TILL HE COMES Blog

I was able to get my hands on a free copy of The Tangible Kingdom last week, which thrilled me because I was going to buy it anyway. It’s the newest book from The Leadership Network, and so far, I haven’t read a book from them that I don’t like. The Tangible Kingdom was no exception, and it is going on my “Missional Must-Read” Book list.

This book really hit me hard, partly because the story of Hugh Halter (one of the authors) mirrors so closely my own story. He was well situated in the established church, but didn’t feel quite at peace with himself, or with God, in such a position. So he left it all behind to see if he could find (or create) something that was still true to Scripture, but was also more effective in engaging and redeeming our culture. Doing so created lots of tension. Here is what he wrote, which is exactly what I am feeling:

You can’t go back, but forward doesn’t feel much better, because forward may not pay the bills or make it any easier to live the Christian life you’ve always wanted to live (p. 18).

He made it through this time of uncertainty (so there’s hope for me!) and ended up in Denver planting a community of faith called Adullam with some friends. As people wanted to learn more about what they were doing and why, they also developed a Web-based practicum for pastors and church planters to help them innovate new ways of effectively being the church.

What I found most refreshing about the book is that the authors are not trying to criticize, judge, or condemn the way the typical church functions today. Instead, they just explained what they are doing and why, and how it is effectively bringing people into the Kingdom of God. His bottom line premise is that the church is supposed to be living out the Kingdom of God in our communities and with our friends. As we do this, the aroma of the Gospel simply attracts people to us. They put it this way:

Church should be what ends up happening as a natural response to people wanting to follow us, be with us, and be like us as we are following the way of Christ (p. 30).

Do you find that other people are strangely attracted to you, your life, your family, and the way you “do church”? If not, it may help to read this book.

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On Friday, we looked briefly at the Parable of the Four Soils and how it applies to all people.

Ideally, if we are good planters for the Kingdom of God, we want to be planting seeds in the best soil. It is this soil that gives a 3000%, 6000%, or 10,000% return on your investment. But who is that soil? If you look in the average church, we think that the good soil is the rich, powerful, pretty people. Those with seminary degrees and big smiles. But rather than getting big returns from these people, it seems they take and demand more than they give and serve. Hmmm…maybe they are not good soil after all.

Then I started to think about soil. What makes good soil? When I was young, my mom had some flower gardens, and every spring, she would go down to the lawn and garden store, and buy bags of “Manure” to put in her gardens. One year I asked her, “Mom, what is manure?” She said, “It’s cow poop.” What made mom’s garden grow? Poop.  

What makes good soil? Good soil is that which has a lot of nutrients in it. Good soil is that which has a lot of fertilizer. Excuse me for putting it this way, but I am becoming convinced that the good soil people are those who have a lot of sh*t in their lives. Which people are these? The people we would normally think of as “bad people.” Sinners.

And yet in most of our churches, we work hardest to keep these people out. We say “come as you are” but the super fine print says “only when you can act like us, talk like us, and look like us.”

But when we look at Jesus, who did He pick to work with, minister to, and pour His life into? Tax collectors, sinners, thieves, murderers, prostitutes, drunkards. Why? He knew a good investment when He saw one. In bad people, Jesus saw fields upon fields of rich, fertile soil just waiting to be planted. Bad people make good soil.

So who are you and your church trying to seek after, love, and embrace?

(P.S. Credit goes to Neil Cole and his book Organic Church for most of this idea. Buy this book and read it!)

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I cannot rave enough about Gary Lamb’s rant. Lots of people see glory in church planting, but what most don’t realize is that to plant in such a way that genuinely reaches lost people, there’s more gore than glory. Here is what Gary wrote:

Every church planter I meet says they are starting their church to reach those that are disconnected from God. Many of them grew up in church, became Christians at a early age, and don’t even have a relationship with someone far from God, but they are going to reach those far from God. I listen to a lot of podcasts, watch a lot of videos from other churches, and it breaks my heart to know they are doing a lot of things and a lot of things well, but reaching those far from God is NOT one of them.

I have learned that most church planters REALLY don’t want to reach those far from God, they really want to do church in a cool way. There is a difference. Just because you have great video, loud music, dress casual, and use movie clips doesn’t mean you are reaching those far from God.

I honestly believe most planters would freak out if they started having to deal with the issues that come from reaching truly unchurched people. It is messy, ugly, scary, and actually can keep you from growing because it scares the hell out of those who grew up in church.

We had a person on our staff a couple of years ago who came here because he wanted to be part of a church that reached unchurched people.  The first time his wife sat next to a couple of lesbians, he was rethinking that.  This guy was a nice guy, but he couldn’t handle the ugliness that comes with reaching those that are far from God.  He literally walked around the church on Sundays with a look of terror in his eyes.  He didn’t want to reach lost people, he wanted a church where he could come and wear whatever he wanted and impress other Christians because he was at an church with a little edge.  It wasn’t long before he was running for the hills.  He couldn’t handle the messiness of reaching those with problems.  The sad thing is he isn’t alone.  Most guys can’t handle it.

When I say it is messy, I don’t think most guys understand what I mean, so allow me to walk you through my week that just got done. This is a pretty typical week at Revolution and the side 99% never see.

• I have a bottle of pain pills worth about $400 on the streets sitting in my desk that one of our people’s spouse brought me after finding them. The name on the prescription isn’t the name of the person who brought them because they were bought on the street.
• I had another one of our people lose their job for stealing thousands of dollars from the company they work for.
• I have a addict in our church who has relapsed and in the process is about to lose EVERYTHING and he doesn’t even know it.
• I set up an intervention for an addict that will take place this week. This is his last chance and he doesn’t even know it.
• Last night I was at the ER until 3 in the morning because one of our people took a razor blade and slit both his wrists, his neck, and took around 80 sleeping pills. He’s alive, but I have to say it was the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life.

All of that was just from this week. That is the life of reaching those disconnected from God. None of those people care how “cool” our church will be tomorrow. All they care about is we have created a place where they can come with all their crap and feel loved and connected.

I’ll be honest and tell you that there are times when pastoring Revolution freaks me out. There are times when I think it would be easier to do what most guys do and plant a church that really is a place for other Christians to come hang out and talk about how we are reaching unchurched people instead of doing it. I think that would be easier, but we would not be charging the gates of hell with that mindset. There are enough guys around doing that and doing it well.

Canton didn’t need another church. Canton didn’t need another church with loud music, casual dress, and “relevant” teaching. Neither do most of the towns where guys are planting. However, Canton did need a place that was loving the unlovable. It needed a place that was willing to get it’s hands dirty and deal with the messy crap that takes place in the lives of those far from God.

When a guy wants to tell me they are starting a church to reach the disconnected, I always ask them if they are sure they want to do that. I don’t think they understand the cost that comes with it. It literally can almost kill you at times.

BUT, if they do understand the cost, they will realize it is nothing compared to the reward of seeing lives changed with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is worth whatever cost there is. I would put everything on the line to continue to do what we do because the payoff is so huge.

Most guys won’t.

end rant.

Thanks Gary, for laying it out for us!

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When I tell people I am going into church planting, the most common reaction I get from people is, “Why? Don’t we already have enough churches? Why can’t you just pastor an established church?”

There are answers to both questions, and the video below shows what they are. When I first watched this video, it literally brought me to tears. Maybe it was just the music (turn your volume up, I love this soundtrack!), but I don’t think so. You see, I have a burning passion, an insatiable hunger, an unquenchable desire to see people come into a deep and vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ.

This video shows that we need more churches because we’re not keeping up with the population growth (in fact, we’re actually declining), and that most established churches are in decline. The longer a church is in existence, the less effective it becomes at reaching people for Jesus.

The bottom line is that we all need to realize that church planting IS missions. So when people ask me why I’m going into church planting, I think I’m going to start saying, “I’m not. I’m going into missions.”

See my updated booklist over on the left sidebar for some good resources to learn more about this.

(Credit goes to Drew Goodmanson for this video. Please check out his website at www.goodmanson.com)

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Yesterday I reminisced about Will Smith and his transformation from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Will Smith of Hollywood.

In the December 10, 2007 issue of TIME magazine, there was a writeup about Will Smith and how this transformation occurred.

What is Will’s secret? Intentionality. Will Smith says that this is all according to plan. TIME reports that “Because Smith has mastered the delicate art of appearing artless, few moviegoers realize that his is one of Hollywood’s most meticulously planned and executed careers.” He hatched his plan at age 16 after his first girlfriend cheated on him because (in his mind) he wasn’t good enough. he decided that he was never not be good enough again. He made a plan to correct this, and never looked back. You can see the plan unfold as you watch the career of Will Smith. But what interests me are ten principles he operates by to execute that plan. Here they are as gleaned from the article:

1. Don’t have a Plan B. Relentlessly pursue plan A. Smith says “By even contemplating a Plan B, you almost create the necessity for a Plan B.” As church leaders, while it is often a good idea to make plans, I think we sometimes get derailed from God’s vision for our lives by naysayers and setbacks. But if all we have is Plan A, we will work at it wholeheartedly because there is no other  option.

2. Read. Read. Read. Find your answers in books. Smith has a library stocked with books on every topic imaginable. He reads and studies to find the answers he needs. This reminds me of something I heard Chuck Swindoll say: “Readers are leaders.”

3. Study what others have done, and emulate. Learn by watching others. When Smith began his acting career, he would watch and emulate the various actors that came on the show, even mouthing their words after them when they rehearsed. Later, when he started to try to get into movies, he and his manager found a list of the 10 top-grossing movies of all time, and looked for patterns and similarities in them. Church leaders can do this with churches, but we have to be careful how we define “success.” Big churches are not the most successful churches.

4. Be Friendly. Make contacts.Smith had a knack for charming his way out of trouble and winning friends.  This is how he met “DJ Jazzy Jeff” and later, James Lassiter, his manager. Church leaders and planters cannot afford to be introverted. We must love to spend time with people.

5. Work hard. Be Diligent. Smith has a good work ethic and works hard at everything he does. Leading a church is not easy. It takes hard work and lots of sweat and tears.

We’ll save the final five Principles for tomorrow.

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We previously asked the question, “Who is the church service for - believers or unbelievers?” (See Part 1 and Part 2). We saw that depending on how you answer that question determines whether you are going to focus on teaching believers or reaching out to unbelievers (aka seekers) in your “church service.” However, statistics and surveys reveal that in general, disciple-making churches don’t turn out very good disciples, and seeker-sensitive churches tend mostly to attract Christians from other churches. So both approaches are failing in both discipleship and evangelism.

I suggested that the solution to this dilemma is to ask different questions. First, What is church? and second, What is the church service? With basic answers to these questions, we can now see that the only time “church service” is happening is when a group of believers (the church) are actually meeting the needs of someone else (serving), whether these needs are spiritual or physical. To be balanced, a church should focus on both spiritual and physical needs. Who is the church service for? It is for anybody that that the church is serving.

Ideally, a group of believers could meet together for prayer, Bible study, and fellowship, then as a group, go and put into practice what they have learned in Scripture. They could do this all on one day, or split it up during the days of the week, or even alternate weeks. This will work best when the same group of believers that learns together goes out and serves together as well. Other than these few things, I cannot find any clear guidelines in Scripture on when the church is supposed to meet and/or what they are supposed to do.

This will radically free you from the constraints of what has come to be known as “church.” Tune in tomorrow to see what I mean.

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Yesterday we looked at the two most common formats for church services. Some focus on teaching and training Christians, while others focus on reaching out to unbelieving seekers. Both have weaknesses.

Teaching churches focus on training Christians, but do a relatively poor job of reaching the lost. They will often say that outreach and evangelism is the job of the individual Christian, and you will hear them say things like “Healthy sheep naturally reproduce.” But little evangelism actually takes place. And, as it turns out, though many of the believers in these churches know their Bibles well, few of them actually live out what they know in their day-to-day lives, nor are they reaching out with the gospel, which challenges the idea that these sorts of churches are actually doing a good job making disciples. So such churches fail at reaching out, and ultimately, fail at making disciples.

Seeker sensitive churches try to fix this by making their church programs and services more welcoming to unbelievers. They seem to do a great job at this. They will often offer Saturday or weeknight services for the Christians to help them mature, or will encourage believers to get involved in home groups for discipleship. But in reality, few disciples are brought to maturity. Furthermore, it has become increasintly evident that although these churches do grow numerically, most of their growth is transfer growth from other churches, rather than actual evangelism growth. So unbelievers are really not being reached. Such churches fail at reaching out, and ultimately, fail at making disiciples.

The problem with both models is the same: the church cannot focus primarily on training believers or primarily on reaching unbelievers. Both are needed. But even churches that try to do both are generally quite weak in one or the other. So who is the church service for - believers or unbelievers? The answer is: “Wrong question.”

The correct questions are “What is the church?” and “What is the church service?” We will begin looking at those questions in the days ahead.

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The previous post talked about how there are lots of church planting networks, but many of them are opposed to Free Grace Theology. Some have e-mailed in asking why we even need to plant churches. (By the way, if you have something to say/ask, go ahead and use the comment box rather than e-mail me.) Basicically, people think that there are already too many churches and it is better to revitalize and support existing churches rather than plant new ones.

So many things can be said about this, and I will try to post some responses in the following few posts. Here is the first thing ( I pulled this from ThinkChristian.net):

1. There are 195 million non-churched people in America, making America one of the top four largest “unchurched” nations in the world.
2. In spite of the rise of mega-churches, no county in America has a greater church population than it did ten years ago.
3. During the last ten years, combined communicant membership of all Protestant denominations declined by 9.5 percent (4,498,242), while the national population increased by 11.4 percent (24,153,000).
4. Each year 3,500 to 4,000 churches close their doors forever; yet only as many as 1,500 new churches are started.
5. There are now nearly 60 percent fewer churches per 10,000 persons than in 1920.

• In 1920 27 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
• In 1950 17 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
• In 1996 11 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.

6. “Today, of the approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining.”
7. American denomination recently found that 80% of its converts came to Christ in churches less than two years old.
8. Hence the claim of many leaders: “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches” (Peter Wagner).

He also lists some poverty statistics taken from Wikipedia, which everybody should be familiar with by now. Find them here.

Just for fun, I found a quick map that gives a generalized picture of religious adherents in the US from 2000: Religious Adherents. The map is from a page on Valparaiso University’s web site called American Ethnic Geography.

There may be lots of churches today, but there are LOTS more people, and the number of churches per person is decreasing. Some might argue that this is because small churches are closing and the people are going to mega-churches, which is true. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that many mega-churches are not doing a better job than smaller churches of making disciples of the people who attend.

Most importantly, is that new church plants tend to be much more effective and efficient at reaching out to unbelievers. For this reason alone, we need to get involved in and excited about church planting.

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I have a heart that beats for church planting…I’m just not sure I’m cut out to be a church planter! I mentioned it before, but I have become increasingly convinced that if Free Grace theology is going to move forward, we have to involved in church planting. There are numerous organizations and networks which are planting hundreds of churches worldwide, and most of them are strongly Lordship/Calvinistic. We need one for Free Grace Theology! It’s not enough to just write and speak and debate. We need to get out there and share the gospel, make disciples, and plant churches.

Below are 15 of the top church planting organizations. Though for many of them I could not find a doctrinal statement, the ones that did have doctrinal statements leaned toward Calvinistic/Lordship theology.

1. Acts 29 - Calvinstic
2. New Thing Network - Lordship
3. Global Church Advancement - I’m Unsure
4. Leadership Network - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
5. Orchard Group - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
6. Passion 4 Planting - Lordship
7. Stadia: New Church Strategies - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
8. Grace Church Planting Ministries - Lordship
9. house2house - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
10. Kairos - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
11. Emerging Church Network - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
12. 153 House Churches Network - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
13. multiplyingchurches.org - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
14. Church Planting Movement - I can’t find a doctrinal statement
15. Association of Related Churches - I can’t find a doctrinal statement

By the way, if you are interested in church planting, or just doing things better at your church to reach out more effectively, many of these sites have excellent free tools and ideas. Make use of them.

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