Systematic Thinking Is Not Dead!!!

One of the joys of our reorganization at Risen Christ has been the creative thinking of our leadership team. They come to an understanding that one of the hindrances to our people growing was the "Jeopardy Sunday Topic of the Week!" For all of the benefits of the lectionary readings, one of the main problems is that it throws up a random thought of the week about God. People are trained in our culture to think systematically. Yet when we want to teach them the most important truths in creation, we do it in random fashion. We don't learn how to fix a car, plant a garden, or budget our income randomly. Why do we learn about God this way? What a great insight from a layperson!

Worse than this, we discovered that we were sending a dozen or more messages out each Sunday that did not fit together. The church sign said one thing, the hymns were on something different, the message was a third, the Sunday School material different from any of these, and if both parents went to different classes they might have five different topics in Sunday School.

The decision was made at Risen Christ to begin to channel everything to a single topic. The church sign, the songs, the message, Sunday school, both adult and children. What an unbelievable response. I have heard from many people who love being able to talk to their kids Sunday afternoon about the topic for the day, because they learned it well enough to be comfortable discussing it! Our consecutive Sundays are beginning to move systematically through issues of God and faith and people are connecting the dots! Discipleship is happening. People are learning and applying.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Systematic thinking is not dead in the church, but people are starving for lack of it in too many churches. I would challenge you to give it a try. I think you will be amazed at the response from people who honestly didn't know what they were missing, but knew they were missing something