Onus

Tell them coming in, "This probably isn't the church you are looking for, but it could be with your help. You can create whatever it is you feel is missing."

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The burden of 'making the church something special' falls on the members of the church, not on the leaders.

However, church leaders often short-circuit that reality by taking the burden upon themselves; attempting to 'create an experience' for church members, instead of leading the church into a common life with God, each other, and the wider culture.

As leaders, the onus is on us to explain, to nurture, to illuminate, to guide, to equip, to empower... but the onus of 'doing church' is on the community as a whole, and on the individual christian specifically.

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We must welcome new people into our communities, not with attempts at assuaging their consumer interests, but with opportunities to participate in God's Project. As leaders we should not be thinking of the tools we might use to minister to our congregation, but rather of the tools we might hand our congregations with which they can get to work.