growth
When a church starts growing there arise many questions about its future direction.
"How to we keep getting bigger by leading new people to Christ while still helping existing believers grow into strong witnesses "?
"Is focusing on adding to the weekly attendance as important as serving the people we already have"?
"If the church gets 'too large' will we lose the feeling of relationship and contact with the staff ministers"?
These are all relevant questions every growing church needs to address. The goal is to make sure that we grow bigger without turning into yet another mega-church where everyone is a stranger. We have developed a systematic plan in place to keep getting bigger as a congregation while getting closer with smaller groups that work and learn together.
What we want to avoid is having a church full of believers who can't understand basic biblical concepts, stories, and theology. If people actually only come for the top notch music and because it makes people comfortable with their lifestyle we will have failed in our mission to change the world.
We split our ministry into two categories, Inreach and Outreach.
Inreach is where we focus on developing the people that God has already sent us spiritually, intellectually, and by doing ministry (gaining experience).
Outreach is our strategic use of media, relationships, and life situtations to lead new people in the community to a relationship with Christ.
Inreach Ministries
Reading the Bible in 90 Days. According to the Barna Group only 23% of people who say they are Christian read the Bible every day. In many congregations there are few if any Christians who have read the entire Bible in a systematic way. We understand that you can catch some of the Bible every week as you listen to a preacher, but we feel it does not replace personal Bible reading.
It's our observation that when life comes against you and Satan starts messing with you, we should follow the example of Jesus when He was tempted in the wilderness and KNOW YOUR SCRIPTURE. You should know what the scripture REALLY says about the situtation your facing without having to run to a "professional" minister for every question and problem in your Christian walk.
Our goal is to develop you into a independent and mature Christian. Every 90 Days we begin at Genesis and finish at the last verse in Revelation. We read 12 pages a day so you can easily become a master of Biblical understanding in six months to a year. Every time you read through the Bible you will find new things to research in your personal time and find yourself needing new tools like concordances, commentaries, and other things that will accelerate your level of intellectual and spiritual knowledge above and beyond Christians who are haphazard about their understanding of the Bible.
The early church met in both small groups and in larger congregational groups. As we grow larger we will soon get to the point where everyone doesn't know every one else, like they would in a smaller "family" church. Our way of preventing Harvest Temple from becoming another mega-church that is full of strangers is small group ministry. We ask that everyone be part of at least one small group that meets regularly. We have divided our small groups into 3 types.
We have "Study Groups", "Play Groups", and "Ministry Groups". By having all 3 types of groups we feel we can balance the needs for fellowship, personal development, and doing ministry in the community.
Study Groups form to learn about a specific subject (biblical prophecy, a specific biblical book, or how to grow in a specific way). A example of a study group would be a 8 week study of the Book of Romans or a 6 week training group to learn how to share the Gospel with friends and Family.
Play Groups are to make friends, have fun, and bring friends as a pre-evangelism opportunity. This can be anything from a group of guys who meet regularly to play basketball to a group of ladies who love to do craft projects together on a "Mommy's Night Off" event.
Ministry Groups are where we get together to do outreach/evangelism, community improvement events, and do the job of the church in the world.
At Harvest Temple we believe in combining fasting and prayer. Fasting isn't required for salvation or being a good Christian, we don't teach legalism or create guilt for our members with Christian disciplines like fasting or abstaining from non-sinful pleasures. We believe the Holy Spirit will lead people to do things out of a hunger to get closer to God by putting our emotions and desires under control.
We fast from food as a form of personal sacrifice to bring ourselves in tune with the Holy Sprit. Many Christians never fast with a purpose during their life and they typically lack power in the Gifts of the Spirit. Many of the most powerful Christians in history like John Wesley, the Early Church Fathers, and George Whitfield fasted to seperate themselves from the daily passions that rule our lives and have God work in them powerfully. We fast one day a week (usually Tuesday), one week a month, and for those who have the faith and doctors approval one month a year as God leads them. We either do juice fasting where we only consume natural fruit juices or water fasting where we avoid everything except water. We are willing to state that the job of reaching South East Houston is too big for us. We need God's miracles and His gifts to be used in us to reach our field of harvest. Its our hope that you will take the challenge and fast for a day or week and see the amazing things God starts doing in your life.
Outreach Ministries
We believe that the field is ripe for harvest. Its our belief that yesterday, today, and going forward into tomorrow God's Holy Spirit is actively working on people for a life change. Some people are going through hard times like divorce, death of a loved one, or need healing in their body and our church intends to be there to help them.
Tonight, its our belief that someone is sitting sadly in front of their TV late at night, and feeling hollow in their materialisic lifestyle... wondering... "Is this all there is to life?".
It's our belief that if we are proactive and contact as many people as possible consistently, some people will be ready to hear the message of God's love.
That's where systematic outreach by media, mail, telephone, and personal contact come in. We systematically train our congregation to be able to share the Gospel of Christ.
The Apostle Paul had to risk bandits, drowning in wooden ships, and the hardships of meeting strangers in a new town when starting a local church.
In today's day and age we have many tools that allow us to reach tens of thousands of people in our area. We have a machine that leaves a few thousand voice mails per day with invitations to the church, we pick up the phone and regularly call people who have shown a interest in the church, we use the postal system and e-mail to keep everyone in touch. We wonder what Paul would do with the amazing, near magical tools we have available to us at a low cost. It's our belief that there is no technology, technique or tool that is off limits or unable to be used to spread the message of Christ's Kingdom.
While we sometimes knock door in the old school style, we typically will use the phones since with predictive dialing equipment we can reach hundreds of people per hour with a invitation to our next big event at the church. We get together regularly with our "Contact the Community" outreach to meet people over the phone.
Its our goal at The Growing Church to develop a local television and radio program in the near future. We are currently in the process of developing a program with Comcast Cable of Houston.
Its our goal to use the Internet wisely and effectively. When people type in "Baytown Church" or some variation of that search we should be on the top page by using Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click, and having a website that capture information from interested people. We always have a need for people who can assist us in our multi-media and internet ministries. We are always trying to find more efficent methods to keep in contact with our congregation and prospective Christians. We maintain and update our database, email lists, and syndicated content like sermons. As we grow we look forward to meeting people who can help take us to the next level in mass communications.