Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wonder what my congregation thinks about (fill in the blank)” or “I wish I could ask my youth group if they preferred (option one) or (option 2)”? Well now that a majority of people use smartphones, you can!
Andrew Osborne
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Happy Thanksgiving! There is so much for which we have as Christians to be thankful! Despite our best (worst) efforts, God continuously gives us undeserved grace because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. While our world seems to us to be falling deeper into sin and depravity with each year that goes by, we remain thankful that our hope is in Christ and His promise to make all things new again.
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Thanksgiving
In August of 2015, Vanco Payment Solutions conducted an online survey of 1,002 U.S. Christian churchgoers. They created a report that details the survey’s findings about current attitudes toward e-Giving, the most compelling motivations for church giving and preferences for communication and technology. Some of their findings were that:
As Christians we believe that God's Word is unchanging. Our God doesn't flip-flop or change His mind. When He gave us His Word, it was final and infallible. In contrast, we humans tend to change pretty much at the drop of a dime.
One week, we'll have an extreme opinion on a topic, but then the next we'll learn more and change our opinion. Some of us seem to change our careers every five years or so. Our tastes and style change every time the newest fad hits the market. One of the seemingly biggest changes to hit us most recently is the change in the way we learn.
The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” has been tossed around for a long time, but it is absolutely true. Pictures have a way of sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings with people that can sometimes be hard to put in words. You can even experience God in pictures by viewing the beauty of His creation. Photography is another tool that churches can use in a wide variety of ways.
People love stories. Look around you, everywhere you turn you see a story being told. Your Facebook or Twitter feed is full of small stories from people’s lives. Books, movies, music; they all tell us different stories.
As Christians, our main focus is on communicating the greatest story ever told; the story of God’s redemptive work through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It doesn’t really matter how large your congregation is, there will always be more work to do than your church staff can handle on their own. If you take a good look at thriving congregations, their church staff typically isn’t comprised of doers; it is comprised of equippers. Of course, staff workers will end up doing a lot of the work themselves, but to really get things done, they need to be able to equip their volunteers to assist them in doing the work.
