David Kennard Riverside Community Church

I think that “seeker sensitive “ churches get a bad reputation sometimes of people saying that they are not Biblical or other reasons. But what they are really doing is trying to take the same message of the gospel that most churches are trying to reach the people with and just re-packaging it. There definitely is a need for churches like Riverside Community Church with the whole idea of free market small groups and attracting people to interests that they already have and just trying to provide community for people who desperately long for it in today’s society. And as there are doing that the sharing of the gospel comes more naturally and is a lot easier. I think that seeker sensitive churches can definitely be a great example for discipleship programs. The example of discipleship being relationship plus intentionality is great. But I think a lot of churches forget or leave out the relationship part of it sometimes. They can be very intentional about it, but they forget that people want relationships as well. I think that seeker sensitive churches get a bad rap a lot, but they can be very effective in discipling people. And also the can be very missional in their idea of free market small groups. Because they are reaching people that normally wouldn’t come to church, but are building relationships with them in their small groups. I think that seeker sensitive churches can be very much missional at the same time.

New believer number 2

The person I interviewed for my new believer survey was a student in my youth group at my home church that I help out at. His journey to Christianity seems quite interesting. He said he came from a very legalistic church. He said that it was hard to accept Christianity at first, but eventually got it. I would think that maybe coming from a very legalistic church that the thing that might have been the most difficult to accept was the simplicity of Christianity perhaps. Coming from a very legalistic church I could imagine how difficult it would be do accept that there is nothing to do to accept Christianity, but to accept it and let God do the rest and He already has. Another thing he said was that the best part about becoming a Christian was “the joy that is always inside of you all the time.” And when asked what would be the most helpful to help others grow in their Christian faith would to let them know about God’s love and to let that change them and not try to change them by yourself. I guess it goes to show that the Jesus’ yoke really is that light as He states in Matthew 11:28 when talking about the difference between the Pharisees legalism and Christianity. I think that sometimes it is so difficult to accept Christianity and it’s simplicity is because of our pride. Sometimes it seems like we want to be able to get to God on our own sometimes by however it may be legalism, trying to be a good person or whatever else it may be. But Christianity is all about giving up on our own efforts and accepting that it is only through Jesus that we can be saved. Maybe sometimes in Christianity today we do not stress this enough?

Nick Poole - Allison Park Church

Listening and hearing from Nick Poole is encouraging to see someone be able to do something right out of college, that many people are not able to, especially in church planting. And it is encouraging to see someone be able to be involved in something right after college and also it being church planting, something that I am interested in. I appreciate Nick Poole’s humbleness in his position. It seems like it would be easy to kind of get a little proud when going around to other churches and looking to see what they are doing right and wrong for a job. It could become much of a pride thing in doing that or it could be very difficult with people in the other church congregations as well. But Nick seemed very humble in his job and his passion to help church plants. It is kind of amazing to see someone who has just graduated from college three years ago and now being the pastor of church planting at a church, where his job is to go around to evaluate the churches. But his humbleness and personality allows him to be able to be effective at what he does. It shows how important being humble is and that is one thing that I know I need to work on in my own life as well. Also what he said about the one thing he regrets is not being involved with as many internships and hands on experiences and volunteering. And this is someone who was heavily involved with volunteering at different churches while in college, but still wished he did more. I have usually been involved with churches my first two years at school, but this past year I have kind of taken a little break from volunteering at churches and have been trying to focus on studying, but I have been realizing the importance of volunteering, but this just enforces that even more.

Unchurched Survey 3

For my unchurched survey number 3, I interviewed a friend in work. I thought that he would give some well thought out answers to the questions and some pretty good insight, being kind of an older guy and been around longer. But I was surprised that when He gave the survey back to me, it was filled out with all one sentence answers and a lot of them seemed very vague. Like when the question was asked why don’t you think many people go to church he replied, because it’s not a whole lot of fun. And when asked if you were look for a church to attend what would you like for, he responded “ a good time.” Answers like these always make me seem like the don’t really have much interest about church or things of God at all. But I began to think maybe this man can be very curious to spiritual things, but just does not see the church as a place to provide that. Possibly he was raised and has had assumptions that church was just a place to go to, just to get preached at and is very boring. Or possibly that the church should be a show. I would think that someone like this may have had a bad experience or experiences with church before. Maybe the church has let him down on things that are spiritual and helping people and had a become a place just to tell people what to do and perhaps the church wasn’t a very fun place to people because it was very legalistic and all. I sometimes struggle with the whole idea that church should be fun sometimes, but I guess there should be some kind of aspect involved with it though. The church should be a place where people are happy and are able to show the love of Christ. But at the same time there are churches with people who have a higher view of God and like to meditate on God and enjoy Him that way. I don’t know where you draw the line with church being fun, how much fun it should be and all of that.

Courtney Bancroft - Chi Alpha - Philadelphia

I can definitely appreciate the willingness of Courtney to be able to go into a tough city like Philadelphia and a tough college like temple to minister. I know rough Philadelphia can be, living there myself, seeing everything that goes one there. And for her obedience to God to come up here from maybe a comfortable place in D.C where she had a lot of support to here where there is basically known. I thought that it was very sad and a disgrace that a lot of the local churches would not even return her calls. I think that is a big thing that needs to be addressed in churches today and in the AG as well. There are not many programs for college age students or college groups. And there is a big turnover rate of people leaving the faith after the graduate from high school. Churches are willing to help other programs like youth, children or missions and they to need to focus on them, put not many are willing to give much support to the college age students. One of the things I like about Chi Alpha is that they focus more on discipleship than just reaching the numbers and get people saved. I mean it is very important to get people saved, obviously. But they focus on building people in Christ and their relationship with Christ which is very important as well. And especially in the college groups, because that is one of the main things that college students struggle with after graduating from high school , having a deep relationship with Christ, which can cause a lot to doubt, struggle or even leave their Christian faith and beliefs. I think that is great that they are able to reach out to and focus on reaching the unsaved and at the same time be able to disciple people and lead them in deeper relationships with Christ.