Hi Folks:

No time for a lot of news this week. We have started our week-long youth mission and look forward to the ways God is going to work this week. For many of the youth, this is their first hands-on experience of mission. And, for the churches involved, this is new. We hope and trust that this will spark interest and enthusiasm for the Kingdom work. Please keep us in your prayers this week.

This week's On Fire is a little different. This is a copy of the article I submitted for my newspaper column this week. I know that there are places where Christ's church is strong, but many of our churches are in danger of closing and could use an attitude adjustment. I'm interested to hear what you think.

Troy

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This past week I realized something. There are a lot of similarities between our churches and General Motors.

This past week I watched news reports which carried stories about General Motors’ plan to cut another 25 000 jobs. It seems GM has lost market share and profits. Investors are upset because GM is struggling to keep up in a constantly changing market.

At one press conference, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said something which caught my attention because it reminds me of the struggles we face in our churches.

In essence, he said that GM is no longer in the transportation business. The transportation business, he said, is about reliability and longevity. In today’s car climate, these are given assumptions. Cars start in the morning and run reliably. These issues aren’t relevant anymore and so GM has to remake itself: "We are in the arts and entertainment business, and we're putting a huge emphasis on world-class design."

In essence, Bob Lutz was admitting that the old way of doing things no longer works. The business climate has changed and GM will not survive unless it adapts.

Can you see the parallels to the church? In the 25 years since I decided to follow Jesus, attendance numbers have fallen off dramatically in Canada. In my childhood elementary school, almost everyone talked about attending Sunday school. This is no longer the case. Census numbers confirm that many people do not attend at all.

What happened? To be honest, I think we squandered our position in society. We thought church was about attending on Sunday without reference to how we lived during the rest of the week. We didn’t take seriously reports of abuse. We fought battles over music as if hymns and old-time gospel songs were Jesus himself. We so criticized "secular" society and culture that people concluded we were judgmental and we didn’t want to be around them if they weren’t perfect.

Like GM, we tried to keep things the same while the world changed. We need to realize that the assumptions that worked at one time no longer work. Church attendance is not automatic. People will not come back on their own. Jesus may be the same "yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8), but we cannot keep things the same and hope for the best. The doors may not stay open.

GM decided to change its focus. What do we need to do?

First, we need to focus on Jesus, not the church. The Bible is clear that Jesus "is the way, the truth and the light." If we misunderstand this, we lose the essence of the church. It is not the building or the institution. Jesus intended the church to call people to him, not to its traditions.

Second, we need to focus on personal integrity and holiness. "What would Jesus do?" is not just a catchy cliche. If we claim to follow Jesus, shouldn’t people be able to see him in us?

Third, we need to be real. If we expect to draw people to Jesus, we can’t hold ourselves up as paragons of perfection. People are amazingly adept at spotting hypocrisy. Believe it or not, there is strength in admitting our weak areas.

Fourth, we need to exercise compassion and caring. Most in the church would claim to be kind and caring, and many are. But I am constantly surprised by how often I see the attitude, "You made your nest - now lie in it."

Finally, we need to change our methods. Like water, the message of Jesus can be carried in many different vessels without compromising the content. A simple reading of the Bible makes it clear that the way to the Father is through Jesus. And God expects us to live according to a standard of holiness. However, there are many ways of communicating the "good news," and many ways to conduct worship within this framework.

I realized this week that there are many similarities between GM and the church. Neither of us can rely on what worked in the past and we must continually remake ourselves to be relevant to the world around us.

Hope this helps

Troy

ON FIRE is a weekly letter of encouragement by Troy Dennis. This letter published July 10, 2005. www.onfireletter.com