Church security and emergency planning

My heart is grieved by the news of the shooting of Pastor Fred Winters during the Sunday morning service at First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois.

It appears that a new form of random violence is now hitting churches. And churches unfortunately seem to make easy targets.

Several years ago, I attended a conference on terrorism in America and the need for even small town communities to take steps to boost security and plan for terrorism. Shootings like this one, remind us that acts of violence can happen anywhere at anytime.

How can churches take steps to increase security and plan for emergencies? Clearly they need to in today's world.

Our church does not currently have a security or emergency plan in place but we probably need to start thinking about one and getting one in place.

First Christian Church Cross video

Here's the video I made for the cross dedication yesterday.

Guys are few in the pews

During VBS is summer I felt very alone. I was the only man helping. All the volunteers were women. So where are the men? Is church that feminine? Check out this statistics from a recent USA Today article:

Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely to attend worship at least weekly.

52% of women and 48% of men say they identify with a particular religion, and women are the majority in 21 of 25 Christian denominations, according to the recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 people by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey found 39% of U.S. adults — 45% of women and 34% of men — attend worship at least weekly.

31% of men and 27% of women say they never go to church, not even on holidays, according to a new survey of 1,007 adults by Ellison Research, a market research firm in Phoenix.

62% of those who attend regularly as adults say that as children they went to church with both parents. If only one parent went, usually the mom, the likelihood of the adult regularly attending dropped to 50%. If neither parent took them to church, 33% now attend.

77% of women but just 65% of men say their faith is very important in their lives, according to a 2008 survey of 1,006 adults by Barna Research in Ventura, Calif.

Wow! So why are men so few in the pews? David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church says we should “blame the church, not the men.” Further he says, "We've wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package." And from his website, churchformen.com, Murrow states,

How did Christianity, founded by a man and his 12 male disciples, become the province of women? There is a pattern of feminization in Christianity going back at least 700 years, according to Dr. Leon Podles, author of The Church Impotent: the Feminization of Christianity. But the ball really got rolling in the 1800s. With the dawning of the industrial revolution, large numbers of men sought work in mines, mills and factories, far from home and familiar parish. Women stayed behind, and began remaking the church in their image. The Victorian era saw the rise of church nurseries, Sunday schools, lay choirs, quilting circles, ladies’ teas, soup kitchens, girls’ societies, potluck dinners, etc.

Soon, the very definition of a good Christian had changed: boldness and aggression were out; passivity and receptivity were in. Christians were to be gentle, sensitive and nurturing, focused on home and family rather than accomplishment and career. Believers were not supposed to like sex, tobacco, dancing or other worldly pleasures. The godly were always calm, polite and sociable.This feminine spirituality still dominates our churches. Those of us who grew up in church hardly notice it; we can’t imagine things any other way. But a male visitor detects the feminine spirit the moment he walks in the sanctuary door. He may feel like Tom Sawyer in Aunt Polly’s parlor; he must watch his language, mind his manners and be extra polite. It’s hard for a man to be real in church because he must squeeze himself into this feminine religious mold.

Do you agree with these observations? How does the church change to make it more appealing to men?

Church owners...

Our church leadership is busy rethinking and rewriting our church's constitution and by-laws after we left the Disciple of Christ denomination. I have a lot of thoughts concerning the concept of membership in the church. But I must say that this article has blazed new thought trails for me. Vintage21 Church is doing something different than church membership. Here's the gist of the article:

Forget your Members Only jacket. At Vintage21, a church in Raleigh, North Carolina, it's Owners Only. The church is eliminating the concept of membership entirely in favor of what they believe is a more appropriate description for the body of Christ: ownership.

I love this idea! From Vintage21 Church's website we read further:

A member of an organization uses the facilities, gains from its services, takes a shower, and heads about their business. An owner makes the organization happen. Jesus wants His followers to make the church happen--go out and love people, nurture each other, and serve with your whole life. Ownership is a higher calling than membership. If you are a follower of Christ, then you are a co-owner of His church.

This is a powerful metaphor. Our church leadership needs to think through this concept and see if it is a good idea for us. The best part of this metaphor: owners make the organization happen! This is how the church should function.

So what do you think about church membership versus church ownership?

REVEAL

I'm reading a very challenging book called Reveal. It is based on research that was done at Willow Creek Community Church. Every few years, Willow has surveyed their congregation to get a feel for how they are doing. They want to know where they are so they can become more effective as a church.

Before doing any research, they made three hypotheses. They "hypothesized that spiritual growth depended on increasing participation in church activities."

They discovered that this wasn't true. They found that spiritual growth is related to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Not surprising if you ask me. What is clearly revealed is that church activities don't often help people develop a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Yikes!

So where are we, First Christian Church of Wray, Colorado? Does our church help you develop a growing relationship with Jesus Christ?

The research is ongoing and there is a blog that continues the conversation. In a recent post, charts were shown that reveal how the congregations of 20 different churches feel about their church's role in their spiritual growth and their own satisfaction concerning their spiritual growth. Ideally, churches want congregations who see their relationship with Jesus Christ as very important and feel that the church plays a positive role in their spiritual growth.

Is that the case with our church? Do you feel that your relationship with Jesus Christ is very important? Do you feel that the church is playing a positive role in your spiritual growth? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

Easter Monday

What a great Easter Service yesterday! 171 adults and kids attended, great music, fun kids sermon, and a live goat! What was there not to like?

After the service, Marnie and I while driving to Idalia for lunch with friends, talked about the service. We left feeling such excitement and joy. Wouldn't it be great to leave church feeling that every Sunday?

That's my hope for First Christian Church here in Wray. That we will create worship experiences on Sundays where people really worship and experience God through the music, community, and teaching that occurs.

One way I hope to achieve this is to create a Worship Design Team. It would be great to have a team of people who think through the upcoming worship services and ways we can creatively communicate the gospel to our community. More info will be coming....

I'm always interested in feedback on our church and our worship services. I found a great blog today, called Church Hopping written by agnostics who attend churches and give their evaluations online. I wonder what they would say about our church?