Clayton Faulkner LIVE acoustic set in Houston

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The Multichannel Church

From The Lutheran by Tom Ehrich:

I think it’s time we saw that the world has changed and what we know how to do — Sunday liturgies, capable preaching, Sunday ministries of teaching and welcoming — stopped being enough many years ago.

In drifting away from church, you see, people aren’t saying no to God or to faith. They are saying no to Sunday church.

They do so for a variety of reasons. For some two-income families and hard-charging young adults, Sunday is the one day to get a slow start. Audience-style worship is too passive for a Web 2.0 world that is customer-centric and transactional.

The Multichannel Church will incorporate some or all of these avenues:

• Sunday on-site: Sunday worship, Sunday education, fellowship (e.g. coffee hour).

• Weekday on-site: Weekday suppers, education programs, mission work, volunteering.

• Regional gatherings: Neighborhood assemblies, workplace and other targeted interest groups. Larger congregations will have multiple sites for all that they do, including Sunday worship. Medium and small churches will have satellite centers for weekday community-building, but worship at the central site on Sunday.

• Home gatherings: Small groups, including informal devotion and prayer.

• Personal spirituality: 24/7 access, self-determining, using classic devotional tools, Web-delivered content and personal ingenuity.

• Virtual community: Blogs, discussion groups, chats, polls, social networking, Q&A venue.

• Special community events: One-time events that facilitate mass participation by the entire congregation, with a focus on forming identity.

• Published word: Possibilities include magazine, self-published books, shared journals and homegrown devotionals.

• E-mail marketing: Strong use of e-mail to market opportunities, to draw people to the Web site, to facilitate sharing with non-church friends, and to promote transactions such as registering for an event.

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Worship as Evangelism

Here are the notes from a recent workshop I taught titled “Worship As Evangelism”:

Worship As Evangelism

Here is an overview:

1. A working definition of worship
2. The worship/evangelism cycle
3. Should worship do the work of evangelism?
4. Nairobi Statement on Worship and Culture / Lutheran World Federation (1996)
5. REVEAL Study / Willow Creek
6. Sally Morgenthaler Rethinks Her Own Paradigm
7. Practical Considerations
8. Resources

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Evangelism Doesn’t Begin with a Program

Evangelism is being sent out into the world with good news for people.  The good news is God’s love for all people.  Love that is freely available and celebrated within Christian community.  We are sent out to invite others to come and see.  As such, evangelism doesn’t begin with a program, a plan or a budget – it begins as it did with the woman at the well, a burning inside after a confrontation with a man who knew her inside and out and accepted her anyway.  She didn’t have to be trained to run back to town and invite the whole community (that she used to avoid) to come and see.

Evangelism is what is happening when a busy fisherman like Peter receives an invitation from Jesus to follow and he leaves his nets behind.  Or like the jailer in Acts who is amazed at the courage of the disciples and he wants what they have.  He and his entire family is baptized that very night.

from Kerry Nelson

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