Hansel and Gretel New Version1a
Hansel and Gretel
Once upon a time there was a couple named Hansel and Gretel that belonged to a small church. They were very active in the church and were well liked by everyone. Hansel had been blessed with a good job and a good salary and gave large contributions to the church which were probably a sizable percentage of the annual income of the church.
One day they were approached by their friends, Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep who invited them to come to their church. Hansel and Gretel said no, they were happy with their small church and didn’t need to go anywhere else. However Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep were persistent and spoke of how much better things were in their church. They pointed out that the church Hansel and Gretel were attending maybe on a good day had 60 people show up for Sunday service, which was nothing compared to Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep’s church. Why they had that many people in their praise and worship band. On any given Sunday there were 800 people at the second service and at least 1000 at the first service. The church provided a state of the art nursery for younger children. A coffee shop and a book store were available. The pastor was well known and had written many books and was well liked by everyone. Why not leave their little church that was going nowhere and come be a part of a bigger church, a church that could offer them much more than their little small church could? Hansel and Gretel refused to change.
As the Christmas season approached, Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep invited Hansel and Gretel to come for the churches Christmas program. Thinking it might be fun, Hansel and Gretel went. There they saw an incredible program, flying angels, smelled the droppings of the live animals and enjoyed the most beautiful music they had ever heard. Everything was wonderful and just before Easter, Hansel and Gretel made the decision to switch churches because after all, just like Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep had said, it offered so much more.
Sadly, after a short time, Hansel and Gretel’s old church closed their doors for good. Hansel and Gretel felt a little “guilty” for leaving their old church but they were so well liked and their new church had so much of offer, they quickly forgot about their roots.
As time passed they began to notice that some of the people who had been around longer than they had weren’t, well, popular anymore. It seemed to them that these people were now just another number. This bothered them and it should have because it wasn’t long before Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep told them that just coming to Sunday School and attending the worship service wasn’t enough, they had to do more. They had to attend Bible study and take lessons on how to evangelize to people. Wednesday nights were nothing more than meetings to put pressure on Hansel and Gretel to evangelize and bring new members into the church.
They quickly learned but they also learned that for all the talk, for all the study, for all they had to do it was no more than a sales gimmick to fill the parking lots on Sunday morning. They had reached the point to where Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep were, a salesman, pressured to bring in new people to the church under the disguise of evangelism.
Hansel and Gretel quit the mega church and didn’t go back to any church. They are still Christians and sometimes have friends over for a Bible study or prayer.
So what is the moral of the story? Just this. Mega churches are bigger, do more things, have a larger attendance and so much more but I think people should look through the smoke and mirrors, and just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz they need to look to see what is really behind the curtain and decide if they want to be part of a congregation or just another number.
A survey I did awhile back showed from Jan 06 to April 06 the average attendance at First Baptist was 77.29 people but for the same time period in 2007 the average attendance was 57.29 people weekly. (Now before you ask, the .29 people is my alter ego) This is an average drop of 20 people weekly. Why the difference? Are people leaving for the mega-churches or have they just stopped coming? I don’t have that answer. I also don’t think that there is any one answer to that question. Perhaps it isn’t so much that we really need to answer that question but to ask ourselves the question, “What can we do as a church to prevent our attendance from growing smaller?” Perhaps we need to answer that question first. Is it possible that we need to learn to communicate better? Example, it has been said if anyone has any ideas or suggestions feel free to voice them. If people do make suggestions or put forward ideas, is any feedback given to them? Are people talked to about their ideas and the reasons behind them? I’ve been through enough training to know if people don’t receive feedback on suggestions, they are unlikely to suggest anything else. Maybe another idea would be have the pastor get to know the people better by visiting them in their homes and I say homes to make it a more relaxed atmosphere. He could get to know people better and people could get to know him better. Example, he knows me as the person who will fix computer problems or take care of the carillon, someone who takes up the offering and sometimes is a greeter and someone who likes to joke around sometimes but he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what my beliefs are, what direction I would like to see the church go in or what I would like to see happen in the church. Are there people in our congregation that would like to know the pastor better and have the pastor know them better? I can’t answer that but maybe it would be helpful in answering the question, “What can we do as a church to prevent our attendance from growing smaller?” I can already hear the argument that it can’t be done and I would agree if we were a mega-church but we aren’t. So ask yourself this question, do you want to have a personal relationship with the pastor or do you want to be just another number. Of course this idea could be 100% wrong and some may think I’m delusional, but it is a suggestion and it is up to people smarter than me to decide if this is something that should be done. Something else that could be done is to have the congregation submit sermon ideas, sermons on topics they would like to hear about and have the pastor do those sermons on the last Sunday of the month. There are others that will have better ideas than what I have just presented but first and foremost people need to have the feeling that they belong where they are and are wanted where they are. If a person feels wanted and feels a part of something they won’t leave it.
We are never going to be a big mega-church and that is fine with me. I want our church to be a church that just doesn’t want to fill seats but one that wants to spread the Word of Jesus Christ. I want our church to be a church where people can come and know that they are only saved by God’s grace and mercy, nothing else. With the New Year approaching, eight years have passed since I joined First Baptist Church and during those eight years I can see various improvements. Do you see improvements also? If so, let’s build on them and continue to go forward, not only in 2008 but beyond. Just remember there will always be people like Hansel and Gretel.