What is the main goal of having people to come together a few times a week to fellowship, worship and hear God’s word?
The short answer is to make people better. Not just better in one area of their lives but better in all areas of their lives.
Most people who come to church have several areas where they are not being their best selves. One of the most common areas is their work. This is where they spend the majority of their time from Monday to Friday. Some even work on Saturdays and Sundays.
This makes the workplace the number one target area where churches ought to improve the lives of their members. Many churches spend their time on teaching how church members can become better church members. But more attention needs to be on how church members can become better people at their place of work.
One of the most effective ways to grow your church is to create a stunning reputation of your church in the city or town that you are. And the best way to produce that stunning reputation is to have members that are stars in their different jobs, vocation or businesses.
Soon enough, someone will sum up all the workplace superstars and try to find out what they all have in common. And that will be your church. This will create amazing benefits and will bring honor to God’s name.
There are 4 ways to go about it:
1. Using Suggested Practice in Messages
This method is to include a suggestion to be practiced after every message. Many ministers get people’s emotions high and fail to leave them with a practical step to take.
Always give the church members something to try. Give them something to practice all week. And when the time comes to gather again, hold them accountable. Ask about people who tried it. In fact, you can give them an opportunity to discuss their results with the congregation.
Another advantage of this method is that people will come to associate their growth in life to the message from the podium. And that is very good for the church. It will make the church grow fast.
A person can find the message preached a little overwhelming. But when you leave out a suggested practice of what to do at the end of the message, it becomes something the members can try out regardless of their level of understanding.
Don’t make the suggested practice difficult. Make it so simple. Make it something very practicable to all members. And don’t suggest too many things at the same time. The best is to suggest just one thing to practice every day for the week.
2. Encourage Workplace Testimonies
Another way to encourage the progress of members at their workplace is to create a space for workplace testimonies. It is what you create a space for that grows.
The most basic element of growth is words. If you want more of a particular result, create an opportunity for sharing the result. Not once, not twice, not thrice, but repeatedly.
The faith of the people is built on words. And faith is built in the hearts of members by constant repetition of the wonderful results that could be theirs. If you encourage workplace testimonies, you will get more of it.
Workplace testimonies will make any stranger that walks into your church service have an instant grasp the result you help members get. The experience may not be up to their expectations but if they like the results they are seeing people share, they would want to come again.
3. Workplace Workshops
Now, you cannot turn your church services into a training for the workplace. This is because the services will lose a lot of other important aspects of fellowship and worship.
Instead, specific programs can be created to specifically minister to meet the need of workplace proficiency and productivity. These are workplace workshops.
Sometimes these workshops are designed to include the special skills in demand. But in most cases, they are general skills that enhance productive work. Skills such as time management, scheduling, allocation of resources, people management, leadership, and business development.
Workshops that teach skills like those mentioned help people to translate their beliefs into a behavior in their workplace. That behavior then generates results that they will treasure.
4. Celebrate workplace stars
Finally, a church that wants to grow the workplace effectiveness of their members must learn to celebrate workplace stars. Most churches celebrate committed church members. But they should also celebrate those getting good results in their workplace.
This is different from celebrating people in the working community. The church should celebrate workplace stars based on their results (through productivity) and based on their reputation. There are people with good results who don’t have a good reputation. Those are not the people you want to celebrate.
You know a person has a good reputation when non-members of the church who work with them testify of their character. The character at the place of work is just as important as the results.
Those with character and results deserve to be celebrated. The purpose is to encourage others to be like them.
Conclusion
Ministers should not ignore the assignment of making their church members better people at their place of work. This is where their light can shine to those they work with. ChurchPad’s products called People and Unified Communications are excellent choices you can adopt to manage these resources.
It is much easier to invite a coworker who doesn’t go to church to a productivity workshop organized by the church (maybe on a Saturday). Many who would reject a Sunday service invitation outright would consider a workplace workshop.
You can see how that can lead to massive church growth. Act on these things.
