Divergence

One of the things I love about the church plant is it's diversity. One of my passions in life is cultivating cultural diversity in organizations. I'm thinking seriously about doing a PhD in cross-cultural dynamics and helping facilitate greater understanding amongst different cultural groups. The church plant is going to provide some excellent experience. We have just started a Portuguese ministry in the church. There is a large Brazilian population in Richmond and we even have a Brazilian church. However, a group of Brazilians have been a part of FWESDA for years and decided to really reach out to the community. They started a ESL class on Tuesday nights, have Bible Studies on Friday Nights, and now have begun having a sermon in Portuguese. Basically, we are all together in the service until after the children's story, then they split for their own sermon. It's been working pretty well so far and we'll have to see what the future holds. After church this last week...

What would you do if Bill Gates became a member of your church? Rev Magazine asked 1700 protestant churchgoers and ministers what their first priority would be if they received an unexpected financial windfall. The results are interesting: Clergy: 31% -- Building, Expanding, or Updating their Church Buildings 16% -- Increasing Community Evangelism Activities 12% -- Paying off Debt Churchgoers: 18% -- Paying Off Debt 18% -- Increasing Social Programs 17% -- Building, Expanding, or Updating their Church Buildings In both groups, church buildings are front and center because the debt churches incur is primarily from church buildings. So, 43% of clergy and 35% of churchgoers' primary monetary focus is on church buildings. I’m not totally against church buildings, but I think we need to re-focus the efforts of church renovations and new church buildings. Churches tend to be the least utilized buildings in the world. The main focus is the Sanctuary which is used once or maybe twice a wee...