Re: Tom Bandy Reflection Part 3 - Controllers

[Terry]

Darren,   You pose some very interesting questions but they don't appear so relevant from my position. To elaborate, ours is a small rural congregation made up of 20 members in total and roughly 12 of which are regular attendees I.e. weekly.  This would be quite normal in a lot of rural areas throughout Australia.  Because of this we don't have Ministers, insufficient income to support one, and rely on having our own ( which we do) Lay Ministry Team or sharing others.  Many communities are not so lucky as ours in that we have weekly services, not 2 weekly or even monthly as some.   Therefore, to the likes of us, I would suggest that without the controllers we wouldn't survive at all and that puts a different light on what Bandy is saying, to that which would apply to the larger regional or city based congregations. We are in a pure survival mode, with not a lot of choices, nor much in opportunities to increase our base.  Ours is an aging population, slightly above the norm.  We have around 60% of members over 80, 30% over 90, and rest between 40 to 60.   Whist I can see what Bandy is saying it doesn't matter here. What is more significant and yet little attention is paid to it, is helping us to survive in areas where GOD is still as important as ever,  or better still finding a new way or ways to somehow reach those to which the Lord instructed us.   I am sorry if this is appears as off topic but the questions posed are still important to us and the Church, just not at the top of our heap.  In fact your palliative care reflection struck me deeply because of our situation.  So answers to that might help us with answers to the current 4.  We have controllers for sure but without them in this instance we would have just another empty building probably for sale.   Hope I haven't rambled too much. I am enjoying the swim even tho I might be out of my depth.   Peace and blessings   Terry