Posts Tagged ‘ missional ’

I Don’t Like My Church Plant: The Need for Contextualization

I spent a year in Northern Virginia at New Life Christian Church.  The church planter, Brett Andrews, told me something that has always stuck in my memory.  He said, “I don’t like my church plant.”  This of course let to a befuddled reply of, “What do you mean, you don’t like your church plant.”  Brett replied, “If I had planted this church for me we would all where formal attire on Sunday and sing hymns.  I just don’t like the loud music, video clips and dress down attire.  But, I didn’t plant this church for myself.  I planted it for the people of Northern Virginia and after learning about them we determined that this style was the best way to communicate the gospel.”

Wow!  I love that story.  How many church planters can say that?  That is the story of a missionary.  Contextualization is important work for a church planter.  One of the unique facets of the gospel is that it is not contained within a particular culture.  If a person is a Gentile, they don’t need to first become a Jew to access God.  Remember that story?  The first thing a church planter needs to do once they are on the ground is what Alan Hirsch calls missional listening.  Church planters are typically highly driven individuals who want to hit the ground running.  Too often they assume they understand the culture and begin planning for church services.  When this happens, I guarantee you are planting a church for yourself and not the culture you are in.

What did you do / are you doing to missionally listen before you start planning for church services?  Here are a couple of examples from planters I’ve worked with.

1.  Worked at Starbucks for two years in the planting community before drawing a salary from the church plant. Result: started a ministry to mom’s providing them a place to hang out while their kids played.  The facility served as a Third Place in the community as well space for the children’s ministry on Sundays.

2.  Conducted a community needs assessment interviewing 100 community leaders, and surveying over 300 people.  Result: Discovered that community needs were being met by existing organizations.  Rather than starting another one, the church was started with a DNA of generosity and gives several man hours a month to community organizations as well as organizing drives to gather the resources they need.

3.  Began serving door to door by raking leaves and shoveling snow with his family.  As the team grew, they organized volunteers and took on community projects the city couldn’t pull off alone.  Result: The city has asked the pastor to develop a youth program for the entire city (20,000 students) and will be funding it too.   There is not restriction on sharing the gospel through the program.  The chief of police asked the pastor to be the chaplain for the city fire and police stations.

The cool thing is that God is already active in the places we are planting churches.  Sometimes we just need to slow down long enough to listen.  When we do, not only will we learn how to contextualize church in the community, but we might also learn what God is already doing and partner together with Him.

2010
05/10
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Church
Church Planting
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The Outsourced Church

Outsourcing is a very popular business model that companies use to cut costs and streamline work flows.  But the idea of outsourcing isn’t new.  The church has been doing it for centuries.  Back in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, there was a movement to form missionary societies.  For example, the Baptist Missionary Society was formed in 1792.  These societies assumed the role of sending missionaries out into unreached areas.  From an institutional standpoint, this makes a lot of sense.  You can organize on a large scale and ensure that work isn’t being duplicated.  I believe the long term effect has been that today’s church is not as engaged in mission.  On the local church level the result is that missions simply becomes check writing.  Rather than each Christian being called at baptism to the Great Commission, they become an economic engine to support others doing mission.  In a Christian culture, the impact is minimal.  But in today’s post-Christian Western culture the impact is devastating.  Each Christian no longer understands that their baptism is also a calling to the Great Commission.  Thus, the unchurched among us are no longer reached.

The early 1900’s saw the even more outsourcing in the Church with the rise of parachurch organizations.  Today, parachurch organizations exist for almost every imaginable ministry.  While there is nothing inherently wrong with parachurch organizations (I work for one), the result in the Church in the West is the sense that mission is again not the business of the local church.  The local church simply serves as check writers, the economic engine of the parachurch movement.

The missional shift we are in the midst of is a needed correction of this outsourcing.  Once again, churches are rallying behind the Great Commission and bringing these essential elements of missions back into the local church.  Churches are begining to serve their communities, raise up pastors from within, send out church planters and missionaries, and see themselves as the primary catalyst of God’s mission within their locale.

With all the debate about missional churches and what they are and are not, I believe the local church embracing the Great Commission is the greatest benefit of this movement.  I believe this missional movement will require parachurch organizations and missionary societies to reorganize as partners who help the local church become the hands and feet of God’s mission rather than doing it for them.

2010
04/28
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Church Planting
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Tribal Church

I’ve been reading the Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch.  He does an excellent job of telling the history of the church and how the church evolved into an institution.  One of his points is that in a “Christian” culture, the institutional church is a natural evolution.  But the early church was not an institution.  It was much more a fringe movement on the edge of society.  Fast forward to today.  Hirsch says the the contemporary church growth movement is effective at reaching about 35% of the population.  Increasingly, how we “do church” is becoming less relevant to our culture.  Part of that is due to a tribalization of culture.  In the past, people identified with large groupings: Republican or Democrat, unions, etc.  Today, culture is much more fragmented.  People identify with much smaller tribes.  If you are fan of Seth Godin, this language will sound very familiar.  Seth has a great book, “Tribes”, that explains this phenomenon and how it relates to marketing.

I’d take this a step further and say that people belong to multiple tribes.  I’m in the church planting tribe, the Fighting Illini tribe, Mac tribe (also know as the cult of Mac), and to a lesser degree a cycling tribe.  In the church growth model, we tend convert people not only to Christianity but to our tribe.  Let me use a sports analogy.  People in Ohio may or may not be Ohio State fans.  Because they live in Ohio they are prime candidates for conversion to the Ohio State tribe.  This is the 35% of people in America whom Hirsch says can be reached by the church growth model.  Michigan fans are from a completely different tribe.  In fact, they don’t like the Ohio State tribe at all.  Trying to reach the other 65% of the population with the church growth model, is like trying to convert a Michigan fan to be an Ohio State fan.  It’s just not going to happen.

Let me draw one more conclusion.  In the church growth model, we tend to draw people out of their current tribes and into the “church” tribe.  This is actually counter to the Great Commission.  If we were to truly adopt a missional stance, we would leave people in their current tribes as a missionary.  The Church needs to adopt this missionary stance if we are to reach the other 65% of American population.  So let me get real practical.  What tribes are you a part of?  How can you become a missionary within that tribe?

I think that as the missional church movement and the church growth movement collide and influence each other, we could see a beautiful wedding.  Imagine a church where the DNA for every member is that they are a missionary sent into the tribes they love and live in.  With this missional stance, every Christian becomes a church planter.  Rather than asking people to invite their friends to the existing church, you are asking people to be the church within their tribe.  It completely redefines the definition of pastor, and releases ministry out of the hands of clergy and into the hands of the average Christian.  Rather than a church designed to reach 35% of the population, a church would be born that can reach 100% of the population.  The modes of church may be different for each tribe, but the essential elements of church would exist within each.  A truly indigenous multi-site church would be birthed.  Such as shift would be on part with the Reformation when the Bible was taken out of the hands of the clergy and given to the average Christian.  It’s time to realize a truth we have all taught, but not lived.  We are a priesthood of all believers.

2010
04/08
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Church
Church Planting
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Missional Church Marries Attractional Church

I love all the chatter in the blog world about missional churches and attractional churches.  A good healthy debate is always fun.  My opinion is it takes both to reach different types of people.  But what would happen if a missional church and an attractional church came together and started having kids (planting churches).  I had a conversation with Ron Klabunde a couple of weeks ago that birthed this idea.

1.  Small groups would become house churches.  Small groups would become more than just home group bible studies.  They would evolve into missional communities.  These missional communities would live the Christian life together and would focus spreading the gospel of Christ by serving their neighbors and living their faith out loud where they live.  Missional church gatherings would be the core experience of the church rather than large group corporate worship on Sundays.

2.  There would still be large group worship on Sundays.  The attractional DNA would kick in to recognize that the best way to engage non-Christians is through the Sunday morning worship experience.  This large group gathering would be a non-threatening place to bring your friends to church.  After all its a bit awkward to invite your non-Christian friends to your home church.  Seems a little cultish to culture at large.  Those who called the church home would come to serve on Sunday.  The target audience of the Sunday corporate gathering would be pre-Christians and those not yet connected to a missional community.  Thus as the church grows, it is completely feasible to be a church of 2000 connected in missional communities with only 200-300 in attendance at weekend services.  It would also be likely that once a month or so the entire church would gather for a large corporate gathering of all the believers where the focus of the service was on Christians.

3.  Less building and staff would be needed to run this church, thus allowing the church to unleash more people and money on serving community needs, planting more churches and worldwide missions.

I walked away from this conversation thinking that maybe missional and attractional churches should stop debate each other and start birthing churches together.  I could get really excited about that.  How about you?

2009
07/22
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Church Planting
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