When my wife and I got married 1998, we lived in an apartment in Lawrenceville, Georgia. I still had a number of months left on the lease and we were unsure of where we would put down roots. Since then, we have lived in Powder Springs, Georgia, Las Cruces, New Mexico, Woodstock, Georgia, and Hahira, Georgia. In all, we’ve had six home addresses over those 21 years! As it turns out we have been members of six churches and visited probably close to twenty others. That’s a lot of moving around both for homes for our family and for church homes.
There is a lot to be said about being part of different communities, especially different church families. I am always amazed to see how God is working through different congregations to accomplish the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Many of the churches we were part of or visited were healthy, growing, reaching their communities with the gospel. Honestly though, some were not.
Each of those churches had a unique culture that separated them from the others we visited or called home. Of those churches that were growing, there were several traits present in the culture of each of them. These certainly are not the only traits each had in common but they did clearly stand out and caught my attention.
Personal Evangelism
Each and every one of the healthy, growing churches emphasized personal evangelism. That is, each one had as part of their culture personally sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with others. A culture of personal evangelism doesn’t just happen! It starts with a pastor with a heart for evangelism, modeling personal evangelism, and periodic equipping with tools for the job.
Equipping people may include things like simply teaching people how to share their personal testimony about how they came to faith, encouraging them to share what God is doing in their lives today, or it can be the use of gospel tracts or newer tools like 3 Circles. I saw these as well as Roman Road, Evangecube, and others being used. Regardless of the method being taught, the main thing was there was an emphasis on personal evangelism in the church.
Missions
Each one of the healthy, growing churches we have visited or called home emphasized missions. What I mean by that is these churches saw as being very important sending people from the congregation to take the gospel to other parts of our nation as well as to other nations. This included other states to assist NAMB church planters or to be part of a new work being started there, etc. as well as going to places in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America…well you get the idea!
This wasn’t a once in a while thing either. These growing churches had ongoing plans to be on mission with God outside the walls of their own church. Now before someone leaves a comment about spending a lot of money to go to a foreign country when there are needs in their own communities, let me assure you that these same churches all had a both/and approach. In other words, they were not neglecting one for the other. Rather, they saw being on mission with God in the community and across the globe as part of their expression of carrying out the Great Commission.
Generosity
I have never visited or been called a church home with the first two traits, personal evangelism and missions, embedded in the culture that was not generous! When I say generous what I mean by that is generous in giving financially to the church budget, generous in giving financially to missions, and generous in giving of their time serving in the various ministries of the church.
As you would probably expect, it started in the pulpit with a pastor that modeled generosity. Leadership that models generosity is easy to buy into and is contagious! One church we were members of cheered when it was time to take up the offering on Sunday morning (no joke…literally cheered!). When a ministry need was made known, there were always volunteers willing to step up and meet the need be it serving somewhere with children or a food pantry or with senior adults or anywhere else in between. I think a lot of people underestimate the value of the time they give when we talk about generosity but that’s for another post.
I am sure there are other cultural traits that could be included in a post such as this but I wanted to keep this kind of simple. What do you think? Do you have other traits from the culture of a great church that have really stood out to you over the years you can share? Let me know in the comments and let’s have a conversation!
Blessings,
Chris