Yvon Chouinard is the founder of the outdoor clothing and gear company Patagonia. He is a mountain climbing, surfing, f ly fishing 85-year-old who started his company by selling mountain climbing tools out of the back of his truck to fund his expeditions. Very organic.
He helped create a pair of shorts called “Baggies” that are made from ripstop material. The creativity behind the design is that he wanted a pair of multi-purpose shorts that had pockets that would hold a tennis ball but would also dry quickly if he went surfing.
I told you all of that to tell you this: Why don’t we have that kind of creative thinking in Christianity today? We tend to do the same things again and again and again. One of our sacred cows is Vacation Bible School, another is Sunday School and maybe those things are working in some churches and the metric would be these ministries (programs) making disciples that make disciples that makes disciples. Last time I checked that was the mandate given to us by Jesus (Matthew 28:1920). But some churches are doing these things because they have always done them, and they are unwilling to measure their effectiveness.
We serve the Creator who speaks things into existence, He does great things that we would never think about like dividing oceans (Exodus 14:1021) and feeding thousands from borrowing a little boy’s Happy Meal (Matthew 14:13-21) so why would we settle for mundane or ineffective discipleship?
I just heard about a church plant in Portland, Oregon that could have never afforded a building of their own so an older, established church that was dying has given the newer church their building and the members of the older church are being assimilated into the new church where there are young families. Because of the humility and creativity of these older Christians life again is in the hallways and classrooms of this church building that had been gathering dust and used for storage.
It’s amazing what God’s people can do when no one is concerned about who gets the credit and, of course, God gets all the glory, honor and praise for these surrendered people and how they are thinking about the big picture and not about themselves.
I’m cursed. What I mean by that is I have a “holy discontent.” I’m never satisfied. I have an insatiable appetite to share Jesus with people, see them respond and then teach them how to follow Jesus. I’m always thinking, always praying, always asking the Lord how we can do better at fulfilling t he G reat C ommission because attendance in many churches is in decline and we obviously are for the most part failing at creative discipleship that is appealing, Biblically accurate and is effective.
Missionologists are predicting smaller churches are going to continue to grow smaller and larger, sometimes healthier churches are going to grow stronger and larger. I would think some of these churches would want to leave a legacy behind that they were willing to think outside the box (creatively) and use what God has given them for a future generation of Christians.
God’s got a plan. The question is always about our desire and flexibility to fit into His plan.
He told me to tell you that.
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