Easter Study 2006

Click on the book cover and download the file...

Home Study Series

 

Resurrection hope of the Faith Community: a call to begin again...

April 25

Achtung! / Warning! / Peligro!

  1. In what ways might you agree that the Church is dying? Be specific with examples. Are these examples true for your congregation?

  2. What evidence do you have that the Church is not dying? Be specific with examples. Are these examples true for your ­congregation?

  3. How has the Church/your congregation fostered, supported, and challenged your spiritual needs in the last five years?

  4. Are there ways or specific incidents in which the Church has been a stumbling block to your spiritual development?

  5. How would you describe your spirit? Your spiritual needs?

  6. What would it mean for your congregation if the LIVING GOD was transforming through death and resurrection?

  7. If you could magically wave a wand and make them happen, what things in your congregation would you
    a) delete,
    b) add, and
    c) change?
    Why?

From SNAFU to FUBAR

  1. What technology are you using now at home that you weren’t using five years ago? (Digital TV, VCR, phone, pager, car accessories, e‑mail, voicemail?)

  2. What technology is your congregation using now that it wasn’t using five years ago?

  3. What services now come to you via e‑mail, Internet, mail, or phone rather than requiring you to go to them? (Bank, stamps, book ordering, shopping via catalogue/Internet ...?)

  4. What does your congregation offer that takes services to people rather than requiring them to come to it?

  5. How does the way your children are educated differ from the way you were educated?

  6. What is the deepest, most pressing spiritual issue for you at this stage of your life? Do you feel it is addressed by your church? How or why not?

  7. What other things in your life outside the church address your spiritual needs? (TV programs, movies, books, discussion groups, friends, people at work, work itself ...?)

  8. If you could redesign the structure of your congregation, what would it look like?

  9. What exactly is the mission of your church? What is its vision for the next ten years?

  10. If it is true that “where your money is, there will your heart be also,” then where is the “heart” of your church? What does it really value? (Look at the budget. Follow the money.)

  11. Are there “liberal” or “fundamentalist” groups in your congregation? How are they related to the church?

  12. What are the top three hottest political conflicts in your church? Why do they matter?

  13. You come to the church next Sunday and, instead of the building, there is only a vacant lot with a note tacked to a board. It is from God and says: “The church you have always known no longer exists. It is dead and gone. Now go. Make a new one.”  What would that look like?