The Financial Base
The lifeblood of the mainline church is the Financial Base, which is the minimum funding required to pay staff and maintain facilities. The church supports additional programs, such as missions, only if money is available over and above the Financial Base.
Evangelism
Jesus, St. Paul and John Wesley went out among the populace to preach the Gospel. The Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses do this by knocking on doors. The mainline church makes no effort to do it. Evangelism in the mainline church means trying to get visitors to come to its church services. The church measures its success in terms of the number of new members it gains, even if they come from another church.
There are several ways to attract visitors, but in truth they achieve only minimal results. Practically speaking, the mainline church grows only because of a combination of two factors, The first , and the more important, is location in a community into which young families are flocking because the economy is hot. The second is a dynamic, charismatic preacher.
Making Disciples
The mailine church posts photos of its new members and proudly labels the exhibit, “Making Disciples.” This in spite of the fact that most of the new members thought they already were disciples before they joined. If they were not, then by becoming a member of this particular church, have they automatically become disciples?
The Great Commission is, ”Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” We parrot this, but it is inherently ambiguous because the word “disciple” is ambiguous. Suppose that accepting Christ is the beginning of our journey to discipleship. What is the destination, and how do we know when we have arrived?
The Church As a Business
A church is like a business in that both require sound financial management, but the object of a business is to earn a profit, whereas the objective of a church is to do the will of God. Also, a business will solicit anyone as a customer, whereas the mainline church screens its customers on a socioeconomic basis.
The Church As a Person
Everyone has two hearts, the real one and a figurative one. Those who know us classify us as good-hearted, big-hearted, tender-hearted or brave-hearted person. The same is true for a church. Those who know a church classify it using the same phrases.
The church exhorts its members not to spend all their Those who know it classify uit as as good-hearted, big-hearted, tender-hearted or brave-hearted church.
A preacher exhorts the members of the church not to spend all their money on themselves but rather, to donate a not insignificant portion of it to deserving others. Likewise a church ought not spend all its money on itself but rather, to donate a not insignificant portion of it to deserving others.
Reaching the “Inactives”
All churches have “inactive members.”Active members contribute money, attend worship more than twice a year. or take part in other church activities. In a typical large mainline church, roughly a third of the members are “active,” and by difference the other members–sometimes over a thousand of them–are “inactive.”
Mainline churches generally overlook inactive members. They ought to notice them, but rarely do they have enough time to do it.
At times the inactive members complain. The first complaint is “The only time someone calls on me is during the annual financial campaign.” This is valid but typically ignored. The other one is, “When I was recovering from surgery, no one from the church came to visit me, or sent me a card.” The church staff is quick to defend itself: “You did not let the church know.”
