So, perhaps really just trying to break the ice, I said: "Well, I see that your church sanctuary could seat about 300 people - but somehow you have managed to 'grow' it down to 30. But - not to despair: Jesus only had 12 or so to start with!"
Pressing on, I asked: "What would it take . . . what kind of church would prepare and send out 30 missioners this week, rather than those 30, or their leaders at least, ruing the fact that 'golly, we only have 30 people around here anymore to 'run the church?'"
Could this church be perhaps one - perhaps the only church in this community, that is preparing it's people to go, or at least 'as they go' - to be missioners - as opposed to paying some pastoral leader(s) to do religious things (trying to get congregants to help - though mostly ducking when the nominating committee draws night) - paying some or committing ourselves to doling out religious goods and services on our turf (ie. the local church building), when and if the 30 manage to bring a friend, attracting them somehow to the programs, and to the building, of the local church - attracting them to our building and programs and necessarily extracting them from where they usually live and move and have their being (i.e. the neighbourhood, work, where they work-out, etc.)
