I am extremely excited about writing this post – and I don’t even know exactly what I’m going to say! I’ve been feeling I need to write it so I’m looking forward to what comes out….. Let’s go!
A few days ago I wrote a post about Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and very soon after, I got an idea about an Extreme Makeover: Church Edition. It would be awesome!!
Quick recap for anyone who hasn’t seen Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (EMHE): Ty Pennington and a team of expert designers find a deserving family somewhere in the USA and surprise them one day then, while the family is in DisneyWorld or somewhere, they knock down their house and build them a completely new one designed and furnished just for them. The family also gets showered with other gifts like new cars and money toward their mortgage and whatever people want to give them.
So I started thinking about the team of ‘designers’ I would pull together for Extreme Makeover: Church Edition (EMCE) and it would hopefully look something like this:
- Me (because it’s my idea and I want to join in on the fun)
- My brother in law Robert, because he’s my right hand man and is so much of a help to me in so many ways and has so many gifts and talents, I wouldn’t even consider doing it without him.
- John Wiley from the River Christian Fellowship. Man, that guy is incredible!
- Tom Wymore who is the Simple Church Coach for FourSquare. Tom has an ability to cut through everything with one sentence, one question. He’ll change your world if you give him 5 minutes!
- Dr John Amstutz. If you’ve met him, you’ll know why. If you haven’t – just trust me, he’d be a great asset to ANY team!
- Mike Ellis. Mike is a go-getter, a do-er who puts me to shame. We’d need him because he has so much to offer!
- Randy Calaway. The man has a gift of prophecy and no mistake!
- I’d probably like Charles Hill too but somehow I think he and John Wiley would cancel each other out. Maybe they could do alternate weeks.
I’d then rotate in a few other designers from week to week like AkaGaGa just depending on the church we were making over.
So it would go something like this… we’d turn up on a Sunday morning and get everyone out of the church building and tell them that their church was getting an extreme makeover and the makeover starts right now!
I’d leave them in suspense for a minute or two while they start dreaming of how great their building is going to look after we’ve done our makeover and how comfortable the new chairs are going to be.
Then we’d send them out right there and then with sack lunches and tell them to go find a homeless person somewhere in the city and give them the lunch – then they would have to ask that person’s name and commit to praying for them every day for at least a month.
As they came back to the church campus after finding their homeless person, we’d have them come into the sanctuary and get feedback from them. Depending on what they say, we’d start some teachings based on where they are spiritually. The lessons would be titled things like:
- What is the Church and what is it’s purpose aka who are the Church and what is YOUR purpose?
- Home fellowships – the life and soul of the Church
- 101 reasons why you should NOT come to church on a Sunday
- Missions 101 – the mission field is in your street
- Church buildings? Necessary or a hindrance?
- Stewardship – is it wise to store money for a rainy day while people starve in your town?
- Your pastor is not God – neither is he the only way for you to hear from God.
- You have two ears and one mouth for a reason – so you can spend twice as much time listening to God as you do talking to him
- etc etc etc
We’d have them all take a week or two off of work and would do an intensive course on what Christianity is really all about.
We’d introduce them to the Holy Spirit and work with them to discover and start developing their gifts.
We’d separate them into smaller groups of no more than around 15 people and teach them to live as a community supporting each other, getting together daily, loving each other reaching out together. We’d redistribute some of the wealth of the church giving each group a share of the financial resources of the church and encouraging them to find ways to use that money for good in their local communities.
… and we’d do much, much more.
OK, so we couldn’t do it all in a week, we’d have to stick around for a while but I believe that the Church has largely descended into apathy and we need to shake it up!
I would love to be able to go in and shake up one congregation at a time not leaving until they have been completely made over.
My church would be first. We only started 2 years ago but I know we already need a makeover. We’re already slipping into past practices instead of doing what God is teaching us. EMCE team, you’re needed here!
Try these questions to get you thinking:
Having a building is great but what are you using it for? What COULD you be using it for? what SHOULD you be using it for? How many people will shiver with cold trying to sleep rough outside in your town all night tonight while your church building remains warm and dry? Is that what Jesus taught us to do?
I find Jesus’ message to the Pharisee’s In Matthew 23:15 very convicting:
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
Sons of hell? when new people come to our churches, what exactly is it that we are teaching them? Are we discipling them as Jesus taught or are we turning them into sons of hell too?
The Church needs a makeover and it starts…. right now!
Just for reference, I haven’t spoken about this to any of the people mentioned in this article so please do not associate them with this (unless they want you to), they are just my dream team!
Oh, Peter, what fun! This is kinda like “If I Ruled the World.” Okay, first thoughts.
1) Make sure all these Christians have been born again and baptised in the Holy Spirit. If they aren’t interested, ask them to leave and come back when they are interested.
2) Make sure every sack lunch had a Bible in it, the phone number of the person making the delivery, and change to use a pay phone.
3) Instead of everybody living together, as prayers are answered and the phones start ringing, whoever gets the call invites the homeless person to come live with them. One at a time, we give them food, clothing, shelter, medical attention as needed, and nourishment from the Word of God.
That’s all I can think of right now, because actually this is a bit of a stretch for me. I live in a very rural area in cold upstate New York, and we don’t have homeless people.
And then there’s the issue of who really rules the world … and I know it ain’t me!
Hi Gaga,
Thanks for the thoughts.
Some responses to your thoughts:
1) is part of the teaching week. I agree that sometimes we have to weed out those who are only interested in ‘fire insurance’ for their own good and the good of the church.
2) Great idea. I think though that with many people you need to earn the right to talk to them about God. My experience is that people get a little tired of churches coming in and ‘helping’ but making it seem like you have to sign up to their faith in payment. Sometimes it is better to start just by meeting needs, then build up to other things. I find that hard to say though because one of my life missions is giving away bibles. As for the phone number… I don’t think most people could cope with doing that in their first outreach and I don’t know if I’d try to push them that far the first day!
3) When I talked about living in community, I wasn’t thinking of actually living together. I was thinking more about living as a group who share together and get together every day – something which is much easier in town than it is in rural areas. Community is an alien concept to most people, we are so self-centered and self sufficient it’s really great though when you learn how.
I guess I was kind of forgetting that there are different needs in different areas. Obviously we would have to tailor what we do to the area we do it in. Maybe in your area we would go out and fix barns and repair fences – whatever the pressing need is.
God rules the world. So that’s all good!
Forgot to say, for more on community, click here
Peter,
Perhaps I should meet this Charles Hill guy. How can we make this happen?
John
John,
Charles Hill writes Small Town… Big impact (yes, they planted a church in a town of 2,800 people and now have over 1000 members!) you can also find him at The Stick Conference. He’s currently in Ohio but is soon going to be planting somewhere else.
I’d be afraid that the two of you in one room together would cause an explosion of awesomeness and pure energy!
Awesome Idea! DO IT!
I was looking at the comment from John Wiley… Checked out his site, his church is about 20 minutes from where I am. Interesting…
God Bless!
John is totally awesome. You should visit the River. When you do, make sure you talk to someone about what’s going on there and the history of the church. They have a DVD of what God has been doing. It’s amazing.
I would love to go back. It’s one of the most loving, Godly churches I’ve ever been to. For example, John told the church that I was flying out there to visit for a few days. While I was there, people would see me and come up and introduce themselves already having guessed who I was and they would tell me that they had been praying for me and my visit.
Amazing. It wasn’t just the ‘leaders’ either. They are a church that really cares and really follows through.
Peter
PS I’d love to put a team like that together. Not sure it’s really in God’s plan though but it would be so amazing!
That’s a great idea! I don’t know what it is, but Extreme Makeover is so infectiously watchable. Every time it comes on, while I’m flipping channels, I have to watch it for at least a little while.
and it’s getting so old now. Been there, seen that, done that before and yet it’s so addicting!
Brilliant idea
Peter,
I am the chief of all sinners. I do not deserve one ounce of praise. God is doing it all. If it were up to me I would be in a cave scratching myself. I give all Glory and all Praise to God. How in the world he is using a knucklehead like me simply amazes me. God is Great! I am the wretch they sing about in the song Amazing Grace. Thanks for the encouragement.
That's a great Ideal to have an "Extreme Church Makeover". I had thought about writing Tye myself. I have just joined a church that is almost 100 years old and it need alot of work. Most of all the church needs an elevator for the elderly memebers that can't climb the stairs and It hurts me to see them struggle to get up into the church. There are not a lot of members at this church, but they have just elected a new Pastor and I think things will put up. The elevator would make the choice a lot easier. I know that God will provide us with everything that we need in His time.