Courageous Leadership #2

What makes a church thrive and flourish? Location? Denomination? Great facilities?

How about great preaching? I've heard Bill Hybels preach. He's one of the best speakers I've ever heard - and being a guy who loves to preach and study preachers, I don't say that lightly.

So here is what Hybels says about trying to build a thriving church on great preaching: "Although many preaching-centered churches attract large crowds, their impact on the community is often negligible. The church is packed for an hour Sunday, but empty during the week. Sermon junkies tend to stay in their comfortable pews, growing ever more knowledgeable while becoming ever less involved in the surrounding community. Conversions are rare because their is little outreach. Community experience is shallow because there is no infrastructure of small groups. The body is being fed and satisfied in a corporate teaching setting, but that's about all that happens." [Courageous Leadership p.25]

He goes on to say that he doesn't mean to minimize the importance of effective teaching and preaching; the church withers without them. But it takes more than that.

Allow me to pick up on that... It takes more than great preaching. It takes more than a snappy worship band, a hot media or drama presentation, friendly greeters, or anything else that makes up a typical worship experience at a typical church that is trying to thrive and flourish.

Important stuff? I think so. I hope so. It seems most of my life is wrapped up in that stuff. But it's not the only stuff needed for a church to flourish.

So should it be the primary focus? Should it be the measuring stick we use to gauge our progress? How do we look past this to the important horizon beyond when it seems like for all our tireless [tiring!] effort, we can't seem to get it right to our satisfaction?