There has been so much talk in lockdown focusing on the fact that the local church will be different when we eventually re-enter the building. Right now most of us Elim pastors are caught up in risk assessments, deep cleaning procedures, and trying to imagine what the new normal looks like.
Larger churches are weighing up the most sensible way to accommodate their congregations into a worship space that will have to be socially distanced- multiple services? A booking-in system? Online services to continue as a priority and a preference for many?
I want to suggest, or even implore, that now is the optimum time for leaders of larger churches to specifically encourage some of their people to literally go back to a different church. I’m talking about redistributing our people resources, so that larger churches don’t get overrun, and that smaller churches can benefit from a boost of energy and resource that new faces would bring. Let me make this clear- I’m not talking about propping up small and struggling churches (although these aren’t necessarily there same thing) for the sake of it, neither am I talking about getting rid of some of our problem people! I’m talking about strategically, deliberately and prayerfully redistributing our people resources for the sake of mission and for the Kingdom.
Although it might not be a popular image in this day and age, but scripture tells us that the church can be likened to an army. No army commander would accept the lopsided way the church now deploys its troops. It reminds me of that old joke that tells of a visitor asking a local ‘How do I get to the city?’ And the local replies ‘I wouldn’t start from here!’. If we wanted to draw up a strategic plan for Elim to play its part in reaching the UK , then the map of churches we drew up would look very different from what we currently have.
It has become accepted practice for large city congregations to draw from a wide radius, with many members travelling in a fair distance and often passing several churches on the way. Here in Wales at the moment, we can’t travel further than a 5 mile radius, so if that rule still applies when churches re-open some folk might have a problem. Churches and communities across the UK would look and feel very different, if every believer worshipped in the church that was nearest their own house regardless of denominational affiliation. Yet that is NOT what I’m suggesting.
What I AM suggesting, however, is that larger Elim churches who will struggle to get all their attenders into the building whilst socially distancing, do a long-term lend of a few families and individuals to other Elim churches nearby who might well have a decent building but few enough people not to have a socially distanced service problem.
In close to 10 years working in a support role to Regional Leaders in Elim, I’ve got to know smaller churches and their pastors pretty well. Since moving to the Elim Church on Barry Island, I’ve become one of those pastors myself. I say again that small doesn’t always mean struggling, but I do know too that if you asked any pastor of a small church what they’d most like for Christmas, the answer would be more people resource, and almost specifically in the area of worship music and youth/children ministry. A group of 4 families, let’s say, willing to travel 4 miles one direction to a smaller church for the next 18 months, rather than 4 miles in the other direction to a larger church, could make a massive impact in the life, ministry and witness of that smaller church.
Often larger churches, even with a good leadership training and development structure, can’t always offer the regular serving and leadership opportunities that people need. If we stop just thinking local church but think Elim area, then the opportunities and the needs, are plentiful.
We know that the early church didn’t operate anything like the way we do now, and that the concept of local church for them would have been strange- they met mostly in homes, worshipped in the temple, and identified with other believers in that city or geographical area.
In my time helping lead the Waleswide church planting movement, alongside leaders from across the evangelical spectrum in Wales, we often reminded churches to look at Wales as a mission field, and that mission fields need missionaries sent to them. I would often say to leaders: ’What would it take for you to send one of the hottest coals from your church to rekindle a fire somewhere else?’ It was an Elim pastor who replied to me in personal conversation once: ‘I intellectually agree with you but find it so hard in my heart to give people away!’
There is no doubt that post-Covid 19 church is going to be very different. Seizing this missional opportunity now to redistribute our congregations could breath new life across many Elim churches. Larger churches will ‘recoup’ their ‘losses’ relatively quickly, and smaller churches will flourish if they see this as a means to be strengthened reach out to their community in a fresh way. There will be lots of challenges, relationship growing, structures, planning and prayer for this suggestion to work. Yet on the other hand we simply need to find normal followers of Jesus, ready to obey his command to ‘Go’ for a season, affirm them, encourage them, and send them.
nigel-james.com 