Tag Archives: church

Check Your Perverted Motives

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church planting Check Your Perverted MotivesOften aspiring church planters have rather perverted or underdeveloped motives for seeking to plant a church.

Cody C. Lorance offers 3 perverted motives for planting a church.

1. Church-Splitting

Let’s say that you find yourself as something of a de facto leader of a group in an existing church that is for one reason or another antagonistic towards another group (perhaps even the majority) in that same church. Your group wants to “plant a church” essentially in order to get out from under the thumb or away from the conflict with the others. This is called church-splitting and should not be confused with church planting.

2. Christian-Clubbing

No! Not opening a christianized/sanitized version of a club in your city. In this situation, you put forth a vision for starting a certain kind of church (i.e. house church, mega church, postmodern church, cowboy church, or whatever) simply for the sake of having such a church. This however is not really church planting but rather a kind of Christian club-making that is motivated more by the self-interest, curiosity, or angst of the aspiring church planter rather than by Kingdom growth.

3. Just Get Busy For Jesus

Church planting, particularly in North America, has become something of a trendy thing. There is a sense in which it has become the default avenue of Christian service for young, North American Christian leaders. Want to do something for Jesus? Why not plant a church?

Be sure to read the entire article by clicking here.

What else would you add?

RELATED:

Anglican 1000, 10 Ways NOT to Plant a Church
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3

Almost…(saved)

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religion 590x493 Almost...(saved)
Does Jesus hate religion? This video that has been making the rounds says so. And Jefferson Bethke makes some valid points.

But does Jesus hate religion? That question must of kept Kevin DeYoung up all night because he took the time to exegete the poem in a lengthy blog post titled, “Does Jesus Hate Religion? Kinda, Sorta, Not Really.” And Voddie Baucham takes the video to task by stating that the “argument that Christianity is not a religion is a linguistic/grammatical fallacy.”

Anyway, this video below does a much better job of saying what I feel Bethke was trying to say.

The Missing Links

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Missing Link 590x299 The Missing Links

A roundup of links floating around the interwebs what you may have missed.

Haiti Slow to Recover

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake that killed about 300,000 people. 800,000 Haitians are living without electricity, 500,000 can’t read or write, and 8 out 10 live on less than $2 a day. Though half of the rubble has been cleared and reconstruction has begun, Haiti has a long way to go in its recovery effort. The Big Picture has collected 25 images made available by wire services leading up to the anniversary.

What People Experience in Churches

The Barna Group asked, “What happens, if anything, in the hearts and minds of those who attend church?” To explore this matter, Barna Group surveyed Americans who have attended a Christian church sometime in the past and discovered what they say about their experiences in these congregations. The findings may surprise you. Is the problem what we expect from a Sunday morning?

The World at 7 billion

The world’s population has hit seven billion. After growing very slowly for most of human history, the number of people on Earth has more than doubled in the last 50 years. The BBC has a cool interactive site that lets you know where you fit into this story of human life. Simply fill in your date of birth to find out.

10 Commandments of Short-Term Missions

We have all heard about short-term outreach teams, their exploits and adventures. Usually, however, we hear only from the perspective of the team itself. This article, written from the perspective of a long-term missionary, is intended to bring a dose of reality to those planning and preparing for a short-term outreach.

And for your viewing pleasure Sh*t Nobody Says. Your Welcome.

Putting off the Sunday Worship Service

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Sunday Worship Service 590x442 Putting off the Sunday Worship Service

I came across two posts yesterday at virtually the same time. The first is On “loving the city” long-term (in contrast to well-intentioned hipster, neo-paternalistic versions) by Anthony Bradley.

The post focuses on “gentrifying…with short-term programmatic approaches” resonated with my soul. While focusing specifically on 8 social justice issues, Bradley does begin to move toward a holistic approach to church planting. He writes:

The real needs of the city require men and women working at multiple-levels who are thinking LONG-TERM about social, political, moral, and economic solutions that create a free and virtuous city so as to promote human dignity. A way of life that does not encourage dependence on charity and truly liberates those in the city to live in ways consistent with being made in the image of God. This requires churches to be honest about their limits and for church goers to think differently about their vocations.

Next, I read Tall Skinny Kiwi’s 9 reasons NOT to plant a church in 2012.

Andrew’s nine reasons are:

  1. Lack of biblical precedence
  2. The tendency to ignore vital measurable signs of a transformed society and focus squarely on “membership”
  3. Most people who join a church plant have some kind of church background which only duplicates existing church programs
  4. Competition and sheep stealing/swapping
  5. People commit to a church service rather than mission which leads to comsumerism
  6. Institutional visibility for those who are in places hostile to the gospel
  7. Lack of traditional funding sources
  8. Church plants normally thrive in wealthy suburban areas but ignore the urban poor
  9. The Church has a bruised reputation because of greed, immorality, and unethical practices causing it to be a “hard sell”

TSK concludes with:

So if these young people are not “planting churches” in 2012, what kind of Kingdom ministry environments ARE they establishing? And how are today’s church planters avoiding the past mistakes?

I have written about the idea of planting missionaries over church services because the most common questions I get from well meaning Christians as a church planter are: (1) Where is your church? and (2) When do you meet? And I usually respond with “Church planting takes a long time and we just moved into the neighborhood in October.”

All this to say, we are putting off the Sunday worship service for as long as possible because starting with a gathering is antithetical to “loving our city” and if we did, we would not be engaging our neighborhood. Furthermore, we would end up attracting those with some kind of church background and asking them to commit to a gathering rather than God’s mission. We would, therefore be in an uphill climb to fight consumerism and the re-branding of the Church’s reputation.

Stats: Why Pastors Leave the Ministry

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Do any of these ring true in your life?

  • 90% of the pastors report working between 55 to 75 hours per week.
  • 80% believe pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families. Many pastor’s children do not attend church now because of what the church has done to their parents.
  • 95% of pastors do not regularly pray with their spouses.
  • 33% state that being in the ministry is an outright hazard to their family.
  • 75% report significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.
  • 90% feel they are inadequately trained to cope with the ministry demands.
  • 80% of pastors and 84% of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged as pastors.
  • 90% of pastors said the ministry was completely different than what they thought it would be like before they entered the ministry.
  • 50% feel unable to meet the demands of the job.
  • 70% of pastors constantly fight depression.
  • 70% say they have a lower self-image now than when they first started.
  • 70% do not have someone they consider a close friend.
  • 40% report serious conflict with a parishioner at least once a month.
  • 33% confess having involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with someone in the church.
  • 50% of pastors feel so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
  • 70% of pastors feel grossly underpaid.
  • 50% of the ministers starting out will not last 5 years.
  • 1 out of every 10 ministers will actually retire as a minister in some form.
  • 94% of clergy families feel the pressures of the pastor’s ministry.
  • 80% of spouses feel the pastor is overworked.
  • 80% spouses feel left out and underappreciated by church members.
  • 80% of pastors’ spouses wish their spouse would choose a different
  • profession.
  • 66% of church members expect a minister and family to live at a higher moral standard than themselves.
  • Moral values of a Christian is no different than those who consider themselves as non-Christians.
  • The average American will tell 23 lies a day.
  • The profession of “Pastor” is near the bottom of a survey of the most-respected professions, just above “car salesman”.
  • 4,000 new churches begin each year and 7,000 churches close.
  • Over 1,700 pastors left the ministry every month last year.
  • Over 1,300 pastors were terminated by the local church each month , many without cause.
  • Over 3,500 people a day left the church last year.
  • Many denominations report an “empty pulpit crisis”. They cannot find ministers willing to fill positions.
  • #1 reason pastors leave the ministry — Church people are not willing to go the same direction and goal of the pastor. Pastor’s believe God wants them to go in one direction but the people are not willing to follow or change.

 
Statistics provided by The Fuller Institute, George Barna, and Pastoral Care Inc.

Planting Missionaries

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argentacommunitytheater Planting Missionaries

The most common questions I get as a church planter are: (1) Where is your church? and (2) When do you meet?

While there is nothing inherently wrong with these two questions, they make me cringe. And with all the respectable Christian politeness I can muster I usually respond with: “Church planting takes a long time and we just moved into the neighborhood in October.”

A few weeks ago, David Fitch wrote a helpful post that helped me flesh out our modis operandi in planting The Church @Argenta.

THE GOAL

We seek to plant a missionary community in the Argenta Arts District of North Little Rock that will result in a fresh expression of church sprouting.

Over against the patterns of franchise church planting where churches are either competitive, ordered towards extending a particular brand of church, or revising the church for relevancy, all of which caters to already existing Christians, we propose to embed missionaries to plant churches that will reach people outside of Christ with the gospel of the Kingdom. We believe all people are ultimately lost until they are reconciled to God and living their lives as life with God and His mission.

WHAT WE NEED

The planting of our leadership team in our context.

We know each other, our respective gifts/callings, and how they work complementarily. We will continually learn how to submit to Christ through submitting to each other as a model for discerning life with God in His Kingdom.

Funding for two years of salary.

During this time, we will seek to be an incarnational presence in the neighborhood while working toward opening a coffee shop. In two years we expect to be viable and sustainable without the need further support. The goal is not to have a financially self-sustaining church organization in 3 years. The goal is to have 3 financially sustainable missionaries/missionary couples inhabiting a context in 2 years.

We will then do the following:

Exegete. We will get to know relationally the nooks and crannies of this context by listening; by cultivating friendships; by learning to know where the hurts/needs are. We will be immersed in our context as a rhythm of everyday life.

Begin Inhabiting our Neighborhood. By building strategies of living life with gospel intentionally.

Begin Rhythms of Mission. Having located places of hurt/need, we will join in. We shall be prepared to proclaim the gospel when the Spirit leads. Note: This could take years.

Begin a Rhythm of Discipleship: We will cultivate a discipleship practice among us.  We will work with and contextualize the Missio Life curriculum as means of developing a discipleship culture.

Begin Rhythms Together: We will practice the rhythms of blessing each other and our neighbors, eating with one another and our neighbors, listening to the voice of God together, learning together, and living sent as a way of life.

Start to Gather and Relate: We seek a renewal of the church as a whole by getting to know other church leaders in our context so as to work in concert with them. We refuse to take other followers of Jesus from their church home unless they have been specifically called by God and sent by their church to Argenta. However, we will invite other local churches to join in with various mission engagements we are doing.

I firmly believe that all of the above is to be carried out as a sustainable way of life, not as an excessive work of human effort that consumes and destroys people’s lives. Each leader is to order his/her life so that he/she can work in our coffee shop a minimum of 35 hours a week so that we cross paths with our context 7 days a week.

For these leaders there must be a commitment to live in the Argenta Arts District for ten years. If the leadership is committed to this, there will be a fresh expression of the church in this locale until the Kingdom is consummated in Christ’s return.

4 Disturbing Anti-meth Commercials

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These 30-second spots were written by Fred Abercrombie and directed by Darren Aronofsky (of Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan fame) and made for The Meth Project.

As a former drug addict, I can attest to the truth contained in these videos. While, meth was not my drug of choice, addiction will take a person to depths never imagined.

Listen Church! Drug addiction can be found in every community – from the affluent suburbs to rural farm lands, to the inner city. Pastor, you probably will not have to look very far – even in your own congregation – to find someone that has been affected by addiction.

What will be your response?

The Sending Church Story

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My friends with The Upstream Collective have been collectors of stories for years. The Sending Church Story (excerpt below) is a sampling of their collection. “The story has begun. What it will look like 10 years from now is unclear. How will you influence it?”

quote e1313851594867 The Sending Church Story The Sending Church story is not a story from bad to good, but from good to better. It is a story of a rethink in missions where the bride of Christ humbly takes ownership of the Great Commission—the Commission that Jesus gave her to be about. In a sense, this is a story of the Proverbs 31 woman that takes responsibility for caring for those she loves and has in her charge. Here the bride takes ownership of the command she has to be a blessing to others by her own hand.

The sending church is seriously rethinking what a lifestyle of mission looks like for the disciples that comprise her.

This is your story and the story of the one next to you. It is the story that already has been and yet is alive again today. The unfolding of this story will continue until the bridegroom returns.

The vignettes contained here are from different gatherings across the country involved in cities and nations around the world. Together these glimpses begin to comprise a holistic representation of the fuller body of Christ being a blessing to the nations—being the church on His mission.

Be sure to read the rest HERE.

Friday Book Look

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From Renovare:

51a 6uZc1tL. SL160 Friday Book Look25 Books Every Christian Should Read: A Guide to the Essential Spiritual Classics, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Phyllis Tickle, Chris Webb, and a diverse editorial board of authors and speakers have identified the most helpful and historic books for Christian discipleship and created a resource that helps us make the most of them.

With sizable excerpts from each book, 25 Books is designed to help individual readers and small groups get a taste of and work through the most important books for formation in Christlikeness. From Augustine’s Confessions to Thomas Kelly’s A Testament of Devotion, this list and this resource will lead you on a journey of discipleship that few have experienced.

Throughout August, Renovare is revealing 1 of the 25 books everyday. Below is the list so far.

1. On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius
2. Confessions by St. Augustine
3.
4.
5. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
6.
7. Revelations of Divine Love (Showings) by Julian of Norwich
8. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
9. The Philokalia
10. Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
11. The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila
12.
13. Pensées by Blaise Pascal
14. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
15.
16. A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law (download this chapter)
17.
18. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
19. Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
20.
21.
22. A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R. Kelly
23.
24. Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
25. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Readings like the ones listed so far will be like having 25 historical mentors. I am looking forward to this title’s release.

So be sure to follow Renovare along with me on Facebook and/or Twitter to get the updates to the list.