The Comfort Zone

Mark Driscoll in his new book describes the place that most church eventually find themselves in if they don’t continually reinvent them selves to do what ever it takes to reach the unchurched. What are you doing to reinvent yourself to make an impact?

The comfort zone is the place a church commonly falls into once they have learned how to survive. This is the state of most American churches, with between 60 and 80 percent of all churches in America either plateaued or declining in membership and/or attendance. In the comfort zone, often there is no longer a visible immediate crisis since the bill are paid, most of the big jobs are being done by someone, leaders are officially in place, a permanent facility has been secured, and the people in the church have generally grown to know and love one another. At his stage, the propensity is for the church to settle in, accept its size, and slip into a mode of maintenance. At some point, people will move away or die, others will get bored, and slowly the church will begin a cycle of decline unless it intentionally reinvents itself missionally to continue to grow by taking risks in an effort to reach lost people for Jesus.