Bill Ellis

Way back in 1988, Bill Ellis started with a church plant. The church started running 20-25 people a week. The way they got the church to grow was to knock on people’s doors and invited them to church. According to him, that did not work really well, and he does not recommend that method. The first year that they were there, they averaged 30 people a week. The second year, they averaged 31 people per week, and that was discouraging to him. The church started growing a bit more when they moved from a Masonic lodge to an actual church building that they shared with another congregation.  During his talk, Pr. Bill asked some interesting questions that made me think quite a bit. Some of those questions are: 

-        - To take a Christian from another church is not the worst thing out there – but it is not really growing the kingdom, is it?

-       Can a person be a Christ follower and not be a Christian?

-       Is building the kingdom really all about attracting people to our churches?

Pastor Bill continued to talk about views that people have of the church. He discussed the functionalist view and the incarnational view. The functional view of church says that the church is God’s place in the world where you go to do God things. The incarnational views says that the church is not only a place that performs functions, but it is a place where God dwells. It is a people in whom God lives. He then linked these two views by saying that “our challenge is to help people who merely “go to church” to see themselves “as the church” and help them find the part they are to play putting God on display to the world”

This statement is so powerful because if people had the idea to take God with them wherever they go, instead of just expecting people to come to church. If we bring God to people instead of the other way around, I think that many more people would come to know Him as a friend, rather than a intimidating divine being.