Where Do We Go From Here?

My intentions with this post are not to offend or hurt anyone's feeling but I make no apologies for what I'm about to write.I've been told by my oldest daughter that I tend to over edit and water down my thoughts when I blog. Not today, today you get pure unadulterated unfiltered me, rational, irrational, gut emotions, whatever, it is what it is.

Amazing what can happen in a year, over the last few weeks we've averaged over 100kids from the community on Wednesday nights.To see how far we've come you should read these two post if you haven't already. Church and Community - A History from my Perspective and A Year in Review.

We recently met with the elders to let them know what's been going on andpresent some of our ideas for the upcoming summer.Here's some of that:
320 Total Names on the Registration List
215 of those have been at least once since February
We have been averaging 90 since the beginning of March (that avg is going up, we've had over 100 that last few weeks)
We have 8 Levy families that are involved in bringing children on Wednesday nights and/or Sunday mornings
We have had several families come on Wednesday nights but also several have come on Sunday morning

Events over the past 4 months:

1. Community Day-over 180 in attendance
2. Ladies Retreat in Memphis-6 girls with 4 chaperones
3. Harding Basketball Game and Tour-10 kids and 4 chaperones
4. Suzanne’s Ladies Class-3-5 ladies attending
5. Summer Camp with the Frost’s-5 kids planning on attending
6. Summer Softball-2 guys playing and 2 girls playing
7. Started a Community Outreach Blog-117 visitors in the last month
8. We always have kids come to various church events: had 8 at Men’s Wild Night Out; had 8-10 at the KFC potluck

Here are some of the plans for summer:

1. No Summer Meals (not an idea that I really like but understand why we made this decision)
1. Last summer we kept the meals going in order to keep the kids involved
2. We do not believe that this is necessary this year
3. We also do not have the staff to keep them going
4. Some questions about the families that are coming and how to keep them involved
2. Free Time:
1. Have the gym open from 6:30-7:00 on Wednesday Nights
2. We will man this time; good time to have informal contact with the kids
3. Education Building Class Time:
1. We recently started an alternative class - for when kids for whatever reason just can't make it the regular class that night. Normally have 2 - 5 Kids each Wednesday.
2. Phillip with collaboration from a number of teachers has developed a Teacher Survival Manual to help teachers with ideas, class room management, etc. I think a workshop for teachers is also planned in thenear future.

4. Junior-Senior High.

We presented our ideas for this area also. We are having another meeting with all the involved parties to work out a plan and discuss our different

It hasn't been easy. Wednesday nights are hard. They're hard on the teachers, they're hard on those working in the community outreach ministry and they're hard on the congregation.What we have accomplished in the past year has been because God has blessed us with a group of people who are passionate, hard working, super organized, seemingly tireless, and love these kids.Words cannot express how much I admire and love them.But the path we are on is unsustainable.We are not tireless, we are tired.

We've come to another crossroads.

Levy is an upper middle class church. All of our members are not upper middle class, but the way we think as a church, the way we operate, the way we plan, the way we evangelize, just about everything we do is from a middle to upper middle class viewpoint.

We are a very good at what I like to call big event Christianity or what a friend of mine calls sight-seeing Christianity. We are a giving church, a good percentage of our weekly contribution goes toward mission work, you set a goal of 80,000 for our special Harvest Sunday and we'll give you 150,000, you ask for 10,000 for extra Mexico Medical Mission trip funds we'll give you 20,000. Disaster relief work we're there. Short term mission trips to Mexico, Romania, Cuba, Dominican Republic, wherever, we're there. These are things that I absolutely love, love, love about our church (I do wonder occasionally, if I could ship some of our kids off to one these places would we look at them differently, interact with them differently, love them more? - is that thought fair, nah probably not, but it's the way I feel sometimes).

But back home we're in the middle of a struggle. We are a suburban church in an urban setting. As I said above everything we do is from a middle class viewpoint, our teaching styles, curriculum, worship style, youth group are geared to people who look like us, think like us, act like us and for the most part have a similar religious background.

So the question is Why Are We Here? Why didn't we move? We knew then that we didn't look much like the community anymore. We could've moved and continued to do great things the same way we'd been doing them for years. The answer you'll get from anybody involved in the decision is that we're needed in the community, that we can stay here and be an influence for Christ. The trouble is we want to do it on our terms, we want to continue to be a suburban church just with a community outreach ministry. This cannot work in the long run. If we want to continue to be a viable influence for Christ in this community then we must transform ourselves from a suburban church (with some urban members) to an urban church (with some suburban members).

It will be a hard journey and there are some dangers. People don't like change, some don't like the changes that have already occurred. People will leave, people have already left.

I think the 6th grade and below are already slowly headed in the right direction. A number of teachers have already started changing their style of teaching to fit the needs of all the kids (coincidently or not a lot of what they are doing mirrors recommendations found in Ruby Payne and Bill Ehligs book "What every church member should know about poverty). Add in Phillips manual and new teacher training and I think we're on the right path. Things aren't perfect but they are improving. We still have parents that have stopped bringing their kids on Wednesday nights or have even left Levy. They've missed a great opportunity for their kids to learn discipleship and see Jesus love in action. But this leads us to one of the hard truths of this transformation. Some people will find that Levy is no longer a good fit for them, and I'm sorry for that but if that's the case then they should leave. There are a number of good churches around that can meet their needs.

But I think the most crucial and difficult change will be incorporating our kids into the youth group. We have a great youth group, good kids, good leaders, good volunteers. It's exactly what the church wants from a youth group. But it is a totally suburban kid oriented group. I understand the reluctance to change what is working so well, but without their buyin to this transformation we cannot succeed. We cannot continue to have two youth groups.

Ok, I'm quitting for now. I had more to say about comparisons to the Old Joy Bus Ministry and what Silver City Church does and the idea of ministering to the community on another night instead of Wednesday but I'm tired and need some sleep. Maybe I'll add an update after our meeting tomorrow night.


Love
Mark