AC V has left a new comment on your post "Ripped from the Pages of FICKLE. The Latte Church ...":
“We’re trying to keep it from becoming the thing that turned a lot of people away from church."
Apparently what you became was what turned people off from church. So, what "outside the box" thinking, what novel approach is next? What lure are you going to use next to sucker people in (2 Corinthians 4:2)?
Do you think FICL would ever run a story like this:
St. Stephen Lutheran Church breaks ground for new sanctuary
Lutheran Book of Concord approach to ministry emphasizes the means of grace for growth.
"The Lutheran Confessions inform our philosophy of ministry," says Pr. Martin Philip. "We offer Holy Communion every Sunday service and private absolution is scheduled each Wednesday from 6:00-7:00pm."
Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, the congregation decided that the way Lutherans of the Reformation era described and carried out ministry should be the way they would carry out ministry today.
"We're not so concerned about numerical growth as we are just being faithful to proclaiming the gospel through Word and Sacrament," Pr. Philip said. "We are a liturgical church with all the 'smells and bells' you'd expect from a church that uses a liturgy. Actually, we're finding that that's what the un-churched feel most comfortable with. They're telling us that they were turned off by bad preaching, by the cross-less "how to" approach to Christian living, not by gowns and organ music. They want authentic worship that focuses on Christ and his gifts of forgiveness given through the sermon and sacrament."
The Divine Service at St. Stephen is Sunday at 10:30.
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GJ - City and state? Address? Hints are welcome.
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churchmousec (http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "When All Else Fails Miserably, Try the Means of Gr...":
This sounds cool!
The only thing I could find was the contractors' site, Harmon Construction:
http://www.harmonconst.com/blog
http://www.harmonconst.com/breaking-ground-st-stephen-lutheran-church
'The groundbreaking event for St. Stephen Lutheran Church has been scheduled for Sunday April 1, 2012. The church will be getting a new sanctuary and we can't wait to get started!'
I'm assuming Missouri or Kansas (Harmon's location and project work).
There is a St Stephen's in Liberty, MO, and they have a contemporary service at 10:30, with a traditional one at 8:00. No news on their site, though, with regard to a new sanctuary.
http://www.ststephensliberty.org/pages/front/index.shtml
Churchmouse
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AC V has left a new comment on your post "When All Else Fails Miserably, Try the Means of Gr...":
The church is fiction, but as Church Growth churches continue to go into epic fail, we can only pray that more churches like "St. Stephen" will - God willing - begin to spring up.
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GJ - April 1 is a few days away, Acey. That was a good one. I have no doubts that a return to the Book of Concord and Luther would yield good results. But I also want to caution people that faithfulness itself is success, as the Holy Spirit wrote via Paul.
KJV 1 Corinthians 4:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God. 6 And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in
us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.
