rethink_101It just may be that my ranting for the past 20 years or more is finally paying off. Parts of the recent Rethink Church campaign of the UMC shows signs of a biblical understanding of the role of the church.

What I like about it are the words they use

  • Their focus on the Great Commission
  • sending us out to encounter the world
  • Their use of taking the message from “Jerusalem, Judea, to Samaria and to the ends of the earth”
just to mention a few.  All of these concepts were in my first book in 1990,  The Church Growth Handbook.
I especially like the emphasis on the church being a verb rather than a noun.
This  20 million dollar campaign is a follow up to the Open Hearts; Open Minds; Open Doors campaign. I do have doubts about the effectiveness of generic advertizing.  It is one thing to invite an unchurched person to hear a message series that hits them where they live and another for them to be invited by a generic ad that has nothing to do with their personal situation.  We have to remember that very few unchurched people will look for a church to attend on their own anymore.
Still, I pray this campaign helps.