QUESTION:

Your church and Ministry should survive and remain relevant inspite of the challenges that globalization has thrust on her to avoid being relegated to the periphery of irrelevance and forgetfulness. Suggest in not less than 3 pages the area that your church and ministers need to repackage themselves.

INTRODUCTION:
In order to avoid being relegated to the periphery of irrelevance and forgetfulness in church and ministry, I suggest that there should be repackaging in the following areas in my church:1) Replacing antiquity with modern facilities: In this era of globalization, any church that is backward in terms of utilities and facilities is bound to lose members. For example, a church that is still using local gong and wooden drum in contrast with the latest musical instrument may not attract the younger generation. Moreover, the use of benches in church is becoming archaic. Hence a pastor who knows his onus should strive to at least go for plastic chairs. The aestatic view of the church plays an important role in bringing members to the church. In most modern churches, wireless mega and microphones are in use. A minister who does not want to phase out must imbibe the culture of replacing the old with the new to meet up with the challenging changes to affect the globe. 2) Repackaging in the area of Information Technology: There is the need for my local church to wake up to the challenges of Information Technology. Gone are the days when a preacher
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photocopies his sermon to distribute to the congregation. The technology of the now demands that as you are preaching the sermon, interested members are downloading the message into their systems. At a click of button, the information concerning the minister and his church appears on the screen through internet aided channels. The use of portals, websites, facebook, etc. are the order of the day now. The world is on the fast lane of Information Technology and so the church should key into this as a medium of evangelism. The minister through the aid of computer can send messages across to the members without writing on the notice board. A minister should not insist on the old method of disseminating of information so as to be relevant to the society. 3) Repackaging in our attitude to wealth: There was this erroneous teaching about the poor in spirit and so the people of God took it hook line and sinker. At the inception of the denomination I come from Assemblies of God Church, they refused to acquire lands and property on the premise that Jesus was coming soon and that acquisition of worldly goods would prevent them from serving the Lord faithfully. A balance should be struck between extremity and depravity. The church should change her mentality over wealth with full knowledge that God delights in the prosperity of his people. Up till today, the older generation of Assemblies of God Church tags any preacher who favours riches as Prosperity Preacher. I advocate that my church should embrace prosperity and riches as Gods blessing and see poverty as limitation to gospel expansion.
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4)

Repackaging in dressing code: A sinner in the contemporary society wants to see the beauty of Jesus in the life of a preacher before he accepts his message. Decency they say is no pride. Poverty and shabby dressing code is not synonymous to holiness. Most ladies in the 80s could not get a helpmate because of the shabby dress code that was prevalent then. Ladies who permed their hair were seen as sinners, jewelries were a taboo for any Christian in the south. People preached vehemently against adornment other than plaiting with thread. Let a minister teach his congregation about dressing well. Wherever you see a banker, you must identify him as one, so also other professionals. Why should the church package itself to the world in such a dehumanitizing manner that everywhere in the world today the adage as poor as a church rat is used derogatorily against the church? I hereby advocate that the church should dress as the bride in other words elegantly and beautifully adorned. I also want to stress here that holiness is not tied together with 24 hour use of head-gay, neither is it in wearing long-sleeves. Excessive tying of head-gay makes the hair to smell.

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Repackaging in our message: Most ministers do not present the gospel in a way that express biblical truth. For instance, a minister who ministers condemnation to his audience every now and then without showing them a possible way out of their predicament is not preaching the gospel of peace. The good news of the gospel should be relevant to the needs of the man both spirit, soul and body.

In as much as we are not to water down the truths of the Bible, we should at the same time appeal to the conscience of the sinner to come to Christ through his perceived needs and then to his actual need which is the salvation of his soul. In the local church where I worship, a minister climbed the pulpit and announced that anyone who went outside during the church service to buy either pure water or snacks would go to hell. The elites in that congregation who for health reason or the other must need to buy snacks were shut out of the kingdom by that pronouncement. I do not personally agree to this based on my knowledge of the word of God and so our message should be comforting to the souls of men.