Comments for blog.limedaley.com/post/total-church-church-planting

Comment #2630

2010-04-06T02:25:37Z

There hasn't been a captcha on this blog for a year or two... :) Captchas stopped working two or three years ago, but somehow some people haven't heard that, and keep using them.

Computers have a higher success rate than humans do now, so they are completely worthless, or actually, worse than worthless. I personally fail captchas at probably a 20% rate.

LifeType uses badbehavior, which works pretty well, though we had to turn off some of the tests, as it was causing humans to fail occasionally. And then hiddeninput is the other main one, plus the bayesian filter that we've always had.

The great thing about hidden input is that it is impossible for a human to fail (and you don't even know it exists unless you look at the HTML source). And so far, most computers fail it; and I suspect that most of the spam that gets through it is done by humans getting paid $.05/comment or something like that, and there isn't anything you can do for that, except maybe to have a registration requirement which is really annoying, and I don't read blogs that require registration to comment.

Comment #2629

2010-04-06T00:25:44Z

I'm a fan of this "smaller" church concept. Good post.

PS. Where did the captcha go?

Comment #2628

2010-04-05T14:32:50Z

I partially agree about the A,B,C groups and I've enjoyed my birthday parties when people from different circles of friends of mine have gotten together. And it is neat to see people remembering each other from previous years, and continuing conversations from where they left off.

But, given that most people don't have much time for other people, I think that a good way for more interaction is to have the same (or similar) groups of people in different activities. I've wondered if that is one thing that makes Hillsboro a more closely knit community - if you are interested in a barbershop quartet, you have one choice, and a large number of those people are going to go to certain churches, since those churches have more musical things going on. If you are interested in sports, you are going to show up on Saturday mornings, when the *only* sports opportunities are available (at least for the younger kids). If you are active in your kids' education (not counting home schooling) you will likely be going to the one public school available, since the private schools are far away, and so you'll be interacting with the set of parents that care about their children's education.

And since there is only one hardware store, etc. you'll get to know those people more as you visit them, rather than spreading out the visits to other stores based on cost, or convenient location, etc.

I used to say that people needed to live within 5 or 10 minutes driving distance to actually see each other, because after that, once you are in the car, it is mostly the same whether you drive 11 or 20 minutes. There is a bit more barrier to driving 45 for some people, though I tend to ignore that distance for our family.

But, I've changed that statement, and now say that the availability of community is defined by walking distance and then which grocery store you shop at, and after that, it is all the same, as far as driving distance/seeing each other is concerned.

Simply shopping at the same store doesn't force community, but it does provide more opportunities, and the more "forced" interactions (as in a small town, with limited choices of activities) there are, the more likely you will have community, whatever the personality types, though obviously some people are happier being by themselves than others.

Comment #2627

2010-04-05T10:33:07Z

In general I agree that small churches are best. Our church, while hardly big, has four services each Sunday, and it's very easy to lose track of people in the "other" services. I've never liked splitting the church into two, much less four.

That said, there are reasons for having larger group; it's important for a group to be the right size for its purpose, but the right size for something isn't always "small." So there needs to be a good way for small communities to join together periodically. I remember a friend's complaint about her small town, that there were many churches, each trying to have everything its members needed, and all struggling because they were just too small. If they would only work together, she said, they could have had very effective programs. But they were different denominations....

Working closely together with other congregations might also help achieve diversity; one problem with very small churches is the tendency to be homogeneous.

I'm also wondering if there isn't something to having a more fluid definition of church. It's important to have a fellowship of mutual commitment and dependable structure, and not flit from one place to another. (Solid leadership and structure are like medical care: when you're healthy, having a good doctor isn't all that important, but when you're sick it could be critical.) But the idea of "this one congregation is my one and only church" makes me claustrophobic. The Church is all Christians, and a situation in which one worships regularly with Congregation A but -- both internally and externally to that -- has a Bible study with Group B and builds Habitat for Humanity houses with Group C and makes music with Group D and plays baseball with Group E and does all of these things with an eye to Christian fellowship...I think that's a good thing.