Wendy Hammond

My guess is they are at work - a quick search of the coffee breaks in Grand Rapids lists the meeting times as weekday mornings.

Thank you, Abby! We have enjoyed having you in our office and look forward to your continuing service.

There was an article about this recently in Christianity Today. http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/june/3-reasons-people-are-not-involved-in-your-church.html

The comments were actually more interesting than the article. Some of the people who might be made to feel shamed for appearing inactive are very involved in parachurch organizations or have work schedules that do not allow them to serve traditionally (I'm one of those - my travel schedule makes it impossible to serve well on any committees). Traditionally organized churches need to adapt their expectations and opportunities to adapt to today's realities, especially if young people are going to get involved. A classic example is the women's Bible study group that meets during the day, when many women are working.

I heard of a church in Indianapolis that suspended all committees and activities other than Sunday morning worship. After a month, people were invited to come together and decide what things they felt were important for their church to do. They created and joined teams according to their interests and skills. The church is much more vibrant now and they do not have any trouble with not getting people to volunteer. Some programs no longer exist; some look different; but the church is growing.

Could you expand a bit on point #6? Are you saying that life is ubiquitous and meaningless? I don't remember learning that in my catechism classes ;-)

I find that signs that try to be funny rather than uplifting make me roll my eyes and not want to go to that church. Examples: "Our church is prayer conditioned." "What's missing in our chrch?"

I was also wondering if there is a way to see recent comments? (like in the previous Top 10 tab)

There are a couple of thoughts I have after reading your post and the original that you referenced.

First, I don't agree with equating nonwhites with underprivileged. So that leaves us with two questions to answer as to why more ethnic minorities are not engaging with the denomination. #1, in our multiethnic congregations, is everyone given equal opportunity to join the short term missions teams? I would argue that yes, they are, because most of the churches I work with do fundraising as a congregation to support whoever wants to go, as long as they work on the fundraising too (make the pies, wash the cars, work at the dinners, etc.) #2, in our ethnic churches, are they uninterested in missions or just uninterested in going through our denomination? Is money really a factor? I tend to think not, because I have seen some incredible donations come through our ethnic churches after a disaster. So what is the real reason?

Setting aside the STM issue, let's talk about funding missions. This is actually something that affected World Renew's decision to move towards a country support approach rather than a missionary-centered approach. Many of our overseas staff are not from North America, or if they are, are not Christian Reformed. So they don't have their own church, Grandma and Grandpa's church, and their aunt and uncle's churches to get support. Nor do they have the social connections mentioned in the article you referenced. Yet, their stories are just as powerful, if not more so. One of our staff actually had someone come up to her after church and say, "this is the first time in my life I have heard an African woman talk about Africa." Of course, as the article mentioned, it is this pooling of resources that is possible in nonprofit organizations and denominations, not so much parachurch organizations. I suspect, though, that if the parachurch organizations were able to shift their fundraising strategies they could have a similar approach.