The Future of Circle Church
What was to be the future of Circle Church? We recognized that only God knew. We had a certain amount of security because we could project that we probably wouldn’t die tomorrow. But, we had also discovered that the principle of insecurity works to the Christian’s advantage—he realizes he needs God. We were aware of a total dependence upon the mercies of our Heavenly Father for everything, including the loose change in the petty cash envelope. There was no temptation to rest on the laurels of an efficient superstructure.
We need God! Whatever we would do in the coming days we hoped would be steps that push us always beyond our own limitations, for we would be in danger if we ever came to a place of too much security.
Would we ever have a building? Although we had seen the obvious advantages of impermanency, of non-ownership, we were not completely closed on this issue. We did realize that the city would never be touched through a continuation of the property-building-mortgage mind set—only by vital Christianity. If we had a structure of our own, it would have to be multi-purpose, with an auditorium that would function more than a few hours a week, certainly without pews. It would have to be community-oriented, perhaps house a performing arts center. Certainly it would not be “a holy place.”
Size was a big question mark. We had tapered off from our five hundred and settled into a more comfortable three hundred fifty to four hundred groove. It was interesting to note that some of the post-Zion members were asking, “Have you ever thought of starting a branch work?”
“Once before, we talked about it a great deal,” I would reply. At that moment the emphasis seemed to be on sharing with other churches what had happened in our corporate life, to be honest in our appraisal, to be encouraging in our lessons and successes. The book from which these blog posts have been taken was a first step, to be followed, we hoped, by seminars and a tape ministry. We had seen other works view our example—some in the hesitant copying of ideas (mostly emphasizing methodology), and others starting from scratch with a definition of philosophy.
One example of the latter was the Clearwater Community Church in Florida where people caught the vision from Sherm and Marti Williams, a part of our initial core group who moved out. Beginning at almost the same time as our Zion experiment, it was a successful balancing factor to our problem with Zion. Meeting in a junior college auditorium, using classrooms for discussion groups, pulling a mobile home into a parking lot to function as nursery facilities, they had been a Southern parallel to our Northern experience.
We watched with special interest as their growth matched ours, because their age group was ten to twenty years older than our own, with a larger number of “establishment” type people who were successful in their professions and many who were moneyed. Starting with Circle Church’s pattern, they developed their own distinct personality and—a major step in the deep South—they made plans to take on a African-American pastor in an attempt to establish an interracial congregation.
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Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?
Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?
David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.
We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.
For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.
You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.
