Church Planting and Revitalization

Doesn’t church planting divert valuable time, money, and resources that could be used to revitalize the existing church?
Why would a church in need of revitalization expend resources on planting a church? Church planting is only for vital, healthy churches. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until the church has made more progress toward revitalization before it begins to plant? When is a church ready to plant another church?

Answer: What if church planting could propel church revitalization in the sponsor church?

Our core score, our mission, is reaching people who are unreached. To do that we need vital ministries happening throughout the community. That means revitalizing dying and declining churches; it means planting new vital ministries throughout the community. Revitalization is about putting a church back on mission. It is moving from an insular, survivalist, parish church culture to a ministry outside-the-walls, kingdom growth culture. It is a church-wide shift from insider to outsider. It communicates that the most important thing is reaching unreached people. It is about joining Jesus and His mission “seek and save the lost.”

Such a shift requires powerful systematic action—things that force us to become involved in new activities, namely activities that get the focus off us, those already on to inside to others, those outside our church in need of a relationship with their creator. The shift also requires powerful symbolic activities—something that grabs our attention, giving us something new and vivid on which to focus. (Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know, 182)

Planting a church may be the most powerful symbolic action a leader can take when trying to revitalize their own church. Planting a church says that nothing is sacred except the mission. The benefits of church planting for the sponsoring church are so counterintuitive that it unequivocally focuses the church’s attention on kingdom growth rather than self-preservation. It communicates that “we are so committed to kingdom growth we are committed to supporting something outside of ourselves, we are willing to sacrifice leaders, talent and money to see unreached people reached. It is one of the most powerful demonstrations of faith an organization can make to its congregation. It may be the most powerful tool in shifting the focus off ourselves and onto people outside the walls of our church.

In “The Effect of Church Planting on the Sponsor Church,” Jay Farmer writes:
Church planting involves a great deal of risk for the established church. Kevin Mannoia surmised that “it takes risk to keep the mission paramount — to witness for Christ and to plant new churches. Yet if we are serious about growth and making Him known, there is no more effective way to do so than to start new churches.” C. Peter Wagner gave five reasons why planting new churches is so important. These five reasons are:

1. Church planting is biblical. Church planting is the New Testament way of extending the gospel.

2. Church planting means denominational survival. One of the absolutely essential ingredients for reversing the decline is vigorously planting new churches.

3. Church planting develops new leadership. New churches open wide the doors of leadership and ministry challenges and the entire body of Christ subsequently benefits.

4. Church planting stimulates existing churches. In more cases than not, a new church in the community tends to raise the religious interest of the people in general and, if handled properly, can be of benefit to existing churches. That which blesses the Kingdom of God as a whole, also blesses the churches that truly are a part of the Kingdom.

5. Church planting is efficient. There is no more practical or cost-effective way of bringing unbelievers to Christ in a given geographical area than planting new churches.

In this list of reasons for church planting Wagner identified three key factors for how church planting aids in church revitalization. These factors are: (1) planting churches is biblical and obedience results in blessings, (2) planting churches raises the spiritual watertable of the community, and (3) planting churches stimulates existing churches toward evangelistic growth. (C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest)

According to Jay Farmer, churches that do choose to take the risk do benefit tangibly from planting another church. Churches that plant see:
1. A significant increase in Sunday Morning Worship attendance over five years.
2. A Significant increase in annual baptisms over five years.
3. A significant increase in Sunday School attendance over five years.
(Click here to see the full report.)

Eleven Stages of Spiritual Growth

(from a GHC cluster meeting led by JD Pearring)

1. Resisting Stage—people who are mad at God; hostile.

Biblical Example: King Herod; bad thief at Calvary.

My note: According to Gene Appel, your church must have a small percentage of people at this growth stage (cynic) in order to be a prevailing church(xxii, How to Change Your Church Without Killing It). Makes sense--if your church is really impacting the unchurched community, resistant people should be showing up on your doorstep. Having resistant people on your doorstep is a litmus test of how compelling your environment is and how deeply your church is reaching into the truly unchurched segment of the population.

Encouraging the next step: challenge the resistant: God, if you are out there, show me.

2. Questioning Stage

Biblical Example: shepherds in Christmas story

Next Step: Start clarifying your questions. What are you wondering about?

3. Seeking Stage—there is a continuum of seekers from casual to aggressive.

Biblical Example: Wisemen; other thief on the cross

Next Step: look to the bible for answers. (Common question: What is my purpose in life?)

4. Responding Stage—this stage is when people make a commitment to Christ--not just sick or sorry, but people ready to surrender.

5. Adjusting Stage—baby believer. (Babies cause excitement and stress.)

Biblical Example: Neighbors in Luke 1:65

6. Stabilizing Stage—spiritual adolescence. This is the stage best described by the word “awkward.” Adolescents see themselves as omniscient, tend to be selfish and fickle. Most church problems are created by people camped in this stage.

Biblical example: Zechariah and Peter

We all go through adolescence—we all slip back into it at times.

My thoughts: Willow Creek highlighted this growth stage in their Reveal Study. These are people that have made a commitment to Christ and grew at some point, but are stalled—they are not currently growing. They may have some large un-surrendered areas of their life and inconsistent spiritual disciplines. This group was compared to the non-growing spiritually mature group (roughly 10% of Willow Creek) They have no glaring areas that need to be surrendered and have consistent spiritual disciplines, but don’t feel they that are growing and often discontent with what their church is offering them. These two groups are roughly named “stalled” and “discontent.”

What “Reveal” revealed is that the key to propelling people beyond this growth stage is “responsibility.” At the adolescent growth stage we have a window of opportunity to teach people to become responsible for their own spiritual growth. If a person can say, “I need to be fed”, they can feed themselves. My 7 year-old daughter no longer asks us for something to eat when she is hungry. She has been given a sphere of authority in which she can select certain items from the refrigerator and pantry on her own at anytime. She has been taught to feed herself—she is no longer entirely dependent on us to feed her. As she gets older she will begin to help shop for food and cook. We aim for adulthood when she will be able to buy her own groceries and prepare her own food. To have a 35 year-old daughter who needs her mommy to stock her pantry and prepare meals would be absurd! And yet, we have many people in our churches who cannot (the stalled) or won’t(the discontent) feed themselves. Reveal asks a very important question: Do we inadvertently condition people to be dependent upon us (the church) for spiritual growth? At what point and how does the church help people take responsibility for their own spiritual growth?

These are some very serious questions that need to be addressed if we are going to help people become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

7. Growing—people who recognize they don’t know it all. They have become intentional about moving beyond adolescence.

Biblical Example: Joseph

8. Serving—people applying what they know in service to others.

Biblical Example: Mary

9. Reproducing—people intentionally reproducing their lives

Biblical Example: Elizabeth

10. Maximizing—people who are doing what they are designed to do—their ministry sweet spot.

Biblical Example: Anna

11. Celebrating—people who have arrived and are celebrating how God has used them. This would match John Maxwell’s level five leader: one who leads out of reputation. I.e. people follow because he has consistently led from results, relationship and investment.

Biblical Example: Simeon (and Anna)

Church Plant Day 43 (297 Days to Launch)

What are we about?

What is is Riverpark Community Church?
It is an organization that creates environments that lead people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

What is the problem?
People are going to hell and life is hell without God. The reality: that statement may be true for 90% of the people in our community. Barna research estimates that 39% of the West attends church. There are 130 evangelical churches serving a population of 500,000 people in the Ventura/Oxnard Metro area (Ojai to Newberry Park). If 39% of the population were going to church every church in our area would have 1500 people in average attendance. Is there a church in our area that has 1500 people in attendance?

What is the solution?
The solution is to multiply the number of churches in our community. The mission of Riverpark Community Church is to transform the Pacific Rim by planting churches in urban coastal communities from California to Canada. The 14 mile strip of land along the coast contains some of the most influential and populous communities of North America. Its influence radiates across North America and the Pacific. It is where I believe that the kingdom kind of life that Jesus promised has had the smallest market-share. Riverpark Community Church is the beginning of a church multiplying movement to change that.

The Golden Compass

Remember the part in Raiders of the Lost Ark?. . . the Nazis have found the ark and placed it in a wooden crate with swastikas stamped on the outside. As it is being shipped there is one scene where the ark causes the swastikas to burn up and be disfigured.

I just bought the Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman and I wonder . . . "If I set The Golden Compass next to my Bible which one will ignite?"

I have gotten six emails in the last two days warning me about The Golden Compass and its anti-God, anti-Christian themes. I haven't read it yet, but plan to read it tomorrow. So if you are looking for some good commentary you will have to tune in later.

But here are the thoughts of a Family Pastor and former Lit. major on The Golden Compass phenomenon.

One of the emails said that Phillip Pullman was anti-C.S.Lewis. My first thought was . . ."who cares!" But . . . they do have something in common. C.S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia, not for adults to discuss the accuracy of the allegories, but for children to have a reference point for the Biblical story. The Chronicles of Narnia are illustrations of Biblical truths. Lewis hoped that as adults they would remember the stories of Narnia and, as a result, more easily embrace the Biblical truths they represented. I.e. "I get it. Jesus' death for us is like Aslan's death for Edmund. He takes Edmund's punishment on himself." (Lewis also believed that this is exactly what God has done throughout history in myths. e.g. the dying and rising god myths. C.f. "Myth Made Fact." God was prefiguring, in mythology, the story that would become fact in Jesus Christ.) J.R.R. Tolkien and Lewis called this preparatio evangelica--preparation for evangelism. Pullman, self-admittedly, is doing a different sort of preparatio--it is preparation for atheism.

To me that is not a great danger. The flurry of email warnings I have received is because the anti-Christian themes are so overt in the Golden Compass. I mean how can you ignore, "God is a liar, God is a cheat, God is senile." Sounds a little anti-God to me.

The undetected themes that pervade much of literature are the more dangerous. For example, I didn't get a bunch of emails warning me about the movie, "The Bridge to Terebithia." Basically, the main point of the movie was that the imaginary land of Terebithia was more relevant and had more powerful answers to the problems of everyday life than traditional Christianity. (Might have been a valid argument--traditional Christianity has had diminishing returns of late.) But, my point being, . . . I didn't get any emails on that movie.

Parents must be vigilant whatever they are watching. We must also remember that untrue themes can be just as powerful teaching tools as true ones. There is power in watching movies together and discussing the worldviews that are at play in them. This helps our children learn discernment. The greatest tragedy of all is that there doesn't seem to be any great Christian literature that is pacing culture and rivaling The Golden Compass. I don't think book bans are the answer. Christians should be writing the best literature. "The Bible is the great code of art." Who will be C.S. Lewis today? Who is writing the next Chronicles of Narnia?

Church Plant--Day 7 (335 Days to Launch)

God is going on before.

Today James and I met with the Senior Pastor of our church. What we encountered was more than we expected. We asked God for the unreasonable--because when God grants unreasonable requests we all know who gets the glory--it is unmistakably not us. Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church, said to pray specific, measurable and unreasonable prayers. When we pray "sun stand still" prayers like Joshua there is no one to blame but God for the results. So we prayed for four things . . .

1. Leadership buy-in for the vision of reaching this community by multiplying the number of churches here
2. Agreement to meet in the next two weeks and nail down specifics of how FBC will support the church plant.
3. Resurrection of the DNA of FBC as an outward focused, kingdom-minded, church planting church.
4. An elder approved support package that only God could get the credit for.

We are pursuing those things in faith that God is going to go before us. Today we saw steps being taken on each of those four areas. Thanks for watching with us as God goes on ahead surprising us every step of the way.

Micah 2:13: One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate and go out. Their king will pass through before them, the Lord at their head.

Pray unreasonable prayers for us.

Church Plant Day 2 (340 Days to Launch)

For two years I have been wrestling with a personal reality. Like a conflicted Flannery O'Connor character I was running from the call on my life--I was running from my own blood. I am called to be a change-agent--a catalyst. In every organization or relationship that I touch I have been a catalyst for change. It is the trajectory of my life--it is a thread that links together all of my experience. In high school I naively asked God to make me a fork in the road and not a sign along the way. I wasn't satisfied with just pointing people in the right direction. I wanted my life to represent a choice; my life would demand a choice by everyone I encountered. And God granted it. Ever since, I haven't been able to avoid it; I can't wrestle it down; I can't suppress it. Believe me, I have tried. I have tried to suppress the impulse to innovate, change, risk, cast vision. Change is painful. Three years ago, I took a position where I made a conscious choice to suppress vision, innovation, and change. I chose stasis. I chose not to lead--leading had gotten me in trouble and I decided I had had enough. I figured as a middle manager I would let others lead and I would avoid the pain of change. I would do my job. Certainly I would be able to stay out of trouble by simply doing what my supervisor told me to do. Deep down I had surrendered to non-progress--but most of all I doubted my ability to effectively pioneer progress and lead people to a better future. Certainly, good leaders move people to a better destination and they don't lose people along the way. I had convinced myself that I had proven something--my history had proven I wasn't a good leader. And it seemed that everyone around me was willing to confirm that.

If you are a leader and you love progress you have heard things like: you're passionate because you are young, when you are older you will have the maturity to reign in the unbridled passion. I was like you once--but one day you will grow up and you will see things the way I see them. Change is like turning the Titanic, we need to turn the ship slowly--turning too sharply will throw people off the deck-- and it's implied that good leaders can effect change in an organization without people knowing it--like the frog in the pot. And for awhile I bought it. I bought into the idea that positive change was always incremental--it took long extended periods of time and it must be virtually imperceptible so as not to upset people. At the very least the best leaders make change comfortable. Ultimately this was proof of our love for people--after all we are a Christian organization and we are called to take care of the sheep and not lose any.

At the very best, I was dead wrong. First of all you cannot suppress who you are: in biblical language a leopard cannot change its spots. Second of all when Jesus said things like "if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to go into eternity without an eye than to be damned in hell with 20/20 vision. " I imagine the Pharisees were looking at this 30 year-old Nazarene thinking, "Now hold it just a minute, I was once as passionate as you. Change is a process; it takes time. When you grow up you will understand." Jesus called them white washed tombs. Last time I checked that won't get you a raise.

Here is a reality for all leaders to embrace. Catalysts are forever changed by the changes they implement--often at their own personal cost. That is how God shapes us. According to Robert Quinn author of Deep Change, "Change is hell, but not to change is also hell. The difference is that change is the hero's path." Not to change is to choose slow death. Jesus said "I came to give life and to give life in the full." Recently, I have chosen life over slow death. I don't want life to come incrementally. I want life in the full. So . . . I am going to begin by embracing my call, my blood, His Blood and be a catalyst. I have chosen to "walk naked in the land of uncertainty." To be the point leader of a church plant.

This means . . . In calling, in planting a church--I am a wounded leader. I hope that in my weakness I will be a leader of leaders. But I stand indomitably on this one idea that I will be a fork in the road, that our church will be a fork in the road. That we will teach as Jesus taught--not nice ideas for use at some future date, when its convenient, or when the fancy strikes us--but life change right now. Life change today. Life change that addresses real life problems. Deep down, people don't want incremental change--they want deliverance. Jesus Christ is the only deliverance. That is what my life is about. It is what our church is about.

Church Plant--Day 1 (341 Days to launch)

We are squarely in what I would call the listening/networking phase of our church plant. It's about listening to God and listening to people. We are listening to stories of successful and not-so-successful church plants, about their call, their philosophy of ministry, annual budgets, full time staff. (Some of the planting successes we are looking at: Discovery Church, Simi Valley, California; Elevation Church, Charlotte, North Carolina; Redrock Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado; Gold Coast Church, Camarillo, California; Northbridge Community Church, Pennsylvania, Carson Valley Christian Center, Minden, Nevada.) Its about God's story and their little part in His Kingdom work. It's about listening to ministry successes and failures and learning from both. It's about networking with people we don't yet know and reconnecting with those that we do. At the end of this phase I hope to have

1. a filter to refine our ministry model
2. leads on where funding is going to come from.
3. an estimated cost of staffing for launch
4. an estimated cost of producing the environments God is calling us to create
5. a clearly defined relationship with our church planting associations
6. a list of potential individual supporters
7. a list of potential church partners
8. facility leads
9. core team leads

By January we hope to be well into Phase II:planning (Vision & business plan) and building the core team. Then, Phase III: Fundraising; Phase IV: Building a launch team and preview services.

Education that is Christian

Education that is Christian

Lois E. LeBar

How do our young people leave their Sunday school classrooms on Sunday morning? With eyes sparkling with new vision and insight? With serious determination to practice the will of God? With chin up ready to face an unbelieving world in the power of the Spirit? With deep questions about God Himself? Too often they are glad for release from a dull, boring session. (15)

It is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts. (17)

Nothing will take the place of sound doctrine and the facts of the Word of God. But it is possible to starve people with Biblical facts, to make doctrine a substitute for spiritual reality, to fail our people by denying them the intimate personal experience with the Lord Himself who alone will satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. (18)

We train our church people to be professional listeners rather than leaders. The Scriptures declare that teaching is more than talking, though it sometimes is talking. (22)

If the potentialities of all Christians were being developed from the earliest years, the adults in our churches would be producing—producing Christian life, witness, literature, art, music, and skill in all the vocations that are worthy of a follower of the Son of God. (22)

From the inception of the Sunday School in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the aim of Christian education has usually been stated as knowledge of the Bible and conversion. Conversion has been conceived as a natural by product of knowledge of the Bible, the Holy Spirit would do the inner work of regenerating the pupil. They didn’t consider it necessary for them to study human nature or to know the developmental stages through which the pupil passed. (29)

. . . throughout the ages teachers have most often considered their task to be that of exposing pupils to factual content and of getting them to give back in words this outer knowledge. They have relied almost wholly upon verbal communication of facts. (29)

Knowing is neither the beginning nor the end of the transformation of character. Knowledge is not virtue, but rather the wise use of knowledge is virtue. (33)

Scripture often compares spiritual growth with natural growth (psalms 1:3 psalms 92:12,14, Matthew 15:13, Mark 4:4-4-8,28, John 15:2) and [Comenius] saw many valid comparisons. Chief among these is the fact that one grows by his own activity. Teachers and books may help or hinder growth, but the learner must do his own growing. Genuine inward changes are essential for any type of progress for the pupils. “Outward ceremonies without inward truth are an abomination to God,” said Comenius. (42)

Learning is by practice as well as by precept. We learn to write by writing, to talk by talking, to sing by singing, to reason by reasoning. In other words, we learn to do by doing. (43)

Because we learn more than one thing at a time, the various senses and faculties should continually be exercised together. (44)

Only a realistic application of that faith to present day life can make it effective (A.W. Tozer—47)

We have often been afraid to accept what is solid common sense merely because it has come from godless sources. We have often been afraid to enter into our educational heritage because worldlings have “beat us to it.” (49)

How often we human teachers speak the precious truths of God’s Word into the air because we teach a lesson that is wholly unrelated to what the pupils are doing and thinking! Generalities, even generalities from the Word of God, mean little to most people. If we do not select the part of the Word that meets the personal need, our pupils develop the habit of not listening, or devise their own activities. (56)

The result of the lesson was immediate action. Christ taught the woman [at the well] not in order that she might know something for future use or do something in the future, but in order that she might be changed that day, in order that she might make a definite response in the present. Trying to teach for an unknown tomorrow is usually vague and general and ineffective. If a person finds his deepest needs met today by the Living and written Word, he will be ready to go to the same source tomorrow. (57)

People understand best not bare statements, not abstract generalizations, but concrete ideas put into experience and illustration. (67)

Jesus didn’t ask people to repeat His answers back to Him. He was looking for spiritual insight and action on the basis of His teaching. (82)

Christ did not expect that knowing mentally would automatically result in doing. If this had been His philosophy of education the Pharisees would have been His best pupils. (82)

What kind of results are we working for in our teaching? What kind of results are we getting? If we ask pupils merely to repeat words back to us, we aren’t likely to get more than words. We’ll stress memorization of Scripture, surely, but for the purpose of changing life. If we’re looking for transformation of life, we’ll teach for transformation, we’ll pray for transformation, and we’ll not cease our efforts until we see transformation. (83)

The Creator, who made man—body, soul and spirit—seeks to meet his needs at the level of the LIFE that He created. Therefore our aims will be in terms of feeling and doing as well as knowing. (85)

Too many Christian young people feel like this. They attend church, hear the Word of God, and go out to do nothing about it. The teacher doesn’t really expect anything to happen, and the pupils don’t expect anything to happen. On the contrary, we should be arranging spiritual experiences for each age group on its own level, and taking advantage of arising needs that are followed by new spiritual decisions and practices. (87)

If we want Jesus to teach in His own way through us, what will our general pattern look like? We’ll start where our pupils are, with their current needs, help them find God’s answer in Scripture, and begin to practice that truth this week. (87)

Having assured to Moses in infancy the best in secular education, God insured that Moses’ most pliable years when permanent habits and attitudes are formed should be spent at his mother’s side in a home that, though impoverished, had the riches of spiritual heritage to pass on to its children. (92)

In order to raise all of life to the spiritual plane, God’s method is ever the spontaneous vitality of actual life. There is no need of artificial stimulation of interest when inner urges are being utilized, when the sources of material are direct and primary. It is true that experience is the best teacher provided it is the right kind of experience, provided it is skillfully guided. (93)

The Bible always connects doctrine to practice (124)

Our main problems in the use of Scripture are to get through the written Word to the Living Word, and to translate doctrine into life. (124)

It takes more than God’s Word in the mouth to insure God’s power in the life. (131)

When the Word of God is brought to bear upon current needs, it produces action as it is meant to do, not always positive, but it changes things. People ought not to be able to listen to the Word of God without being changed. They are forming disastrous habits if they’re ever allowed to do so. (132)

The Bible knows no such thing as truth that is merely theoretical; in the Bible the truth is linked to the deed. (133) Frank E. Gaebelein The Pattern of God’s Truth.

[the whole of scripture truth] must be related to life to be known for what it really is. (134)

Spiritual knowledge is not deep thought, but living contact, entering into and being united to the truth as it is in Jesus, a spiritual reality, a substantial substance. (134) Andrew Murray The Spirit of Christ

. . . in the Garden of Eden two ways were set before Adam and Eve for attaining the likeness of God, two ways typified by the two trees, the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s way was that through life would come the knowledge and likeness of God. But Satan assured Adam that it was through knowledge that man may be like the Most High. Ever since then it has been difficult for men to put knowledge in its rightful place. (135)

A pupil’s growth is determined not by what he hears, but by what he does about what he hears. (143)

Our big job as teachers is to set up a situation that is propitious for learning, in which Jerry and Alice and Nancy and Alden will want to find God’s higher ways. We can make everything in the classroom situation favorable to learning rather than militating against it, as is often the case. In the first place we’ll project ourselves into the place of our pupils, and try to feel as they feel, think as they think, walk in their shoes. We’ll put aside the fact that we know the lesson of the day, but remember only that they don’t. We won’t stay in our own world and try to call across a great gulf into theirs. We’ll try to tap their world. We’ll transfer the learning process from the teacher to the pupil. Then teaching becomes a great adventure with the Master Teacher Himself. (145)

No matter what person’s training or mental understanding may be, we won’t assume that he is a Christian until we observe unmistakable evidence of his being born from above. However, just as there is a period of prenatal development before physical birth, there is a period of prenatal development before spiritual birth, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Before regeneration, the young child’s parents try to help him to say no to his own selfish ways and yes to the Lord’s higher ways; yet strictly speaking, only after spiritual birth can the new creation in Christ be said to grow. Our concern is to see the individual making steady spiritual progress from physical birth to death. (146)

We train our pupils to repeat verses that are only words to them or to say pretty little poems in special-day programs. These words may perhaps entertain adults, but what is happening inside the pupils as a result? Is the Word of God merely “hung on” the pupil for decoration, or is it being assimilated into his inner being? (147)

Whichever need is most basic and most pressing will claim our attention, our interest, our effort. Our whole being is consciously and unconsciously searching for the means of meeting these needs. If we see no relation between an event and our own needs, we pay no attention to it. (152)

Every problem in life ought to drive us to Him for its solution. Most of the lessons Christ taught in gospels started with personal needs. We as teachers help our pupils to see and appropriate the Lord as the answer to the personal needs that He has ordained. (152)

When a man feels the pul of the spiritual world, he will submit to any amount of external routine rather than take himself apart within. It is much easier to fall into the habit of quoting words and assuming that they are meeting God’s requirements. If we teachers demand nothing more than words, the pupils will try to quiet their consciences with them. (154)

If pupils’ inner needs and ideas and suggestions are woven into the lesson, it will penetrate to the mainspring of action. (155)

Through sermon after sermon, Bible lecture after Bible lecture, are the churches training “professional listeners” who become expert at tuning out what isn’t vital to them personally? It is estimated that only about one-fourth of a congregation is really listening to the preacher at any one time. When people are also “talked at” in the so-called teaching sessions, it is no wonder that spiritual results are not more in evidence. Pupils are actually being trained not to listen. (156)

The peculiar genius of teaching is the small intimate group in which overt interaction is possible. (156)

When teachers do most of the learning, pupils get only the ‘dehydrated product, which is tasteless and dull” (157) Ruth Bailey

We should seek a maximum of self-propulsion, a minimum of absorption of the teacher’s words. (157)

Experience is the best teacher in the sense that her lessons are always learned. Whether or not they are the right lessons is something else again. Experience is a hard teacher, for she gives the test first, the lesson afterward. (158)

Too long have teachers been the active participants in the game of learning, with the pupils merely spectators. (158)

It is questionable how long our society can support institutions where “students” sit and watch teachers learn. (159)

In presession they may examine objects related to the Bible lesson, in worship they actively sing and pray and use familiar Scripture, in expressional work after the story they do something that helps to bridge the gap between knowing and doing God’s will. (161)

Unless we teachers involve the whole persons in our classes, they may give assent to our teaching but remain unchanged in conduct. (177)

Pre-Christians

It became popular a while ago to begin referring to people outside the church as pre-Christians. I have to say that the term, “pre-Christian” always made my toes curl. It seemed to assume too much. I happen to believe like a good Calvinist that there are people who will not follow Christ and that we don’t know who they are. So, to refer to everyone as pre-Christian lacked some form of honesty about the state of things.

However, I think I know in part where they were heading. There is another another theme among Christians that is possibly more dangerous than calling outsiders pre-Christians. It is assuming that the first step in a person’s spiritual journey is when they set foot on a church’s campus and attend a program. Another assumption closely related to this is assuming that the first step in a person’s spiritual journey is when they make a profession of faith. While I don’t often hear this articulated . . . no one says, “You don’t matter until you come visit us.” Churches program for this all of the time. Our programming and its emphasis on insiders, often states very clearly, you don’t matter until you participate in one of our programs. Then, inside those programs, the message is that you don’t really matter until you make a profession of faith.

I think the term, “pre-Christian,” attempted to convert those two themes. We need to realize that when a person steps on our campus it may not be the first step in their spiritual journey, but the first step in their spiritual journey with us. It may be the 5^th or 100^th step in the journey that God has been leading them on. The choice a person makes to set foot on a church campus is representative of a level of trust that God may be building into that person’s life. That step says “I think the church might have an answer to the problems of my life.” I fear too many churches then break that level of trust by programming in ways that either makes the next step a huge leap or by assuming that nothing spiritual can have been built into their lives except by the church. I can’t help but think that when that happens consistently in a church--when churches make the next step a huge leap, or ignore the work that God is doing in the lives of people outside the church’s walls and outside the church’s direct influence--that God loses interest in such churches. God stops bringing people to those kinds of churches. God is looking for churches that will partner with him. To put it in theological terms, God is looking for churches that can see his work of prevenient grace in the lives of people before they ever attend our church—then create environments that welcome them and help them take the next step.

The Mighty Mouse Trap II:Core Values

Core values: We all have them. If I were "freudian," I would say the part of the iceberg that is above the water line--the smallest part, the part that we can see--represents our actions. The bigger part--the part below the surface, the part we can't see, the part capable of sinking the Titanic--represents our core ideology. According to Collins & Porras core ideology consists of an organizations core purpose and core values.

One of the biggest contributions of the purpose-driven movement has been the emphasis on articulating purpose statements for church organizations. As a result we have taken our staffs on 3 day retreats devoted to hammering out purpose statements. And like many other churches we have come up with purpose statements that look very similar. They are similar because the Bible is pretty clear on the purpose of the church. The Biblical church has a dual purpose: evangelize the lost and disciple the saints. Many churches have articulated this in different ways, but the purpose of the church is unchanging in whatever way it is worded. Whether we say the purpose of the church is “to lead people in a growing relationship with Christ,” or to “turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ” , or “reaching seekers; building believers” or “To bring people to Jesus and membership in his family, develop them to Christ-like maturity, and equip them for their ministry in the church and life mission in the world, in order to magnify God’s name” or “the purpose of the church is to glorify God (Ephesians 3;21) by building itself up in the faith (Ephesians 4:13-16), by instruction of the Word (2 Timothy 2:2, 15; 3:16-17), by fellowship (Acts 2;47; 1 John 1:3), by keeping the ordinances (Luke 22:19; Acts 2:38-42) and by advancing and communicating the gospel to the entire world (Matthew 28:19; Acts 1:8; 2:42)” or “Spreading a passion for the supremacy of GOD in all things, for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ” the Biblical church has a dual purpose: evangelize the lost & disciple the saints.

Church purpose statements are not that interesting. In fact, I am not convinced that purpose statements have been really effective in guiding what a church does and doesn't do. You may have recognized some of the statements above. In order, they are the purpose statements of Northpoint Community Church; Willow Creek; Willow Creek Association Brand Logo; Saddleback Community Church Purpose; Grace Community Church, Sun Valley California—Pastor John MacArthur; Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minesota—Pastor John Piper. If you are somewhat familiar with what is happening on the church scene you are probably familiar enough with the above churches to know that while the purpose statements have all of the key ingredients the churches they represent have widely differing views on doing church If you look closely at the statements you will be able read between the lines enough to see that there are philosophy of ministry tidbits expressed in their word choice. However, the average person would be hard pressed to recreate Northpoint, or Grace Community Church with their purpose statements alone. The reason why is because the brevity of a purpose statement prevents the articulation of the core values of a church. And it is the core values that guide how the purpose of the church is carried out.

On a side note. It has become very popular to talk about Biblical worldview. I think that core values can be understood in a similar way. We all have a worldview, whether we think we have one or not. We don't have a choice in not having one, only whether our worldview will be well thought out or not. Core values are the same way. We all have them as individuals. Core values shape the way we view the world and how we react to particular situations. Core values help us prioritize what we do. They also draw us to others and to other organizations that share our core values. I also believe that an individual's core values don't really change--they are discovered. An organization's values, while more malleable than an individual's, are also strongly resistant to change. They are only malleable in organizations because an organization's values are lived out by the individuals that comprise it. Individuals can be replaced. However, for those who have tried, changing the core values of an organization is like rearranging a cemetery.

We have all seen dozens of value statements for businesses. What retail business, for example, doesn't value customer service? We all know that businesses value customer service because they value making a profit. But when was the last time you saw a value statement that reads: we value integrity, raking in the dough and customer service? You probably won't ever see one like that. Also, when did a value statement at MacDonald's ever guarantee an experience marked by great customer service? Value statements are ineffective if the individuals that make up the organization value other things more. In such cases the value statements on the wall are only aspirational--they are dreams--that may often by trumped by the true core values of the individuals running the organization.

In church world we have also seen many value statements. Many of them look remarkably the same, and yet the churches look remarkably different. This happens when the individuals that comprise the church value other things more. Often what is written on the wall is not happening down the hall. In such cases there are obviously some values that are more core and assumably not expressed in the value statement. These values are guiding what the church does and doesn't do. For example, what church doesn't say they value evangelism? Yet, church attendance, conversions and baptisms have been declining nationally for the past 50 years. Last year the Southern Baptist Convention reported that 7000 churches in its own denomination didn't baptize a single person. 3000 churches baptized only one person. What is happening in a denomination that has historically placed such a high value on evangelization? Because what is on the wall is not happening down the hall in this denomination, such realities beg the question. What do the people of the church value more? What are we going to do about it?

While the answer to that question is beyond the scope of this post, let me turn this back toward the direction of the discussion started in The Mighty Mouse Trap. I am not going to go into a lot of detail about what is really at the core of the "outreach" church's values in this post. I want to dig into what the "teaching" church values. As we said before, both church models say they value discipleship and evangelism. Yet, they have very different ways of doing it. So what values are really shaping the way the "teaching " church does church?

A friend of mine, John Turner, who has some great thoughts on church, posted something I believe is apropos in this discussion. You can visit his site at www.faith20.org. He writes:

Are you a minister (focused on “insiders”) or an evangelist (focused on “outsiders”)?

Every church has to make a decision about this. You can do a lot of work with both insiders and outsiders in mind, but eventually those two core values will come into conflict and one will have to win out. Which will it be?

In other words, you can have one of the following two goals:

• We will reach as many new people as we can while our energy is primarily focused on keeping as many of the people we already have

or

• We will keep as many of the people we already have while our energy is primarily focused on reaching as many new people as we can
  

One of these sees ministry (keeping insiders) as the end and mission (reaching outsiders) as the means. The other sees mission as the end and ministry as the means.

I think John is on the right track. I believe that the "teaching" church model largely sees the mission as a means to doing ministry (i.e. the teaching church expends most of its energy trying to keep as many people as it can while reaching as many people as it can.) The "outreach" church sees mission as the end and ministry as the means. (i.e. keeping as many people as they already have while focusing on reaching as many new people as they can.) To take this a step further, I believe that there are some other core values that create this sort of prioritization. Both of these--ministry & mission or discipleship & evangelism--are core--but what is it that prioritizes these for the respective models?

Let me end with a few quotes that I think summarize the value that makes mission serve ministry in the teaching church. In the introduction to the book Future Grace, John Piper writes: ". . . this book is driven by the conviction that right thinking shapes right living" (Piper 12). I might add that most teaching pastors believe teaching the right information is what shapes right thinking, that shapes right living. Another pastor has put it like this "Our capacity to praise and trust God is dependent upon our understanding of His essential nature. . . . the more you know about God, the more you understand his nature, the more you understand what He is trying to do in your life and mine, then the more we can praise Him and serve Him." I.e. what you know shapes how you live. And what you know is shaped by what is taught.

The full implications of this value will require greater discussion, but I want to end with one thought. C.S. Lewis once said that he would rather play cards with a gentleman than with a philosopher. For, the gentleman would be bound by his honor not to cheat while the philosopher would only be bound by his knowledge.

A Little Detour

I am convinced that every path has a destination. I also believe that organizations, just like individuals can place themselves on a path that leads to a particular destination. This happens despite good intentions, despite how smart our leadership is, despite how relevant our programming is. Organizationally, the modern church has arrived at a destination. What it is facing is not a discipleship problem or an evangelism problem. It is not something we can fix by adding a program or ministry or hiring another ministry leader. The church has just arrived at a destination. It has simply arrived at the end of a path that it has been unknowingly walking for nearly 100-150 years. The church has arrived at a destination where church systems are in direct competition with God’s design for the family. One of the most troubling ramifications of this destination is that it has produced systems that short circuit our most powerful evangelism strategies and our most powerful form of discipleship. We have arrived at a destination where our church systems are not aligned with a fundamental principle of relationships—particularly family relationships.

I know that this is an audacious statement. What church doesn’t describe itself as “family-friendly”? We run children’s programs. Alongside every adult program we offer something for the kids. We preach 12 week series on family relationships. We have parenting classes, discipline classes, age-appropriate Sunday Schools. We have replaced education directors with family pastors and started family ministries. We invest lots of money and volunteers in VBS programs, summer camps, family camps, midweek discipleship programs, age graded Sunday school curriculum and colorful take-homes. We have experimented with intergenerational environments from small groups to large groups. Certainly by the shear number of resources and programs we offer we are living in an age when the church is the most “family friendly” it has ever been.

And yet . . . as I talk with children’s and family pastors there is a growing unease—a sense that things are just not right. We know that nearly 50% of those who say they are Christians tell us that they made the decision to follow Christ during their school years. We know this is true because we see kids coming to Christ in our programs; we have led some of them to Christ ourselves. But we also see 60-80% of them walking away from their faith in their first year of college. Some say they need a curriculum that has a more comprehensive Biblical Worldview. We know that they are right. Our children need a worldview that is based on the Bible. Some say they need the Bible to be taught in relevant and compelling ways. We know that they are right. Our children need to see that what the Bible has to say is relevant and compelling. Some say we need to make church irresistible. We know that they are right. Our children need to see church as the best hour of their week. And yet . . . when we arrive at the place where our curriculum teaches a comprehensive Biblical world view in compelling and relevant ways and church is irresistible will our children have arrived? Will we still feel uneasy? Do you notice the subtlety? What if the perfect curriculum, Sunday school class or church program is not enough? I think that the answer is that it is not enough.

C.S. Lewis said that once we discover that we have taken a wrong turn in our spiritual lives that we often assume we can just jump back on the right road where we left off. He insists that instead we must retrace our steps, go all of the way back to where we made the wrong turn, before we can begin moving in the right direction. I think that is exactly where the church is as it relates to the family. The problem is, that none of us were around when the church began taking this path. We don’t know what the detour looked like. Where is that fork in the road that led to the destination we are at? Worse, however, is many of our churches have traveled the path so long and are so far down the path that they don’t even realize that our churches are not family friendly. Jesus said “when the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.”

What happened 100-150 years ago that placed the church on this path? What is God’s design on the family? In what ways do church systems militate against the family? What do we need to do to fix it? What do we need to do to restore the family?

Model for the Mighty Mousetrap

I promised someone quite a while ago that I would write something about church models. So I am going to deliver on my promise—even if it is slightly belated.

Generally when we think of church models we think of systems. When we think of Saddleback Community Church we think of seeker services and concentric circles, we think of the bases (101, 201, 301, 401) and moving around the baseball diamond. Spiritual growth is seen as moving through the bases. At Grace Community Church of which John MacArthur is the senior pastor we think of “unleashing God’s Truth one verse at a time.” While a slogan, it summarizes the model—large and small teaching environments. Preaching on Sunday Morning and Sunday Night, teaching in Sunday School classes for all ages. Spiritual growth is seen as right living stemming from comprehending right doctrine.

For many, these churches represent (but did not originate) opposing models. They have been commonly named the “outreach” church model and the “teaching” church model. If you stand in the “outreach church model” you may view the teaching church model as simply a different methodology. You see a difference between “the message” and the method. In fact the common view is that the message should never change, but the methods should always change so as to be relevant to the culture trying to be reached. If you stand in the “teaching church model” you see the preaching of God’s Word as the method and the message. Thus any tampering with the method is a tampering with the message. As Mark Dever has written in the Deliberate Church, he would rather see every other area of his personal ministry fail, than to see his ministry of the preaching of the Word to fail. In the teaching church the preaching of the Word is the primary ministry of the church and there is no close second.

I want to say that the discussion deteriorates from here to a lot of name calling. So, I am going to lay all my cards on the table and use a secular tool to guide what I think is the real issue underlying church models, why the debate is so fierce, why outreach vs. teaching church is a false dichotomy, why “balance” is a “sucky” term and should not be part of any well meaning Christian’s vocabulary and ultimately what I think is the real solution to the church model problem.

The secular tool I am referring to is what has been developed by Jim Collins & Jerry Porras in several articles on vision & leadership, among them the books Built to Last and Good to Great. So throughout the rest of this blog I will be referring to the way they have defined the terms: core ideology, core purpose and core values, envisioned future, tangible image and mission.

(For those who think that the secular market place (if you haven’t stopped reading already) has nothing to say to the church organization, I ask that you bear with me a little longer. I am not asking us to judge the church by worldly standards. I am just trying to establish a common vocabulary and define the terms in the clearest possible fashion. Collins and Porras have been the only ones who distinguish between all of the terms we commonly use in the church interchangeably.)

Collins and Porras see vision as an envisioned future that stems from core ideology. Core ideology consists of an organization’s core purpose (why it exists) and core values/philosophy (what it believes). These two things are so part of the culture of the organization they are virtually impossible to change. Out of the core ideology is birthed the envisioned future which consists of a tangible image (what do we want to become) and a mission (a time sensitive plan on how to get there.) The mission may be constantly changing as it is achieved or needs to be revised, but it should never be incompatible with the core ideology. (For further study see “Building the Vision” in Built to Last).

Most discussions on church models jump to systems and ignore the core ideology. We assume that the core values of Bible believing evangelical churches are the same. Sure we differ on some minor issues, like worship styles, baptism, communion etc . . . But we all acknowledge that many of the issues that divide are secondary. This we know is true because the statements of faith from the two example churches are virtually identical. Equally true however is the fact that churches can have the same beliefs and yet have very different core values and ministry philosophy. That would be the case for Saddleback and Grace Community Church. We can’t assume that agreement theologically means agreement philosophically. We muddy the issue because we like to point out how philosophical differences in others are mis-readings of the text or theological inconsistencies. I think that this confuses the issue. Well meaning traditional Calvinists are always trying to make Arminians of the Rick Warrens of the world. In the end, I think we are sidestepping the real debate; theological name calling is as old as time.

The best place to start is an understanding of core values and ministry philosophy in these two church models. In my next blog that is where we will begin. To be continued . . . .

Talking is not Teaching

I have learned over the years that teachers, especially the good ones, have several enigmatic sayings like, “There is no such thing as teaching, only learning.”
As a first year teacher, I asked a good friend of mine and master teacher to observe my junior literature class. After the observation her advice came in this form. “My mother, who taught for 40 years, said to me, ‘Talking is not teaching.’”

Every teacher who is honest recognizes that grades don’t only reflect a student’s ability to learn; they also reflect a teacher’s ability to teach. As a teacher I had the accountability of frequent tests. Students demonstrated, at times weekly and daily, whether my talking was actually teaching. I saw it in their grades—whether they learned the lessons or not. A teacher has two options when it comes to teaching. They can learn the material and communicate it through talking. Or they can guide students through systems whereby the student arrives at the same destination as the teacher. I began to see teaching not as acquiring certain information, but arriving at a particular destination. In Communicating for a Change, Andy Stanley writes of the need for pastors to take people on a journey toward a particular destination rather than merely communicating information.

It is easy to stand on one side of the Grand Canyon and beckon to our students across the chasm, “Come on! You can do it!” Shouting out directions, “turn left there, go around that tree, no not that one.” It is another thing to walk back across the chasm and lead each student by the path we have come. Good teachers guide students down the path they have taken. The best teachers find short cuts and new paths based upon the student's abilities—all the while with the goal at arriving on the other side. Some of our students may have a limp and have to take an alternate path. But it is our job to help them arrive at the same destination.

As pastors we are in the business of teaching. We want people to arrive at a particular destination. Let’s face it; we are sometimes called preachers, because we are seen primarily as talkers. With all of the talking, preachers are in the most danger of losing sight of what actually helps people get to the other side of the grand canyon. It is easy to lose sight of the fact that our processes/systems by and large trump what we say. Our processes and systems are our most powerful tools in helping people become spiritually mature.

At the 2006 Drive Conference the components of a system are defined as:
1. Expectations/rules

Example: Northpoint Community Church has a rule for its family production called “No Dropoffs” They expect for parents and children to attend Kidstuf together. They reinforce this expectation by not offering anything during the Kidstuf timeslot that would compete for a parent’s attention. There are no adult Sunday school classes on Sunday morning, no adult worship service occupying the same timeslot. Andy Stanley is rigorous about ending the service on time so that parents can pick up their children to attend together. There is a very important lesson here: Our stated expectations are meaningless if our systems reinforce different expectations.

Key Questions: What expectations do our systems reinforce? How can we align our systems with our expectations?

2. Rewards (or lack of) What is rewarded is repeated.

Example: We began a family production (a shared experience for children and parents) in our church in November of 2005. To see what we did, go to www.kidstufventura.com . Within a month we went from 15 children to 150 parents and children in the same room. Huge win if numbers was our win. It was extraordinarily tempting to advertise the success of our numbers. But a large crowd was not my goal—transformed lives was. I felt that I needed to make a conscious effort to redefine the win: from numbers to transformed lives. Shortly thereafter my team began to work on ways to gather stories of how the family production was impacting family’s lives. I intentionally began telling these stories rather than numbers to our production staff, small group leaders and church staff. I would retell the stories during the family production, while the team found creative ways to reward parents who were winning. I.e. teaching their children about faith and character during the week. We set up a discussion board on our website where parents and children could write about how they were interacting with the virtue of the month. The curriculum provided by www.ReThink.org was also very creative. We gave away a foot of duct tape for every story of resourcefulness written by the children. At the end of the month we taped our co-host to the wall. We had over 170 stories.

Key Questions: What do we reward? Do we reward the behaviors we want to see repeated? Are we currently rewarding things that we don’t want repeated?

3. Consequences (or lack of)

Example: over the summer we began enforcing small group leader/student ratios in our children’s small group program. This communicated several things. It communicated to our small group leaders that we did care about their sanity; it meant that we were serious about not slamming a single small group leader with a large group of 25 four year olds. It communicated to our parents that we cared about the safety of their children. There was an unforeseen positive consequence. In our laid back So. Cal beach climate we now have parents arriving early to ensure their child gets a spot in their small group. I think Jim Collins calls these policies with teeth.

Key Questions: Have you changed anything recently that resulted in inadvertent results? What were they? What about your system created them?

4. Communication (content and style)

According to David F. Wells, at the 2006 Desiring God Conference:
it becomes more and more imperative for preachers to make sure that the truth that they are preaching intersects with what is going on inside people’s minds so that the line is drawn so clearly, that people in their own lives know whether they are being obedient or not and what they should do with that truth when they have heard it. Now that is contextualization. And so it goes all the way through from people sitting in pews in American and missionaries preaching in Hindu contexts in India.

Our communication, its content must align with what we are trying to produce in our systems, and its style must intersect with what is going on inside people’s minds so they know what we are asking them to do.

Key Question: Am I spending time on Sunday communicating strategy to the church members? Does the content of my communication align with or contradict the created/established system?

5. Behavior (of those in charge)
Example: I think we can all come up with some examples of this one. The most compelling reason to change is seeing such change lived out in our own lives as leaders.

Key Question: Where does my own behavior not align with my expectations of those who follow me? What must I do to change that? (By the way, when you do change misaligned behavior in your own life you have great power in helping others make the same change. Plus your living illustration is preachable.)

Body of Christ

The church as the body of Christ: I am just now getting a better grasp of those passages that talk about the body of Christ. I confess I have overlooked the primary point of those passages. Because I had thought that the body imagery was primarily about unity, I had missed what was most germane. We are all to play our part, work within our strengths, using the talents God has given us, doing and being that which God has called us to do and be because “corporately” we are the only representation of Christ to the world; we are the body of Christ. (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15). The body of Christ is not merely and illustration it is the point. This has profound implications; if we are the body of Christ it means that the mission of the church is the same as the mission of Jesus Christ. It begs the question, ”What was Christ’s mission?”

Maybe this is a no-brainer for the rest of us, but I have always thought Jesus accomplished His mission and now the church has a different mission. Now, before you call me naïve, think about it for a moment. Don’t we commonly think that Jesus came to die on the cross? Didn’t he accomplish that mission? Certainly. Now what remains, but for the church to proclaim what Jesus did? There are two missions here: Jesus made the way, the church is to proclaim the way. What if dying on the cross wasn’t Christ’s mission? What if it was only part of the mission?

I thought I would start with the most simple way of discovering what Christ’s mission was and the church’s mission is: I decided I would start with what Jesus said His mission was. Not what He did—because I know how theological types like myself can wax eloquently on what Jesus did and what that means for how we do church. Not what Jesus did, but simply, what mission did Jesus say he was on. I am reading through the gospels first, then the epistles with one question in mind, “What was the mission Christ said He was on?”

Drive Conference 2006

I like the term "resonance."

Tesla claimed to have created a simple mechanical machine that leveraged resonance to create earthquake like effects on large structures. Over time imperceptible tremors would result in catastrophic vibrations that had the potentional to not only shake a skyscraper to the ground, but (according to Tesla) if used properly could even split the core of the earth. While no one has been able to achieve such an effect--theoretically it is possible.

I find myself resonating with the principles that I learned at this year's Drive Conference at Northpoint Community Church. It is my hope and prayer that the resonance of these eternal principles will ripple into the churches of the world and break down the structures that are obstacles for unchurched people to get to God. That means, I believe that the systems in most of our churches are putting barriers in front of people who want to get to God. That means that the church, created to be the body of Christ, created to build a bridge to God and turn on lights, created to do what Jesus did in the world, the pillar of truth is currently failing.

I am convinced that the systems of the North American church are preventing us from fulfilling the Great Commission. Our systems are the reason why 10,000 Southern Baptist Churches--a denomination that has historically focused on evangelism--baptized fewer than 7000 people last year. That is less than 1 person per church. It is why 100's of churches close their doors every year despite locations in growing communities. It is why, every Sunday, 1000s of people pass by our church on their way to the beach or the mall and never think about going to church. Systems are the reason why the church has diminishing impact despite great visions, great teaching, dedicated prayer and large faith. Our teaching, vision, prayer and faith fail because our systems betray our cause.

In Psalm 106:4-5 David desires to be present when God's salvation comes. He looks forward to the coming of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God. He says, "God, when you do it, when you save your people, when your Kingdom comes, I want to be there." Like David, I want to be there. Here's the difference. David could only hope for the future coming of the Kingdom; he could only hope for what was to come. For us, the Kingdom has come. Jesus embodied the Kingdom and he opened it up to the spiritually impoverished, the meek, the opppressed. The Kingdom has come, but it has not come into many of our churches. The church is not the Kingdom. There are people in the church that are in the Kingdom. . . . but by and large our churches do not reflect the kingdom. Kingdom churches cannot be ignored, because Jesus Christ could not be ignored in His own time. I want to be there when it comes. I want to be part of a ministry that is dedicated to being part of the Kingdom's coming in the lives of the people of our community. Lord, I want to be there. I want to be there when your salvation comes to your people. I want to be with people whose hearts beat in rhythm with Kingdom growth, Kingdom impact, Kingdom living and transformed lives.

Drive Conference 2006

Session 1: Replacing the Filters

Bottomline: If you make it difficult for unchurched people to get to God, you are testing God. Acts 15:20

Session 2: Repairing the Transmission--Liberating Your Organization

Bottomline: Systems creat behaviors.

Components of a system: Expectations/rules, Rewards or lack thereof, Consequences or lack thereof, Communication (content and style), Behavior of those in charge.

The systems of a church will always trump teaching, communication, vision & mission. A mission is meaningless unless you change the system.

Session 3: Changing the Plugs--Recruiting and Retaining Great Volunteers

1. Connect the dots: make volunteers feel that they fulfill a vital role that is connected to the overall mission and strategy of the organization.

2. Start and Stop: Clearly define the beginning and of a volunteers role.

3. Eliminate the Competition: Eliminate competing systems within your organization.

4. Bring them along: apprentice volunteers; don't parachute them into a role.

5. Recognize and reward: Positively reinforce actions that reflect the core values---celebrate the win

6. Make them proud: Create an environment that volunteers would be proud to be a part of. Captivate their imaginations.

7. Staff for stars: Leadership attracts leadership. Hold out for the best leaders.

Session 4: Recharging the Battery--

Bottomline: In conflict, obey God and trust Him with the consequences.

Session 5: Cleaning the Fuel Injectors--Building High Performance Teams

Bottomline: A high performance team is a small group of competent (interdependent) individuals passionately engaged in the execution of a plan designed to solve a specific problem.

Relational Evangelism

There are three prevalent forms of evangelism in the church today: crusade, telemarketing, bait and switch.

Crusade: asking a person to stand up in front of 100’s of people they don’t know, and take the hand of someone they have never met in order to believe in a God they cannot see.

Telemarketing: Christian telemarketers, without telephones, peddling the 4 spiritual laws to complete strangers. Who likes a telemarketer? We hang up on these people all the time.

Bait & Switch: Or let’s ask our members to invite their friends to an outreach event. We’ll bait them with entertainment—who doesn’t like a good comedian?—then we’ll switch it on them, tell them they are all sinners and they need to repent. Will we ever be able to look those friends in the face again?

These methods have their place, but we all know that the most effective form of evangelism happens in the context of relationships. What if the entire church strategy was organized around the principle of relational evangelism? What if we partnered with the members of our church to save their coworkers, friends and family?

This is what I think that kind of partnership would look like:

An Outreach/Discipleship Strategy

INVEST—people in the church (insiders) investing in relationships with people they are already connected with outside the church (outsiders) in order to . . .

INVITE them to a weekly environment designed to help outsiders begin to see the message of Christ as relevant to their lives in order to . . .

CONNECT them with God’s family in close personal relationships so they can learn to connect with God, His Word, and His people in order to . . .

BE the church—the Body of Christ; His hands and feet—SERVE in the community. People doing what Jesus did: building a bridge to God and turning on lights.

I am convinced that the Bible has the answer to every relational problem, societal problem and political problem. It speaks to the issues of single mothers, problem kids, lost jobs, broken marriages. Christianity is the answer to world hunger, pandemic disease and poverty. I believe Christianity can teach me how to raise my kids and be a great dad. I believe it has the answers to every question our culture is currently asking. Because of this I believe that the church ought to be the most compelling group of people on the earth. I believe that we should be as compelling as Jesus was when he walked the earth. You either loved Him or hated Him, but you couldn’t ignore Him. Likewise if we began to speak to these issues we would be as compelling as Jesus. Then we would be the body of Christ, doing what He did in His culture in ours.

Croup-like Faith

My middle child suffers from asthma. I don’t think there are many things more frightening than to wake up in the middle of the night to see your child gasping for breath. Simply put, asthma is a condition of the lungs that makes it difficult to inhale. Croup is the exact opposite—croup makes it difficult to exhale. If you have ever watched someone suffering from croup or asthma, you understand on a visceral level that breathing requires the ability to inhale and exhale—you have not breathed if you have only inhaled.

In June, I delivered a message called “Seeing is Believing: spiritual maturity is not about what you know, but what you do.” I was challenged by the fact that people can do things without knowledge. Can such things be considered faith? I offer Romans 2:14-16 “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”

Faith is like breathing. One cannot only inhale certain beliefs to be considered faithful, but must also exhale certain actions. Intellectual assent has never been good enough. The devil can sign off on our church doctrinal statements. In fact, the devil could correct many of them, simply by having been an eye-witness of Christ’s work on the cross.

James makes it clear that belief must result in certain actions in order to be faith. But, can it be said that certain actions, point to latent beliefs--also an indication of faith? To use the illustration—when someone exhales, they must have inhaled. When Gentiles instinctively do the things of the Law they show that the work of the Law is written on their hearts. What they exhale, shows what they inhale. “. . . he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”

In scripture, action is often traced to its source. “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” “The heart is the wellspring of life.” “You will know a tree by its fruit.” “I am the Vine you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” “Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.” The disposition of the heart, the taproot of our lives, determines our actions. The north American church culture has a croup-like faith. We have trouble exhaling. In a church culture that is more comfortable with knowing than with loving others, the message must be: spiritual maturity is not about what you know, but what you do. We must exhale to consummate a breath. We must do in order to consummate belief. Consummation precedes conception. Belief in action births faith.

GrowUp Session IV: Go Tandem--Reggie Joiner

1. Most families believe in the potential of the church to impact their kids.

2. Most churches believe in the potential of the family to impact their kids.

3. But most kids are growing up in Christian homes and churches and abandoning their faith. 60-80% of kids abandon the church between high school and college.

4. What if the solution for this generation of kids and students is neither the church nor the family? What if it is both/and?

5. What if both started believing in the potential of combining their influence as a force?—not the Emergent Church but the Convergent Church—the convergence of church and family.

6. They would both have to buy into the idea that . . . Two combined influences can make a greater impact than just two influences---Think Orange

7. Statistics indicate that the majority of parents recognize they need the church for help with the spiritual and moral development of their kids.

There are at least three things that most parents want to say to the church: Give us a better plan; Tell us what to say; Show us what to do.

8. But the majority of churches seem to fail in recognizing the need to establish an effective family ministry mindset.

They keep doing business as usual for a number of reasons:

Their key leaders don’t know what a family ministry looks like;

Their current programs require all of their resources and calendar;

Their existing structure will not support a different approach to ministry.

Suggestion: put a yellow dot on the church calendar for everything your church does for kids. Put a red dot on all of the things your church does for families. Put an orange dot on all of the things it does for families together.

9. If any church hopes to genuinely partner with parents it will have to radically shift in its thinking about how it interacts with parents.

THERE ARE FIVE PRIMARY CHARACTERISTICS of a CHURCH that effectively partners with parents.—They have a strategy: a plan with an end in mind.

Churches that think orange . . .
1. Integrate strategies.
If you think YELLOW you create relevant environments to connect different age groups.

If you think ORANGE you connect leaders and parents to create life-changing experiences through every age group.

4 Words
Preschool---EMBRACE---give preschoolers a first look at who God is.

Children---TRUST---most people receive Christ as a child; teach what it means to trust Christ

Middle School---PERSONALIZE---M.S. is a critical time for a person to own their own faith

High School---EXPERIENCE---H.S. kids want to know what God want to do in them and through them; involve students doing ministry.

Churches that think orange . . .
2. Elevate Community-- Create a church culture that says: I cannot survive outside the context of community.

If you think YELLOW, you challenge small group leaders to assume total responsibility to influence a child’s relationship with Christ.

If you think ORANGE, you challenge small group leaders to partner with parents to influence a child’s relationship with Christ.

Churches that think orange . . .
3. Synchronize Content

If you think YELLOW you are consumed with asking the question, “What are we going to teach kids?”

If you think ORANGE you’re asking, “How can we get parents to teach the same things that we are teaching kids?”

Churches that think orange . . .
4. Create family experiences—something for the family to experience together.

If you think YELLOW you do more programs for kids.

If you think ORANGE you do less programs for kids so you can do more for the family.

Learn to speak “family”

Churches that think orange . . .
5. Reactivate the home—the best you can hope for is temporary influence as a church; parents have lifetime influence by default.

If you think YELLOW you act like what happens at church is more important than what happens at home.

If you think ORANGE you act like what happens at home is more important than what happens at church.

GrowUp Session I: Jump or Die--Reggie Joiner

1. We are not called to simply exist, but we are wired to experience what God has designed us to be; we feel like we were designed to accomplish or create something of eternal value—something God designed us to accomplish. As leaders we want to be part of something that is bigger than anything we can do individually.

The best thing leaders can do for their church is to get crystal clear about the mission: a church that understands who it is, why it exists & what its role is.

Just because you’re moving doesn’t mean that you’re alive.

2. We are not designed to just do church and to simply get other people to just do church.
We are designed to be the church, and to compel others to be the church!—It’s the difference between religious activity and a relationship with deity.

3. The church’s role is symbolized in Scripture by a lampstand.
It was located in a strategic place—next to the “showbread” to remind people of God’s presence and His provision for the people of Israel—Christ is the ultimate provision of which the showbread was a foreshadowing.

It was designed to fulfill a specific purpose—to be an entity to illuminate—to spotlight Christ, God’s provision.

4. This suggests that the church exists for one primary purpose—to illuminate.

5. More specifically, the church is called to highlight who God is and what He has done.
Not only are your programs not sacred, your church is not sacred—only the mission is.

6. The church’s potential to influence is directly related to how it is positioned and what it illuminates. The church should capture the world’s imagination with God.

The church has a tendency to drift from what it was originally designed to do.

Every leader has to be intentional about realigning the church to its core purpose.

7. Regardless of how you define the church, it is a critical part of God’s divine strategy to demonstrate God’s redemptive story to the world.

8. Every church should be organized around a clear strategy: to reveal Jesus to every generation.

9. Your calling to care for the lampstand (church) has: a strategic implication, a social implication, a personal implication.

Is your church helping to turn on a light in the community?

If your church ceased to exist would anyone in your community know or miss it?