This is a sincere question for church leaders out there. When you get a truly on-fire Christian who wants to get busy working in their community, using their gifts, and making a difference, what do you do with them? So many people assume it is the “backsliding,” “the lukewarm,” or the “disengaged” who leave church or “church hop” but I have often found the opposite. I have seen many passionate and convicted Christians who find they just have no place their church.
What About Those of Us Tired of Spectating
Church service is largely a spectator activity. What about those of us wanting to work? Do you have programs for discipling people into leaders? Do have training and understanding for helping people discover, identify, and grow their gifts and talents? Do you raise up teachers, writers, and speakers; or are only a few, or even one, ever allowed behind the podium? Do you help people of complementary talents connect with each other? Is the only way to get “involved” in your church volunteering as an usher or Sunday School? SOURCE: For Church Leaders: Do Active Christians Have a Place In Your Church? | Yaholo Hoyt | Red Letter Christians.
RJ's Corner - Having My Say 
Rod, you and I are on the same page. Amazing to find someone, who observes and sees things like I see. We were cut from different cookie cutters for sure. Sometimes, I think some churches want to preserve the same order of things as it is safer that way. I taught in schools where teachers were admired for their bulletin boards and their handwriting on the blackboard. Teachers,who taught outside the box, were observed as unusual or never mentioned by their colleagues.
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Yeah, outside the box is the place to be. That is if you are not searching for accolades.
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I would suggest that the church service is a participant activity not a spectator activity. Worship is meant to be a group process. Christians are advised to pray, worship, read scripture AND work for social justice. Most good churches give opportunities for all of those, and most good churches offer alternatives. Having said, I would ask if the person who is interested stepped forward, or are they waiting to have others take over leadership. If you want a book group, start a book group. If you think there should be a group for teens, start one. Don’t just complain that none is there. And finally, I would suggest that very few people have only one church. find one that works for you.
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Thanks for the comments Barb. The quote above is from one of the bloggers over at Red Letter Christians. But I do kind of agree that doing church service is spectator activity in that it is about you and not serving others as Jesus taught us so much about. There is nothing wrong with praying, worshiping and reading, its just that “doing church” for many that is the total exposure to Christian week.
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Barb, I used to think that too, but after twenty years of attempting to share my talents in four different churches I came to the conclusion I came from a different understanding of church involvement. I felt like Goldilocks looking for the right bed in the bears’ house to sleep in or selecting the right porridge to eat. The most interesting thing when I discontinued attending any of the area churches, rarely did anyone notice that I was no longer involved. So, it goes.
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