type of church
Reading thru a lot of church literature lately, most of it very preoccupied with categorizing and classifying and somehow verbally encapsulating the essence of a particular group/gathering of christians. You know what I mean: emergent church, missional church, seeker-sensitive church, etc. etc Well, in spite of my feelings of jaundice, I have to admit it got me thinking.... actually sucked me right into participating in the same labeling/defining endevor. Only with my own unique chumley slant :) So here is my take on the 2 basic types of churches: type A and type B.
The type A church operates in a similar manner to a person that has a type A personality: forceful, strident, loud/proud, go-getter, AGRESSIVE. These churches want to be # 1! They believe that it is God's will for them to GROW, and so time and effort is spent on figuring out how to do that. They are heavy on programs, because there is a lot to do for God and they need to get people involved in doing it. The "A" in this type of church can stand for ACTIVITY or AGGRESSIVENESS, but it most acurately stands for ATTENDANCE. The number of people in attendance at a religious service is validation that all the activity is having an effect and the church is growing. Has there ever been a megachurch that is not a type A? I doubt it.
The type B church is more low key, laid back, behind the scenes in the church world. These churches are not and never will be # 1 in the worlds eyes.... because they dont have a lot of people or a lot of resources. They are focused on helping people BE Jesus to the world around them! The desire of a type B church is to build big people, not build a big congregation. This type of church promotes BE-ing way more than Do-ing. Even though a type B church is in the same buisness as a type A church, not many people will know about them.... they are too small and low-powered to be noticed as an institution.
So now, the thoughts that come to me after viewing church by way of this descriptive framework:
is there anyone anywhere who wants to be a type b church? or do some just fall into it because they cannot achieve type A? Honestly.......
The type A church operates in a similar manner to a person that has a type A personality: forceful, strident, loud/proud, go-getter, AGRESSIVE. These churches want to be # 1! They believe that it is God's will for them to GROW, and so time and effort is spent on figuring out how to do that. They are heavy on programs, because there is a lot to do for God and they need to get people involved in doing it. The "A" in this type of church can stand for ACTIVITY or AGGRESSIVENESS, but it most acurately stands for ATTENDANCE. The number of people in attendance at a religious service is validation that all the activity is having an effect and the church is growing. Has there ever been a megachurch that is not a type A? I doubt it.
The type B church is more low key, laid back, behind the scenes in the church world. These churches are not and never will be # 1 in the worlds eyes.... because they dont have a lot of people or a lot of resources. They are focused on helping people BE Jesus to the world around them! The desire of a type B church is to build big people, not build a big congregation. This type of church promotes BE-ing way more than Do-ing. Even though a type B church is in the same buisness as a type A church, not many people will know about them.... they are too small and low-powered to be noticed as an institution.
So now, the thoughts that come to me after viewing church by way of this descriptive framework:
is there anyone anywhere who wants to be a type b church? or do some just fall into it because they cannot achieve type A? Honestly.......
posted by chumley at 5:19 PM
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