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BY CHRISTINE KUMAR
UMCONNECTION STAFF

It?s Monday night, 7:30 p.m. Are you ready for some church?

The Rev. Mike Slaughter is. Slaughter, senior pastor of Ginghamsburg UMC in Tipp City, Ohio, is confident that Sunday morning no longer holds the attraction it once did for bringing people to worship. He spoke Sept. 12 at Wesley Theological Seminary about the emergent church.

On Sundays, he said, many people do not attend church because more people now own homes than before, and many people spend time on Sundays doing maintenance work. Family life is changing, too, with more single parents, more baby boomers traveling on the weekends and kids engaged in athletic events.

In addition, there is other competition for people?s time, he said. 'People are working more and playing more with the use of cell phones, e-mails and the Internet.'

And so it is that Monday nights may be the best time for worship.

Heresy? Maybe, but Slaughter knows what he is talking about. When he was appointed to Ginghamsburg in 1979, it was a church in the middle of corn fields with a worship attendance of 90 and about 65 in Sunday school. There were 137 members with the annual budget of $27,000.

Today, the church is located next to a busy interstate highway, the worship attendance averages close to 1,500, more than 1,100 people are in educational experiences and 1,600 are in small groups. It is an Acts 2 congregation.

Even with all that, Slaughter is concerned. Quoting from George Barna, founder of the Barna Research Group, he noted, 'By the year 2015, churches will decrease in membership by 50 percent.'

Things will need to change, he said, for the church to grow. Instead of getting bigger, it?s time to think small ? house-church small, he said.

Adults under the age of 35 are not connected with the 12,010 mega-churches in the United States today. In megachurches, he said, the average age is 37.

'There are different styles of churches,' he said. The caf? church, such as ones hosted at Starbucks, has attracted many people to attend the worship for the first time while sipping coffee and learning about God.

But it is the house churches, hosting worship in homes, that is the future of the church, Slaughter believes. People gather and read the liturgy, share the sacrament and fellowship with one another while sharing a meal. They hear the message of the pastor on a DVD.

The Rev. Mary Dennis, a deacon in full connection at Glen Mar UMC, asked how the sacraments could be consecrated in a house church without an ordained minister, something that is required in The United Methodist Church. Slaughter replied that his bishop licensed a few lay people to do this, which caused many people to murmur.

In addition to exploring the emergent church, Slaughter spoke on the mission driven church.

Mission driven churches have three requirements, he said: to do justice and help those who have less; to love mercy; and to walk humbly with the Lord.

In his book, 'Spiritual Entrepreneurs,' Slaughter writes about how and why his church grew in numbers. 'Space needs, staffing, parking, promotion, calling programs and small-group ministry all get ample attention,' he said. 'But, techniques must never be the focus of growth.'

Techniques, he said, will bring people to church, but they won?t stay unless there is a spiritual authenticity. 'Advertising can generate customer traffic, but only the Spirit can transform human lives,' he said. He firmly believes that true transformation in churches is based on Acts 2 fruits.

Slaughter affirmed that laity can do powerful things when empowered by the Spirit. In his conference, lay people are reaching the unchurched. 'We have heard comments like we never heard such great preaching,' (by laity), he said.

There are 10 churches in his conference that are gbwc_superusered under the leadership of laity. In these churches, the attendance has increased to 300 worshipers in the past 5 years.

For more information on Slaughter?s ministry, see Ginghamsburg UMC?s Web site at http://ginghamsburg.org/.