Hard Habit To Break
Posted on September 23rd, 2008.In August we decide to make a major change @ C3. I wrote about it here. We actually asked people to renew their membership to C3. Church membership should mean something, but it should never give false impressions or false hope. There are thousands of people who have their names on church memberships but they never attend, invite, serve, pray for or give to the church. That’s ridiculous!
At C3, being a part of the movement means something! A few years ago when I became pastor of the church that birthed C3, we had over 4,000 members! At least that’s what the records said, but it was B.S. (below the standard…). Contrary to some inflated opinions we never averaged more than about 1,600. We never saw most of them and the F.B.I. couldn’t have found half of them – but to our denomination (and for them) it looked really good.
We just don’t flow that way at C3. Today our membership is 313. That’s right. But those 313 are committed to attending, praying for, inviting to, serving through and financially investing in C3. What I love is that we actually run hundreds more on Sundays now than our membership – we have less members than our attendance, and growing. In Thom Rainer’s new work, “Essential Church?” one of the things he talks about is expectations – at C3 we’ve raised them and it’s causing greater impact in this movement!
Tags: baptist, C3 Church, Church, church membership, religion, Thom Rainer
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Byron, just wanted to let you know I am thankful for churches like yours that decide that it’s time for a church to be biblical, not traditional or denominational, just biblical. That takes a lot of faith these days but that’s the way it’s supposed to be, right? “The Just Shall Live By Faith” Keep up the good work!
Bill, thanks bro! Also, thanks for all your help w/the blog sites and new website coming! Have a great one.
A guy on staff here was doing an interview with the local paper when he was asked how many members we have. He answered, “About 200.” He was then asked to clarify an earlier comment when he said that attendance averaged around 600. The interviewer asked if maybe he had the numbers backwards – “Don’t you mean you have 200 in attendance and 600 members?”
The article printed that our church is “a bit of an anomaly” because of those numbers. Haha!
You said it my friend! Can you believe it, actually living truthfully and honestly just like the Scriptures say!?!
Chris,
That’s so cool!
Joesph,
It’s awesome. Looking forward to connecting with you next week.