Categories: uncategorized
Date: 26 July 2006 09:04:51
Christianity Today the American evo journal is one of those things that I recieve the e-updates from in an effort to try and understand the culture over there & quite often to just get a good laugh from.
This week there was a link to this story about Albany's Trinity Methodist church in the US who were opening up their space to a variety of youth for music events, taking donations at the door and as a result have gotten themselves taken to court for running an illegal nightclub.
Reading through the article is interesting because the general gist of it seems to be that the key problem is they were effectively reaching young people where the young people were, not forcing them to change either themselves or their lyrics in some way in order to enter the church. Also rather than taking "donations" inside the church or expecting the regular congregation to subsidise the event they were taking the donations at the door. To me this is successful outreach, and basically following the model of the gospel of taking people as they are rather than expecting them to change.
I am left wondering how many churches would have the courage that this one has shown and the success this one has had.