“Our next step," Pastor Will continued, "was to research any churches in the modern time that had implemented elements of our sketch. Point by point we typed them into an internet search engine. Anne did most of the searching, and would bring all relevant articles to our discussions. Some were exciting. A few had identified that changing this or that in a service had psychological consequences. Positive ones, in our view, for fixing the tendencies toward divorce, immorality, crime, and church abandonment.”
“And the eighty-twenty rule,” Anne added. “Churches that have more than a few select men teaching the congregation each Sunday tend to have more of their congregation involved in ministry throughout the week.”
“Here and there we tweaked our ideas. And understand, we were praying a lot.”
“A lot,” Anne emphasized.
“I brought home a copy of our church constitution and the conference requirements for church structure. We checked our plan one item at a time against both these documents, and we couldn’t find anything that said we had to do church the way everyone is used to.
“At this time, preaching a sermon every Sunday became very difficult. It was a matter of conscience.” Anne nodded her agreement. “I didn’t want to be doing something that wasn’t according to God’s word. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I decided to let my congregation know, once I was sure there was a biblical foundation, the changes necessary to align ourselves with the biblical pattern.”
“We took a whole week to stop studying this, and to pray. We prayed for our hearts to be right: confident but still humble. And we prayed for the congregation, especially our staff and deacons. Their response was critical. We prayed Will would just have a chance to present the passages of Scripture we had been reading.”
“After this week of prayer we continued to pray, of course. But we went into planning mode. I set a date, a Sunday, when I wanted to begin the changes. And I went through each name on our church attendance books to ponder what objections or questions might be raised. I wanted to be prepared.”
“Our Bibles fell open by this time to those passages, and we read them every day. I was worried he would get hauled off the stage before anything could truly be said.”
“And I had already decided to come down off the stage myself. This would be a heart to heart testimony of what God had been teaching me and laying on my heart.”
To God be all glory.
See index for first and additional chapters.
“And the eighty-twenty rule,” Anne added. “Churches that have more than a few select men teaching the congregation each Sunday tend to have more of their congregation involved in ministry throughout the week.”
“Here and there we tweaked our ideas. And understand, we were praying a lot.”
“A lot,” Anne emphasized.
“I brought home a copy of our church constitution and the conference requirements for church structure. We checked our plan one item at a time against both these documents, and we couldn’t find anything that said we had to do church the way everyone is used to.
“At this time, preaching a sermon every Sunday became very difficult. It was a matter of conscience.” Anne nodded her agreement. “I didn’t want to be doing something that wasn’t according to God’s word. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I decided to let my congregation know, once I was sure there was a biblical foundation, the changes necessary to align ourselves with the biblical pattern.”
“We took a whole week to stop studying this, and to pray. We prayed for our hearts to be right: confident but still humble. And we prayed for the congregation, especially our staff and deacons. Their response was critical. We prayed Will would just have a chance to present the passages of Scripture we had been reading.”
“After this week of prayer we continued to pray, of course. But we went into planning mode. I set a date, a Sunday, when I wanted to begin the changes. And I went through each name on our church attendance books to ponder what objections or questions might be raised. I wanted to be prepared.”
“Our Bibles fell open by this time to those passages, and we read them every day. I was worried he would get hauled off the stage before anything could truly be said.”
“And I had already decided to come down off the stage myself. This would be a heart to heart testimony of what God had been teaching me and laying on my heart.”
To God be all glory.
See index for first and additional chapters.
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