Promoting Attendance

In his book Radical, David Platt includes a story about when he was in Sudan. 

"Imagine being in Sudan. You walk into a thatched hut with a small group of Sudanese church leaders, and you sit down to teach them God's Word. As soon as you start, you lose eye contact with all of them. No one is looking at you, and you hardly see their eyes the rest of the time. The reason is they're writing down every word they hear. They come up to you afterward and say, 'Teacher we are going to take everything we have learned from God's Word, translate it into our languages, and teach it in our tribes.' They were not listening to receive but to reproduce.

On a typical Sunday in the assembly of the church some people have their Bibles open, while others don't have a Bible with them. A few people are taking notes but for the most part they are passively sitting in the audience. While some are probably disengaged, others are intently focused on what the preacher is saying, listening to God's Word to hear how it applies to their lives. Few are listening to reproduce."

What if instead of asking "What can I get out of this?" the church asked "How can I listen to his Word so that I am equipped to teach others?"

If those same folks came to GSMCOC when they returned to their tribes would those tribes know more about Al, his family, his work, the things he has done or Jesus?

People have a responsibility to attend but those "leading" in the assembly have a responsibility to provide reasons for them to attend.

When I was on a project for IBM as the Project Manager I was charged to the customer at the rate of $200-$300 an hour. Folks on the project were charged at $50 to $200 an hour. As you would expect the customer did not tolerate time being wasted. I am very aware of how important it is for meetings to stay on topic. If I were to have given a presentation to a customer and talk about myself and tell as many off topic stories as we hear in our assemblies I would have been fired.

 

James 3:1  Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

Do we believe James?

John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN


Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
          http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

"UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It's the Post Office that's always having problems."

 

 —President Barack Obama, attempting to make the case for government-run healthcare, while simultaneously undercutting his own argument.