{"id":110,"date":"2020-07-29T11:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T09:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/?page_id=110"},"modified":"2020-12-01T14:42:55","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T13:42:55","slug":"5-fragen-an-jede-gemeinde","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/gemeindegruendung\/5-fragen-an-jede-gemeinde\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Questions You Should Ask Your Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

by John J. Pethel, Director of Church Development & Pastoral Services, Seventh Day Baptists USA & Canada
aus: Sabbath Recorder, November 2017, S. 15
http:\/\/seventhdaybaptist.org\/sabbath-recorder-november-2017\/
One of the best things any leader can do when he is in a tough spot is to stop making\nassumptions and start asking questions. Our assumptions got us to where we are, but they\nwon\u2019t necessarily get us where we need to go.
Here are 5 questions leaders can ask if their church stops growing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. What is our mission?
    Often a church that has stopped growing has lost the urgency behind its mission. This is\ndoubly sad in the case of a church because our mission is actually Christ\u2019s mission\u2026it\u2019s the\nspread of the Gospel into the world for which Jesus died. Leaders and congregations that\nare effective in accomplishing their mission are consumed by their mission.<\/li>
  2. Are we focused on unchurched people or on ourselves?
    The gravitational pull of any church is toward insiders, not outsiders. Left unattended, your\nchurch will become a place where the preferences of the members trump passion for the\nmission. There are two primary ways to address this drift:
    In every decision, focus on who you want to reach, not who you want to keep.
    Commit to losing yourself for the sake of finding others.<\/li>
  3. Has our strategy or approach become dated?
    While the mission of the church is eternal, strategy should shift from generation to generation.\nThe challenge in long term leadership is that the changes that you introduced may have\nbeen novel and effective when you introduced them...but it\u2019s not 1995 anymore...or 2005\nfor that matter. How do you tell if your strategy is dated? When it stops being effective.<\/li>
  4. Are we on top of the constant change in our culture?
    While you\u2019re studying your strategy, you might also want to study culture. It\u2019s changing,\nradically and quickly. We now live in a post-Christian, post-modern world. That\u2019s true in\nCanada. It\u2019s increasingly true in the United States. In my experience, many of us in church\nleadership don\u2019t really grasp the enormity of the change going on around us.<\/li>
  5. When was the last time I personally invited someone to church?
    The reality is many Christians, for a variety of reasons, don\u2019t actually spend time with that\nmany non-Christians. If almost no one at your church knows any unchurched people, it\u2019s\nno mystery why your church isn\u2019t growing. So why not go build some real friendships? And\nbefore you say we should be \u201cin the world but not of it,\u201d please read the Gospels again.<\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    von: John J. Pethel, Leiter von Church Development & Pastoral Services der Siebenten-Tags Baptisten in den USA und Kanadaaus: Sabbath Recorder, November 2017, S. 15http:\/\/seventhdaybaptist.org\/sabbath-recorder-november-2017\/Eines der besten Dinge, die jeder Leiter tun kann, wenn er an einen schwierigen Punkt angelangt ist: h\u00f6re auf Vermutungen zu stellen und fange an, Fragen zu stellen. Unsere Vermutungen bringen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":54,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-110","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2111,"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110\/revisions\/2111"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siebententagsbaptisten.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}