What on earth IS a COMMUNITY Church?!

Okay, so whilst my soapbox is ready for a work out, I thought I'd cover the next little gripe I have at the moment.

It's still in line with the whole "forgetting who we are in order to be more 'relevant'" line of thought. It's a question about the current trend in changing our name from Corps to Community Church - or in some cases just becoming a Community Church and dropping name of The Salvation Army all together!!

Why oh Why oh Why oh Why?! Seriously?! I did a bit of a vox pop of some of my (for want of a better word) non-church going or non-believing friends. The two questions I asked was "What do you think when you hear the words Community Church" and "What do you think when you hear the words The Salvation Army".

To the first the answers were:
"boring and irrelevant", "doesn't fit into my life", "hypocritical and outdated", "money hungry", and the most concerning I think were "judgemental" and "abuse".

To the second:
"You silly!... kind", "caring & compassionate", "tamborines and marching bands haha, nah they do great work with people", "my favourite organisation to give money", "always there to lend a hand", and "great...no awesome".

When I asked whether they knew that The Salvation Army was also a church - they all said yes, when I asked if they knew that before they knew me, all bar 2 said they did. So I investigated a little further, I said "So if you think that the church is (insert their word here) and you know that The Salvation Army are also a church, why do you think that church is (insert their word here) but The Salvation Army is (insert their comment)?"

These were the answers:

"Oh yeah we know you're a church, but you're not like that Hillsong one", "Yeah but we figured you're a church there to help people, not hurt them", "Well I dont' know what's different but you are", "Guess I never thought about it much", "Because you take the bible seriously and the others dont? Who knows!" and a "hmmm...dunno".

(*** I need to note that some of these friends were people that I went through my leaving the Army stage with, so even knowing what I went through, that's their comments - I think that in itself speaks volumes!)

So if this is just a vox pop of a group of friends that I know...what does the general public in your community think?

A friend of my father's, who worked for a PR firm, once did a focus group for The Salvation Army and found that according to it and their research, The Salvation Army had a 97% approval rating with the general public. 97%! That's huge! So why on earth would you want to make yourself a Community Church when the so many non-believers see the Church as either money hungry, judgemental or irrelevant, but the general public approves of The Salvation Army?! If you're trying to make yourself more "seeker friendly" just drop the Corps (which I disagree with), and be The Salvation Army in your community!

But in reality - are we doing it for the non-believers, or are we doing it to bring ourselves in line with other churches? I fear that, we are actually doing to be in line with other churches. We want to be seen as worthy. We want to be seen as just as good as the church down the road, not to compete for unbelievers but to compete for locals that are looking for a new church! But should we exist for the already believers?! Not that they don't deserve a church, but should we be working hard to win them over?!

I'm going to blog next about the Church vs. Social Program issue we've got at the moment, but should not our Corps exist to minister spiritually to the people we see through our Social Centre doors each week? To strengthen and support our Social Centre staff and Chaplains? To prepare our Soldiers for a week of ministering to the needy in their workplaces, their streets, and their places of study?

A few of the comments on my blog stated the dwindling Sunday attendance numbers over the past 10 years... I agree, it's a big issue. I find it interesting though to note, that in the past 10 years, we've been "losing our distinctives" in order to be like the other churches... Hillsong have been at their peak in the last 10 years yeah? We started dropping our old music (which I'm not saying doesn't need to be updated) in favour of "worship bands" playing their music - and yet our numbers aren't increasing like Hillsong's are, they're decreasing - why?! Because WE ARE NOT HILLSONG. WE ARE NOT THE BAPTIST CHURCH. WE ARE NOT THE UNITING CHURCH. WE ARE NOT THE AOG Church. Or any other church for that matter. WE ARE THE SALVATION ARMY.

When were our numbers at an all time high?! When our Soldiers and Officers were out serving the needy in our communities. When new Corps were opening weekly in the darkest suburbs of our cities and nations. I'm not waxing poetic about our history here... it just seems common sense to me that we started to see a dwindling in numbers the second we started focussing on our "church" and not enough on our "community"... so if you want to be a Community Church - I commend you - but don't start with a name change - start with being active and present in your Community. Start serving the poor and lost and lonely and needy in your community. Start being THE SALVATION ARMY - and you'll see numbers increase. Need more evidence? Check out the ever-growing work of the 614 network internationally, Brunswick Salvos, Shop 16 in Reservoir, Ingle Farm in South Australia, Street Level in Sydney - and countless other Corps who are actively going after serving the people they come in contact with. They are seeing ever growing "bums on seats" on a Sunday! Seems to me something works there!

I leave you with a Florence Booth quote... it's a part of a quote I plan to blog entirely about one day... something to make us all think about...

She said "Do not imitate the Church. Let your great aim be to raise an Army that shall glorify God by fighting His battles.”