Going thru the Blogdom of God I so often read about church’s that are in some state of crisis.  You name it and they seem to be going thru it. Church’s that don’t have Elders, Elders who aren’t in line with one another, Pastors not in line with the Elders and congregants not in line with Elders.  There are countless arguments over forms of worship, from what type of music should be sung to how it should be sung. Squabbles of every nature imaginable just seem to permeate so much of the body of Christ that it’s little wonder how people can get turned off from corporate worship and yet that is what we are called by our Savior to do.

Recently Jared (from Thinklings fame ) has started a new blog called The Gospel-Driven Church where he has been unpacking a lot of what he feels the church isn’t and what it should be. His most recent post is titled: 11 Innovations for Your Church.  I actually came across his post from the Internet Monks response: A Shocking Agenda for the Church in which he takes Jared’s 11 suggestions and tags on a few of his own.

In reading thru them I realized how blessed I am to be part of a church that seems to be doing so many things right. And no, we’re not perfect by any means and I certainly don’t want to sound at all boastful in this post, but based on these gentleman’s suggestions we do appear to be heading the right direction.  So what are the suggestions and where do we stand….

1. Sing hymns.
As an ARP church this is the only thing that we are supposed to sing, yes I know we sing a lot more than just hymns but we do sing them. We are truly blessed by having Tom Leich as our Director of Music. As my wife points out there’s nothing like hearing Tom clear the dust out of the organ pipes. The love that he has for traditional hymns (which he got from his Dad Roland) and his humble servants heart enrich our Sunday mornings making it much easier to set the world aside and enter into worship.

2. Preach through a book of the Bible.
Our senior pastor Rev. Curtis Young has been with us now since 1994. He has systematically taken us thru numerous books in the Bible and his exegetical style of preaching interspersed with humor and real life application have given all of us a more solid foundational understanding of our faith.

3. Talk about sin.
Hey, we’re an ARP church – we don’t hide the fact that we’re all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.

4. Celebrate the Lord’s Supper more frequently.
We went from having it once a month to now having it every Sunday. There was a lot of concern that having it more frequently would in some way lessen it’s significance to us. I believe we have found that to be far from the truth, it has instead become the pinnacle and culmination of our time together Sunday mornings.

5. Have a Scripture reading in the service.
While we’ve always done this it’s becoming a more prominent part of our service. Our Associate Pastor Fred Carr loves responsive readings and a more liturgical service. As an ex-Catholic I find myself appreciating these additions to our recent services.

6. Transition creative content from aping popular commercials and other media to creating your own, wholly original content.
I don’t believe we’ve ever attempted to take something from popular culture and recreate it for any purpose.

7. Read, study, and teach theology.
In the past we have had Sunday School classes that I believe fit this bill, but we could always do more in this area. One of the things that I’ve always enjoyed at our church is the emphasis on Sunday School across the ages. Normally we have 4 adult classes available so there’s usually something for everyone.

8. Put as much effort and resources into men’s ministry as you do women’s. On the flipside, pair up younger women with wise, older women in mentoring relationships with the same conviction you have about men being in accountability and mentoring partnerships.
I’ll give this one a hearty Amen. And yes we do have older women mentoring younger women. My wife is involved in mentoring to young mothers. I’ve stretched out in the past year and brought together 5 of my closest friends so we could be accountable to one another. Now we need to begin mentoring to some of the younger men in our church. It’s our hope that we will be the impetus in spreading this thru the rest of the men. But honestly men seem to be inordinately stubborn in getting involved in this way.

9. Hire from within.
We’ve always strived to do this. In some ways this has even become a form of mercy by providing part time work for stay at home mothers whose families have needed some extra income.  We’ve gone so far as to split up full time positions so more people could be partially employed.

10. In promotional material, use actual photos of actual people in your community.
I’ll be honest – the people on our website are not us, but I (I take care of the website) have gotten too much hemming and hawing over the use of "real" pictures. Paranoia runs a bit rampant with some people. Sigh

11. Preach the Gospel.
I believe we do this fairly well.

And now the additional ones from the Internet Monk.

12. Elders.
Absolutely!

13. Use the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds in worship.
Hmm, once in a blue moon we’ll recite these.

14. Have a book table.
No book table, we normally have a missionary table in the narthex. We do have a great library with a nice big window in the hallway where Rick Plasterer always has a great display of new books or books that are relevant to the current sermon series.

15. Less music. Fewer instruments.
Uhm… NO. Personally I enjoy the current arrangement of our worship.  I think the worship team and our pastoral staff have done a wonderful job creating a well blended service.

16. A couple of good mercy ministries.
We have one that is run be the deaconates and has done a wonderful job over the years helping out people both within our church as well as in the community.

17. Partner with a third world church, and instead of going over on a “mission trip,” send a small team to find out what they need that you can provide.
We have sent teams over to a church in Togo a number of times now, but I don’t believe we’ve actually partnered with the church as much as we have with the missionary whose involved there. And while I love this idea, we have a number of missionaries from our church all working in various countries.  It would be difficult to pick a particular church to work with.

18. Pray the Psalms.
Sing the Psalms?? Yes

19. Train up some hymn-writers.
While we’re not specifically training up hymn writers we do actually have 2 very gifted writers in our church. Keri Jacobs has been leading our worship team for years now and has a personal ministry that she’s named Alternate Melody. She’s taken older hymns and written more contemporary music for them, and she’s also written a number of new songs based on Psalms.

20. Defy labels.
I chuckled at this one.  I usually think of us as being somewhat stodgy curmudgeons, but then I remember that’s just me.
I don’t think we’re breaking any molds. We’re doing church the way it should be done, or at least trying. I sometimes think that’s why our doors aren’t exactly bursting these days. We’re teaching the Truth and that’s a hard thing for a lot of people to listen to let alone accept.

21. A counseling/teaching ministry aimed at marriages and families.
I believe we have 4-5 couples who have each been married over 30 years ministering to new couples. While the original intention was for them to counsel couples preparing to marry, I know that they are also involved in mentoring. Their ministry also puts together yearly retreats and evening activities for the married couples in the church.

22. Teach the classic disciplines of the devotional life.
This happens to be the focus of our Senior High School Sunday class this year. I’m looking forward to seeing where we (youth and leaders) all go with this.

If you ever happen to find yourself in Wheaton, MD on a Sunday and would like to attend, what I consider a good old fashioned worship service, then stop by we’d love to meet you.

And in closing I’d like to thank all the members of my extended family at Church of the Atonement. You are an incredibly diverse and talented group of people who have and continue too enrich my life in countless ways.