Spiritual Assessment Teaser

Bob commented on the last post…

“If it’s not already in the works, I think a really cool component to the SeqHim library would be some kind of resources on how to phrase questions, how to calculate what kinds of questions to ask certain types of people, and how to take a conversation and come up with pointed questions on the fly. Clearly there won’t be a cookie cutter, formula approach, but it might be a useful tool for people to develop…this art of questioning!”

…and it reminded me of some very early discussions we had on spiritual assessment.  What tools are available?  Are they effective?  What would be the purpose?  Is it even appropriate?

After much discussion, brainstorming, etc we landed on yet another mind map.  You can access it here: assessment-questions-v02.

You’ll find that it is a mind map of questions that could be used to determine where a person is in their walk with Christ and how they got to where they are.  The information gathered would then be used to help them decide where to go next.  It’s not a form or a questionnaire…it literally is a mental model…a graph.  You don’t necessarily “interview” people…you just keep these questions in your mind and ask them when you need the information.

Anyway, I don’t have time to write-up the details this morning, but after reading Bob’s comments, I thought it might be good to share as is.  Would love to hear your feedback!

What is the purpose of a weekend church service?

There were several good and unique responses to the last post re: the “would you give up your seat in an easter service so someone else could have it” hypothetical scenario.  It’s actually a less hypothetical scenario than you might think.  I ran across a good friend of mine who was considering exactly that, and I was a little taken aback just because I had never really thought about it that way.

I thought about simply adding my comments to the last post, but decided to post what I think is an underlying and perhaps more important question.  I believe how you answer this question drives your response to the last question, so I’d like to pose it explicitly:

What, exactly, is the purpose of a weekend church service?

Note that the question is not, “what is the purpose of the local church”…I’m focusing in specifically on weekend services.  Why do we invest in them?  Why do we attend them?  What value do they bring?  What is the benefit?

What do you think?

Would it be better to stay home for Easter?

Here’s the situation.  You are attending a church that from Sunday to Sunday is approaching capacity.  Easter is only a few weeks away, and the church is working hard to pull as many of the “Easter crowd” to their services as possible.  They’ve added a couple of services to the weekend, but there is still concern that there will be enough space (especially in the child care areas) to hold everyone.  You are genuinely concerned that the church may have to turn people away due to the lack of space on Easter morning.

Here’s the question.  Do you consider keeping your family of five home to make room for Easter visitors? 

Very curious to hear your thoughts!

Bitnami