Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Missional Church Made Simple
This video says it better than I ever could - this, in a nutshell, is missional church:
14 Reasons for Missions
The guys over at The Traveling Team have an excellent post on why everyone should be involved in missions:
________________________________________
1) The Promise (Gen 12:1-3) – Because God has promised to bless all nations (or people groups) on the earth. What better motivation and encouragement can we have than the understanding that missions (blessing the nations with the Gospel) is in the sure purposes of God.
2) The Purchase (Rev 5:9) – Because Jesus has already purchased people from every tribe and nation with His blood. Like the Moravians motivated by this purchase we should repeat what two Moravians missionaries said as they set sail for India, “May the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering!” In other words, He has already purchased them, our job is only to gather in what is His.
3) Because the Harvest is plentiful (Matt 9:37) – Now this is for all the numbers gurus out there who are motivated by sheer statistics. Today, out of the 6.5 billion people on the planet, over 4 billion are without a saving relationship with Christ. More tragic is that 2.4 billion of these who are lost have no means to hear the message of salvation through Christ – they are cut off from the gospel through lack of missionaries, lack of resources, etc. If you lined them up in a single file line they would wrap around the earth 25 times. The majority of these people are located in the area of the world known as the 10/40 Window (see map). The harvest is plentiful!
4) Because the Laborers are few (Matt 9:37) – This is probably what runs through my head the majority of the times I get up to speak. Only one in every 20,000 believers will ever take the gospel to those who are out of reach of the church. What’s worse than that? Out of all the cross-cultural missionaries in the world, you would hope that the majority would be working where the majority need is. However only 2.5% of all the 430,000 missionaries are working in the 10/40 Window. More laborers are needed.
5) Because the Destiny of the Lost (Rom 1; John 3:18; John 14:6) – Now this is harder to take in, but I believer the Bible gives us no means by which a person can be saved other than through Christ’s work, and by exercising faith in His name. This means not by other religions, not without hearing specifically about Christ (through evangelism and missions) and not because they died without hearing. The Scripture leaves no loopholes for those living in ignorance. All are born in sin, the Cross has real meaning for salvation, and the Great Commission is necessary for people to hear and be saved. If this shocks you, you may have been influenced by the universalism that is gossiped among church goers. In Romans 1 (creation) does exactly what God designed it to do – it condemns people, leaving them without an excuse and knowledge of a creator – but not salvific knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. This makes missions not only important, but urgent.
6) Logically Necessary for Hearing the Gospel Message (Rom 10:14-15, Acts 8 (Philip) and 10 (Cornelius)) – This goes along with the last one. Every time someone comes to Christ in Scripture there is a human messenger involved. It would be great to think that God would draw people to Himself in the world apart from someone going. He is able, but this is not the means He has chosen to use. The Church is the means. The Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah (the OT Bible!) and still God miraculously transported Philip, a human messenger to explain Christ to him. An angel appears to Cornelius, a god-fearer. But still Peter must be summoned and travel all the way to Cornelius’ house to explain the gospel to him before he could be saved. Why didn’t the angel just tell Cornelius? It would have saved a lot of time and gas money for Peter – but God used a human messenger. Missions and evangelism are necessary. I hope we are speaking the message around us as well – they must hear.
7) The Example of the Church (Acts 1:8, 10, 15, Rom 15:20) – The early church has given us a model to follow. They went out, sent out their own missionaries like Paul and Barnabus, and evangelized the Gentiles beyond the reach of the gospel in their world.
8) The Descriptive Future is Prescriptive for Today (Rev 7:9, Rev 21:24-26) – Now, it’s tricky but follow this logic. If there are people described in heaven in the future – it is logical that they must be reached with the gospel at some point in history. So because we see a great multitude gathered around the throne from every tribe, people, and nation – we must labor to begin with this end in mind, bringing it into reality as God uses us to fulfill it.
9) Because We Will be Held Accountable (Ezek 33) – Here is a passage that will cause you to re-evaluate life. The people of God, meant to be a blessing to the world, were held accountable for not warning others of the danger coming. Will believers be held accountable for their obedience to the Great Commission? It may mean great reward-loss by many Christians for failing to use what God has blessed them with to bless the nations.
10) Because To Whom Much is Given Much is Required (Luke 12:47-48) – Here is Jesus’ measuring standard. It’s like a blessing and obedience math formula. Our accountability may be based on our resources, our understanding, or our ability – more given equals more expected.
11) Because the Church is the Means (Rom 1:5, Gal 3:14-15, 2 Cor 5:17-20) – You are God’s ordained means for the blessing of Christ reaching to all the nations, just like He promised (Gen 12). Jesus has purchased them (Rev 5:9) and commissioned us with the task of gathering them in for God’s glory.
12) Because History Awaits the Fulfillment of the Promise (Matt 24:14) – Not sure how it’s all going to play out, but if God has promised that all nations are reached and Jesus says here that the gospel will be preached to all nations…then the end will come – it just seems logical. The story of history seems to be arranged on the thread of this mission, even the history we are a part of today. That is exciting!
13) Because the Glory of God is Yet to be Known (Hab 2:14; Ps 72:19, 86; Isa 11:9) – There are actually about a dozen times that Bible talks of God’s glory “filling the earth as the waters cover the sea.” God has created people to worship Him and that worship is being given to other lesser things right now. Missions is spreading the worship and enjoyment of God to those who are not currently worshippers, because God’s glory is increased by the increase of His church in the world. As John Piper says it, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak.”
14) The Commands of Jesus (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8, 13:47; John 20:21) – And last of all – because Jesus commanded it. Just as Jesus says in John 14:21, "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me,” or 1 John 3:24, “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him.” I hope we can all stand before him in the end and hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
________________________________________
1) The Promise (Gen 12:1-3) – Because God has promised to bless all nations (or people groups) on the earth. What better motivation and encouragement can we have than the understanding that missions (blessing the nations with the Gospel) is in the sure purposes of God.
2) The Purchase (Rev 5:9) – Because Jesus has already purchased people from every tribe and nation with His blood. Like the Moravians motivated by this purchase we should repeat what two Moravians missionaries said as they set sail for India, “May the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering!” In other words, He has already purchased them, our job is only to gather in what is His.
3) Because the Harvest is plentiful (Matt 9:37) – Now this is for all the numbers gurus out there who are motivated by sheer statistics. Today, out of the 6.5 billion people on the planet, over 4 billion are without a saving relationship with Christ. More tragic is that 2.4 billion of these who are lost have no means to hear the message of salvation through Christ – they are cut off from the gospel through lack of missionaries, lack of resources, etc. If you lined them up in a single file line they would wrap around the earth 25 times. The majority of these people are located in the area of the world known as the 10/40 Window (see map). The harvest is plentiful!
4) Because the Laborers are few (Matt 9:37) – This is probably what runs through my head the majority of the times I get up to speak. Only one in every 20,000 believers will ever take the gospel to those who are out of reach of the church. What’s worse than that? Out of all the cross-cultural missionaries in the world, you would hope that the majority would be working where the majority need is. However only 2.5% of all the 430,000 missionaries are working in the 10/40 Window. More laborers are needed.
5) Because the Destiny of the Lost (Rom 1; John 3:18; John 14:6) – Now this is harder to take in, but I believer the Bible gives us no means by which a person can be saved other than through Christ’s work, and by exercising faith in His name. This means not by other religions, not without hearing specifically about Christ (through evangelism and missions) and not because they died without hearing. The Scripture leaves no loopholes for those living in ignorance. All are born in sin, the Cross has real meaning for salvation, and the Great Commission is necessary for people to hear and be saved. If this shocks you, you may have been influenced by the universalism that is gossiped among church goers. In Romans 1 (creation) does exactly what God designed it to do – it condemns people, leaving them without an excuse and knowledge of a creator – but not salvific knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. This makes missions not only important, but urgent.
6) Logically Necessary for Hearing the Gospel Message (Rom 10:14-15, Acts 8 (Philip) and 10 (Cornelius)) – This goes along with the last one. Every time someone comes to Christ in Scripture there is a human messenger involved. It would be great to think that God would draw people to Himself in the world apart from someone going. He is able, but this is not the means He has chosen to use. The Church is the means. The Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah (the OT Bible!) and still God miraculously transported Philip, a human messenger to explain Christ to him. An angel appears to Cornelius, a god-fearer. But still Peter must be summoned and travel all the way to Cornelius’ house to explain the gospel to him before he could be saved. Why didn’t the angel just tell Cornelius? It would have saved a lot of time and gas money for Peter – but God used a human messenger. Missions and evangelism are necessary. I hope we are speaking the message around us as well – they must hear.
7) The Example of the Church (Acts 1:8, 10, 15, Rom 15:20) – The early church has given us a model to follow. They went out, sent out their own missionaries like Paul and Barnabus, and evangelized the Gentiles beyond the reach of the gospel in their world.
8) The Descriptive Future is Prescriptive for Today (Rev 7:9, Rev 21:24-26) – Now, it’s tricky but follow this logic. If there are people described in heaven in the future – it is logical that they must be reached with the gospel at some point in history. So because we see a great multitude gathered around the throne from every tribe, people, and nation – we must labor to begin with this end in mind, bringing it into reality as God uses us to fulfill it.
9) Because We Will be Held Accountable (Ezek 33) – Here is a passage that will cause you to re-evaluate life. The people of God, meant to be a blessing to the world, were held accountable for not warning others of the danger coming. Will believers be held accountable for their obedience to the Great Commission? It may mean great reward-loss by many Christians for failing to use what God has blessed them with to bless the nations.
10) Because To Whom Much is Given Much is Required (Luke 12:47-48) – Here is Jesus’ measuring standard. It’s like a blessing and obedience math formula. Our accountability may be based on our resources, our understanding, or our ability – more given equals more expected.
11) Because the Church is the Means (Rom 1:5, Gal 3:14-15, 2 Cor 5:17-20) – You are God’s ordained means for the blessing of Christ reaching to all the nations, just like He promised (Gen 12). Jesus has purchased them (Rev 5:9) and commissioned us with the task of gathering them in for God’s glory.
12) Because History Awaits the Fulfillment of the Promise (Matt 24:14) – Not sure how it’s all going to play out, but if God has promised that all nations are reached and Jesus says here that the gospel will be preached to all nations…then the end will come – it just seems logical. The story of history seems to be arranged on the thread of this mission, even the history we are a part of today. That is exciting!
13) Because the Glory of God is Yet to be Known (Hab 2:14; Ps 72:19, 86; Isa 11:9) – There are actually about a dozen times that Bible talks of God’s glory “filling the earth as the waters cover the sea.” God has created people to worship Him and that worship is being given to other lesser things right now. Missions is spreading the worship and enjoyment of God to those who are not currently worshippers, because God’s glory is increased by the increase of His church in the world. As John Piper says it, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak.”
14) The Commands of Jesus (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8, 13:47; John 20:21) – And last of all – because Jesus commanded it. Just as Jesus says in John 14:21, "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me,” or 1 John 3:24, “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him.” I hope we can all stand before him in the end and hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Is Organic Church a Movement?
Neil Cole addresses the question, "Is Organic Church a movement?"
___________________
I'm hearing a lot about the organic church movement lately. This past week Newsweek and Time mentioned it. Christianity Today also mentioned it. Even Brit Hume mentioned that he is part of a home church this week. According to one of the above articles 7% of Americans are in a house church. Anyone reading this blog post knows that this was not the case just a few years ago. Some are saying that organic house churches out number traditional churches in many countries (that's actually not news), and would be considered in the top three of the US church groups, alongside Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists...now that is news.
I've heard the experts say that we are not a movement. David Garrison, author of Church Planting Movements has consistently said so. Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird have a new book called Viral Churches coming out that says that we are not a movement, but that if there is one that is closest it would be us. Bob Roberts said in a recent blog post that we are not a movement.
So what do I think? The term movement can mean all sorts of things. We are definitely moving and, so far as I can tell, we are going in the right direction. We are out of control. No one can point to the person in charge, though there is a short list of the most influential leaders of the movement. No one can accurately count the number of churches in the movement. There is not a single organizational label that can be applied to this "movement," this runs across denominational lines.
I believe there are a few reasons why people do not want to put the label movement on what is happening, and I will share these below. The first three are petty, but just as real as the others. The later points are more substantive critiques. I'm sure ALL of you that say we are not a movement are only spouting the later points.
3 Petty reasons:
1. People have a set picture of what a movement would look like and until they see that they will not ascend to one existing. For many, the way it will look is surprisingly much like what they are doing, just a lot more people doing it. We come to such questions with preconceived notions of what would be the best scenario, and if we do not see it we will not admit that a movement is afoot. I think a lot of that is going on. People have prayed for God to bless their efforts for so long now, and invested their whole being into it so that the hand of God on anything else could just not possibly be right.
2. The old system is threatened by the new and will not grant that the new is good in any way. Yeah, sorry, but I do believe some of this is happening too. For many, their identity, security and success is all determined by how well the institutional church is doing, and so they are left having to say that what is happening is not a movement. This has always been the case, and from history's point of view the people who are attacking the new now, were once attacked by the former movement just a short time ago.
3. God couldn't possibly bless a work as a movement that has a different theological/cultural point of view. Some are so convinced that they have the right doctrine so that God Himself is limited to only blessing people that fall into their own camp. If something is growing and does not have the same theological persuasion than they must be compromising in some way and that is causing the appearance of growth. Occasionally they find a spattering of the same beliefs that they hold and then they would asses that the success that the group is feeling is because they got it right on those few points.
I sometimes wonder if we do not qualify as a movement because we are not Southern Baptist exclusively, but that is another blog post that I will probably not ever write. maybe we do not qualify because we are not truly emergent. Or perhaps it is because we are not Reformed enough.
Warning, Tangent Alert: As good as the reformed doctrine is, I grow very weary of those who view it as separate from all the rest of the Christian family. How stupid is that? Does it seem strange to some of you that when people classify the emerging church movement they have one category of emerging attractional churches and then they have an entirely different category for emerging reformed attractional churches? There is a serious spiritual bigotry going on in Christendom that is not only tolerated but reveled in. We need to learn to embrace brothers who may differ from our point of view (no matter how right we are, after all God Himself predestined that they be in that camp).
The one characteristic common to the above points is pride. We are all a little to full of ourselves. God is not bound by our activities, doctrinal categories or strategies. He also is not going to bless pride. The Scriptures are consistent throughout in declaring that God is opposed to the proud. If pride is causing jealousy and envy in your life, you no longer need to worry about Satan as your arch enemy, God is now opposed to you and that is far worse.
3 Non-petty reasons:
1. We are not seeing the conversion growth rate that Church Planting Movements are seeing in other parts of the world. This is true, but I wonder if that is cause to disqualify what is happening as a CPM. While I would wish that we would see more conversions, we are in a country where the predominant faith of the people is Christian. That has to change the way we view this in the US. While I am not really wanting a renewal movement as much as a true spiritual awakening of lost people, I for one, am not going to tell Christians that they cannot join us. To see the conversion growth rate found in China or India we would have to exclude Christians from joining the movement, and that is not healthy or realistic. That said, this could easily derail the birth of a true movement if we spend all our time, resources and affection on the Christians that come in.
Church Multiplication Associates, which I am part of, is seeing more than 25% conversion growth rate in this environment which is pretty high. Can we do better? Yes. Should we do better? I suppose, but how do we do better is the real question. I am not going to tell Christians that they cannot be part of our movement. I am also not going to start pushing evangelism with external drives that produce guilt ridden evangelists and false conversions. I will just continue listening to the Holy Spirit and trusting Him as the only true evangelist to usher in the new life. Deepening the spiritual life of the disciples so that they are unable to keep quiet about their love of Jesus is probably the best way to mobilize evangelists.
2. Reproduction of churches must be beyond the third generation. Those who know me know that I myself say the same thing. It is not until we see fourth generation disciples, leaders and churches that we are truly a movement in my opinion. This is really a mathematical equation, to see real multiplication each unit must be reproducing. If we are not multiplying we are not the movement we want to be. That said, if we are multiplying, counting the churches and getting accurate information will be impossible, always leaving us vulnerable to pundits who sit on the sideline criticizing us. What we have found out from independent surveys is that we have a very high rate of reproduction (near 100% as 52 out of 53 churches surveyed in one account had daughter churches in that same year). 30% of the churches that have started churches in our movement have started 6 or more churches! 30% have also seen grand daughter churches started, so I would say that if we are not a movement yet, we are on the way.
3. Transformation of society is the true mark of a movement. This I agree with whole-heartedly. As I have said to many who question our legitimacy, it will not be our contemporary critics and experts who will give us our validity, but future historians (yeah, I know, and God). I often think of the future historian and what their perspective will be when I look at things, it helps to gain a bigger and broader perspective.
If we truly saturate our society with vital followers of Christ capable of making disciples, the world will change. But of course, this will not be evident for a little while. I am willing to wait for it. There are ways to have a more noticeable impact immediately such as large social programs, political lobbying by a few motivated individuals, aggressive and vocal assertion of our values in society. We could do that, as others are, but I believe that simply connecting God's children to their spiritual Father in such a way that they listen to His voice and courageously follow His lead will transform society in much broader, holistic and longer lasting ways.
I guess I am willing to say, we are a movement, but our best days lie ahead. So, for that reason, I can live with the less petty critiques as they are actually quite helpful. There is nothing I can do about the petty ones.
My next book, Church 3.0 addresses this subject at length and is available soon. It answers the questions most often asked of our movement and uses those questions to discuss what a true movement looks like. The uniqueness of this book is that it provides an insiders perspective of a movement. It addresses the issues from the place of trying to figure out how to instigate, propagate and release such movements as opposed to simply describing one from the outside.
For those who think we are not a movement I have a final question: at what point would you say, "Yes. there is an organic church planting movement in North America?" How many people will it take? What percentage of the population is required?
___________________
I'm hearing a lot about the organic church movement lately. This past week Newsweek and Time mentioned it. Christianity Today also mentioned it. Even Brit Hume mentioned that he is part of a home church this week. According to one of the above articles 7% of Americans are in a house church. Anyone reading this blog post knows that this was not the case just a few years ago. Some are saying that organic house churches out number traditional churches in many countries (that's actually not news), and would be considered in the top three of the US church groups, alongside Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists...now that is news.
I've heard the experts say that we are not a movement. David Garrison, author of Church Planting Movements has consistently said so. Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird have a new book called Viral Churches coming out that says that we are not a movement, but that if there is one that is closest it would be us. Bob Roberts said in a recent blog post that we are not a movement.
So what do I think? The term movement can mean all sorts of things. We are definitely moving and, so far as I can tell, we are going in the right direction. We are out of control. No one can point to the person in charge, though there is a short list of the most influential leaders of the movement. No one can accurately count the number of churches in the movement. There is not a single organizational label that can be applied to this "movement," this runs across denominational lines.
I believe there are a few reasons why people do not want to put the label movement on what is happening, and I will share these below. The first three are petty, but just as real as the others. The later points are more substantive critiques. I'm sure ALL of you that say we are not a movement are only spouting the later points.
3 Petty reasons:
1. People have a set picture of what a movement would look like and until they see that they will not ascend to one existing. For many, the way it will look is surprisingly much like what they are doing, just a lot more people doing it. We come to such questions with preconceived notions of what would be the best scenario, and if we do not see it we will not admit that a movement is afoot. I think a lot of that is going on. People have prayed for God to bless their efforts for so long now, and invested their whole being into it so that the hand of God on anything else could just not possibly be right.
2. The old system is threatened by the new and will not grant that the new is good in any way. Yeah, sorry, but I do believe some of this is happening too. For many, their identity, security and success is all determined by how well the institutional church is doing, and so they are left having to say that what is happening is not a movement. This has always been the case, and from history's point of view the people who are attacking the new now, were once attacked by the former movement just a short time ago.
3. God couldn't possibly bless a work as a movement that has a different theological/cultural point of view. Some are so convinced that they have the right doctrine so that God Himself is limited to only blessing people that fall into their own camp. If something is growing and does not have the same theological persuasion than they must be compromising in some way and that is causing the appearance of growth. Occasionally they find a spattering of the same beliefs that they hold and then they would asses that the success that the group is feeling is because they got it right on those few points.
I sometimes wonder if we do not qualify as a movement because we are not Southern Baptist exclusively, but that is another blog post that I will probably not ever write. maybe we do not qualify because we are not truly emergent. Or perhaps it is because we are not Reformed enough.
Warning, Tangent Alert: As good as the reformed doctrine is, I grow very weary of those who view it as separate from all the rest of the Christian family. How stupid is that? Does it seem strange to some of you that when people classify the emerging church movement they have one category of emerging attractional churches and then they have an entirely different category for emerging reformed attractional churches? There is a serious spiritual bigotry going on in Christendom that is not only tolerated but reveled in. We need to learn to embrace brothers who may differ from our point of view (no matter how right we are, after all God Himself predestined that they be in that camp).
The one characteristic common to the above points is pride. We are all a little to full of ourselves. God is not bound by our activities, doctrinal categories or strategies. He also is not going to bless pride. The Scriptures are consistent throughout in declaring that God is opposed to the proud. If pride is causing jealousy and envy in your life, you no longer need to worry about Satan as your arch enemy, God is now opposed to you and that is far worse.
3 Non-petty reasons:
1. We are not seeing the conversion growth rate that Church Planting Movements are seeing in other parts of the world. This is true, but I wonder if that is cause to disqualify what is happening as a CPM. While I would wish that we would see more conversions, we are in a country where the predominant faith of the people is Christian. That has to change the way we view this in the US. While I am not really wanting a renewal movement as much as a true spiritual awakening of lost people, I for one, am not going to tell Christians that they cannot join us. To see the conversion growth rate found in China or India we would have to exclude Christians from joining the movement, and that is not healthy or realistic. That said, this could easily derail the birth of a true movement if we spend all our time, resources and affection on the Christians that come in.
Church Multiplication Associates, which I am part of, is seeing more than 25% conversion growth rate in this environment which is pretty high. Can we do better? Yes. Should we do better? I suppose, but how do we do better is the real question. I am not going to tell Christians that they cannot be part of our movement. I am also not going to start pushing evangelism with external drives that produce guilt ridden evangelists and false conversions. I will just continue listening to the Holy Spirit and trusting Him as the only true evangelist to usher in the new life. Deepening the spiritual life of the disciples so that they are unable to keep quiet about their love of Jesus is probably the best way to mobilize evangelists.
2. Reproduction of churches must be beyond the third generation. Those who know me know that I myself say the same thing. It is not until we see fourth generation disciples, leaders and churches that we are truly a movement in my opinion. This is really a mathematical equation, to see real multiplication each unit must be reproducing. If we are not multiplying we are not the movement we want to be. That said, if we are multiplying, counting the churches and getting accurate information will be impossible, always leaving us vulnerable to pundits who sit on the sideline criticizing us. What we have found out from independent surveys is that we have a very high rate of reproduction (near 100% as 52 out of 53 churches surveyed in one account had daughter churches in that same year). 30% of the churches that have started churches in our movement have started 6 or more churches! 30% have also seen grand daughter churches started, so I would say that if we are not a movement yet, we are on the way.
3. Transformation of society is the true mark of a movement. This I agree with whole-heartedly. As I have said to many who question our legitimacy, it will not be our contemporary critics and experts who will give us our validity, but future historians (yeah, I know, and God). I often think of the future historian and what their perspective will be when I look at things, it helps to gain a bigger and broader perspective.
If we truly saturate our society with vital followers of Christ capable of making disciples, the world will change. But of course, this will not be evident for a little while. I am willing to wait for it. There are ways to have a more noticeable impact immediately such as large social programs, political lobbying by a few motivated individuals, aggressive and vocal assertion of our values in society. We could do that, as others are, but I believe that simply connecting God's children to their spiritual Father in such a way that they listen to His voice and courageously follow His lead will transform society in much broader, holistic and longer lasting ways.
I guess I am willing to say, we are a movement, but our best days lie ahead. So, for that reason, I can live with the less petty critiques as they are actually quite helpful. There is nothing I can do about the petty ones.
My next book, Church 3.0 addresses this subject at length and is available soon. It answers the questions most often asked of our movement and uses those questions to discuss what a true movement looks like. The uniqueness of this book is that it provides an insiders perspective of a movement. It addresses the issues from the place of trying to figure out how to instigate, propagate and release such movements as opposed to simply describing one from the outside.
For those who think we are not a movement I have a final question: at what point would you say, "Yes. there is an organic church planting movement in North America?" How many people will it take? What percentage of the population is required?
I Kissed Traditional Ministry Goodbye
Mike and Leslie at Measure by Measure have kissed traditional pastoral ministry goodbye.
I am reprinting the questions that led them to this decision. PLEASE click the link above to read in their own words the ANSWERS discovered to these questions that led them to make these huge life changes.
_________________
1.) What IS “church” anyhow?
2.) If Jesus were in bodily form now in the Bay Area, where would he be? To whom would He minister? And how would he spend his time? And shouldn’t ALL CHURCHES take note of this? What would it look like to take Luke 15’s Lost Parables seriously? Would Jesus really leave the 99 for the one lost sheep, or was he just being hyperbolic? Did he really come to “seek and save the lost”?
3.) Shouldn’t my primary role be not so much teaching, preaching, and TELLING people how they should live but, instead, living out, modeling and SHOWING people the way of Jesus? Incarnating the very thing I’m asking them to do and being a forerunner or a “first fruit” of the transformation God is wanting to do among us?
4.) As much as people in my church appreciated me and believed that I should be paid for what I did, should I be? And does the Scripture teach that I should be paid as a norm or more an exception?
5.) If Ephesians 4:11-12 is to be taken seriously, then what would it look like to have ALL FIVE gifts operational in the church: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist. Pastor, and Teacher? And can we push past our knee-jerk reactions to what an Apostle or Prophet may be that are simply based on ignorance or fear? In particular, Leslie and I have spent the last three years asking what apostolic and prophetic leadership in the body of Christ is and does.
6.) Is CHURCH even the primary lens we should be using to filter in all Christian and ministry reality? Shouldn’t it, instead, be Kingdom? And what happens when one makes this shift? So what would it look like then if every believer lived for the Kingdom (or as Matthew 6:33 said, “sought first the Kingdom”? What would it look like then if every spiritual community lived under the rules/government of the Kingdom and cared more for the King/Kingdom than for church as they know it?
7.) This difference in approach gets at the final question we wrestled with: is the difference between secular and sacred as big as we really have come to believe?
8.) SINCE it is no longer about CHURCH as we know it, what would it look like if the boundary markers of “church” were not the four walls of the church building or small group hosting house’s four walls? What would it look like if the boundary markers for who we are to make disciples of and spent most of our time with moved beyond the Christians we would normally meet in “church” as we used to know it. What if, instead, “CHURCH” included all the local people of the city and beyond? What if the CITY or REGION itself was the “church” or “parish” to which all Christ-following members were to “minister”? What if the whole world was the “parish”? And what if we could create multiple sanctified-secular expressions that brought the Kingdom to everywhere and everything we did?
I am reprinting the questions that led them to this decision. PLEASE click the link above to read in their own words the ANSWERS discovered to these questions that led them to make these huge life changes.
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1.) What IS “church” anyhow?
2.) If Jesus were in bodily form now in the Bay Area, where would he be? To whom would He minister? And how would he spend his time? And shouldn’t ALL CHURCHES take note of this? What would it look like to take Luke 15’s Lost Parables seriously? Would Jesus really leave the 99 for the one lost sheep, or was he just being hyperbolic? Did he really come to “seek and save the lost”?
3.) Shouldn’t my primary role be not so much teaching, preaching, and TELLING people how they should live but, instead, living out, modeling and SHOWING people the way of Jesus? Incarnating the very thing I’m asking them to do and being a forerunner or a “first fruit” of the transformation God is wanting to do among us?
4.) As much as people in my church appreciated me and believed that I should be paid for what I did, should I be? And does the Scripture teach that I should be paid as a norm or more an exception?
5.) If Ephesians 4:11-12 is to be taken seriously, then what would it look like to have ALL FIVE gifts operational in the church: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist. Pastor, and Teacher? And can we push past our knee-jerk reactions to what an Apostle or Prophet may be that are simply based on ignorance or fear? In particular, Leslie and I have spent the last three years asking what apostolic and prophetic leadership in the body of Christ is and does.
6.) Is CHURCH even the primary lens we should be using to filter in all Christian and ministry reality? Shouldn’t it, instead, be Kingdom? And what happens when one makes this shift? So what would it look like then if every believer lived for the Kingdom (or as Matthew 6:33 said, “sought first the Kingdom”? What would it look like then if every spiritual community lived under the rules/government of the Kingdom and cared more for the King/Kingdom than for church as they know it?
7.) This difference in approach gets at the final question we wrestled with: is the difference between secular and sacred as big as we really have come to believe?
8.) SINCE it is no longer about CHURCH as we know it, what would it look like if the boundary markers of “church” were not the four walls of the church building or small group hosting house’s four walls? What would it look like if the boundary markers for who we are to make disciples of and spent most of our time with moved beyond the Christians we would normally meet in “church” as we used to know it. What if, instead, “CHURCH” included all the local people of the city and beyond? What if the CITY or REGION itself was the “church” or “parish” to which all Christ-following members were to “minister”? What if the whole world was the “parish”? And what if we could create multiple sanctified-secular expressions that brought the Kingdom to everywhere and everything we did?
Church as Business
Something strange happens when a family goes into business together. Relationships change. Priorities change. Goals change.
Relationships, priorities, goals, and other things also change when the church (a family) begins to act as a business.
Jeff at “Losing My Religion: Re-Thinking Church” has written a very thought-provoking series about this topic.
----------------------
Looking back at the deconstruction I've gone through over the past 10 years or so, I smile just a little at how progressive I used to think I was early on. :)
If you've known anything of my story, you know that we began the church in Tulsa after the institutional pattern, which was all we knew--and it morphed into a house church. That entire process was such a learning experience, and it showed me so many inconsistencies as we continually struggled with the tension between what we wanted the church to be, and what we had to do to keep it afloat.
It was years into it before I was able to verbalize what I'm about to say now...but I can see that so much of my struggle in this process was that church as we know it is a business--and it was never meant to fit that mold. When church is structured as a business, then the very survival of the church depends on good business decisions being made--and sometimes those decisions must be made at people's expense, because the interests of business often come before the interests of people. And so there was this constant tug-of-war in my soul, spurred on by this conflict of interest. I was put in the awful situation of having to make choices that hurt people in order to keep afloat the very thing that was supposed to help them.
But what makes me sort of chuckle is the part of the process where I became aware that something wasn't fitting right, but I wasn't quite ready to change the suit. So instead, I started calling things by different names to sort of make myself feel better about it. And don't we see this all the time in churches?
When someone joins the staff of a church, he/she is "joining the ministry team"; we like to avoid calling him/her an "employee" or "hireling"--even though that person has a set salary, a job description, and can be fired for not fulfilling the expectations placed upon him/her.
When it snows or ices, certain churches refuse to cancel services, saying that "we will be available for people no matter the weather"--when in reality, church meetings equal income, and (for some, not all), this is a subtle way to guilt people to come to church in the snow and ice, because the church needs the offering.
When someone creates a stir by asking honest questions, the leaders may label that person "divisive" and take steps to marginalize or even disfellowship that person--not because they are actually being divisive or committing a sin, but because of fear that this person's influence might cause other people (and their wallets) to leave the church. We call it "discipline", when actually it's damage control.
We plan special events and call them "outreaches" intended to win people to Christ (and there might be a sincere motive there); but we measure the success of the event by how many new faces (and wallets) join our church as a result. Organizational growth renamed "evangelism."
Not every leader does it just this way, and my own "renamings" took a slightly different form (I had no other paid staff, for example). But how did Shakespeare put it? "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Only this doesn't smell very much like a rose. But maybe you get the point. :) We can call it anything we want, but when it looks, acts, and functions as a business--that's exactly what it is. It doesn't change unless we change how we do it, not what we call it.
Can you see a common thread in the examples of re-naming I gave? This leads us to the most painful truth about church being structured as business (and the teaser for part 2). Because what is the bottom line in any business?
Money.
More on that soon...
Relationships, priorities, goals, and other things also change when the church (a family) begins to act as a business.
Jeff at “Losing My Religion: Re-Thinking Church” has written a very thought-provoking series about this topic.
----------------------
Looking back at the deconstruction I've gone through over the past 10 years or so, I smile just a little at how progressive I used to think I was early on. :)
If you've known anything of my story, you know that we began the church in Tulsa after the institutional pattern, which was all we knew--and it morphed into a house church. That entire process was such a learning experience, and it showed me so many inconsistencies as we continually struggled with the tension between what we wanted the church to be, and what we had to do to keep it afloat.
It was years into it before I was able to verbalize what I'm about to say now...but I can see that so much of my struggle in this process was that church as we know it is a business--and it was never meant to fit that mold. When church is structured as a business, then the very survival of the church depends on good business decisions being made--and sometimes those decisions must be made at people's expense, because the interests of business often come before the interests of people. And so there was this constant tug-of-war in my soul, spurred on by this conflict of interest. I was put in the awful situation of having to make choices that hurt people in order to keep afloat the very thing that was supposed to help them.
But what makes me sort of chuckle is the part of the process where I became aware that something wasn't fitting right, but I wasn't quite ready to change the suit. So instead, I started calling things by different names to sort of make myself feel better about it. And don't we see this all the time in churches?
When someone joins the staff of a church, he/she is "joining the ministry team"; we like to avoid calling him/her an "employee" or "hireling"--even though that person has a set salary, a job description, and can be fired for not fulfilling the expectations placed upon him/her.
When it snows or ices, certain churches refuse to cancel services, saying that "we will be available for people no matter the weather"--when in reality, church meetings equal income, and (for some, not all), this is a subtle way to guilt people to come to church in the snow and ice, because the church needs the offering.
When someone creates a stir by asking honest questions, the leaders may label that person "divisive" and take steps to marginalize or even disfellowship that person--not because they are actually being divisive or committing a sin, but because of fear that this person's influence might cause other people (and their wallets) to leave the church. We call it "discipline", when actually it's damage control.
We plan special events and call them "outreaches" intended to win people to Christ (and there might be a sincere motive there); but we measure the success of the event by how many new faces (and wallets) join our church as a result. Organizational growth renamed "evangelism."
Not every leader does it just this way, and my own "renamings" took a slightly different form (I had no other paid staff, for example). But how did Shakespeare put it? "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Only this doesn't smell very much like a rose. But maybe you get the point. :) We can call it anything we want, but when it looks, acts, and functions as a business--that's exactly what it is. It doesn't change unless we change how we do it, not what we call it.
Can you see a common thread in the examples of re-naming I gave? This leads us to the most painful truth about church being structured as business (and the teaser for part 2). Because what is the bottom line in any business?
Money.
More on that soon...
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
A New Way to Do Life - Not a New Way to Do Church
I'm concerned that we are trying to re-structure church instead of re-learning what it is to live the Christian life.
House churches, simple churches, organic churches can easily become just the "new way" to do church, the next-wave model of “churchianity.” It's easy for us, if we have been doing church for years, to want to simply come up with a "better way to do church." But that really misses the whole point.
Instead, we need to be talking about the way to live our Christian life. We are privileged to have been given a whole new life: a lifestyle. We have the privilege of living passionately for God. We have the privilege and calling of living Kingdom lives: we journey with God, walk with Him, experience Him, know Him and express Him wherever we go. We have the joy of having a purpose and mission that comes out of the heart of the eternal Father. We get to live in His love, surrounded by His love, empowered by His love, and motivated by His love. Our life lived with a wondrous God is awesome!
This is vital because the Christian life becomes somehow confused with the concepts of "going to church" and "being involved in church." While those may be very wonderful things to do, they are not, in and of themselves, the equivalent of living life in Christ. Yes, when we live the Christian life full on, we do gather with others. But that's a result, an outcome of living all out for God. The "gathering with Christians" is not "the life"-- it's just a part of it. It’s one piece of what we do while we are living all out for God.
Aren't churches and gatherings important? Yes, but let me be repetitive, they are peripherals to the Christian life. The church will always gather in a variety of ways. But imagine when the church gatherings are made up of a group of Christians whose primary focus is living full on for God. Imagine what church is like, whether we gather in a home or in a stadium, when all the full-on-passionate-alive-people-for-God gather together. Yeah, that's church!
I admit, I like to gather in a house. I like it simple. I like it participatory. I like house church. It helps me remember that life with God is life with God and not an institution or event. But that's just me. Where we gather is really very, very secondary. The central issue is, let's live the Christian life... full on... with all that we have. Then when we gather... wherever we gather…however we gather…it will be good!
House churches, simple churches, organic churches can easily become just the "new way" to do church, the next-wave model of “churchianity.” It's easy for us, if we have been doing church for years, to want to simply come up with a "better way to do church." But that really misses the whole point.
Instead, we need to be talking about the way to live our Christian life. We are privileged to have been given a whole new life: a lifestyle. We have the privilege of living passionately for God. We have the privilege and calling of living Kingdom lives: we journey with God, walk with Him, experience Him, know Him and express Him wherever we go. We have the joy of having a purpose and mission that comes out of the heart of the eternal Father. We get to live in His love, surrounded by His love, empowered by His love, and motivated by His love. Our life lived with a wondrous God is awesome!
This is vital because the Christian life becomes somehow confused with the concepts of "going to church" and "being involved in church." While those may be very wonderful things to do, they are not, in and of themselves, the equivalent of living life in Christ. Yes, when we live the Christian life full on, we do gather with others. But that's a result, an outcome of living all out for God. The "gathering with Christians" is not "the life"-- it's just a part of it. It’s one piece of what we do while we are living all out for God.
Aren't churches and gatherings important? Yes, but let me be repetitive, they are peripherals to the Christian life. The church will always gather in a variety of ways. But imagine when the church gatherings are made up of a group of Christians whose primary focus is living full on for God. Imagine what church is like, whether we gather in a home or in a stadium, when all the full-on-passionate-alive-people-for-God gather together. Yeah, that's church!
I admit, I like to gather in a house. I like it simple. I like it participatory. I like house church. It helps me remember that life with God is life with God and not an institution or event. But that's just me. Where we gather is really very, very secondary. The central issue is, let's live the Christian life... full on... with all that we have. Then when we gather... wherever we gather…however we gather…it will be good!
Four Myths about Disciplemaking
Matthew 28:18-20, And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The passage above is commonly known as “The Great Commission”...Many people teach on this passage… most of us don’t regularly obey it. Below are four of the more common myths about the Great Commission that lead us to miss out on disciple making.
1. The myth of accidental discipleship. Many Christians think, consciously or unconsciously, that we can make disciples without changing anything in our daily lives; that as we go about doing our own thing, disciples will be almost accidentally made. This comes across in phrases like, “I will just live my daily life and if someone wants to ask about the Gospel, I will share it”, or, “I just ‘do life’ with others and pray that they will start becoming interested in Jesus”. Many Christians are willing to talk about or declare the Gospel, but only if opportunities pleasantly come they’re way. They are waiting for the perfect moment to drop from the sky upon them to actually verbalize the Gospel or start demonstrating the Gospel. The myth here is that merely “doing life” with others is an straight path to making disciples...The bottom line here is that the Great Commission will be completed only by intentional action and resoluteness. Jesus commands us today to set our eyes on the goal of disciple making and pursue that goal with stubborn focus. This means, that unless you pray and plan to make disciples, you won’t do it!
2. Jesus wants converts. The most interesting thing about the Great Commission is that it does not command us to make converts of Christianity. Instead, we are to make disciples of Jesus. The difference between convert making and disciple making is crucial. Converts change religions. Disciples change masters. Converts follow a system. Disciples follow a Person. Converts build Christendom. Disciples build the
3. When I am ready and able, I will start making disciples. This is the ultimate delay tactic. Have you ever told yourself that you aren’t capable for some reason – lack of training, lack of experience, lack of skill, etc. – of making and multiplying disciples like Jesus? Have you ever thought of someone who is making and multiplying disciples as a super Christian? Have you ever said or prayed something like this, “We just ask you God to send out to the nations the best among us, yes, Lord, send out our marines!” If so, then you have fallen to believe the myth that making and multiplying disciples is for “elite Christians”.
4. Making disciples is great advice. Cultural Christianity loves this myth. Cultural Christians love to sing the praise of disciple makers while themselves simultaneously avoiding, through the most crafty cop-outs, actually engaging in obedience to the Great Commission. In other words, when it comes down to it, many view the Great Commission as merely great advice.
The fact is, though, that the Great Commission is a commandment coupled with the commissioning of Jesus. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15)...In other words, the measure of one’s love for Jesus is one’s obedience to Jesus! You cannot love Jesus and not obey him...you cannot disregard the Great Commission and claim to love Jesus. The command is simple, “go and make disciples”. Ask yourself, “Am I currently making disciples of others?” If not, why not ask yourself, “Will I today commit myself to beginning the process of making disciples of Jesus?”
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