on December 28 2011

DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE

It happens on facebook when I give the slightest indication the church is God’s instrument in the world. It happens frequently when I am speaking and assert that God has empowered the church to extend Christ’s presence in the world. It happens when I coach church planters that are missionally oriented and ask them when they gather for worship. It happens when I engage my missional friends on one of the variants of the formula “missiology precedes ecclesiology.” It happens each time I meet someone who has been abused by the traditional church. Each time there is a out-sized reaction against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church (this is especially true of the public worship gathering, or the ordination of clergy).

OF COURSE IT IS TRUE that in many cases the local church has become stuck in paying for buildings, “hell-bent” on attracting people into worship services at all costs, authority structures that gum up the works via the hierarchical clergy. It is true that the Church has abused the eucharist, has tried to colonize whole people groups into a specific enculturated way of being the church, thereby making the gospel a piece of Western propaganda. It happens every time a mega church pastor exerts control over his behemoth enterprise for his/her own personal glory. It happens every time the church has used spiritual authority to abuse people so as to enrich its coffers and expand its enterprise. I think I’ve written enough on all these things to convince you all that I am well aware of these dangers. I’m no fan of what has become of the institutionalized church (especially its mega church consumerist varieties). If you don’t believe me, read The Great Giveaway for example.

But, unfortunately, this wise caution against organizing people into Christendom-tainted-functions of the church has turned into a phobia, an unhealthy fear. I call this ekklesaphobia. And I believe it is time to ask whether such an ekklesaphobia is hurting the furthering of fresh expressions of the gospel over N America as the missional movement matures into its third decade. I say yes.

This ekklesaphobia manifests itself in dysfunctional leadership that cannot recognize the Kingdom authority invested by Christ in the 5 fold gifting structure of  leadership (although hierarchy is still bad IMO). It manifests itself when we cannot understand the forming event of the Eucharist where the presence and authority of the Kingdom breaks out and forms a community of the King to spread reconciliation and renewal of all things. It manifests itself when we cannot see the formational effects of true worship (read chapter 15, p. 217 in NT Wright’s Simply Jesus to get a taste of what I am talking about). There are no missional people apart from the place in which these people are formed into His Mission. Anyone who thinks this can be done solely individually one to one does not get the nature of how sociality under the King shapes people into the Kingdom.  For all these reasons and more, I have a new phrase when I see signs of ekklesaphobia manifesting itself. I say “DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE.”

The sources of ekklesaphobia come from various places. I’ll just name 3 which I hope to expound upon in my next post. First, We’re afraid of repeating the colonialist mistake. Second we’re afraid of the protestant principle (a version of the ecclesial mistake of triumphalism in culture). Third, many of us have been abused by church authority and we’ll do anything to avoid that hell again :) . These fears lead us to throw out the practices (like worship, ordination, discipleship/baptism) by which God forms His people as the means to extend the presence of Christ in the world.

Of course, I have a fourth fear, and that is that once people are given permission to not fear the church practices anymore they will revert back to the default ways they have grown up with doing church. They will then repeat all the things that have gone wrong in N American ecclesiology these past 40 years (I’ve seen this way too often). I think therefore we must learn from each of these historical problems. So I will post some thoughts on each of these three fears in the next few weeks. Til then I urge people: Don’t Be an Ekklesaphobe :)

What do you think? Is there an eklessiaphobia in the missional church? What drives it? In what ways is it healthy? Is it unhealthy?

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Filed under Ecclesiology,Ekklesaphobia,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 34 Comments

on December 20 2011

My Top Ten Posts for 2011: With Comments and Personal Resolutions for 2012

It’s funny how a look back helps you understand what has happened in your life. That’s why I love blogging. A blog is a good record of the past year. Here’s my favorite 10 posts from the blog this past year, with comments and some resolutions for the coming year. Thanks to everyone who commented, everyone who sent me private notes of encouragement, everyone who read the blog.

1.) The Attractional Basis of Neo-Reformed Church Plants YES OR NO?: or Don’t try this at home if you live in the secularized North (Jan 2011) I admit I have a strong ambivalence to Reformed theology in many of its forms (I am a holiness anabaptist – what can I say). Neo-Reformed friends, please don’t hold it against me. I view my engagements as pushes for theological development and unity. In this post, I “accuse” my Neo-Reformed friends of founding churches based on a theology which is inherently Christendom (i..e attractionally based). There are elements in it which work against a missionary strategy. Next year I resolve to love my Neo-Reformed brothers (and sisters if there are any – “wink wink”) more generously and pick my fights with them with the Kingdom (only) in mind

2.) “God Used You to Destroy my World Today”: The Sign of a Good Sermon? (Feb 2011) I have a problem with people “enjoying the sermon.” I think its the wrong response. There’s some issues there that really run deep for me. I’d prefer people come up to the preacher and say, “nice sermon, God used you to destroy my world today.” Read this post and tell me if you agree. I resolve to preach for disruption as much as for encouragement in the year to come.

3.) Three Compelling (Theological) Questions – for the Shaping of the Local Church into Mission. (Feb 2011) I believe every leader/pastor should be able to answer three questions (Scripture, Gospel, Kingdom) for their context and lead their church in practicing life into these three realities. How we answer these three questions, and how we lead in the practice of their reality, determines the shape of a people into God’s Mission. I resolve to work as hard as ever on my teaching at Northern Semimary with this in mind.

4.) Rob Bell’s Frenzy: Why We Need Other Ways to Do Theology and Some Other Off-The-Cuff Observations (Mar 2011) I still think what happened around the publishing of Rob Bell’s Love Wins had much more to teach us about the state of church life in America than anything pastor Bell actually said in the book. As a result, I purpose to derive my writing/theology out of concrete real life ministry and letting God do with it what He will.

5.) When We Form Our Lives Around What We Are Against – Announcing “The End of Evangelicalism?” (Mar 2011) This theme has become a dominant one for me in my speaking in 2011. It has illumined so much of my work this year. Although I am in process of writing a much more popular book for January 2013 release, this year’s speaking/presenting has birthed another book to immediately follow. I resolve to doing my work as much as possible out of what I am for, not what I am against (even if the substance is “against” doing theology by what we are against which is technically a double negative and therefore a positive :) )

6.) 5 Excuses Seminarians make for NOT Getting A (“Real”) Job  (May 2011) I continue to push for a new paradym of ministry for the 21st century. The continued dissipation of Christendom in the West demands it. This is why I continue to write posts like this. I resolve to keep encouraging and learning from practicioners about new paradyms of ministry got the West.

7.) STOP FUNDING CHURCH PLANTS and Start Funding Missionaries: A Plea to Denominations (June 2011). Uh, this idea was simple but it resounded across the blogosphere. I take no credit here for being original, just a provacateur. This post led to this and then to this. I resolve to keep involved with organizations that promote mission in the neighborhoods.

8.) There’s A “Good Tired” and a “Bad Tired” (July 2011) I coach church planters alot. So every once in a while I jot down a reflection from that context. These are the more “pastoral” posts on the blog. They’re rare (and kinda personal). Maybe I should do more. This post received alot of positive e-mail. Thanks! In 2012, I resolve to live within a Good Tired and put aside the Bad Tired.

9.) The Incarnation: Some Clarifications on An Abused Term: Post #2 Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren (August 2011) I am supposed to be a theologian. And yet I don’t do alot of theology on this blog. The hits on this blog go way down when I explore the deeper theological issues of a current issue. Nonetheless, I resolve to do more of it. This post was one of a series on the incarnation. I continue to think the key missional ideas of Missio Dei, Incarnation, and Witness need much more theological work if they are to make sense in the practice of our everyday lives as the people of God.

10.) Tim Keller’s “Gospel Ecosystem”: 3 Dangers In a Noble Idea Again Again, , in this post, I reveal my misgivings with the Neo-Reformed tendencies towards engaging culture (I tend to see their approach as elitest). Here’s an example of my take with a nod to the always compelling and intellectually gifted pastor Tim Keller. I resolve to keep generous and open conversations going like this one with my Neo-Reformed bros and sisters.

Honorable Mention: My post on Church Planter as Mythic Hero: 5 Reasons Not To Go This Route (Sept 2011) gathered alot of hits. I continue to think this approach to church planting is a waste of time. It might gather a bunch of disaaffected Christians from other churches. But the chance for real mission wanes with these dynamics. I resolve to keep asking questions about the how’s and why’s of church planting. And my post on “We Are Broken”: Overcoming the ideology that stymies the church’s encounter with the LGBTQ Community signals that I resolve to to delve into this topic more in 2011, because I believe it is a test case for how the church shall be reshaped for engaging the hurting/excluded peoples of post Christendom.

Blessings on the New Year.

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on December 13 2011

Leading Your Local Church Into Change (and the Church at Large): The Immanuel (God is With Us) Way versus the Posture from Above

Here’s a thought that I have learned from political theory: When seeking to bring change to an institution/social group we should go the way of “immanent critique” (from within the system) instead of arguing for the change via a posture from above the system as if we have a privileged knowledge of the truth.  Terry Eagleton describes “immanent critique” as follows: “rather than passing judgement … from the Olympian height of absolute truth, it (immanent critique) installs itself within the present in order to decipher those fault lines where the ruling logic presses upon its own structural limits.” (Ideology: An Introduction 131). Immanent critique always seeks to ask questions from within, probe and submit, and push the logical implications of what we believe so that their truth or false contradiction is revealed.  This in effect describes the way the Spirit works in the congregation to break logjams. This is the way of God Himself sending the Son into the world to live among us. He entered in to work salvation among the broken systems and sin stricken lives of humanity. He did not impose a solution from above. This is the incarnation. This “immanent” way describes the way of Immanuel- God is with us. This is the way of patience, the persistent speaking truth in love, the mutual confession and discernment that continually typifies the apostle Paul’s admonitions to his churches in his letters..

Again, to restate it, in regard to our churches and larger denominational organizations, this means that we will work patiently within our churches. We will work to push to the extreme the implications of our beliefs/ideas that congregations/organizations are holding so that the perverse contradictions once revealed (Zizek calls this “over-identification) draw us into repentance and reformation in the Spirit. For the Christian, this “immanent” way depends upon the reality of Immanuel – God is with us. It requires our confidence in the Holy Spirit’s work among us.

So the job of the change agent, whether that be a pastor, a regular church member, or the one who feels marginalized, is to

  1. Ask questions that push the full implications of the stated belief so that the obvious is revealed? When the belief is revealed to be inconsistent, even counter to everything else we believe, and of course Scripture, a time of self examination will be cultivated and nurtured from which change can happen.
  2. Sponsor activities, propose a group action, that is consistent with what we say we believe and when there is resistance, give space patiently for the antagonisms to be spoken. Let the antagonisms, fears and other false motivations reveal themselves. And in so doing, repentance will come, and those who are dug in won’t be able to handle the conviction and leave.
  3. Continually submit, repent, not as a tactic but as a reality. The change agent does not come from above bearing down on this congregation with a hammer that says I know everything and the rest of you are all wrong. It says I may be wrong, and through continual putting forth truth in love, submitting, we learn and grow and change and God moves us forward. This is the principle inherent in Matt 18:15-20.

It goes without saying, that this kind of leadership requires extreme patience and trust that God the Holy Spirit is at work in this body. It requires persistence and love because to walk this way can be really irritating unless we do it with love and a rejection of all control. It is to say I will be the instrument of God’s change not the dictator of God’s change. Such a change agent invites people into God’s work, not a controlled and manipulated “war.” Such a change agent always points to God and His Mission in the world and in our life together. Such a change process ultimately affirms that we are all seeking together the way forward into His mission. This is the way of Immanuel- God with us – the reality we celebrate together at Advent-Christmas.

What are the hurdles for you in entering this “immanent” way for change in your local church? To those who have left the church, did you forsake the “immanent” way? Why? Did you work for change from the posture from above and fail? I could give many examples of this kind of “immanent” leadership leading to change in churches and in our church.  But I’m trying to keep this short. If anybody understands what I just wrote here, could you tell us in a paragraph or two how this worked in your own leadership?

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on December 8 2011

I Love Asset-Based Community Development but it’s not the Church

I am a believer in Asset Based Community Organizing. I have learned much from John McKnight and Peter Bloch and others (read this for instance). When I was at Northwestern doing a Ph D, McKnight’s office was in the building right behind Garrett seminary. So I’m not an expert, but I’m familiar. I suggest Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is one of those great studies of how to do things in cooperation with God and what He is already present pushing for. But having said all this, I still don’t think ABCD replaces the church. I love Asset Based Community Organizing, but it’s not the church.

Many times the church in effect look likes it is nurturing something that looks a lot like ABCD. The intersection between ABCD kind of activity and “body life” (church life) would make for a wonderful research study. The church’s natural life of reconciling people in the neighborhood, of advocating for resources, of nurturing leadership within the community, may/should look alot like ABCD. But there is still a difference between the two. I love Asset Based Community Organizing, but it’s not the church.

I submit that whenever the church of God, Christ’s body, sent into God’s Mission, is present in a place, it brings something above and beyond what ABCD claims to be doing in a context (ABCD in its purest form claims to bring nothing to a context. They claim “everything is already there.”  This claim I suspect can be an overstatement but I understand what they’re saying and to some degree applaud it).  The church in effect carries the keys of the Kingdom.  It can be and should be the vehicle for God to extend the particular reconciliation, new creation, and/or justice made possible in Jesus Christ in ways that are only possible in the work of the Triune God at work in and through Jesus Christ.  Again, I love Asset Based Community Development. It is certainly God’s work, but on it’s own, it is not the church.

Wendy McCaig recently posted a response to my proposal for the Luke 10 Project  on her blog last week (read it here). She applauds a lot of things. She is less enthused on others.  After reading her blog and seeing her work, I‘m an admirer. From what I can tell (and I know very little about Wendy so far), Wendy is a community organizer who advocates “asset based community development.” I affirm asset based community development as God’s work, but I personally place more emphasis on planting local communities of Mission where people gather to witness to “the Kingdom” (it’s my calling, while still applauding those called to ABCD). Through the humble gospel presence of communities of Christ, we participate in what God is already doing in our local context to bring the Kingdom into visibility. Wendy argues that Kingdom work means “living out Jesus mission and continuing his work of bringing sight to the blind, good news to the poor, etc…” If a worship community forms out of that presence that is wonderful.” But even if there is no gathering, the Body of Christ still exists in that place. I disagree. I don’t think ABCD is the body of Christ. I think “the body of Christ” refers to a social reality formed in some basic core practices of participating in Christ’s inbreaking Lordship over our lives and the context we live in. I  agree with people like Kathy Escobar and the idea of “Kingdom Outposts” (mentioned here). I have used this way of describing church activotyu myself. Although, I strongly reject the way the forms of church have been reified in Christendom (and ensconced in power), nonetheless, the social practice of coming together under God’s reign in Christ births His presence into the world in a way ABCD does not.  I think we need more thought and reflection here on ecclesiology. Having said this, I agree with Wendy on many things. For instance:

 1.) Wendy disliked the idea that the Luke 10 Project “assumes the community (we are planting in) is lacking something.” Luke 10 Project needs to “learn to build on what God is already doing – they should learn to see the glass as “half full.” I agree with Wendy that we always should be present in a context assuming God is already working!! And so I regret not emphasizing that enough in the Luke 10 project.  I think I missed on that aspect a little bit. I did talk about how “the three” leaders inhabiting a place would seek to submit and connect with existing church leaders and seek to work with them, on invitation. I should have placed more emphasis on connecting with all community leaders. To me it is the very nature of the incarnation to inhabit by listening and discerning what God is doing.

 2.) Wendy disliked that the Luke 10 Project emphasized “relocation” and underemphasized “indigenous leader development.” I think I may have missed something here as well. I am very committed to raising up leaders in the community for both the building up of the body of Christ as a sign foretaste of the Kingdom, as well as for the prototype “community development” activities that feed Kingdom work in a community.  I think I have an established record on this for those who know me. But I can always learn more.

 3.) Wendy disliked the emphasis in my post on “gathering Christians.” In her next post Wendy argues that Kingdom work means “living out Jesus mission and continuing his work of bringing sight to the blind, good news to the poor, etc…” If a worship community forms out of that presence that is wonderful.” But even if there is no gathering, the Body of Christ still exists in that place.

It’s here where I think Wendy and I differ. It’s a tension I admit. But I believe the church is a social reality that releases God dynamic work of His Kingdom and authority into our midst. Community organizing is God at work. It is doing God’s work and participating in and among His people. But I want to press further on that. I want to argue that when people come together under His reign (in a local context) and are then sent into a local context (ala Luke 10) the authority of the reigning Lord is unleashed. There is posture God can use to enter in. It’;s much like the incarnation. It is this authority of Christ’s reign that overcomes sin, death and evil. This brings another dimension to the Missio Dei. I think this is what NT Wright is addressing in his new book Simply Jesus in chapter 7,9, and 15 and somewhat discussed by Scot McKnight in this post here. I think tis is what Lesslie Newbigin describes so well in ch 8 of his book The Open Secret.

I think therefore there is something to “being sent” that in humility and vulnerability brings an announcement of the Kingdom. But Wendy’s right in my humble opinion: we cannot enter as if where we go the people in this new context are somehow our clients. Quite the opposite, God is at work in every person.  But I push back on those who say the church is equal to community development work. God is working there, THERE IS AN OVERLAP WHICH SOMETIMES IS HARD TO DISTINGUISH, but it is not the church. CCDA is an excellent example of this overlap (I know CCDA from teaching alongside some of the key leaders in this movement – see here). I love the way CCDA describes the relationship between the church and community development. I think to not understand this distinction is to reject the very idea of “Sentness.” To all my community development friends, what say you? Again, I love Asset-based Community Development, but it’s not the church.

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on December 1 2011

On Planting Churches That Do Not Cannibalize: The Luke 10 Project

For much of post World War 2 North America, we have planted churches by using strategies that depend on drawing upon a market of already existing Christians (see this article where I expound on these dynamics). One way or another, church planting in North America has been taking what’s left of Christianity and creating new versions of church over against the failures of existing churches. We organize ourselves as “the next new thing” to make up for what some other churches lack. (Here I argued this is another form of  “organizing ourselves over against what we are not”)

This has been the modus operandi since the break up of Christendom. It began with the protestants telling the Catholics that they had lost justification by faith. Then the holiness/pietist churches told the established Reformer protestants they had lost the deeper sanctified life of God’s people. In N. America, we started Bible churches when the liberals took over mainline Protestantism in the 1920’s. They had lost the authority of the Bible. In the 1980’s we started seeker churches when the Bible churches became too entrenched in their own Bible speak and Bible rituals that they can no longer make sense to lapsed Baby Boomer Christians. They had lost their ability to speak the gospel in relevant ways. In the last fifteen years, we started progressive “Emergent” churches when the seeker churches become consumeristic and distanced from challenging injustice in the world. They had lost their ability to engage the world for God’s justice. And on and on it goes. We organize ourselves against what the other people aren’t.

One of the points of The End of Evangelicalism? is that we’ve reached the end of  this long history.  We can no longer expect to successfully cannibalize on ourselves in the planting of new churches. We’re running out of Christians/churches to reform to some truer, purer more relevant form of Christianity. As I said here, lets stop funding church plants (has anyone noticed it ain’t working?) and fund missionaries here in North America. We need to seed fresh expressions of the gospel that engage those outside the faith with the gospel and create the space for God work to bring people to Himself.

With this in mind, I’ve been working on a framework to fund and nurture missionary church planting in North America. I am doing this in partnership with Ecclesia Network and Fresh Expressions here in the United States. What I sketch below is a starting point for this effort.  I put this framework out there as a starting point to invite people to let me know how they would change it/develop it (in the comments). If you’re candidate to participate in the program, either through funding it, partnering with it (say if you are a denomination), or being an actual missionary in the program, let me know through e-mail and I’ll keep you up to date on opportunities, and set up meetings when we can.

So here goes! My first shot at laying out a structure for the Luke 10 Project!

Luke 10 Project

THE GOAL

We seek to plant missionary communities/new expressions of the gospel in North America. We desire to plant missionary communities. Over against the patterns of the post WW2 years of franchise church planting where churches were either competitive, ordered towards extending a particular brand/denomination 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 DO

Plant three leaders/leader couples in a context. These leaders will know each other (their respective gifts/callings and how they work in complementarity). They will know how to submit to Christ through submitting to each other as a model for discerning life with God in His Kingdom. These leaders will understand the basics of ecclesiology, gathering a people into the Kingdom as a witness to the context.

Give them two years – of housing stipend and health insurance. They will be coached to get a job that can sustain them within this context for the long haul. Yet, with this aid, they can afford to go into a lower paying status where they can learn a skill, grow with the job and become indispensible with their skill. In two years they will be viable, sustainable without any 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.

These leaders will then do the following:

  • Exegete/get to know relationally the nooks and crannies of this context. Listen. Get to know people. Get to know where the third places are. Get to know where the hurts are. They will be immersed in a context as a rhythm of everyday life.
  • Begin Rhythms of Inhabiting – strategies of living life with intentional inhabiting of third places, places of ministry (like hospitals, food sites. Etc.)
  • Begin Rhythms of Mission: Having located places of hurt, or third places, we will join in. We shall be prepared to proclaim the gospel when the Spirit leads. This could take years.
  • Begin a Rhythm of discipleship: We will cultivate a discipleship practice among us.  We will work with, contextualize the discipleship shapes of Mike Breen and the missional practices of David Fitch, as well as other sources and means of developing a discipleship culture.
  • Begin Rhythms Together: of prayer, gathering for worship/eucharist/ sending, discipleship pods, acts of mission engagement all as part of a way of life.
  • Start to Gather and Relate: These three leaders will be getting to know other church leaders in the contexts so as to work in concert with them. We seek a renewal of the church as a whole. There will be those who have left church because of its hollow shell. We shall call them back into the Kingdom. There will be people who go to other churches. We refuse, SIMPLY REFUSE, to take them from their church home. But we will invite them to join in with us in Kingdom living in the neighborhood. There will be many outside the gospel who we will invite 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 a job of 35 hours a week, and give 15 hours of labor to the cultivation of the Kingdom as everyday life in the context (see my post on the 15 hour rule)

Commit to This Place for Ten Years I firmly believe, if we put three leaders/leader couples in one place, committed to a context for ten years, there will be a fresh expression of the gospel in this locale until the Kingdom is consummated in Christ’s return.

PRINCIPLES

1.) We Work With All Denominations For the Renewal of the Church of Jesus Christ in North America

We will work with all Christian denominations for “evangelical renewal.” By evangelical we do not mean traditional mainline evangelicalism. We mean a vital commitment to the gospel, the whole gospel of the Kingdom of God in Christ. This of course includes personal conversion, and the forgiveness received oin and through Christ’s sacrificial work on the cross. Yet this conversion is also a turning into what God is doing to make the whole world right, not only one’s individual relationship with God. By “evangelical” we also mean a renewal of submitting to Christ by His Spirit for a fresh expression of God’s Kingdom via planting communities in each unreached context in N America.

We seek a commitment to a.) creedal orthodoxy, b.) the inbreaking and coming reign of Christ to renew the world as made manifest among us by the Holy Spirit c.) the fresh expressions of the gospel that result. We uphold a high view of Scripture, the commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ as Lord, the commitment to transformational salvation available to all by invitation into God’s Kingdom in Christ via reconciliation with God and all relationships through the person and work of Christ in the cross and the resurrection, d.) the commitment to the church as God’s means to bear witness to the world of God’s work to reconcile the whole worl to Himself.

2.) There must be at least Three Leaders/LeaderCouples

We seek to embed (at least) three leaders and/or leader couples in places that have need for a renewed witness to the gospel or have been previously resistant to gospel. Our belief is that if we can locate three such leaders in a context, have them committed to the context for ten years, so that they learn it, love it, engage relationally with it and begin a rhythm/way of life out of the gospel, if these same leaders cultivate/discern the Kingdom andsubmit to the Spirit and what he is doing, there will be a fresh expression of the gospel in this context in ten years.

We believe that contraints such as building a self-sustaining ministry that pays a single pastor’s entire salary plus all costs contrains true missionary work. The planting of churches via these means most often devolves into competition for other church members, competition for best religious goods and services to already existing Christians, depletes and exhausts most church planters within three years because such a model is not sustainable (in post Christendom contexts). One person cannot meet the needs that engendered from such a calling of gathered people in.

These three leaders must have a solid foundation theologically in order to stand and plant and discern God’s work in a context. Yet so often, the seminary education that gets a person to this level, trains them to go get an established position in church or try to make their entire living via the church which counteracts mission. Instead, we need to find a way to fund these leaders long term, less stress financially, as well as train them to understand bi-vocationality as a way of life that has flexibility and capability to resist the demissionalizing structures of the church.

AT THE END – I ENVISION TEN YEARS – THERE WILL BE BY GOD’S GRACE AND THE WORK OF HIS SPIRIT – A NEW VISIBLE EXPRESSION OF THE GOSPEL AND HIS KINGDOM IN OUR MIDST UNTIL HE COMES.

FUNDING

To start such projects, we need funding for three plus leader/couples for

a.) housing stipend/health insurance for two years.

b.) part time theological education.

c.) Coaching/assessment for each team

d.) Theological education provided within a context for each leader/couple according to need.

IN CONCLUSION

LET ME JUST SAY THIS!! I know there are organizations already out there doing this. If you are one of them, feel free to list your organization and web site on this blog post’s comments. Get the word out! Let us spur on this kind of development.

If while reading this, you can think of anything to add to this document, any missing pieces, please comment in this post’s comments.

And, if you are interested in participating in this either as a leader or denomination or just knowing more about it once we get this started, pleas e-mail me with your name address and brief three line description of how you’re interested (being a pastor-leader-church planter, being a funder, being a denominational partner etc.). I’ll keep all the names and contacts in a file when we’ve got opportunities!

Blessings on this foray. Let us see where it goes!

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