For some reason 
 yesterday these kids were all fired up.  We had to discipline at least
 10 of them.  By discipline, I mean we had to remove them from the class
 and talk to them and perhaps inflict some non physical forms of punishment.
 What astounds me is that all of these kids were in the 1st-3rd grade
 age-range, and none of them could grasp the idea that their behavior was
 unacceptable.  Each of them had responses such as "You can't tell me 
 what to do" or, "I don't have to do that" or "I can do whatever I want"..
 When we'd say "we're going to have to talk to your mom and dad, the responses
 were "I don't have a dad" or "my mom doesn't care what I do"..

 I see it in older kids, in whom the rebellion takes on a sharper edge,
 tinged with violence.  Two weeks ago on the van that I drive I had
 3 kids fighting, one choking another and another hitting him on the
 head with a book.  This was not "playful roughhousing".


 My heart breaks for these kids, as we try to reach them (and their 
 parent(s) with the gospel.  It also frightens me, as I know these
 scenes are repeated all over the country, and these are just a few
 of the kids that we are able to get our arms around and get to church.
 There are *millions* whom we can not get to, who may never hear of
 the gospel.  I fear for the future as these kids, with little or
 no discipline in their lives reach the teen years.


 After each case of disciplining these kids yesterday, I'd give them
 a hug and walk them back to class and tell them to apologize to their
 teacher.


 Jim