Our home church back in Washington, DC had a great model of doing church in the marketplace. They wanted to be approachable to the churched, unchurched, and dechurched. This is one of the reasons they meet in movie theaters across the metro area.
A while back, one of my Kenyan friends shared his dream of opening the Kenyan slum version of a movie theater, a 'video show' - a shack with a TV and a DVD player. Ever since, we have talked and prayed about how this business idea could also be used for ministry. This type of church venue could be especially effective in reaching the late teens and twenty somethings, many of whom see the church as the boring thing their grandma and mom go to for four hours on Sunday. Meeting in a movie theater is a culturally relevant way to share the gospel.
Now we are considering how to go about it all. How do you partner the for profit business with the Kingdom mission of it as a church? Most of all we need God to provide someone who knows this generation and knows Jesus and wants to introduce the two.
4/28 Update:
Today, I met with my two friends living in Kawangware and their pastor. We discussed the possibility of the twenty somethings starting a ministry/church using a movie theater as their meeting place. They loved the concept and thought that it could be very effective in Nairobi's slums. They are going to go draft up what they envision the business and ministry could look like. Glad to see them taking the initiative. For this to work, it must be their ideas and motivations pushing the concept, not mine. The NCC team coming in May could be very helpful in getting those planting the church to think critically about who they are trying to reach and how best to do it. They are a creative and experimental lot. Heck it is one of the church's core values.
Here is a picture of a video show (movie theater) in a rural area of Kenya. It is similar to ones found in Nairobi...
No comments:
Post a Comment