Thursday Three For All: Church Consumers, Declining Churches, and Toy Story Voiceovers
It’s Thursday, kiddies: the day when I roll out a few things I’ve been reading over the past week. Three of ‘em, to be exact. Enjoy. (Remember: click on the big bold print to read the entire article.)
From Consuming to Cultivating and Creating…in Church
(via @trevinwax) This is a drum I’ve been beating for years. But as usual, Trevin said it better. Not that I’m bitter.
You shouldn’t look at the church as if you were a consumer, expecting a certain kind of experience. Now is the time you should ask, “How can I create or cultivate that life-changing culture and experience for someone else?” Once you move from seeing yourself as a consumer, to a creator or cultivator, you will arrive at the place where pouring into others brings just as much (if not more) joy than when others were pouring into you.
As we grow in holiness and discipleship, we must move from seeing ourselves as passive consumers of experiences that other people have created for us, and begin to see ourselves as ministers through whom God can work in the lives of the people coming up behind us.
Differences Between Growing and Declining Churches
(via @tonymorganlive) Some really good insights here.
Every time we work with a church, we collect data to help us assess the ministry’s health. That process benefits the individual churches we serve, but it also gives us access to an incredible wealth of data.
I recently dug into the numbers from the nearly 200 churches we connected with over the last 12 months. I was curious to learn what, if any, differences there were between growing and declining churches.
To do this, I collected the data from all the churches that had grown in worship attendance by five percent or more over the last year. In case you’re curious, there were 77 churches in that category. I compared that data with the churches that had declined in attendance by five percent or more in that same period. There were 52 of those churches. I found some really compelling data.
“Toy Story” Voice Actors Recording Their Characters
(via @laughingsquid) This’ll rock your world and mess with your brain.
photo credit: Jason Mathis
