[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], March 2021]
As churches we are now planning to go back into our buildings. There are so many things we could be doing, but what will make our churches truly successful, and what will keep people coming back for more?
I know there’s been COVID but this past year has been quite exciting from a church leadership point of view because it’s really forced us to look outside the box. It forced us to reimagine what church would look like, to really move into that digital space with our church services, learning how to engage with people, learning how to connect with people rather than just increase our viewing count. It’s something that we’re trying to grow in and it’s been a real challenge but it’s been a good challenge.
But now we’re starting to think about how we move into physical church again and we’ve got that opportunity, we’ve got a rare opportunity that possibly will never come around again, to really rethink about how we do our church services, how we do church, full stop, not just confined to a Sunday morning. Really we’ve got an opportunity not only to reopen but to relaunch ourselves, so what is church going to look like?
I’m kind of spending a bit of time thinking about what Sunday services will look like and it’s so easy to compare and contrast ourselves to the churches that I see on YouTube; the churches where they’ve got the perfect lighting, they’ve got the perfect cameras, they’ve got the perfect teeth. You know, everything is right; they’ve got the budget, they’ve got the money and it’s so easy to try and emulate that in some way in what we’re going to do in our church services and what we’re going to try and do online.
It’s easy to try and also compete with the world and what the world offers but the reality is we just can’t, we just haven’t got that talent, we haven’t got that budget, we haven’t got that time, so what should we be emphasizing when it comes to attracting people into our church premises or into our church community? And also, how do we get people to stay, how do we get our teenagers, our kids as they’re growing up to not move away from church as so many are in the habit of doing? Is it about better lighting, is it about more entertainment, what is it?
Well this Sunday we’re starting a new sermon series called ‘Encounters’ and we’re looking at encounters that people had with Jesus in the run-up to his death on the cross and his resurrection which we celebrate at Easter. Each week we’re going to look at a different group. This Sunday we’re going to be looking at when Jesus healed a bunch of lepers, but what I really want to draw out of this is the reality that Jesus isn’t just some sort of historical figure, someone that lived in the Middle East 2,000 years ago nor is Jesus just some character from a fairy tale. What I want us to come to is the realisation that Jesus is just as alive now as he was those 2,000 years ago when he walked on this earth and that Jesus can have a massive influence on our lives and can bring transformation to our lives. He can bring healing both physically and mentally, he can fix those things in our lives that are broken, he can bring peace. And when I say peace I don’t just mean the absence of conflict, I mean it in a holistic sense where those things that are broken in our lives become fixed; the relationships, our financial situation. You see what people really need now in the 21st century is an encounter with Jesus.
See, I’m reminded of an account in Acts chapter 19 where the apostle Paul meets a bunch of guys who were disciples of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a contemporary of Jesus and he went around baptising people in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. They were being baptised with the baptism of repentance and Paul asked these disciples of John “Have you have you received the Holy Spirit?” and they didn’t really know who what that was. Paul explains to them that their baptism was a baptism of repentance but they needed to be baptised in the name of Jesus and that’s exactly what Paul did. He baptised them and they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. They were transformed, they spoke in tongues, they prophesied, they had an encounter with Jesus despite the fact that Jesus had died some years previous because Jesus is alive and he is working in our midst by his Holy Spirit.
You too can meet with him and I’m sure that our communities and our churches are full of spiritual religious people, disciples but people who have not met the risen Lord Jesus Christ, who haven’t been baptised by his Holy Spirit. Maybe that is you. You see if you want to know what it means to be successful as a church, if you want to know how to grow a church, if you want to know how to draw people in, if you want to know how to keep your teenagers so that when they hit a certain age they don’t leave the church then they need to meet Jesus. You cannot ignore an encounter with our risen Lord; you can ignore flashy lights or great sermons but you can’t ignore Jesus.
Hi guys thank you so much for tuning in. Do remember that this Sunday we’re going to be starting our new sermon series ‘Encounters’ looking at encounters people had with Jesus and that’s our run-up to Easter Sunday. Thanks for watching, do remember to like and share this video. Please subscribe to our channel, hit those buttons, subscribe, hit that thumbs up. That would make a massive difference to us so thank you so much
… ’bye
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[1] YouTube link: What Will Church Look Like?
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Contributed by Martin Shorey; © the Author
