Is Your Church a Cruise Ship or Aircraft Carrier?

Recently my friend Emily told me she visited a church so big she needed a map to get around. Coming from a relatively small church that meets in an elementary school, she was astounded at this sprawling church campus. The facility housed a restaurant, coffee bar, lounge, escalators, and multiple worship spaces, each with high-tech sound equipment. In the lobby massive concrete columns rose up three stories into a glass atrium and sunlight streamed in to illuminate the hip and modern architecture. But the strangest thing, she said, was that this colossal building, filled with largely affluent congregants, sat in a crowded urban area in a poverty-stricken neighborhood. As far as she could tell, no one from that neighborhood was present. The church reminded her of a cruise ship docked in a third world country! The walls even had round, fishbowl windows, driving home the cruise ship effect. 

It’s a funny idea to ponder: a church that looks like a cruise ship. However, many American churches resemble cruise ships in more ways than just their architecture. People who attend ”cruise ship churches,” much like cruise ship passengers, often come to be entertained and catered to by the staff. Very little is expected of these church attendees. In fact, they tend to rate the quality of their experience—the music, the sermon, and the way it made them feel—much as cruise ship passengers rate their satisfaction with various aspects of their trip. 

Cruise ship churches tend to be internally focused on the needs of their regularly attending members. The main goal in these churches, as on a cruise ship, is to keep the “customer” happy and the complaints to a minimum. Leaders in a cruise ship church focus on the existing members rather than pursuing those far from God or encouraging others to do so. Very little of a church’s calendar, training, or communication is spent on activities to reach the lost or help those in need outside the church. Statistically only 5% of most American churches’ budgets are spent on missions and evangelism. Overall, there seems to be little incentive or empowerment of church members to “get off the cruise ship” and use what they learn in the world.
 
There are, however, churches that are more like aircraft carriers. These churches are designed to empower all members to find their God-given purpose in life, to equip them, and to send them on missions into the world to reach and serve those who don’t know Jesus, much like the crew of an aircraft carrier is all about launching military planes and equipping them well to carry out successful missions.

Did you know that an aircraft carrier is the same size as many cruise ships, housing close to 8,000 people? A super aircraft carrier rises 20 stories above the water and stretches 1,092 feet (333 meters) from bow to stern (about as long as the 77-story Chrysler Building is tall). But what distinguishes an aircraft carrier ship isn’t its size; it’s the efficiency on the flight deck. The crew of an aircraft carrier can launch a plane every 25 seconds—all in a fraction of the space of a typical landing strip. The mission pervades every aspect of the ship. From the pilot to the person who restocks the ship’s vending machines, everyone on a carrier knows his or her particular role and how it supports the mission—to equip, prepare, launch, and receive aircraft back from their crucial assignments. 
An “aircraft carrier church” has a clear mission that stems from the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Everyone in the church knows why their church exists and can play a role in the mission. The annual budget, weekly sermons, monthly calendar, insider and outsider communications, and predominant conversation are all consistent with the stated mission of the church.

Is your church more like a cruise ship or an aircraft carrier?

Here are ten indicators that might help you to assess whether your church is an aircraft carrier church:

1. Church leaders have a missional versus attractional mentality: they see their job as equipping and mobilizing people inside the church to effectively reach the multitudes outside the church. This includes consistently preaching about the importance of the Great Commandment of loving God and others and the Great Commission to make new disciples.

2. Church and lay leaders have non-Christians friends, spend time with them, and engage in spiritual conversations modeling what they want others to do.

3. A sizable church budget percentage (>5%) exists for local outreach and missions.

4. The church has partnerships with existing ministries such as Alpha, Awana, MOPS, and Q Place, indicating a commitment to outreach with proven strategies.

5. People in the church are willing to be sent out and follow the lead of the Holy Spirit.

6. The church and its members are known in the community for making outsiders feel welcome and accepted.

7. Risk-taking is valued in outreach efforts, even when it fails to produce fruit.

8. The church is committed to prayer as a regular spiritual practice and prays for those outside of the church, seeking wisdom to reach them effectively.

9. There is a genuine dependence on God that is reflected in church decisions, activities, prayer, and worship.

10. New believers are emerging and baptisms are occurring regularly.

While these indicators are important, the pastor’s desire to become the “captain” of an aircraft carrier church is probably the first step in the transition away from a cruise ship mentality. Without this desire, the natural tendency of both church members and church leadership is to gravitate toward the cruise ship model. 

Let’s face it, many of us love being pampered and served royally by others. Whether on a cruise or in a church, if the staff accommodates my needs, I am more than happy to oblige them. However, through good leadership, overcoming this tendency is more than possible. And it’s not as binary as I’ve described in which a church is one (aircraft carrier) or the other (cruise ship), but instead falling more on a continuum. Our pastors will need to navigate our congregations in the unchartered waters toward this future of more churches functioning like aircraft carriers, unifying us in the mission of making disciples of all nations and working together side by side to achieve it.

The Prayer That Changes Me

By Gordon MacDonald

My mother often referred to a prayer that her mother said (in Swedish) nightly at the bedsides of her eight children as they headed off to sleep. The prayer became so embedded in their memories that one of her brothers, when he was dying 80 years later, asked my mother to "pray the prayer that Mama used to pray."

Like my dying uncle, many of us have simple lines of thoughtful prayer to which we cling when life becomes rough. The Lord's Prayer is an obvious one. Or some version of the "Jesus prayer": Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner. Or the so-called prayer of St. Francis of Assisi that begins, "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace …" (as much as one senses the spirit of Francis in the prayer, it is highly improbable that he was its creator).

Throughout the years of my Christian journey, I have used Psalm 23 as a prayer, and there have been sleepless nights when I have repeated the Shepherd Psalm over and over, perhaps as many as a hundred times. The vision of green pastures and quiet waters has rarely failed to re-order my heart and mind.

Then there is the more recent Serenity Prayer. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

The Serenity prayer is embraced by the Alcoholics Anonymous movement. It is usually prayed at the beginning and end of any meeting where self-confessed drunks gather to help each other stay sober for another 24 hours.

There is an ongoing debate as to who authored the Serenity Prayer. It is usually attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, but some claim that the prayer's core ideas come from one or more spiritual masters of a century (or even a millennium) ago.

Friends who are alcoholics tell me that the Serenity prayer speaks to the core of the alcoholic's mental disease.

The prayer highlights three concerns. First, one needs to recognize those events and experiences over which there is no immediate control and to accept them for what they are. We might call this the act of submission. Since most alcoholics admit to being control freaks, I can see why this line means so much to them.

Second, one needs to acknowledge those events and experiences where it is possible to effect change. Here the operational word is courage.

And third, one needs insight to know which of the first two is actually in play. Is something changeable, or is it beyond my control? The answer requires wisdom.

Some time ago I latched on to the Serenity Prayer as a tool for daily reflection. I began repeating it many times during the day, especially when I faced issues that were affecting my emotions and attitudes.

The Prayer has provoked me into wondering how often I waste time and energy trying to manage things that are beyond my grasp. To do this is to invite frustration, stress, even anger to flood my inner being.

This state of agitation is easy to observe in a small child who, lacking wisdom, throws a temper tantrum because he cannot get what he wants. He may scream, lash out at others, even breaks things. One frequently observes adult versions of this behavior that are just a bit more subtle and sophisticated: irritability, blaming, defensiveness, criticism of others, manipulation.

In such moments of immature behavior, the Serenity Prayer can become quite relevant.

Herein lies one of the reasons the incarnate Jesus appeals to me so powerfully. He is such a quiet, orderly, and patient person in the face of adversity. His "serenity" originates with what he completely controls: the affairs of his own heart. When the people of his hometown turn again him, he disengages without a word. In a Galilean storm, he chooses to rest his eyes. On an early morning while others sleep, he quietly communes with his Heavenly Father. On the cross he forgives hateful people.

In his mysterious divine/human way, the Savior seems in perfect touch with what he must—by choice—accept and what, at the moment, he cannot (or chooses not to) change.

Accepting things I cannot change is about surrender. There come those times where one simply surrenders and adapts to the realities around him. One friend calls this "living around the situation."

On the other hand, there are those things that can be changed, and the list usually begins with the unChristlike attitudes and behaviors that coat one's inner life. As one writer puts it, "Quit talking about changing the world until you've found a way to change yourself."

In my relationships—marriage, family, work colleagues, friends, even "enemies"—the courage to change what is changeable begins with me. My alcoholic friends keep telling me this over and over again. Their disease told them that everyone else needed to change, but now, in sobriety, they've abandoned the blame-game and set out to change themselves.

But the Serenity Prayer also raises the idea of wisdom. How does one know the difference between what is changeable and what is not? "Grant me wisdom," the prayer calls out.

Wisdom comes from learning from my (successful and unsuccessful) experiences, listening to others, and drawing instruction from whatever ways the Spirit of God wishes to whisper into my soul. Somewhere in the triangulation of these three things, wisdom emerges.

The other morning I left our home for a breakfast appointment at a restaurant. It was a beautiful New England day, and I drove down our street feeling confident that my personal world was properly ordered. Nothing was likely to go wrong.

But something did go wrong. There was an accident on the freeway, and I soon discovered that the traffic was backed up for at least a mile. Okay, I thought. I'll just call my breakfast partner and alert him to the delay. But when I reached for my cell phone, I discovered that I'd left it at home.

Suddenly, the order in my life began to unravel. My sense of confidence and control collapsed. My emotions began to heat up into frustration and irritability. Silly thoughts, blaming thoughts, circled in my head. Why, I wanted to ask, had this crowd of drivers all about me chosen to drive this road to their jobs at just the time I needed to use the freeway? Why had the people involved in the accident not driven more carefully? And where were the police when I needed them? Of such self-centered thoughts is the stuff of spiritual disorder. Note the "I's" and the "me's" in my questions. Immature perspectives like this can begin to color a whole day of relationships and character formation.

Then I remembered that it was for times like these that my alcoholic friends prayed the Serenity Prayer. I began to say it out loud, repeating the lines several times, each time emphasizing one of the three parts, each time making a different word the center of my attention.

God, the hearer of all prayers, responded in ways we attribute to the work of the Holy Spirit. The traffic jam, I was reminded, was an event beyond my control. It was something to accept. I could not change the circumstances. But I—perhaps more accurately, God—could change me. And that's what happened.

Oh, the rest of the story. The guy I was supposed to meet at the restaurant? I discovered that he was in a car just ahead of me. Perhaps he was praying the same prayer.

Nehemiah's 5 Steps for Handling Conflicts

By Rick Warren



In Nehemiah 5 the Israelites face conflict for the same reason we do today – selfishness. So what can we learn from Nehemiah about handling conflict?

1. Get angry. (v. 6) Nehemiah didn’t ignore the problem, he took it seriously. When the unity of your church gets challenged, it’s your job to protect the unity of your church. It’s serious business.

In times like this anger is completely appropriate and right. There is the right kind of anger and the wrong kind of anger. Leadership is knowing the difference. A pastor who doesn’t have enough fire in his belly to get angry about disunity isn’t much of a leader.

2. Think before you speak. (v. 7) If you only do step one and ignore step two, you’ll get in lots of trouble. Nehemiah 5:7 says, “I pondered them in my mind.” Nehemiah stopped, got alone with God and thought about what he was going to do. He asked God, “What do YOU want me to do?”

You should get angry when disunity threatens your church, but you have to think before you act. You can’t just act on that anger. James 1:19-20 says, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”  I’ve seen a lot of leaders who were very effective for the Lord and blow their ministry in an impulsive moment. Don’t let that happen to you. Get angry, but then take some time to think and pray about what you do next.

3. Rebuke the person individually. (v. 7) Go directly to the source. You don’t deal with somebody else about it. You don’t talk with five or six different people to get everybody on your side. You don’t say, “I’ve got a prayer request…” and spout it out. You go directly to the person causing the disunity. Nehemiah does that: “I pondered them in my mind then I accused the nobles and officials. I told them `You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!’” (5:7, NIV)

Nehemiah isn’t making a polite social visit. He’s angry, and he’s not glossing over the fact that these guys were ripping off other people. He’s not watering it down. He is confronting the troublemakers. You and I are called to do that to when disunity threatens our church.

Titus 3:10-11 says, “Warn a derisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self‑ condemned.” (NIV) Warning troublemakers is an important task of ministry.

4. Publicly deal with public divisions. (v.7) In Nehemiah’s situation, everyone knew that the rich people were ripping off the poor. He had to deal with it publicly. Nehemiah 5:7 says when going privately to the rich officials didn’t work, he called together a large meeting to deal with them. It must have been a tough conversation considering it was probably the rich officials paying most of the expenses to rebuild the wall. It took guts to confront them publicly.

You too have to deal with problems to the degree that they are known. If the problem has spread to the whole church, then you have to deal with the problem publicly.

5. Set an example of unselfishness. (v. 13) Nehemiah led the way in unselfishness. It was the foundation of his leadership. When he asked them to rebuild the wall, he was out on the wall rebuilding it. When he asked them to pray, he had already been praying. When he asked them to work night and day to get it built, he did the same. When he asked them to help the poor, we find out in verse 13 he’d already been doing it.

Nehemiah never asked anyone to do what he wasn’t already doing or willing to do. Leaders only ask others to do what they are already doing. If you cannot challenge someone to follow your example, whatever you say to them is going to lose its impact. Churches have fewer conflicts when their leaders live unselfishly and model that to the congregation.

You’re going to have disagreements in your church. There’s no perfect church. But God wants us to minimize disunity in our church for His glory. The testimony of a church should not be the beautiful buildings, great sermons, or lovely music — but how they love one another.

How the Mighty Fall?

Interview of Jim Collins
How the Mighty Fall



Backstage Interview - Jim Collins from GiANT Impact on Vimeo.

7 Traits of Breakout CHurches

By Thom Rainer



Thom S. Rainer is the president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources (LifeWay.com). He was founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His many books include "Surprising Insights from the Unchurched," "The Unexpected Journey," and "Breakout Churches."




I have been a student of American churches for thirty years. That statement really means two things: I’m old, and I’m a slow learner.

In those thirty years, one of my most fascinating learning ventures has been the discovery of breakout churches. Simply defined, a breakout church is a congregation that has experienced at least five years of decline followed by at least five years of growth. While numerical growth is not the inerrant barometer for church health, we researchers must use numerical gauges for much of our objective data.

The Common Factor

As my research team began sorting and analyzing the data of some 50,000 churches, we found a common factor in many of the breakout churches: the breakout took place when the church got a new pastor. While that finding is helpful from a research perspective, it’s not very helpful to many churches. And it’s certainly not helpful to the pastors of struggling churches.

So our research took a new twist. We only looked at churches that experienced breakouts without changing pastors. I was encouraged by our findings.

The Seven Traits

The breakout churches, almost without exception had seven common characteristics. Though I list them numerically here, for sequential purposes, I am not assigning priority by the rankings.

1. The pastor had a “wake-up” call.
He stopped denying that his church had a challenge. He became determined, in God’s power, to lead the church to growth and greater health. He would no longer be satisfied with mediocrity in God’s church.

2. The church, under the pastor’s new leadership, developed clarity in its purpose.
Most of the churches were previously activity focused. They were busy with the “what” without addressing the “why.”

3. The pastor began assembling the right team for a new era of leadership.
That team would include either paid staff or unpaid laypersons.

4. The pastor developed a spirit of tenacity.
He knew that the turnaround would not take place overnight. He followed a prayerful plan for the long haul.

5. One of the early moves in these churches was to focus more ministries outwardly.
The wake-up call noted above included an awareness that most of the ministries of the church were for the comfort and desires of the members. The leaders began to change that reality.

6. The pastor and other leaders in the breakout churches had deep biblical faithfulness.
They saw their mission emanating from God and written in His Word. That faithfulness was the push that moved them forward even in the midst of challenging times and potential discouragement.

7. The pastor invested more time in the preaching ministry.
He realized the centrality of the preached Word, and gave it more time and emphasis than any point previously.

The Hope Present in These Churches

Our quest to discover breakout churches that did not change pastors became an exercise in hope for our research team. We first saw how many leaders transitioned from a lackadaisical attitude to one of enthusiasm and possibility. Some of the leaders told us that their change was more dramatic. They described it as moving from hopelessness to great hope.

Of course, the other great encouragement in this project was discovering the story of entire congregations moving from a inwardly-focused lethargy to an outwardly-focused Great Commission mindset. By the time our research team saw these churches in the “after” mode, we found it hard to fathom they were once lifeless and discouraged.

If I found a single message in the scope of this research, it is simple but profound lesson for churches and their leaders: Don’t ever assume that your congregation has little or no hope. We found that many of these churches were once in despair, and many members confessed they had no hope. Then the breakout came. Then God showed He was wasn’t done with their church.

That story could very well be the story yet to be told of your church

只有祝福

只有祝福
快樂家庭十周年


蔡元雲醫生

Matthrew 16:13-28 By Dr. Philemon Choi

生命、召命，捨命
馬太福音十六章十三至廿八節



蔡元雲醫生
2012.01.01
主恩基督教會