Donuts have holes.  Your church might too.  The particular hole I'm referring to concerns your church's immediate neighborhood.  For simplicity, let's confine "neighborhood" to a 1/2 square mile.  How effectively are you reaching those people?  If you're not reaching them, you have a hole.

I was at a pastors' gathering last Thursday.  All seven pastors at my table mentioned this donut hole effect.  In my area of Western New York, this is a problem.  Those 5 minutes away or more are impacted while church neighbors obviously think we're irrelevant. 

1. Where is your church located?
2. Do you have a hole around your church?
3. If so, how big is it? 
4. If you don't have a hole, congratulations!  What can you share with the rest of us?

Last night, one of our newcomers admitted she's unsure about getting saved. She feels she's just not worthy enough.  This unprovoked blurb came from a woman who's faithful attendance, quality questions, and well-developed responses had led most of us to think she's already saved. 

Where was my discernment?  Argh!  What messed me up was that she's so involved, so faithful, so committed.  Shamefully, I have "regulars" who aren't as committed.  (I guess I shouldn't be shocked. Barna's research did suggest a way-too-high percentage of attenders may not be saved biblically.)

There are two ways to look at assimilation.  (1) Evangelism comes first and assimilation is a natural, expected extension of that.  This is automatic transmision.  (2) Assimilation begins where people are.  Some people will get assimilated, and that process will lead toward salvation.  This is manual transmission.

Whether we should attempt to "wow" guests is another post.  Assuming we should, what would it look like?  Nelson Searcy at Journey Church has some creative, low-cost suggestions at http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/blog/2008/07/11/how-to-wow/.  What else would you add to the list?

During a podcast interview on Knowledge@Wharton, Colleen Barrett (CEO of Southwest Airlines) commented on her company's value structure:  first, employees; second, customers; third, shareholders.

Then I thought, "What's my church's value structure?"  Of all the people who make the list -- pastor, staff, council members, guests, new converts, regular attenders -- who's number one?

If you asked ten key leaders to prioritize that list, how would each list line up with the others?  How much agreement would there be? 

How do you prioritize that list?  Your answer says a lot about your philosophy of ministry.

You can find the entire interview with Colleen Barrett at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2006.

I'd mentioned how we changed our Sunday morning format, failing to announce we also changed our midweek (Wednesday).

Currently, our one-hour schedule has four parts.

• Welcome (1-2 min.)
• Prayer groups (5 min.)
• Break (10 min.) > coffee, tea, cookies
• Study (40 min.)

Here are some things I've gleaned, watching this process.

• There's something about using a book.  If I announce "We're going to study revival," I'll have 6 people attend Wednesday.  By distributing copies of Pat Robertson's Six Steps to Spiritual Revival, I saw attendance double.  We're studying the same topic, but now attenders come ready to participate.  They've already been exposed to half the material I'll present.
• Topic and format affect attendance.  Revival is an attractive theme.  "Eschatology in Matthew's Gospel" might cause a dip in attendance. Perhaps much of this has to do with advertising.  More and more, people prefer discussion over lecture.  The more I can get people talking, the better.  (Did you know it's OK to save material for next week?)  The more relational, the better.
• Location is important.  Our friendship hall is the ideal location.  We prefer to arrange everyone around tables so they feel connected.  For us, informal is better.  One challenge is the support posts that make it hard to see.  Also, people have a hard time on those metal chairs.  Two weeks ago we had 16 people.  We determined 20 was our maximum.  After that, meeting downstairs would be self-defeating.  Once we moved upstairs, we lost 6 people.  The pews are more comfortable than the chairs, but the sanctuary says "Formality."  We're asking how we can compensate for this.
• If you give people a reason to "just sit there," they will.  Unless I overcome the awkwardness of temporary silence, people will stare back at me.  Unless I ask strategic questions, it's too easy for everyone (including me) to slip into lecture mode.  Unless I break up the twelve into three smaller groups of four, most people won't pray.  People don't mind praying with three other people, but to pray aloud in front of everyone is not something most are ready for (yet).

Which should come first:  believing or belonging?  There are some good questions at the end of this post:  http://catalystleadership.blogspot.com/2008/05/belonging-before-believing.html. 

How did Jesus go about transforming a raw, interesting, diverse group of men from non-awareness to developed disciples?  Reading the gospels, I came across several, repeated actions.

• Teaching.  Jesus had an agenda of significant themes that had to be discussed.  Sometimes, he initiated.  Other times, he took His cue from the disicples' conversations or behaviors. 
• Talking.  The goal of talking is to relate, to express, to get to know someone.  To be transformed, we need both formal and informal talk.  Requirements without relationship won't produce lasting disciples.
• Time.  Jesus walked over 5000 miles with the disciples (assuming an average 4 miles per day over 3.5 years).  He ate 3800 meals with them (assuming 3 meals per day over 3.5 years).  Do you think their relationships deepened after all that eating, walking, and talking?  Some parts of discipleship are better caught than taught.
• Trouble.  Jesus used negative situations and turned them into teachable moments.  He warned His guys about pending dangers.  He prepared them for difficulty.  Jesus didn't train His friends to expect a sterilized, sanitized world of fluff and puff. 
• Thinking.  Jesus asked the best questions.  He knew how to get to the "what" and "why" of an issue.  His provocative questions helped prepare the disciples for their purpose.  Jesus knew behaviors and thoughts are linked together.
• Time-Out.  Jesus laughed.  He went to parties.  He attended weddings.  He enjoyed being with his friends.  There should be room in discipleship for just fun.  Is it possible more transformation could happen over ice cream at Friendly's than at Bible study one week?
• Tasks.  Jesus gave both simple and detailed assignments.  He debriefed the disciples when they returned.  What did they see?  What did they learn?

Are there any items you think should be added to the list? 

I'm reflecting on yesterday.  Everything was informal and different, except the seating.  Gotta love those pews.  OK, so we can't up and sell them, but we changed everything else.  What a difference!

• We didn't sing more than 20 minutes.  Can we do that?  Is that Pentecostal worship?  Did we miss something?
• I didn't teach more than 25 minutes -- and it happened on the floor, not behind the King James pulpit.
• After the teaching, a short Q & A time.  Surprisingly, people had questions.  One of them came from a stout Mormon. 
• Including communion, the whole service went 90 minutes.
• People stayed for coffee and cookies after.
• We just "had" our transitions.  We didn't spend a lot of time explaining them. 

It seemed people left the service energized.  I hadn't seen that for a long time.  Today, I'm working through a few things. 

• Is this a pattern we should keep? 
• If we continue limiting the song time and teaching segment, what will we gain?  What might we lose?
• What's the difference between a 30-minute song time and a 20-minute song time? (other than 10 minutes)
• What's the difference between a 40-minute teaching and a 25-minute teaching? (other than 15 minutes)

The "seller" for me was when our two guests both said they enjoyed the format.  The wildcard here is whether our people will embrace this model.  It's a lot of change at once.