Several years ago I shared an idea with our staff about how to move from the idea of promotion for the sake of attraction to the concept of more functional marketing. Rather than saying, “Hey look at us” the idea is to say, “Here is something we are providing that you can use.” This is as basic as providing schedules of games people are interested in, coffee mugs, etc. My motive at that time was to more effectively get people to look at us in the pursuit of success. The more we’ve grown in this the more we’ve realized the goal should be to more effectively help people flourish without an added self-serving goal.
As simple as it may sound it’s profoundly different in terms of motives and pursuits.
Translating this idea in the making of disciples and we stop trying to help people in the pursuit of being successful and we actually try to help people with a true motive of helping people flourish because it is truly the heart of God. BE CAREFUL because this will come back to you and you will begin to flourish. This benefit must remain in the category of “result” rather than “pursuit” or you’ve missed the point. Even David had to have help from God in knowing his own heart Ps 139 – search me God and know my heart came at the end of the chapter. At the beginning he describes how God already knows everything about his heart even words before he speaks them. Obviously already acknowledging that God knew his heart he was asking God to search his heart so David could know his own heart as God does.
The more we determine what we are to accomplish as a church family the more clear and concise our efforts become. We believe it is vital to the life of a believer to be in true community so Community Groups are an important part of our process of discipleship. In light of this we decided to initiate a rotation of Community Group Leaders in our guest area after services. Since we believe this is such an important ministry to our church family we also introduce the Community Group Leaders at the end of the service having them stand on the platform so everybody can see them, hear their name and be reminded how centrally important this is to our goal of making disciples. This also provides a face and name for guests who are with us during that service. The C Group Leaders are simply introduced and then they make their way to the lobby to wait for any guests to come receive their gift or any of our church family who may have questions. In that area we have “family style” pictures in frames hanging on the wall of all of our Community Group Leaders so everybody coming through the lobby sees them.
Search us God. Know our hearts. See if there is anything in us that grieves you as we work to find our way. Lead us in the way everlasting. (Psalms 139)