is your building selfish?

An article on The Christian Post this morning quotes Pastor Erwin McManus on why the Church in America is in a state of decline:

My primary assessment would be because American Christians tend to be incredibly self-indulgent so they see the church as a place there for them to meet their needs and to express faith in a way that is meaningful for them. There is almost no genuine compassion or urgency about serving and reaching people who don't know Christ.

*Nervous laughter* Ouch.

But you also have to consider that while the United Methodist Church is at its lowest membership rate since 1930, and the Lutheran World Federation reported a slip in western membership, McManus has led his church from 300 to over 3000 members in his 10 years as lead pastor. Maybe he's on to something.

Is there compassion - even urgency - for service and outreach in your church? I could probably walk around your building and tell you. Not because I take to judging books by their covers, but because - as Kevin Ford discusses in Transforming Church - your building is a natural extension of the core of your ministry. Whether you've ever thought about it or not.

For example, when my husband and I visited West Side Christian in Springfield over Christmas the first thing I noticed was how uncomfortable I felt in their lobby. But the second thing I noticed was that their welcome center had been transformed into an African village. It didn't take long to figure out that they had made a commitment to bring Christmas 07 to a small, poor community in Africa. That was cool, and that they took the time and resources to put that together demonstrated that they're serious about it.

If your building is in a community, it's part of that community. Is your facility serving your community, or sucking the life out of it? Is there room in your building for your Church body to serve the community? When a visitor walks into your lobby, what does she learn about your ministry?

If you don't have a third place space, you can't offer an escape for students or parents who work at home. If you don't have a kitchen, you can't feed the homeless. If everything in your lobby talks about you, you won't have anything to talk to a globally-minded, anti-Christian millennial about.

McManus continued,

I think the bottom line really is our own spiritual narcissism. There are methods and you can talk about style, structure and music, but in the end it really comes down to your heart and what you care about.