I was recently asked if I would be interested in reading a book titled, “The Rabbit and the Elephant” as part of a virtual book tour. I am always interested in books about church growth and church planting, so I agreed to take part in the process and write a review that I would post on my blog.
I have chosen my Church Growth Consulting site because I feel that the book has some great insights into church growth and church planting issues. I started the book with a little skepticism, because I pastor what the book might call a “legacy church”. However, as I dug into the book, the author’s (Tony and Felicity Dale) painted a picture of what “simple church” looked like and I felt as though it opened up a lot of new avenues for me to ponder. I don’t personally see the “simple church” idea as a complete replacement for “legacy churches”, but I can see a lot of potential for them to work side by side in the harvest field.
Chapter 13 provides a great discussion on Luke 10 principles. When Luke 10 is looked at in light if the “simple church” process it seems to really fit well. I also enjoyed reading the chapter called “Stories From the Harvest”. The story about the “Church at Table Number Two” reminded me of some of my own missionary/church planting experiences. We had started churches that met in funny places and we gave them names to match. One of them was called “Light Bulb Church” because we started that church by stringing an electric cord with a light bulb in the center of it between two apartment buildings that were about fifteen feet apart. We had another church we started we called “Garage Church” because they met in a garage.
One of the biggest advantages I found in reading the book was the challenge to not get stuck in our definitions of what a church “is”. I have gotten used to starting small groups and home groups and affinity groups in my area with the idea of gradually assimilating the people gathered into our existing church. I am now thinking that the goal doesn’t need to include those people ever stepping foot in our church building. The goal is just to meet people where they are and get them o step into the Kingdom.
“The Rabbit and The Elephant” by Tony and Felicity Dale is a worthwhile addition to your reading list. It is a quick read and flows well. It also includes some interesting statistics from George Barna. One of the statistics that jumped out at me was that “the average Protestant church probably sees no converts in any given year”. That really shocked me! I hope you will read the book and I would be interested in having you comment about your thoughts as well. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the book, you can use the link below.
One of the things that we need to remember is that God loves His church. If we are not careful we can begin to think that we have it all figured out and become very critical and judgmental of other churches. When you are being blessed with church growth you need to remember to keep it all in perspective. Look for ways to bless the other churches in your area. At all of our meetings we take a moment to pray for all the churches in our area that are preaching the Word of God. We do that because we are also praying for a revival to sweep our area. When we receive the answer to that prayer, it will take a community of healthy churches to be able to handle what takes place.
This week we are joining with other local churches and doing a “Gospel Explosion” at an outdoor venue. About a dozen churches will be bringing their worship teams and doing a series of 30 minute concerts. This will be a good way to demonstrate a sense of unity among the churches and to encourage and bless one another. It should also be a good venue for some of the churches to be able to attract some new people to their churches. At our church we have decided to keep a very low profile and not try and promote our church. At our church, we try and practice what we preach on Church Growth Consulting and we are currently being very blessed in the “church growth” area, so we will purposely be promoting the other churches instead of our own. Most of the churches will have a booth where they can tell people about what thier church has to offer. We have decided not to have a booth so that we can encourage people to attend some of the other churches. Our hope is that this event will be a great way to bless the whole church.
The fall provides some great opportunities for outreach to your community. We have already discussed the benefits of establishing a fall festival at your church. Another opportunity to bring some new people to your facility exists at Thanksgiving. Remember that one of the things we need to do is to bring people through the imaginary boundary that many people perceive around your church. Once we can get them in for an event, we have a much better chance of having them come for a church service.
Since Thanksgiving is usually a family event, we don’t recommend holding an event on Thursday. We encourage our people who want to do something on Thanksgiving to volunteer at one of the food kitchens in the county. We promote an event on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving called a “Night of Thanks”. Like all of our outreach events, we do this free of charge and we will not accept donations of any kind. What we use to attract people are “deep fried turkeys”. We deep fry about 40 turkeys, ask people in the church to volunteer to bring in the trimmings, and we invite the community to come for dinner.
We have 400-500 people show up every year. We eat dinner from 6:00 to 7:00 pm. From 7:00 to 8:00 pm our contempporary worship team plays. At 8:00 we provide dessert. We sort of keep the dessert hostage so people will stay and be a part of the concert. This event takes a lot of volunteers and there is a cost associated with the turkeys (it costs about $1000 for the turkeys and peanut oil), but this event always adds new people to the church.
At Church Growth Consulting we are always looking for any good ideas you have for outreach so please send them along to us. We hope that the Night of Thanks is a church growth idea you can use.
