Barnabas File

When I receive promotion pieces or e-mails advertising conferences and resources on assimilating people into the church, I think about the Borg on Star Trek:   The Next Generation:   “Resistance is futile.   You will be assimilated.”   This may be unfair, but I wonder how ready people are to be assimilated.   Does the very term threaten one’s individuality?   Does this mean that the person will have to give up something and become less of what God created him or her to be in order to become part of the congregation? What if we turned this around?   In Organic Community , Joseph Myers suggests that we should ask the question, “How does the church assimilate itself into people’s lives?”   The church will have a more robust ministry and will be more deeply invested in the larger community if it becomes part of believers’ everyday lives.   Rather than trying to get unchurched people into the doors of the church so that they can be exposed ...