What Do You Love About Your Church

As much as I hope to point geeks to the local church I can't believe I've never started this topic before.

What do you love about your church? What keeps you coming back or serving there?

I've been going to our church (rmcchurch.org) since 10th grade (about 1993). It's had its bumps along the way, including some leadership decisions I've mourned or been frustrated with. But the leadership has always been so committed to being led by the Holy Spirit, through God's word. And that commitment to intentional, daily living with the Spirit through the guidance of the Bible has permeated every aspect of ministry the church does. The leading pastors and elders are also humble men who readily confess their shortcomings and admit to where they went wrong.

I've interacted with enough people who work on staff at other churches to realize that it's sadly uncommon to have the kind of leaders and priorities that our church has. And now, I realize I'm only about 15-20 years away (or LESS!) from being in a season of life where people will increasingly look to me as a leader in our church community, whether I'm on the Elder board or just one of the "older men" at the church. Thinking about the caliber of leadership we've had and the history of our church, it's what has driven me to take some steps recently to start preparing myself for that kind of responsibility.

So yeah. The humble leadership and focus on scripture in every area of ministry has probably been what has kept me there the most.

Paeter wrote:I realize I'm only about 15-20 years away (or LESS!) from being in a season of life where people will increasingly look to me as a leader in our church community, whether I'm on the Elder board or just one of the "older men" at the church. Thinking about the caliber of leadership we've had and the history of our church, it's what has driven me to take some steps recently to start preparing myself for that kind of responsibility.

If you've been going there since '93 people should already look to you as an "elder". Your youth has nothing to do with your ability to lead and mentor others. I had to accept this five years ago. I didn't feel like I was ready but God was increasingly putting me in positions of leadership in my church. He has been changing my heart and equipping me to lead and guide His people.

What I like about my church is that we are a small, tight-knit community. We have a small church compared to most. I've told my pastor that ACF is where people come to fall in love with Jesus again.

When we left our last church we were burned out. My wife and I had a young family and it seemed everywhere we went churches wanted to recruit us. My pastor told us to come and sit at the feet of Jesus and not worry about serving for a few years. It was a such a relief!

jorowi wrote:

Paeter wrote:I realize I'm only about 15-20 years away (or LESS!) from being in a season of life where people will increasingly look to me as a leader in our church community, whether I'm on the Elder board or just one of the "older men" at the church. Thinking about the caliber of leadership we've had and the history of our church, it's what has driven me to take some steps recently to start preparing myself for that kind of responsibility.

If you've been going there since '93 people should already look to you as an "elder". Your youth has nothing to do with your ability to lead and mentor others.

Very true, which is why I threw "increasingly" in there. I'm a bit of a unique case, though, since I was once a pastor at our church. So I wonder sometimes how much of people looking to me for answers/wisdom is who I am and how much it's the job I used to have.

jorowi wrote:
When we left our last church we were burned out. My wife and I had a young family and it seemed everywhere we went churches wanted to recruit us. My pastor told us to come and sit at the feet of Jesus and not worry about serving for a few years. It was a such a relief!

That's awesome! I think good leadership is sensitive to those kinds of things, even as they are trying to call people up. So cool that they read the terrain well with you guys.

I've been a part of Door of Hope Christian Church for about 17 years. (http://www.door-of-hope.org/)
I've seen it through a name change and change of venue.

I love the vision, which is to be "a door of hope, through Jesus Christ, in a fragile and uncertain world." The best part about that is that the leadership and congregation take this seriously. We are a very outward focused church. In fact, we have a little catch-phrase that we aim to be "Jesus centred, others focused" (based on Matthew 22: 37-40)

Our church regularly does up old cars and gives them freely to people in need (while also providing education and mentoring, in the workshop, to young people who struggle with the traditional school environment. This sometimes leads to conversations of a spiritual nature).
We started a drop-in-centre where we provided a warm meal and bed to the homeless, which blossomed into a full homeless shelter.
We run a twice-yearly "superhero camp" for at-risk or underprivileged children in the community, letting them experience simple joys like having a birthday party, or having a grandparent figure to hang out with.

I love that, while we are the closest thing Launceston has to a "mega-church" (though, not by big city standards) our leaders are still so humble. For example, our senior pastor works really hard to know everybody in the congregation by name, and actually get to know them as people. I think that's pretty rare in a church our size.

As a geek, I love that we're now doing live and on-demand video streaming of every service, and that I get to be an integral part of the team behind this. So much fun.

AdamCollings wrote:

I love the vision, which is to be "a door of hope, through Jesus Christ, in a fragile and uncertain world." The best part about that is that the leadership and congregation take this seriously. We are a very outward focused church. In fact, we have a little catch-phrase that we aim to be "Jesus centred, others focused" (based on Matthew 22: 37-40)

What a great vision. And the fact that they have followed through on that in so many ways... sounds like a really special thing to be a part of!