Fridays are for Friends & Family 12.11.09

We’re back with another interesting post about news and views around the Internet. Let’s start this week with a post from Sheila Walsh, once of the 700 Club and more recently of the women’s writing/speaking circuit. Yesterday she published a post entitled “The Five Most Bizarre Questions I was Asked in 2009.” Since Sheila connects with lots of people all over the world, I suspect she gets a variety of surprising questions. You can check out her thoughts on the “most bizarre” by clicking here.

Bob Roberts Jr. posted earlier this week a new weblog entry that makes the concept of “missional” more practical for most people. In a post called “How to Bring People Along Missionally,” Roberts acknowledges the oft-given concern that getting churches to “be missional” is a lot harder than talking about it. Here he outlines six things each of us who are pastors and leaders of churches can do to see “missional” become more of a reality in our churches. This link will take you to his post.

Kent Shaffer’s website is entitled “Church Relevance,” and he is currently asking for input from you and me on how to make his site more, well…relevant! Kent admits that he wants to be more effective at meeting your needs, but also in attracting more sponsors, who help make the site possible. I mention his site today, because he has attracted a number of sponsors who offer “FREE STUFF” to help you in ministry. You can find them posted on the left-hand side, about halfway down this page. And while you’re there, why not fill out his reader’s survey?

Here’s a shout out to my favorite football team, the Alabama Crimson Tide! They certainly looked impressive last Saturday as they won the SEC Championship in an overwhelming manner against the defending national champion Florida Gators. Next up, they will face the Texas Longhorns for the National Championship on January 7th in Pasadena, California. It should be a great game! In anticipation of that, this Saturday the Heisman Trophy, annually awarded to college football’s best player, will be given. I am predicting that Mark Ingram from the Crimson Tide will become the first ever winner of the award from the University of Alabama. You can read about the Heisman race here.

Finally, JibJab.com is a humorous and entertaining site, in the past mostly focused on political parodies. However, at Christmas time they have created a way for you to become an elf (with up to four other people) and save it (for a cost) or share it with others temporarily. To view the one I created, click here. Then hit the “Make Your Own” button to get started on yours. Enjoy the fun!

Fridays are for Friends & Family 08.21.09

It’s the end of the week and time again for another “Friends & Family” edition! This week we begin in church planting with one of my colleagues of whom I have the utmost respect, Bob Roberts. Bob, who pastors NorthWood Church in Keller, Texas, recently blogged on “The Shape of Theology” in his own life and how it both affects his behavior and worldview as a church planter and trainer of other church planters. It’s a must read for every new church starter! Check it out here.

Speaking of theology (and social media), Leonard Sweet, author of so many thought-provoking books and articles (Soul Tsunami was a life-changer for me; thanks, Len), recently became a “Twitter-er,” and as is typical with Sweet, he jumped in with both feet and got quickly involved. He recently posted on his site an article that is definitely worth the read in regards to this:  “Twitter Theology: Five ways Twitter has changed my life and helped me be a better disciple of Jesus.” You can get to it from here.

Ed Stetzer on his blog recently interviewed Steve Addison, the Director of Church Resource Ministries (CRM) Australia, and author of a new book, Movements that Change the World. According to Ed Stetzer, Steve “is called to encourage church planting movements around the world and is therefore a student of the history of movements that spread the gospel.” Steve’s book focuses on the five common characteristics found in these historical movements that have had such far-reaching impact. You can read about the book and the movements it studied by going to Stetzer’s site from here. By the way, this book is published by Missional Press, the same company who published our book PlantLIFE, as well.

Web Picture of the Week

Speaking of Dr. Stetzer, I believe he was the one who posted this picture earlier in the week of a chapel service many years ago at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Can you tell who it is?

That’s right; Mr. Purpose-Driven himself, Dr. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California.  Wow; great picture…

Finally, this week is the LAST CHANCE for my Boston Red Sox to stay in the Eastern Division race of the American League. A pivotal three game series with the Yankees starts tonight at Fenway Park in Boston. After losing all four games last week in the Bronx, the Red Sox must sweep this series or be banished to fight for the “Wild Card” through the rest of the year. As you can see, I’m not ready to write them off, just yet; after all, they’ve won eight games in the series this year to only four for the Yankees. You can read about the series and watch a video preview here. Will they do it? Stay tuned. It all starts tonight at MLB.TV.

Exponential ‘09 – Day Three

Day three at Exponential ‘09 got off to a smashing start. Craig Groeschel highlighted both the first plenary session and my morning breakout in the reproducing movements track. Groeschel, as you probably know, is planter/pastor of LifeChurch.tv, one of the most innovative and impacting churches in North America.

Before Groeschel spoke in the morning plenary session, Mark Choi, a church planter in New York City and former staff leader at Onnuri Church in Seoul, Korea, spoke about the vision of this Korean church. In twenty-four years, it has grown from 12 families to over 53,000 members. The keys to that incredible growth, according to Choi, are the emphasis upon quiet time, one-to-one discipleship and small group involvement. In addition, Choi acknowledges that the church is “doing” church in innovative ways that causes their worship experiences to attract many new and younger people to the Lord.

Groeschel was “assigned” the topic of “Leading a Church Planting Movement.” While stating he felt inadequate to speak to such a topic, he made several observations. First, a movement will never be safe, predictable and clean. In fact, he insists that the church must become dangerous once again, like it was in the first century. He warned planters against simply inviting people to Christ through a “better life;” rather, he said, preach a dangerous, reckless, die-to-yourself message.

Second, he noted that a movement will never be about your church, but rather, about His kingdom. The movement has to be bigger than you, because it’s a team effort. Thus, we must have a kingdom mentality.

Third, you will not lead a movement based upon the old metrics of success. Rather, the scorecard has changed, he noted. One measurement he stressed was how many lost, unreached people still remain in our communities. He reminded planters that their identity is not wrapped up in the numbers of their church. He said, “Don’t blame yourself for the declines [in attendance], because if you do, you’ll be tempted to take credit for the increases.”

In his breakout session, he posited a theory for those of us considering movements and how they take off. Every movement started when somebody asked an outlandish “what if” question. He gave several examples (Luther, Martin Luther King, Jr., Hybels, Wesley, Bono, etc.) and then suggested that this at least in part is why LifeChurch has been successful. They’ve asked and believed the “what if” questions.

He made three points. If you Lead a Movement you will have to see what others don’t see. Second, you will have to do what others won’t do. Finally, you will have to hurt like others don’t hurt. He challenged the crowd to do the same, and concluded by asking “Why not you? Why not now?” He was, in a word, incredible.

After lunch, Bob Roberts highlighted the plenary session. He was preceded by Eddy Love from Indonesia who spoke of the P.E.A.C.E. strategy they have used to great success. This acronym stands for purpose, empowering community, achieving maturity, Christ-centered living and Equipping. These, he said, were the keys to their growth.

Roberts, who’s been cited many times on my blog, talked about the lessons on movements he’s learned from the church around the world. First, the Gospel is about the Kingdom of God, not just salvation. Otherwise we can grow megachurches and not see any change in our communities. Second, the focus has to be on the disciple, not the preacher. The disciple is the key to reproduction. Third, society is the focal point, and the church results from that focus. Fourth, all religions are all places, which makes for a naked public square and thoughtful communication. Faith is no longer bounded by geography but are still threatened by people who challenge our culture.

Roberts continued. Fifth, knowing other religions isn’t just for experts but for everyone who would communicate who Jesus is. Sixth, risk in seen in life and death, not in nickels and noses. In fact, he suggested that most Americans are shallow risk-takers. “God has called you to more than a little megachurch.” Seventh, never, never, never vilify another religion; he noted, Paul didn’t use this approach in Acts 17.

Unfortunately, Roberts ran out of time and couldn’t complete his message. He informed us that it would be posted on his blog. It is now up and can be found by clicking here.

The final session of the day for me and my colleague Rolando addressed the issue of strategizing a movement. Geoff Surratt from Seacoast Community Church and Billy Hornsby of the ARC (Association of Related Churches) talked about how their vision led to the organization which has now planted 104 churches since 2001. It is truly growing exponentially. In a nutshell, ARC has produced a “big tent” organization that enables churches to “buy in” to a process and family that will in turn discover, equip, resource and multiply plants across North America. The plants are funded and then they help fund future plants in turn. This is a key to exponential growth: you have to have a way to re-coop money from the plants themselves to fund the next generation of plants.

I intend to study ARC and its processes in more detail. Possibly in the future, I’ll have more to say about how and why this organization is starting churches so well.

Tomorrow, will be a short one for us, as we travel home. However, I’ll have a few thoughts about our morning session and some closing observations. Check back here on Friday for those thoughts.

Obstacles to a Church Planting Movement in America

There’s a lot of talk about church planting movements in our Western world today. It’s something those of us who help facilitate church planting would love to see happen. On my blog in days past, I’ve voiced my affirmation with Bob Roberts and his belief that ultimately church planting movements are “Jesus movements” at their core. Consequently, our focus needs to be on disciple-making, not church planting. I still agree; my opinion has not changed on this matter since I wrote about it last year.

However, there is validity to the Spirit-saturation and allied momentum that can sweep through an area, along with the way it can impact collective communities and regions (does anybody remember the Brownsville revival, the Great Awakenings, etc.?). When the Spirit of God moves in the hearts of His people, the impact SHOULD have a “domino effect” (after all, we’re supposed to share it with others), regardless of whether it’s called a church planting movement or something else. If it doesn’t have that kind of effect, then I have to ask what’s inhibiting its movement to others beyond ourselves. The answer is often found in the systems we create.

The American “church planting system,” or better simply the “church system” we have inherited/created is a major part of the problem. While much of how we “do” church and the systems connected to it came to us from Europe, Americans have embellished and added their own signature to the system, too. These three culprits are, in my opinion, the primary obstacles to a church planting movement taking place here in North America during the early years of the 21st century.

The Need for a Building. The early colonists placed a “church building” in the middle of the new community when it was built and from that day forward, Americans have bought into the lie that churches have to have a building. To be sure, some regions in our country seek to legitimize their ministry (“we’re not a cult”) by the presence of a building. Others find a building almost required by current zoning laws and restrictions. There are no doubt other reasons, as well. Regardless, it should be obvious to all concerned that the requirement of a building–even the implicit need for a building–on behalf of its people or leaders is a sure way to slow down the forward progress and multiplication of new churches. Such edifices take time, resources and focus…all of which could be placed elsewhere if a facility was not necessary to the equation. Like it or not, Rick Warren and Robert Schuller before him are right when they say “the shoe should never tell the foot how big it can get.” Not only does a building limit growth, but it often mortgages expansion or the future just for the sake of maintaining the facility.

The Need for Professional Clergy. In some traditions, there is a requirement that pastors and planters must be seminary-trained and officially ordained (and/or licensed). While I’m not “knocking this” (I am all of the above personally), I do not see it as a prerequisite to the Holy Spirit doing His work in the life of churches or church planting. In fact, biblically and historically you could make a case for the fact that these will again slow down the work of the Spirit, not accelerate it. God calls; God equips; God empowers. Educational or experiential requirements are all well and good, but at the risk of stating the obvious, we may be substituting our own credentials rather than the essential credentials the Spirit requires. He doesn’t look at a resume or on the outward appearance; He looks upon the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). As well-intentioned as these things are–and they certainly are, in most instances, beneficial to the student/minister and to the congregation he will one day serve–they will also slow down the forward movement of the church in the Western world.

The Need for Money…lots of Money. We have facilitated church plants in America that are “created” by the infusion of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and will need the very same thing to sustain them. The quantity of money needed to get these churches off the ground causes many to step back and ask some soul-searching questions. Perhaps the most basic (and some would say, naive) one to me personally is why the New Testament never focused on money as a need or obstacle in planting new churches. Others would include concerns about the consumerism we’re feeding in American Christianity, “what” we’re using to attract people to the Lord and to His church (marketing, methods, a competition mentality) and the obvious non-transferable, reproducible nature of doing over and over again the largely-funded church plant. In a time of recession, like the current era, such dependence on funding and financing curtails even further the forward progress of church multiplication.

These three systems deficiencies are a part of the problem in experiencing a Spirit-led church planting or multiplication movement in our land today. The irony is that some people would not see them as deficiencies but strengths, and would use their power and influence to perpetuate them locally and individually, but to the detriment of the national and collective Body as a whole. The fact of the matter is that these three things are not needed in the rest of the world. These same places where they are not required are the very places where church planting “Jesus” movements are taking place (China, India, southeast Asia, etc.).

To be sure there are other obstacles that would have to be overcome culturally, missiologically and ultimately, spiritually. But until the American church acknowledges and seeks to minimize these three “systems” factors as obstacles to a church planting movement in our midst, chances are slim to none that we shall see one in our lifetime. We will have missed the blessing of being used by the Spirit of God and His work in and through us by requiring man-made demands–as well intentioned as they originally were–necessary for us to impact the multitudes around us with the Gospel.

Reviewing the Highlights of 2008

2008 was my first year blogging; and what fun it was for me! I “met’ several of you for the first time and found the experience to feed my own soul–something totally unexpected but incredibly meaningful. I’ve learned a lot over the course of the past eight months and I’ve shared several insights that have met with your response. Thanks for the dialogue we have shared. Here are some of the highlights from 2008.

May 2008: There were only three posts in this first month for me at wordpress.com.  I had started my blog posts on our internal company website and for the first month or so, simply transferred them over to this site, so that readers could find a progression in my thoughts. So in this first month online I posted “Happy Birthday, Jonathan!” to my son, as he celebrated his 16th birthday. Check it out here.

June 2008: This month brought a training event at our conference center on “organic” church leadership. Neil Cole, among others, joined us as a trainer for this. As a result, I wrote on “Organic Leadership” and peaked some interest among my readers. Find it at this link.

July 2008: In my third month of blogging here, I posted a thought regarding “The Church that Jesus Intended?” It was easily the highest viewed article I wrote in the first four months of my blog. You can read it by clicking here.

August 2008: This month was the slowest month for me since the first. Fewer people visited the site, but one post about Bob Roberts in particular got your attention. Entitled, “There’s No Such Thing as a Church Planting Movement,” you can go to it directly right here.

September 2008: With the school and church year back into full swing, a post on evangelism attracted your attention. This post, inspired by Jim Henderson, was entitled “Doable Evangelism,” after his seminar of the same title. You can read about it at this link.

October 2008: This month saw a surge in activity at this site and nothing attracted more attention than the new book released called, PlantLIFE: Principles and Practices in Church Planting. This book has been popularly received and involved 42 authors, all church planters connected to our ministry. The post announcing its publication is found here.

November 2008: The most highly viewed post of the year came from a live blogging experience I was doing at the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware’s annual meeting. The Pastor’s Conference was held on the first morning and the guest speaker was Ed Stetzer, President of Lifeway Research and author of several books. Dr. Stetzer always seems to attract a lot of attention, and this was certainly the case here. You can follow my live blog of his thoughts by clicking on this.

December 2008: Finally, in the last month of the year I included a post that discussed my thoughts about Rick Warren’s thesis in “The Purpose(s) of the Church?” and got a good bit of response. Apparently, there are passionate thoughts about this issue everywhere. Read about it here.

All of the posts listed above were the most highly viewed posts in their respective month of online publication. Thanks for viewing them, and for those of you who added your comments. These have certainly enriched my learning this past year, and hopefully it’s got us all thinking a little bit more about what’s truly important.

There’s No Such Thing as a Church Planting Movement

Any of us would be hard-pressed to defend the belief that the early church intended to start a “church planting movment.”  in the first place, Jesus never even mentioned “church planting” in the words we commonly call the Great Commission.  In addition, there is no indication in the early chapters of Acts that the Apostles were intentionally attempting to plant churches.  (You may think of the Jerusalem church, but Jesus did all the “groundwork” on that core group and the Holy Spirit did everything else to bring the church into being.) 

Rather, the early church, according to Bob Roberts, was only interested in starting “a Jesus Movement.”  The command was to make disciples, which including baptism and obedience in following Jesus.  The early believers numbered in the thousands, as the Apostles led many to faith in Christ.  That emphasis continued even as the church scattered across the Roman Empire.  The focus was on making disciples, not on planting churches.  Church planting was not “the end,” but only a means to the ultimate end–the making of fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ.

Apart from the Western world and most notably the United States, believers don’t talk about church planting movements, only Jesus movements.  So says Bob Roberts, who has traveled the globe and still passionately believes in multiplying churches. 

It is a subtle distinction since both “disciples” and “church planting” go together, but it’s an important distinction.  The emphasis always needs to stay on Jesus.  After all, that’s what all of life–including church–is about.

The Church That Jesus Intended?

There’s been a lot of discussion among our staff in the past couple of years about “the church that Jesus intended.”  Our terminology is an attempt to clarify the term “missional,” a somewhat fuzzy term that is interpreted in various ways by various sources (in fact, it seems to get fuzzier by the month).

When it comes to “the church that Jesus intended,” there are a number of characteristics where we all agree.  These include the following:

• It is centered on the Kingdom of God
• It is focused on disciple-making
• It is on mission to seek and save the lost “glocally”
• It has love for the Father and for our neighbor at its heart
• It values obedience over knowledge
• It measures success by lives transformed not by mere numbers

These are the consensus characteristics.  But that prompts another question in my mind.

Can we ever be the church that Jesus intended and NOT reproduce?

I recently asked Bob Roberts this question in a seminar he was leading.  His response was that it was possible but only in a very rare instance, i.e., a church in a small rural town of 300 people.  This suggests that in the overwhelming majority of instances, Jesus would have expected His church to reproduce.

I concur.  The undeniable implication of Scripture is that the expansion of the Kingdom is, in some way, tied to the reproduction of the Church.  And yet, the wide majority of local congregations do not, and have not reproduced.  In our denomination alone, only about 5% of the churches are involved in planting other churches.  Can this really be what Jesus intended?

It’s time for the Church to embrace its Kingdom mandate, and plant new churches that will in turn plant new churches–for the sake of our Savior and His Gospel.

 

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