BusinessWeek’s cover story says Wal-Mart isn’t doing so well. They’re still growing, but not nearly like they were in earlier years. One reason: they’ve built so many stores that people are switching from one store to a newer one closer to them. New stores are cannibalizing existing stores.

Kinda like churches, I suppose.

Most church plants start with the intention of reaching the unreached. But too often, they morph into “just another church.” I’ve feared that about my own church. I think we’re reaching a lot of what my pastor calls “dechurched” people–folks with a church background, but who stopped attending for some reason. Are we touching, in any way, the never-churched who live around us? I don’t know. We continue attracting new people, and even this Sunday, I could look out on the congregation and see plenty of people whose stories I didn’t know.

Who is going after the hardcore pagans? The seriously lost non-Christians? I’m not sure I can name you a church in Fort Wayne that is doing that. Not that I’m an expert on Fort Wayne’s churches. But if such a church existed, I think I would probably know about it.

I live in Aboite, the affluent southwest side of Fort Wayne. We have two megachurches in Aboite–Emmanuel and The Chapel. I suspect that whenever a new church starts in Aboite, that they draw at least a few people away from Emmanuel and The Chapel. Every new church needs a core group (I guess?), and you gotta get it from someplace. That’s how Anchor started, with a core group from Emmanuel.

The Aboite churches can grow just from the continual influx of new people moving into the area. Are any growing primarily by reaching non-Christians? I don’t know. The same thing can be asked of Anchor’s community. We’ve developed a good relationship with four other churches in our zip code. Good churches with good people. But are any of us reaching the hard-core lost? Or do too many people in our zip code simply circulate, over the years, between the various churches? Just wondering.

Tonight we held our fourth community Lenten service, this one at the Mennonite church. I had never before really noticed the Church of Christ, the Presbyterian church, or this Mennonite church. Nor have I noticed the Methodist church where we’ll be next week. That’s pretty sad. These are fellow churches trying to reach our community, and I’ve been insulated from them. Sad.

But we’re getting past that. We’re learning a lot about each other, and that we have much in common.

I appreciated the Mennonite pastor and what he told us about Mennonite history and beliefs. Their pacifist stand is, obviously, a central piece of their puzzle. I do appreciate how the Mennonites are consistent in their pro-life ethic, as opposed to us “Republican evangelicals” who mix-and-match, depending on what our religious leaders tell us to believe–be anti-abortion but pro-death penalty, for instance. The Mennonites are consistent.

We United Brethren, with half of our roots being in the Mennonite tradition and half in the German Reformed, like it both ways when it comes to military service: it’s okay to fight, and it’s okay to be a conscientious objector. Me? There are aspects of pacifism that I just can’t reconcile (like: “How should we have responded to Pearl Harbor?” and other questions that Mennonites probably get tired of hearing). I’m fine with “just war” scenarios (yes to Afghanistan, no to Iraq, though I favored going there initially). I guess if I spent more time with Mennonites and heard their responses to my objections, understanding might occur. Heaven forbid.

I didn’t realize the “diaspora” element of being a Mennonite. To avoid compulsory military service, their people have moved from country to country. One nation might exempt them from military service, but a century later, some new regime takes over that “knows not Joseph.” And so, they have to either find a new country, or accept military service. That was very interesting to me.

These five churches are holding a joint Vacation Bible School for the second year. Last year it was at the Presbyterian church. This year the Mennonites will host it.

As we all ate together in their downstairs fellowship hall, it struck me that many people, particularly fundamentalists, would be highly suspect of what we’re doing. That amidst ecumenicalism, compromise and watering-down inevitably happens. Even some of you readers are looking at this warily. Aren’t you?

Last night at church we did something intensely cool. We held a joint get-together with four other churches in our neighborhood: Grace Presbyterian, Trinity United Methodist, First Mennonite, and North Highlands Church of Christ. To make a difference in our neighborhood, it makes great sense, from a strategic standpoint, to join forces with other churches which want to make a difference. This is a baby step in that direction.

Actually, the first baby step came last spring, when Pastor Tim sent a letter to these pastors inquiring about working together. We held a joint Vacation Bible School last summer. And now, we’re going further during Lent.

For five Sunday nights, starting last night, we are holding a joint service at a different church. Anchor got things started last night. With the icy weather, the Oscars, and the big Chris Tomlin-Matt Redmon concert at Blackhawk Baptist Church, we didn’t have high hopes. We figured 50 would be a good number. But we ended up pretty much filling our basement fellowship hall with 75-80 people.

Grace Presbyterian, led by the delightful Pastor Barb (that’s her on the right, taking photos, beside Pastor Tim), sent a big contingent. I spent a lot of time with them, and thoroughly enjoyed them. One young man, Steve, is a former atheist who became a Christian and, this summer, is headed for seminary. He hopes to eventually work in campus ministry, perhaps with Campus Crusade or InterVarsity.

Honestly, I don’t know much about Presbyterians. Haven’t had much contact with them during my 50 years, and have heard labels like “mainline” and “liberal” thrown their way (as if all Presbyterian groups are alike). We conservative evangelicals are adept at creating labels to separate us from other groups (though fundamentalists can be downright diabolical at it). We want to avoid contaminating our pure theology, I guess. I don’t think Jesus is too crazy about separatist attitudes.

The pastors agreed on a format for each evening. So last night, we started with a soup and dessert meal. Then we sang three songs which come out of our church’s tradition–in our case, “Take My Life and Let it Be” (though we Anchorized it with the Chris Tomlin version), “I’ll Fly Away,” and “This Little Light of Mine.” For the latter, when we got to the verse which says, “Shine all over Third Street” (where Anchor is located), we had each church insert their own church’s street. That was neat. Tim and Terry played guitars and sang, I played the piano, and Marsha sang.

After those three songs, Tim spoke informally and with lots of humor about Anchor and our denomination–theology, ministries, history, etc. It set a great tone.

Next week we’re at North Highlands Church of Christ. I can hardly wait. In reaching our neighborhood, the most strategic relationships we can develop are not with other United Brethren churches in Fort Wayne, but with other churches, regardless of affiliation, located in our neighborhood. We’ll discover which ones share our heart for really making an impact. This can only lead to good things.

The United Brethren church began when a Mennonite minister and a German Reformed minister, discovering that they shared the same spiritual passions, declared, “We are brethren.” I think they’d be pleased with what happened last night at Anchor.

Well, we finally got some snow. This has sure been an easy winter.

The first service was a bit down, because of the snow. Just a cozy 25 people. Tim improvised in a fun way. Our sanctuary has a dozen rows of chairs down the middle, and then three round tables on both sides. People enjoy sitting around the tables. Tim had everyone gather on one side, and we pushed the three tables together.

The worship team was all ready to start into our music package, but it didn’t seem right. We’d be facing straight out at the sanctuary, while everyone was off to the side around the tables. So we just skipped the music. Instead, Tim distributed hymnals (which we squirrel away in a back room) and let people pick out hymns to sing. A real blast from the past. I sat at the grand piano, hoping I would know the hymns. I knew all but one (and I probably knew that one–I just couldn’t get the tune in my head).

People picked hymns like “A Shelter in the Time of Storm,” “Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee,” “Ring the Bells of Heaven,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “Praise Him Praise Him,” and another five or so. First and last verse of each. It was fun.

We shared around the tables, and then Tim gave an abbreviated version of his sermon, sans Powerpoint slides.

It was an enjoyable service. A memorable one. It’s nice to improvise.