Worship Evangelism

Sally Morgenthaler several years ago wrote a book entitled "Worship Evangelism." She in recent years has begun to rethink that concept of worship evangelism.

A prevalent attitude began to permeate the church that screamed, "It's all about us." Were these worship-driven churches really attracting the unchurched? That question caused one church to conduct a survey of those who they were really reaching. The church was shocked. They thought their congregation was at least 50 percent unchurched. The real number was 3 percent.

Sally writes: "The contemporary church - including the praise-and-worship church, the worship evangelism church - was in a holy huddle, and I began to talk about it." She continues: "The 100-year-old congregation that's down to 43 members and having a hard time paying the light bill doesn't want to be told that the "answer" is living life with the people in their neighborhoods. Relationships take time, and they need an attendance infusion now."

Sally has now become "convinced that the primary meeting place with our unchurched friends is now outside the church building. Worship must finally become, as Paul reminds us, more life than event (Romans 12:1-2). To this end, we will be focusing on the radically different kind of leadership practices necessary to transform our congregations from destinations to conversations, from services to service, and from organizations to organisms."

If you are interested in reading the full article, it can be found at: www.allelon.org/articles/article.cfm?id=402. She has some interesting observations concerning the church and worship.