How do you build a church?

So I got to thinking yesterday about this.  How do we build a church?  Christ's Church?  I know there are some people who have come to the conclusion that you can live a life that causes you to become more like Christ every day without being involved in a group of "Christians".  I believe that everyone needs to be involved with a group of believers, urging each other on towards shared goals and lifting each other up through Scripture, music and fellowship.  I believe that when people are not in a group that has the same shared goals, our priorities get out of whack and we start moving away from the model of Christ and start losing communion with His spirit.  You can feel free to disagree with me but that is not what this post is about.  That was just to say this:  I think that the Church is worth it.  The Church has its flaws.  The Church , or any "church", has never wronged anyone.  As Rob Bell said, "Churches don't wrong people.  People wrong people".  So with that said, how do we build a church?  How do we attract those who need Christ to come into our group or any group of believers? 

Is it with guilt?  Do we go after them and tell them that if they don't "turn" that they'll "burn"?  I've heard that one.

Is it with our services?  Does that bring people in?  Can they just not wait to worship together with other believers and feel God's presence? 

Is it with our small groups?  Do we grow our churches through spending personal time with people in small groups, house groups, pods, or whatever the new buzz word is?

Is it with more church plants?  Do we grow the larger Church by creating new churches that are more flexible and thus able to do the things that are reaching new generations of believers who have for decades been leaving the church?  The numbers are staggering. 

Is it with mega-churches?  Online services? 


I don't know exactly what works for you.  However, I have this uneasiness in my spirit that the church ,as it stands today, is too rigid and its traditions too powerful that it is causing us not to be able to reach today's young generations.  Church members who "pay the bills" feel threatened if things change and they feel as though they might get pushed out.  Is that biblical?  Isn't being apart of the body about sharing what Christ did, and is doing in us , with those around us?  Change is scary.  Taking risks and failing are heart wrenching.  Still, if we are not trying to do things that reach those who don't know love, who don't know Christ, who don't know the warmth and love that a community of believers can offer...whats more heart wrenching?  Being comfortable now...and watching those people get bitter and move farther away from love?  Or sacrificing some of our ways and opinions and traditions for the sake of reaching a base of people who need to know that they are loved by Jesus?  I vote for number two.  But maybe that is just me.

What is your church doing?