It amazes me how different Christian churches can be from each other.

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Jackie posted this review recently

Her comments reveal the growing sophistication among church consumers

More and more people are attending several churches simultaneously

I am a regular attender of a church, just not this one.

They go for a variety of reasons

I chose this church because I got lost while trying to find a different one.

They feel free to critique church

My husband and I left feeling depressed and like we had just left a boxing ring rather than a church service

They notice the disparity between all the choices.

It amazes me how different Christian churches can be from each other.

How Does This Serve The Kingdom

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Once in awhile we get a what I consider to be a very fair minded question. Take a look at what Phil recently posted and let us see how you would respond to his question.

i’ve loved so much of what “off the map” has been about and continues to be about, but this website doesn’t seem to align with everything else. it perpetuates our cultural problem of viewing church as a product and the church attender as consumer- it is no different than “customer reviews”. i would hope to begin to see church as more about relationship and participation. then the “low points” are not something to keep people away from churches, but rather redemptive opportunities for engagement. giving living organisms “ratings” takes the life right out of them- they are now products to be consumed or discarded- in line with our cultural milieu. please consider pulling the plug on this website under the question- how does it serve the Kingdom?

Orbiting the Conventional Church

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Fred Peatross recently posted these thoughts about church on his blog, Abductive Columns:

A friend at Starbucks on Saturday. Four or five couples at Bob Evans on Sunday. This is as close as it gets to “church.” The idea is most representative of what the early Christians did two millennium ago. They spent time together, ate together and shared together, Hence they knew each other well.

This is what our little group of Jesus followers prefers; meaningful relationships outside the rigid structures of America’s skewed understanding of church. Before I go on, I need to tell you that we all still attend the Sunday assemble. We just no longer do “church work” as defined by the institution. We’re not willing to fall into the trappings of traditional church. And how do we keep from being sucked back in? As Gordon MacKenzie, says, “You go into orbit.”

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What does make a good church?

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So we know what doesnt work.

We’ve got plenty of evidence to substantiate that…

But what does work?

What does make a good church?

What it is about the churches you do like that keep (kept) you coming back?

Size?
Preaching?
Parking?
Kids?
None of the above

Banned from church

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Benjamin, co-host of our Justice and Compassion blog, sent us this Wall Street Journal article.

Banned from church

On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary. “And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P.”

Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for nearly 50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10% of her pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff’s officer. One held her purse and Bible. The other put her in handcuffs. [you can listen to the 911 call from a link in the original article]

The charge was trespassing, but Mrs. Caskey’s real offense, in her pastor’s view, was spiritual. Several months earlier, when she had questioned his authority, he’d charged her with spreading “a spirit of cancer and discord” and expelled her from the congregation. “I’ve been shunned,” she says.

Read the rest of the article