EROSION OF AWARENESS

Every church wants to draw more people.  These wishes may be sabotaged by our neglect to the facilities where we gather.  Due to sheer lack of property attention, it is possible we send negative messages to our visitors before they enter a class or a worship assembly.  They see significant factors immediately which we have long ago begun to let fade.

The longer a leader is at a church the greater is the threat that this person will not notice the slide caused by indifference that might develop within a congregation. This is why we must stay on our toes by observing, learning, and listening.

Andy Stanley's Deep and Wide volume is one of the best books on church leadership that I have ever seen.  His work is surely to be respected back home at the local church he serves.  His influence reaches magnanimously throughout the world.  I share a portion of his comment regarding the importance of a church environment.

Before we jump into the details of what makes a great ministry environment, I need to warn you about one thing.  The longer you've served where you are and the longer you've done what you are currently doing, the more difficult it will be for you to see your environments with the objectivity needed to make the changes that need to be made.  The shorter version: Time in erodes awareness of.

The longer you serve in a particular ministry environment, the less aware of it you become.  This is why adults, many of whom pay to have their houses cleaned, can walk into the Sunday school assembly room I described in the section introduction and not be distressed by what they see.  They don't see it.  The mess is invisible to them.  Time in erodes awareness of.

If there are things in your current ministry environments that are offensive to outsiders, you probably don't know what they are.

Erosion of awareness is a most serious matter.  This is why tradition is such a threat. We who practice rote religion are tempted to fall asleep to its numbing rhythm. Truthfully, we want bigger, better, and greater things for the kingdom; we are not in a coma.  Yet, we are likely tempted to walk through our ministries blinded by what we are seeing as if it isn't seen at all because we have looked at it so long.

We live in extremely vulnerable times.  Every person in our community possesses an inner sensitivity toward the spiritual.  We must restore our awareness of those things about our gathering places which are of clutter, age, and even smell which would offend a visitor; things we no longer notice because we have grown blind to some important things which turn seekers away.