Make a bold move to run off as many people as you can who are at risk of moving to a “contemporary” church. There are several ways to do this, here are a few of my suggestions:

• Instead of just talking about people who don’t wear their “Sunday best” – go ahead and make it an official rule and stop people at the door who don’t conform.
• Instead of teaching about sin – condemn the sinner. Take that a step further and make them sit in the back and don’t include them in anything, or even further stop them at the door.
• Instead of encouraging hope through having a relationship with Christ – scare hell in to people so they have a constant sense of inadequacy because they can’t perform enough holy deeds to earn their way to heaven.
• Instead of budgeting, sacrificing, being good stewards, and praying over the church finances – have a business meeting and complain about how no one is giving enough.
• Also at the business meeting… Fight about important stuff like toilet paper and carpet color. Anyone who doesn’t attend the business meeting isn’t on board with the church vision and should be referred to a local “contemporary” church.

Have another business meeting with another church or churches who have made their own bold moves. This is where it gets innovative. This meeting might be with multiple churches who have all made bold moves. Now that both (all) churches at the meeting have decreased their numbers down to only the ones who want tradition it would be wise to make some drastic but wise decisions:

• Which church building(s) is goint to be sold, abandoned, foreclosed, given to the homeless, donated to the fire department for training, etc etc?? That’s right. Consolidation is taking place. Everyone is going to have to embrace another church body for the sake of traditionalism survival.
• Which church building is going to be kept. Hint – this would probably be the building that is hosting the meeting because everyone is at the meeting – right??
• Which pastor(s) and staff are going to be kept? Fire all but one pastor or rotate multiple pastors? A cost analysis might be appropriate here. At first glance it might seem more than one pastor isn’t affordable, but without all those buildings to pay for it would be worth running the numbers to see. Of course their salaries could be reduced if they’re rotating or they could take turns preaching, leading singing, answering the phone, visiting hospital, mowing grass, etc to cover all the jobs each separate church building used to employ.
• Make contingency plans for replacing the pastor(s). They’re going to die one day.
• Just keep all the deacons at first because it will only be a few years before enough are dead to get the number of deacons back down to 12 or whatever.

In about 40 years start all over again with everything mentioned above. Why? Mortal attrition is going to bring the numbers back down to where another consolidation will be necessary.

• What about multiplying from within? Ok, that might make it last more than 40 years but eventually little Sue isn’t going to want to marry her cousin Johnny. And marrying outside the church won’t work because outsiders might corrupt the traditionalism again. Besides there is no room in the consolidated building for an outsider. Maybe arranged marriages will work so the bloodlines can be kept far enough apart.
• Don’t forget the bold moves. Probably should do those once or twice a year even if the multiply from within method is working – just to keep up and coming rebels flushed out.

That pretty much wraps it up for the most part. Without getting in to all the minor details this simple plan should work. 

Have you ever been to a church with one of thos women ministries?? If you were raised in church for any amount of time I think you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, I’m not going to be all mean about women’s ministries. I’m just going to share about this past weekend.

Shawna went with her mom to a Women of Faith conference and she loved it. She had all kinds of stories about these popular Christian women who were there, the music, the testimonies, etc. She was excited enough she said she wants to go back next year. In Shawna’s words the weekend could be summed up as encouraging rather than discouraging. She said it wasn’t the typical spiritual overload women get at other “women’s ministries” events. They weren’t bombarded with all the instructions and overwhelming demands every woman should follow if they stand a chance at being the Godly spiritual woman she is intended to be.

No – it wasn’t like that from Shawna’s point of view. She told about one speaker who spoke of the peaks and valleys in life. We’ve all heard of the peaks and valleys but what made this speaker’s talk different is she kept it real and let everyone know that we all spend most of our lives in the valleys of life rather than the peaks – so learn to live through it. She didn’t add read your bible for an hour a day, pray for two hours, blah blah blah blah other stuff. She just kept it real. It sounded like all the other speakers shared their own stories of how their lives have been a challenge but they’ve lived through it. They basically gave everyone hope that if they could live through what life has brought their way then the other women could do the same.

I’m glad she enjoyed it. I had the kids to myself and that is always fun but interesting. I was glad when Shawna got back.

This week I’ve started going back to the gym early in the morning again. Shawna has changed her part time job schedule with the pregnant sickness she’s been going through so that has made it possible for me to go to the gym early – which is the best time of day to get it done. Not to mention I have some new friends who said they would see me there but they haven’t been there. That’s another story though – I’m giving them a hard time for slacking…

So I’m at the gym yesterday morning about 6:30. I notice some NewSpring folks were there, one of them being Perry. We’re all going about our business – not there to socialize. First I chose a treadmill (I like the new ones the Y has put in with TV’s on them – I can actually tolerate a treadmill like that). Next I begin to stretch a bit before starting. There are two older gentlemen on the machines to my right, and three or four people between me and Perry to my left. I’m painting a picture here in case you haven’t noticed.

All of a sudden I hear the older guys to my right talking about church stuff, and they were talking kinda loud. If Perry hadn’t had on earphones he probably would have heard them from where he was. They said some nonsense about “traditional and contemporary services” and such. Their church has tried this and that to accommodate people who like either type of service but it never works because one prevails over the other (usually the contemporary) etc. etc…

It isn’t uncommon for me to hear old-timers talking like this but when I heard the comment “we’ve lost a lot of people to NewSpring” I couldn’t believe what I heard. They weren’t really being negative as though NewSpring is a bad thing (like some people do) but the context of their “woe is me” conversation wouldn’t have been as bad if they hadn’t mentioned NewSpring. Now these guys wouldn’t know me from Adam but I would have to assume their mention of NewSpring was probably because they recognized Perry, and that’s probably what spurred the conversation in the first place.

Back to the picture… I mentioned the close proximity. I mentioned these guys were talking considerably loud. We know these guys don’t know me and they probably don’t realize they’re talking so loud. But did I mention I was wearing a BRIGHT RED NEWSPRING T-SHIRT?? For cryin out loud – these guys were oblivious.

Oblivion is probably not the most accurate way to term someone who has no clue of their surroundings, but I coined the word for that years ago when I lived in Atlanta traffic. Shawna knows that if I yell oblivious or oblivion that I’m talking about someone who is completely unaware of their surroundings or something going on around them. I am annoyed by it (even though I have no room to talk because I give others an oblivous impression sometimes because I don’t always respond to things going on around me).

Anyway, I was more and more annoyed the more these old guys talked. I wanted to look over at them and point out my bright red NewSpring t-shirt and ask them to kindly shut up about my church or I’ll fill them in on why their church is sucking wind. Instead I increased my running speed to 9.5 miles per hour so that I was the one sucking wind and couldn’t say anything to them. I felt good about doing that – both physically and mentally.

After my workout I had to experience more scarring for life in the locker room. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve read this post. I tell you – oblivion is everywhere.