From Christian Week (via Jordon Cooper)
The Meeting House, a Brethren In Christ multi-site congregation that calls itself a “church for people who aren’t into church,” regularly invites those who don’t want to “get in” to their church by making a demonstrable commitment, to “get out.”
Known to church staff by the tongue-in-cheek label “purge Sundays,” the invitation “to get in or get out” is viewed as a mechanism to address “Christian tourism.”
Teaching pastor Bruxy Cavey admits “purge Sundays” were his idea. “Evangelical Christians can be a trendy bunch, always looking for the good deal and where the action is,” he explains. “The more we have grown as a church, the more we have attracted tourists who come to check us out and will attend for some time, but never consider The Meeting House their home church. We don’t think that’s healthy for them — to be a voyeur on church life, rather than a healthy, active, committed participant in church life.
“So we started to ask them to leave.”
Started in 1986, The Meeting House began to experience rapid growth in 1998. Development pastor Rich Birch told ChristianWeek last fall that thousands of new people visit the church each year. Birch said at the time that over half of the congregation of 2,000 (spread over four sites) was made up of people who had not yet committed themselves to Christ, or who had done so only within the last two years.
Since Cavey arrived in 1996, “purge Sundays” have been held once or twice a year, devoting the teaching time to challenging people to turn from being church “consumers” to being “contributors.” A typical purge sermon (or mini-series of two to three sermons) walks listeners through the biblical basis of what normative Christian life in community should look like.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
I’ve been on the pastoral staff at two churches who routinely practice this, Cornwall Church and Christ the King Community Church, both in Bellingham, Washington.
Both churches are larger congregations, with plenty of “Christian tourism”.
Bob Marvel, the pastor of Cornwall Church, once summed it up really well. He said that there are two kinds of people that should be attending church… The first is that group of committed disciples of Christ who see this as a passion and a duty, as a service and a source of being served. The second group are those who are investigating Christ and His claims.
The exceptions to the rule are:
– Anyone who has been hurt in the past by their church and are now looking for a new “home”.
– Anyone on pastoral/ministry staff at another church who comes on an “off” night of their church to get to sit through a service.
– Those who are in the process of re-committing their lives to the Lord.
At the time, I didn’t agree at all with what he said in this sermon. As time has gone by, and as I have matured, I’ve begun to agree.