When people ask me about what it is like to be pastor at Amazing Grace. I often use this analogy. We are a specialty store in the shadow of Big Box Retail giants. Like every analogy, it isn’t perfect. Connecting our faith to business is not ideal, but it does convey what we are up against.
Amazing Grace is the specialty store. We occupy a unique corner on the Christian spectrum, namely Lutheranism, which comes with a community of about 200 people, a community with traditions and history connected to a denomination relatively new to this region of the country.
Furthermore, Amazing Grace exists in the proximity of a few of the biggest churches in Georgia: 12 Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Grace Fellowship in Snellville (this one is the closest, just down Ronald Reagan from us) and the ever-expanding North Point with Andy Stanley. These are effective ministries with huge budgets and lots of programing.
Here is a list of the biggest churches in Georgia.
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/cgi-bin/mega/db.pl?db=default&uid=default&view_records=1&ID=*&sb=4&State=GA
About 25% of the churches on this list are located within reasonable driving distance of the area our membership lives in.
Like the big box retailers who can offer more selections at a more reasonable price than the little specialty store, how are we going to compete with these giants?
That’s an important question that we need to figure out soon. And I submit that the answer lies in accepting the fact we can’t compete (“compete” is an admittedly limited term since we are on the same “team” as these churches).
We can’t go toe-to-toe with Grace Fellowship in Snellville. We cannot be all things to all people.
We will need to do what specialty shops do. Specialize. We need to hone the question as to why we are here and what we are doing. Because if we aren’t focused, we will just slowly fade away, I am saddened to tell you.
Focusing is a challenge, since being more focused means certain aspects of ministry will not be the same, will suffer as a result. And everyone here has a stake in most every aspect of our ministry, since otherwise that given ministry wouldn’t happen. That’s what makes this question difficult for a tightly-knit, volunteer organization such as ours.
But if we don’t focus, our future will be one of slow decline.
Further Consideration:
Youtube video: How to explain simple church on a napkin in less than 2 minutes.
Youtube video – The Future of the Church. Some impressive church thinkers mull this question. It’s a long video, but worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq0BIthE78Y