on May 3 2011

5 Excuses Seminarians make for NOT Getting A (“Real”) Job

OK, so don’t take me too seriously on the title here (the “Real” part) because I do believe full time ministry is a worthy and awesome vocation. But times are changing. Many seminarians aren’t interested in ministry within the structures of large established churches. And denominations no longer have the money it takes to fund a full time salaried pastor to plant a “competing” church in a locale. The only option for many is to lead a missionary venture into a place in need of the gospel. This sounds good right? The problem is that this approach demands (most of the time) that the church planter get a job and be bi-vocational. And this is a hurdle for most people coming out of seminary (not that seminarians are the only people who can do this).

Bi-vocationalism is attractive to many seminarians. For them, the vocational full time pastor job in a church can separate you from Mission. You work and hang out with mostly Christian people all day (and night). Today, there are more and more seminary students who find the structures of the larger churches incompatible with their vision for on-the-ground mission and ministry. The culture is not a churched culture anymore and this form of church is not reaching that culture. The role of the established pastor seems to be like caretaking existing Christians. More and more seminarians therefore come out of seminary feeling like THEY JUST DON’T FIT.

As a result, more and more seminary grads are looking to an alternative option to ministry – the option to take up residence in a neighborhood and “inhabit” it for ministry.  We seek a neighborhood nearby where the need for the gospel is especially evident. We seek God and His call to move there and take up residence. We get normal jobs, live life together, get to know our neighbors, hang out in the coffee shops, the laundry-mats, the McDonalds (wink wink), the bars, the local school meetings, the civic association, the places where hurting people are. Learn to be intentional in the way you organize your life, so that nothing is a burden, just a rhythm. Gather a people into the rhythms of God (worship, fellowship, conflict discernment, serving the poor, prayer for the sick, eating meals of fellowship, etc. etc.). We learn how to come alongside the poor, vulnerable, broken, hurting. We learn how to minister, pray with, supply support to, encourage and even disciple and be discipled by the poor in the process. We lead by coming alongside other leaders who also move in and together we use all our leadership skills, and spiritual gifts as well as preaching and teaching to lead this community. Each of us puts in 10-15 hours of work (the equivalent of on full time senior pastor). We do all this as part of a regular sustainable rhythm of life for years and watch God transform people and neighborhoods in Christ. NONE OF THIS IS A PROGRAM!

OF COURSE THERE IS ONE HURDLE FOR MOST SEMINARIANS TO THIS PLAN – YOU HAVE TO GO GET A JOB.

Seminarians, and I am primarily talking to seminarians here, for some reasons have a mental block about getting a job. Here are five bad excuses for NOT getting a job and some comments regarding each excuse.

1.) EXCUSE NO. 1 – I CAN’T GET A JOB. I’M NOT TRAINED FOR ANYTHING. For some reason 3 years in a seminary seems to make graduates unemployable except in anything but professional church work. My comment is, and I worked in the marketplace for years, is that seminarians are well schooled in reading, writing, thinking, reading texts critically, appropriating text material, speaking well in front of people. In addition, they should have an acquired spiritual formation that lends itself to kindness, generosity and patience with people. There skills are in demand and much appreciated in our service economy.

2.) EXCUSE NO. 2 - I CAN’T TAKE A JOB FOR 6.50 AN HOUR AND SURVIVE.  But the fact is that anyone who starts in any field has to start at the entry level. And it is here where you learn about being poor. It is here where you also gain the entry point to build relationships, learn a skill, and prove yourself as a person with all of the above skills. As far as surviving, missional community planters I know often move in with other people at the beginning. They live 2 or 3 families in a house. Pay much less or even no rent. This allows for the time to get established and take that entry-level job that connects one to living rhythms in the neighborhood.

3.) EXCUSE NO. 3 – I WILL BE SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME ON A JOB THAT IS NOT GERMANE TO MINISTRY. Seminarians think that spending many years in something not ministry related will stunt development of ministry skills. This is mind blowing to me. I suggest that working in the marketplace in whatever capacity is transforming and every pastor should do it in some way.  It is also incredible how having a well-honed skill in your back pocket gives enormous freedom in ministry even when more full time ministry is forced upon you. You are no longer locked into the insecurity of having to keep a church going (because you know you can get a job) that can constrain you from acting prophetically.

4.) EXCUSE NO. 4 - IT WOULD BE BETTER TO RAISE SUPPORT FROM CHRISTIANS AND THEN HAVE MORE TIME IN MINISTRY.  My comment here is that fund raising is great if you have a ready network of support that you can call on. Go for it!! This will free you up to take time and get a job BTW. The problem with fund raising however is that it is often a full time job.  It takes a year making 1000 phone calls, making 200 visits. This is the equivalent man-hours of starting a self-sustaining business. Fund raising of course takes hours to keep up those contacts year in and year out. You are basically spending your time with Christians. Fund raising, therefore, in a sense, takes you out of the neighborhood and into the Christian ghetto.  It is also Christendom based. It depends on already committed Christians who are a shrinking commodity in the developed West.

5.) EXCUSE NO. 5 – I SPENT 3 YEARS (OR MORE) AND A LOT OF MONEY ON A SEMINARY EDUCATION. NOW THIS WAS A WASTE OF TIME! No it wasn’t. It hopefully prepared you for ministry. Some of the best missional communities I know have been founded by seminary graduates. They are using their education to the fullest in ways never imagined. And if you’ve got loans, that’s unfortunate. But, I suggest, most of the people following the course of bi-vocational ministry make more money (eventually) than in ministry and pay back their loans faster. On taking out loans for seminary, I suggest the right kind of praxis oriented seminary education (that encompasses Biblical studies, theological studies, cultural studies, church practice studies, leadership studies) is important for bi-vocational missional leaders. But I would suggest you do it slowly and in ways that don’t stretch the finances. At Northern we’re working on an M.A. CM in Missional Studies that can be accomplished one night a week for five years at a very low cost monthly.

OK I know this isn’t for everybody. I’ve seen this work mostly with twenty-thirty somethings. But the times a re changing.  For what it’s worth, I’ve lived all this myself and seen it take shape in many different ways in missional commuinities. What are your biggest hurdles? Do you know of any other excuses? Is this totally out of the question for you? Blessings on the journey!!

Filed under Church Planting,Missional Leadership 44 Comments

on March 18 2011

No SuperStars Here: Places I’ll Be in the Upcoming Months

On Fridays – I’ll be highlighting (occasionally) places where I’ll be participating and/or speaking at. I only travel once a month. For me it’s about commitment to the local organic Kingdom of God on the ground. I think many times good things happen at conferences. But when I become a conference speaker first, and pastor/nurturer of the Kingdom second, everything gets screwed up for me. I can’t live there. For me, therefore I need to choose wisely the conferences I speak at and/or attend. As Bob Hyatt says about many conferences( in one of the best posts on conference attending I’ve ever read – click here)  – “because of the very nature of the big stage, the inaccessible superstars, the cutting-edge everything, the end result is often men and women who leave thinking “If only I could speak like that. If only MY church was like that.” So, on the occasional Friday, I hope you won’t mind if I report on some conferences I’m speaking at. I’d like to let people know because I’d like to hang out with friends, get to know new friends, hear what God’s doing whenever I travel. With that in mind here’s a churchplanter training I’ll be at in May. See below!

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The Ecclesia Net Church Planter Training Week
A theological and practical trajectory for missional church planting

Called Aggelos this is a unique church planter training opportunity.
As Bob Hyatt says (here) there will not be hundreds of people here. More than likely, there will be somewhere between 20-30. This means plenty of room for dialog, conversation, and questions amidst all of the planned training.
Everyone stays, eats, and prays together for the week. Most people leave with better friendships, some of which will be life-long, because they started the church planting journey – in this way – together.
There will be a host of different equippers with unique planting stories that ARE NOT SUPERSTARS. This gathering is real life every day church planting. You’ll hear from a variety of planters, both seasoned and new, and learn from their experiences and approaches.
Finally, we hope to provide a good balance of theology, theory, and practicality. Each component is vital
This all happens May 9-13, 2011 in Richmond, VA at the Richmond Hill Urban Retreat Center (www.richmondhillva.org). Richmond Hill is a former monastery, located in the heart of the city of Richmond. Most people will be sharing a room with one other person throughout the week. All meals are all included as part of our stay and will take place on the grounds.
For registration info: check out here.

Filed under Church Planting,Missional Leadership 4 Comments

on January 19 2011

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

In a recent post on this blog I made the statement:

“I have no doubt that the success of many of the New Reformed Missional churches in the cities is the result of the influx of twenty-something populations into the cities in the past fifteen-twenty years with little or no place to go to church.” Collin Hansen – author, editor at CT, and a contributor to the Gospel Coalition – asks 2 questions in response “Could you point me to research that led you to conclude (this?)  Then he also added “I would also be interested to know more about your observation that Redeemer City to City and Acts 29 “depend largely on existing Christianized populations.”

On Collin’s questions – I don’t have statistical research that is irrefutable eh? (Is there such a thing?). I think we could get such statistics if mega churches and some of the more notable Neo-Reformed church plants (Mars Hill, Redeemer) would simply survey their regular attenders and ask their congregants the question “prior to this church, did you come from a previous church or Christian upbringing?” Again and again, every growing mega church I know has simply ignored, pushed to the side or outright refused to survey their burgeoning congregation by asking this question? And yet, I have NO PROBLEM with re-invigorating dormant Christians. I simply want it recognized that attractional strategies are a poor way to engage those truly outside the Christian faith with the gospel. They are not missional in that sense. They often get caught up in competition for existing Christians.

So, In response to Collin’s legitimate questions, I think I can answer his two questions with something better than statistics – the logic of the way the New Reformed church plants carry out their strategies. I offer these two insights:

1.) On Redeemer and Acts 29 and other Neo-Reformed Church Planting Strategies being dependent upon Christianized populations.

The Neo-Reformed church planting strategies, as represented in Mark Driscoll’s Confessions of a Reformissionary, Tim Keller’s Redeemer’s Church planting manual, as well as Ed Stetzer’s manifold publications are attractionally driven. They depend heavily on the “draw” of a charismatic male preacher. They all speak about the importance of the opening service. They speak about the importance of preaching being a culturally relevant communication. Preaching is the main thing. Preaching is the draw. All of this assumes people outside of the gospel will want to come to a place in order to hear a sermon preached. It depends upon a cultural orbit where people outside of Christ would naturally go to church to hear a sermon in order to come to Christ. THIS DYNAMIC IS CHRISTENDOM. Don’t get me wrong – I UNEQUIVOCABBLY BELIEVE PREACHING IS CENTRAL TO THE FORMATION OF GOD’S PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. It just is not the foundation of church planting in mission – which is engaging a community with the gospel. It is not the basis upon which a Missional church plant begins because by definition such a Neo-Reformed  church plant seeks from the outset to draw in Christians or the Christianized into this place to hear a sermon.  Missional church plants on the other hand seek to engage those outside the Christian faith with the gospel.  Conclusion? These church planting strategies are dependent upon Christianized populations. Yes?

I say this not to disparage the many good works for Christ among my Neo-Reformed brothers (and sisters- wink wink). I applaud pastor Driscoll, Keller, Stetzer and all the others for their great work! There are many out there who are still culturally conditioned by Christendom. And there will always also be the occasional person totally outside Christ who likewise gets caught under these influences who will come to Christ. Praise be to God! Yet, I argue that there can be little doubt, that in post Christendom, those who number among the growing populations of the secularized, have little or no intention of ever going to go hear a sermon when they seek God. When they seek God they will go other places first (Oprah, a discussion group, a book club, the pub). Granted there will be exceptions, but as a strategy for mission, it relies on an orbit of a Christianized culture. To me this is irrefutable.  What say you?

I think everything what I have said here is evident in places like Mark Driscoll’s Confessions book, Redeemer’s Church Planting Manual, or Ed Stetzer’s most recent set of posts on church planting. To offer just a few examples of literally hundreds:

a.)Almost the entire structure of Mark Driscoll’s church plant of Mars Hill in Seattle is attractional based on his accounts in Confessions of a Reformission Rev.. From the way they did a “launch” to the intense drive on measuring the attendance of the Sunday gatherings. It is common throughout the book for pastor Driscoll to talk about things like how they “survived the horrendous hip-hop and expanded to two Sunday services in time for the fall push, which is when we have our biggest attendance increase” (p. 93). This kind of emphasis is ubiquitous in the book. Attractional is adopted under the argument for being “attractive” (p.31). It is really disconcerting that pastor Mark does not recognize that the “3000” who were saved (Acts 2) on Pentecost were not gathered as a mega church (p.94). They were gathered from all over the Middle East at the Pentecost festival and were part of the Jewish dispersion. Upon being saved, THEY WERE DISPERSED back into their locales to form communities back home.

b.)Tim Keller’s Redeemer church planting manual has also many revelations about how deep the attractional strategy is here.  In Redeemer’s manual, there are tremendous efforts to detail how the services at Redeemer were crafted to draw non-Christians into the services. Likewise, conversions are recounted of non-Christians (and we must discern carefully what this might mean). And yet we see again the assumption that must be talked about over and over to get at the issue I am targeting here. We are depending on attracting “non-Christians” to come to a gathering for the teaching of the Bible. Can we at least admit that the average secularized non-Christian does not naturally seek to attend a church service whose main purpose is “to teach” from the Bible even if that teaching and worship always “assumes the presence of non-Christians in it even before we knew if any were there (p.13).”

Tim Keller is one of the most culturally savvy, gospel centered, “restoration of the city” oriented pastors I know. Can I say this clearly I LOVE TIM KELLER! I cast no aspersion WHATSOEVER on the impact of his/Redeemer’s ministry. I’m just saying, it is attractionally driven and depends upon Christendom habits, habits that are in decline in many parts of our culture. I don’t know if his strategy is reproducible in the years to come. Eventually as what is left of the Christianized foundation of city culture diminishes, such church planting strategies will turn into competition for the Christianized peoples as opposed to mission.  Redeemer is to be commended for not advertising where Tim Keller is preaching (of the many sites Redeemer has in NYC) because they recognize that attendance would go way up where he preaches, and way down every where else. Nonetheless, this reveals the attractional foundations that lie at the base of Redeemer’s beginnings.

c.)In Ed Stetzer’s recent post about his own church planting venture and his research, he reveals his proclivity toward attractional church planting. Again, Ed has taught me a lot. And I agree with a lot of what he puts out there. But read these words from his post here: “

“Think about the person who shows up on launch Sunday due to a postcard in the mail the week before. Your hope is that your first attendants will be made up of seekers and people open to the first-time consideration of the gospel. And, that means people who are asking questions and starting their spiritual journey– they are often not ready to be spiritual leaders since they are just considering things of faith. … This Sunday we had our first preview service at Grace Church, where I am serving as lead pastor … And, as in the couple hundred people we had come Sunday, we know it to be true that we often encounter a fair number of new, seeking, and sometimes hurting on that first Sunday.”

This is worthy labor for Christ! Yet the idea of having 200 people on an opening service reveals how much this approach assumes people want to come to an opening launch of a worship service. The idea of this happening even with flyers, advertising, a famous rock star musician, IS SIMPLY NOT REALITY FOR THOSE OF US MINISTERING INS SECULARIZED CULTURES. Granted, Ed is working with a church plant in Nashville, the bastion of Christendom in United States. His approach makes sense there. I applaud his work. All I’m saying is, please don’t try this at home! If home for you is post Christendom secularized cities.

2.)  On Collin’s second part of his question, regarding my contention that the success of many of the New Reformed Missional churches in the cities is the result of the influx of twenty-something populations into the cities.

I think it is irrefutable that masses of white (a lot of them evangelical) populations moved out of the American city in droves to the suburbs in 1960′s to 80’s. Starting in the nineties this reversed itself. There was a huge migration back into the city by yuppie, white twenty something populations. That wave hit peak in early nineties to 2000 (this wave was symbolically represented by the popular TV show Friends – a bunch of white twenty something’s who lived in the city). I was part of that wave and attended (and was a leader) in Park Community Church in Chicago in its early years. I often attended and knew people who went to Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan (where I often worked). These massive populations entered a city where the previous white evangelical churches had long since left, closed, or became minority churches. These new professionalized populations had no place to go to church. Maybe only 5% of these new professionalized city immigrants were Christians, but that still was a huge number and I firmly believe that places like Park Community Church and Redeemer became feeding grounds for these highly educated young professionalized Christian peoples.

I have NO DOUBT the ministries in question are vibrant and real. The question is, as these Christianized peoples find their churches, and there is less of that “market” left to be re-churched, what will become of mission to the secularized peoples. Shall we continue to plant churches on the Redeemer or Acts 29 model and fight over the Christianized?

In conclusion,

I applaud the work of the Neo-Reformed church planting movements. The work accomplished for Christ on many levels is irrefutable. Praise God! Seriously and sincerely! In this post, I am merely trying to point out that this strategy’s effectiveness is inherently built on attractional premises, which will become increasingly more difficult and competitive amidst the secularized cultures of the West. The remnant of Christianized populations will run out unless they are mobilized for mission among the lost cultures. For these challenges we need a new vision for church-planting. I’ve sketched in brief my ideas on this in this post?  I think we need a discussion.

Am I valid in saying that Neo-Reformed church planting – in that it emphasizes the singularity of the culturally relevant preaching service as the means to form a gathering – attractional? Dependent upon culturally Christianized populations? And therefore less than missional in its vision for reaching a secularized post-Christendom culture? YES OR NO? and why? Blessings

Filed under Acts 29,Church Planting,Incarnational,Post-Attractional,Post-Christendom 83 Comments

on January 12 2011

Death of a Church Plant – Some Reflections and Hope for the Future of Missional Church Planting

I don’t know Jason Coker (except through blogosphere), but I love reading Jason Coker. And what he has done in a recent series of posts is simply amazing. In these posts (here, here, here, here, and here), Jason reflects on the sorrows of closing down a church that he and his wife Jenell worked so hard to plant in San Diego. Jason is a good writer. Yet Jason does more than that, he is brutally honest. He gives us a window into the world of church planting. I think everyone who seeks to plant a church should read these posts.

After I read Jason’s posts I couldn’t get them out of my mind. I often find myself  worrying about church planters who do the kind of church planting that Jason and Jenell were doing. Jason’s posts fed that angst. Jamie Arpin-ricci’s recent post poured more gas on the flames of that anxiety. So I started to write this post. This post is not meant to tell Jason or anyone else what they did wrong. I do not dare to suggest I know Jason or San Diego or anything else enough to be able to do such a thing. I admire Jason, Jenell and Jamie and a whole bunch more church planters of their ilk. I’m just reflecting on their experience out of my own experience. If it helps everybody, so be it.

Planting missional communities is a different animal from the prototype church planting that is so familiar in denominations and places like Acts 29 and Redeemer City to City. The attractional dynamics that often typifies these kinds of church planting depend largely on existing Christianized populations. The emphasis is on meeting the dynamic of the population group so as to present the gospel in a cultural savvy way.  I have no doubt that the success of many of the New Reformed Missional churches in the cities is the result of the influx of twenty-something populations into the cities in the past fifteen-twenty years with little or no place to go to church. Of course this is worthy work, and it has its own costs – let me tell you. And just so every body hears me – even in missional communities – there is the coalescence of already existing Christians of some sort for the task of listening to God and living in mission in a neighborhood. But the task of missionary church planting is different. Can I say that one more time? MISSIONARY CHURCH PLANTING IS DIFFERENT and the demands require a “mental training” of a sort.

So I have just a few observations to offer from reading Jason’s posts.  After all I need the therapy! And thinking through Jason’s posts are like good therapy for every church planter I know. Again, just to reiterate, I don’t know Jason and I have only visited San Diego so these comments aren’t really about him. I applaud the hard work and the journey. Church planters like Jason and Jenell are golden. I hesitate to comment because perhaps people will think I’m saying they did something wrong. NOT! I think they are extraordinary for their work. I offer up these reflections as fodder for the much needed conversation on the nature of church planting for our time.  Feel free to go at me on these comments.

4  Observations of Jason Coker’s post-mortem reflections on the closing of a church plant.

1.)Church Planting in Post Christendom is hard. I really can’t tell if Jason/Jenell were intentionally engaging post Christendom contexts, but their emphasis on justice, culture, and various approaches to ministry articulated here suggest that that they were doing just that. They were avoiding the competition and negative orbits associated with attractional ministry. Going against this grain is hard.

Nurturing community with an external focus and vibrant missional life often goes against the cultural assumptions of denominations and support networks. Denominations/American business want to see (immediate) results. They think like business people. Jason never said the Vineyard people placed these expectations on them. But the pressure is there regardless. It’s an American church cultural thing. Yet has anyone ever doing missionary work in India ever been expected to produce a self-sustaining church in three years? Overcoming these cultural pressures is hard.

Missional community also goes against the grain of already existing Christians who simply see the church as a place to sustain their own lifestyles/families in the Christian ethos. Leading people into a new imagination for the way God works in our lives and mission is painstaking. It is asking Christians to take discipleship to a new level. This – IMO – takes several years of cultivation. As such, many church plants have neither the patience, internal security or plain finances to be able to work that long on this kind of cultivation. Many get way-layed, pulverized by the turnover and the plain stubborn headedness of American Christians. All this makes church planting in Post-Christendom hard. Jason, Jenell should be commended for their true hearted commitment to work as missionaries … BECAUSE THIS KIND OF CHURCH PLANTING IS WHAT IS NEED IN A COUNRTY WHOSE ACTIVE CHRISTIAN POPULATIONS ARE SHRINKING.

2.) Finances are really important and often out of our control This is why I encourage those who plant a missionary church to have a minimum of a 5 year financial plan. You can raise these funds, but often, for many reasons, the work of this kind of fund raising CAN (ALTHOUGH NOT ALWAYS!) work against the very missional impulses your working to go with. I urge beginning church planters to get a job, especially if they’re in the twenties. Gaining a skill and experience in the workplace is monumental for your own personal development. It offers years of flexibility and freedom. I suggest church planters get a job where you can learn a skill and commit to getting good at. I urge church planters to only think about working 15 hours a week in their missional community pastoring. I urge every missional church plant to have three core leaders/couples who similarly have jobs who together can give 15 hours a week to the cultivating of this community.  This is enough time for pastoring/cultivating (it’s actually the equivalent of one full time pastor). Since the community is very small (maybe only a few people to as many as thirty) you’re going to be ordering your life together in mission in the community. You aren’t going to be spending 50 hours producing an attractional service to compete and draw Christians from other places. 15 hours a week by three people is sufficient to lead and nurture the beginnings of such a community.

The job that these pastors get then provides the means to take all the pressure off and spend 5 years cultivating. It will also help each pastor gain a sense of identity and reality. This changes everything. It changes the way we look at ministry. Changes the dynamics of why we get paid and the pressures. And it provides the seeding ground so necessary in a missionary plant. It puts you out and about and alongside the community.

Jason had difficulty finding work. he got caught in the 2008 financial collapse vortex. It took a toll on him big time. For me, this issue of a job is perhaps the key part of navigating one’s entry into missional church planting. It’s a hurdle so many M Div’s can’t get past. Many M Div’s place their entire identity into getting a pastorate (this was definitely NOT THE CASE WITH JASON). They struggle to see tent-making as an identity marker that marks you as a revolutionary. Jason already was past this hurdle but couldn’t get that job for a long while. I suggest an alternative might be to raise funds with the plan for those funds to provide the time necessary to find a job.

Finances are probably the single number one debilitating factor in planting churches. I think it’s more psychical than it is material. For these reasons, as we plan a missional church plant, we must take the time to get firmly planted within a sustainable life financially that is also a walk of faith.

3) Finding at least two other strong mature leaders/couples that can join in with you and lead this communal imagination is essential. It is the APEPT principle – it takes an Apostle, Prophet (preacher), Evangelist, Pastor, and Teacher (organizer) to nurture a community into existence and flourishing (Eph 4). Until then you struggle.  Jason certainly struggled to find the right partners. He struggled courageously. At the Vine, it took us four years to get our leadership together. We struggled awfully until God led us into the right partnership with the right leaders. I feel like I nearly died psychically several times as a single leader with others who did not understand the mission with me. But when God provided the right partners, life changed, it made sense, and things started to take on a life of its own, the life of the Spirit.

In Christendom, one guy(or woman), with some charisma, can rustle up a crowd of Christians using Facebook and attract them with some preach-tainment long enough to establish a base from which he/she then builds systems. Not in missionary situations. One charismatic person cannot carry the load, and if she/he does, it will primary be an internally focused mega-church servicing Christians of some variety. Nothing wrong with that (necessarily).  But it won’t be a missional community like Jason and Jenell were seeking to cultivate.

4) 5 Years. I simply don’t believe cultivating such a community will even begin to take on sustainable way of life that breeds life in the Spirit for a minimum of 5 years. Many disagree but I just don’t see it. The cultivation work is too important.  It takes long patience and sustaining of oneself financially. Jason and Jenell had to close the church after 2 to 3 years. Yet I don’t think they should see this as a failure. Certain contingencies worked (all of which I have no knowledge of) to prevent from continuing. But 2 years is too short to consider this community a failure. I don’t believe in missionary work you can expect to see vibrant transformational growth until the end of year five (this may even be too short). I realize there are exceptions – this is just my historical perspective. For some reason, many many times, the Holy Spirit requires cultivated ground, open minds, prayer that opens the minds and hearts of the world to His working.  TO ME MISSIONAL CULTIVATORS MUST EXPECT TO CULTIVATE MANY YEARS before they see the kinds of numbers, conversions etc. that Christendom has gotten us so used to.

Missional Communities Aren’t Worth It!

Some may look above and read of the struggles of Jason, Jenel and Jamie and others and say “missional communities then are not worth it.” Uh, I think Jason, Jenell and Jamie would disagree (although maybe not today).  It does however require a different imagination, a different set of expectations, seeing ministry as a way of life, dare I say a sense of identity as a revolutionary, a Jesus radical. The kind of pastor I tried to describe HERE. To me Jason, Jenell and Jamie ( to what degree I know them which is only through blog world) provide us some examples as to what such “radicals” might look like as we go forward as missionaries in N America. Way to go!! Jason, Jamie today and yesterday I have been praying for you guys. I don’t know you, but you inspire me and others. I pray for you as God leads you into the future of His Mission!!

Filed under Church Planting,Missional,Post-Attractional,Post-Christendom,Uncategorized 36 Comments

on September 8 2010

Sanctuary or Living Room? Senior Pastor or “Community Organizer”?: What You Do The First Year Shapes Your Congregation for Decades

It is common in church planting for N. American churches to rush in a.) naming a main leader and b.) starting a public service (what has often been called the launch). For instance: the Acts 29 Network – a training network for planting churches – puts an unusual importance on a.) choosing a strong male leader to plant the church, and b.) the launch of a service where “the gospel” is preached clearly, contextually and authoritatively. The impression here is that the preaching itself, led by a strong male leader, is sufficient to draw the lost into the gospel.

Although there is much to be thankful for in what God is doing with Acts 29, for me, this is an approach heavily dependent on the cultural conditions of Christendom. The preaching requires people already habitualized to go to church and hear a sermon. It requires people who understand the language. It organizes the church structure toward the center – where the single strong leader is – instead of outward where lost people are. It will work where there are wandering peoples who have a Christian past and/or have discontent with existing forms of church (i.e. Roman Catholic or traditional evangelical) who are easily drawn to something new and impressive. This is not, however, a Missional strategy because in many ways it sets the new community up to be a centralized attractional community. Its dynamic works against invading the rhythms of a context, living the gospel in ways that invade the secular spaces of the world that is living oblivious to God and His work in Christ for the world. If we would be missionaries, we need to think differently about congregational formation.

Our church is in the beginning stages of seeding two new communities. We’re helping with two others.  Over the weekend we gathered in Hyde Park (for the Missional Midwest Roundtable of EcclesiaNetwork) with several leaders of missional communities. I led a discussion on the goals, purposes and dangers of the first year of congregational formation in what we used to call church plants: the gathering of a community amidst a new territory for mission. I said there should be three goals for the first year of a church plant- a seeding of a missional community:
1.)    Establish a small community of fellowship in the neighborhood who can pray together for the Kingdom. This community will develop as friends, dialoguing, listening, praying – learning to listen for God’s voice, observing where He is working so as to respond and participate in what He is doing to reconcile, heal, create anew and birth righteousness.
2.)    Get to know the neighborhood. Exegete it so as to know how to pray, minister, adopt rhythms, hang out, and be Christ’s presence.
3.)    Facilitate hospitality. Become a place to facilitate hospitality in the neighborhood as well as helping people move to the neigborhood. I urge a contant calling of people into the KIngdom. When these people don’t live in the neighborhood, I encourage the community to help these people of the kingdom find jobs, find a place to live at reasonable cost, know how to live in this community.

If these are the goals of the first year (or two?), I said (at the Hyde Park meeting) we should then consider two questions:

A.) Do we need a pastor or a community organizer? My contention is naming someone a “pastor” – dare I say “Senior Pastor” – starts to order the community’s life around this one person’s centralized leadership. It sets up the community for expectations that this one person shall provide for certain needs, services and the making of decisions. The community’s life becomes a centralized orbit around this one person as opposed to a dispersed activity (of God) living in and among the neighborhood. This habit will be almost impossible to overcome in the years ahead. I suggest putting off naming someone “the pastor.” Instead name him/her the “community organizer.” There will be a time and a place to name pastors (I purposely put this in the plural). But at the beginning stages a single pastor could really jam up the workings of a missional community’s involvement in the community and participation in the work.
B.) Do we meet in a sanctuary or a living room? My contention is that meeting in a sanctuary (i.e. a meeting place with rows and a pulpit) is bad for meeting the goals of the first year as stated above. Meeting in rows, with a pulpit up front creates a passivized audience but it also creates a certain expectation as to what church should be. This expectation will be almost impossible to overcome in the years that lie ahead. Instead we need to develop relationships. We need a space to voice questions and dialogue. We need to hear stories of what God is doing and express hardships and ask “what is God saying?” This is why I suggest the first year’s gathering should have the feel of a living room as opposed to a service in a sanctuary. There will be a time and place to start the rhythm of more formalized preaching/worship. But this itself should be an extension of the fellowship that is developed during this one crucial year.

In both cases, there will be a time to both ordain pastors and formalize worship (see this post here). However, what I learned at Life on the Vine is that moving too early on these two fronts (which we did) will not only force the issue, but ingrain bad habits in a community that shall harm it for years to come.

At the Midwest Missional Roundtable, four other church planters discussed their struggles with these ideas. What do you think? What are the pluses and minuses of the Acts 29 approach versus the approach proposed here? What are the pluses/minuses of “senior pastor” versus “community organizer”? What are the pluses/minuses of “sanctuary” versus “living room”?

Filed under Acts 29,Church Planting,Incarnational,Missional,Missional Leadership,Neo-Reformed 27 Comments

on October 7 2009

Bi-vocational – or – go on staff at a large church: Suddenly bi-vocational ministry doesn’t look so bad?

Over at our house last Friday night, we had another ‘missional’ discussion on planting communities. I discussed the value of multiple bi-vocational ministry. I said there are three good things (among many others) that come from such an arrangement of the pastoral leadership of a community. (BTW I expanded on these in an article for Leadership published here)
First, multiple bi-vocational (MU-BI) ministry breeds congregational participation in the life of a church because it works against the passivity that can so easily set in on a congregation. Human beings tend to relax and allow someone else to do ‘the tasks’ of ministry whenever possible. They can become passive when they look to one person or a staff of persons to do the various tasks of church ministry. In other words, a professional, full-time clergy can actually encourage passivity in a congregation.
Second, MU-BI ministry guards against excessive organization and programming. By sheer necessity MU-BI leadership cultivates organic forms of life that arise from within the rhythms of the congregation and its surrounding neighborhoods. Bi-vocational pastors simply do not have time to strategize programs to meet the needs of the congregation. One of the participants in the Friday nite conversation talked about the mindset of working 40 hours for the church and finding that fulfilling. I responded “when we no longer see the Sunday morning gathering as attractional, we are not forced to spend 40 hours on music and programming, 40 hours on sermon prep etc. to make it “the Thing.” The gathering on Sunday instead must become an organic, living, liturgically driven encounter with the living God and His mission sending us outward. It must become something done out of the regaulr rythms of our lives. This kind of gathering takes less work because the ‘slick’ factor is off the table. All these gifts can now be used in the surrounding context. Think of how we can support a musician to play in local contexts and engage the community instead of perfecting a performance for the Sunday ‘event.’
Third, MU-BI ministry fosters a church culture that is outward focused. It is inherent in the very dynamic of MU-BI leadership that church ministry is pushed outward from the center of the church. The pastors, after all, spend a good chunk of their week in the workplace. This gives the pastors a different mindset. So, whereas in many institutional structures the life of the church tends to be pulled into the orbit of the professional clergy, we naturally shape ministry around what is going on “out there.” And as people working in the marketplace in some way, we model a missional lifestyle for our congregation.

There are several more positives – the blessing of collegiality and co-ownership of the ministry among a band of brothers and sisters cannot be over estimated, especially if you’re planting a new community, – the blessing of not being controlled by a few members who give  a lot money for your support. No one however denies that there are many challenges and pitfalls to this kind of clergy organization. As we were listening to these challenges, one brave soul voiced about how unrealistic this all was. He said that I (David Fitch) had not reached the ability to truly do bi-vocational ministry until I’d been in the workplace 5-6-7 years (until I was an old man of 35).  He said we’re in effect asking new pastors to go out and get jobs, spend several years in them, get good at them, so they become flexible and capable of earning a meaningful income sufficient to support at least half of their salary. I replied, well, yes. But look at the other option. The other option for the new seminary graduate still in his/her 20′s (this demographic is getting smaller and smaller BTW) is to get out of seminary, get your first job on the staff of an established large church, be a youth pastor, worship leader etc. earn poor wages, be worked to death, never see your family or friends, and work your way up to the senior pastor job in ten years  by the time you’re 35 (OK I overstated my case :) ). This is  the standard route to senior pastor status in American church life. I said the toll this is taking on new pastors is stunning. (We can speculate why anther time). One seminary reports over 90% of their grads are not in the ministry after 5 years. I said I much prefer the bi-vocational bi-ministerial route. Is this therefore unrealistic or does it just require a set of adjusted expectations, a long view of the truly amazing missional life we can be a part of as pastors-leaders in missional communitues? It requires doing seminary on a longer term basis acquiring little or no debt. (The new MACM degrees are being built for this). I seriously think this is the way of the future. Thoughts, push backs?

See JR’s report on the Friday nite conversation here.

Filed under Church Planting,Missional Leadership 42 Comments

on June 10 2009

THE THREE BIGGEST FEARS WE MUST FACE WHEN PLANTING A CHURCH/ I.E. SEEDING A MISSIONAL COMMUNITY

Every month we have a gathering over at our house on the back deck. We call it “Missional Back Porch” and the goal is to gather, put something on the grill, and sit around together talking about what it means to live together into the Mission of God.

Last Friday, the question was “what is your biggest fear about getting up and moving to a new locale with 10-15 other people to seed a missional community (i.e. join a missional order)?” We’re getting ready to do this two or three times in the next two years. So the question of these “fears” is an important question for us. Some of the fears I suspect are derivative of the ways we planted churches back “in the days” of Christendom. I list only the three biggest fears mentioned? Here they are with a personal reflection on each one.

1. My life (or my family’s life) would be consumed if I went and planted a church with some other people.
I think we often see church planting along the lines of establishing of an organization. It is almost like we are starting a business. We will have to provide a list of goods and services right from the start (a first class worship service, a weekly Bible study class, children’s ministry, and evangelistic outreach program etc. etc.). This is traditional church-planting boot camp 101.

This way of planting churches is nigh impossible in post Christendom. This approach was nigh impossible even in Christendom when there were ready-made “consumers” for these services and an ingrained Christian readiness (by already existing Christians) towards volunteer service in the local church. Neither of these things exists in post Christendom for good reasons and other reason not so good. As a result, a church-planter-leader-participant who enters “community seeding” with this approach will burn out nine times out of ten in three years. Often leaders and their families will be severely injured.

Instead I plead with the community planters/leaders/participants to see community seeding as a way of life. We are simply moving into an “under-churched” place, in close proximity to one another, living simply and missionally, tending to the surrounding community relationally out of the vision of the Gospel. We worship simply and organically and it develops over time. We tend to our children, simply and organically partnering with others as available. The Holy Spirit enlivens the ministries with power. The gifts of the Spirit flourish. Ministries, and the organization that accompany these ministries, happens over time, as an post facto development.

The first sign that this is a “church plant of the flesh” is when families and leaders are exhausting themselves and their families to the point of destruction. There is just too much evidence that NT leaders (both men and women) were not allowed to lead if their families were in disorder.

2. I will be leaving behind my relationships and starting all over again.
We plant with 3 defined leaders (defined within an APEPT model). We take 12 to 15 people in all that have agreed to the common vision and mission for an extended period of time (no less than 5 years). These people will be by definition some of your closest friends already. Through this common agreement and move, you will find some of the most intense, God honoring, life flourishing relationship possible in this life.

3. There will be a leadership rift – people will not all be on the same page, they will get mad, and break-up the ministry – and we will be left hung out to dry.
It is very important that the three main leaders be mutually submissive to one another and in agreement on the main things/Vision of what we’re doing. It is important that they be able to grow and know each other’s limits. If this is not in place the community will fail. Far beyond all the assessment in search of the entrepreneurial personality type to start a church plant, we should evaluate the character of the three (or four or five) leaders in their ability to mutually submit to each other, to grow out of relationship one to another, and the compatibility of their giftedness in relation to each other (according to say the APEPT list of gifts in Eph 4:11 – Alan Hirsch offers this diagnostic tool here). As the leaders lead this community, they must be adaptable, capable of listening, incorporating criticism and changing with the movement of God in this community and neighborhood. If this is not already fleshed out. If there is not evidence of this. The “missional order” is not ready to move into a new neighborhood.

WHAT OTHER FEARS DO YOU HAVE? CONCERNING THIS MODE OF CHURCH-PLANTING”? HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THESE FEARS?

Filed under Church Planting,Missional,Missional Leadership 9 Comments

on December 8 2008

The Attractional/Missional Debate Won’t Stop: Three Take-Aways

This attractional/missional debate just won’t stop! And I think we might be getting somewhere. Thanks to Dan Kimball and Out of Ur for starting this whole thing up again. Here are some highlights for me.

1.) This is a question about the right way of church in post-Christendom. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Pres. NYC, in one of his comments on my last post, raises the issues of the Models of the Church. He says all of the various historical models of the church have different strengths, weaknesses, gift mixes, and are appropriate for certain times and contexts. We need them all. I agree! What I want to argue is post Christendom requires of us an Anabaptist missional ecclesiology. Indeed what I want to argue is that the attractional and consumerist driven ecclesiologies have not got the contextualization right, what Keller refers to as “not over-adapted or under-adapted.” I think prof. Keller’s approach to cultural engagement (in that comment) has some problems in it in that he uses the word “adapt.” But I know he wasn’t working out a theology of culture there. So I’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt.

2.) Part of this talking past each other (Attractionals talking past Missionals) has to do with the assumptions that underlie Reformed versus Anabaptist (as well as Pragmatist) missional theorists and practitioners. On my comment (in my last blog post) to prof. Keller, I hinted that I thought some of the talking past each other (in this missional/attractional debate) was due to some assumptions that lie deeply embedded in the Reformed leanings that back some missional thinkers (I’d put in this camp Keller, Driscoll and my buddy Stetzer – depite his denials) and the assumptions that lie embedded in my own and others’ Anabaptist (postmodern cultural) leanings. I want to explore that in another upcoming post. Ironically Andy Rowell has mapped 60 theologians on the spectrum of high church-low church. I think he’s ranked me wrong. For in terms of strong ecclesiology I, like the theologian who has most influenced me (Hauerwas), find myself committed to a very Mennonite communal ecclesiology along with a very high church (Catholic) view of liturgical formation. Having said that, I’d like to see Andy rank the missional thinkers along the Catholic – Reformed – Anabaptist theological spectrum. I’m going to address this in a future post.

3.) In the end the attractional apologists must still answer the consumerist question! Bill Kinnon’s post today is a highlight. In response to Redeemer Pres. NYC pastor Tim Keller’s comment in my last post, the irrepressible Bill Kinnon says some things that must be responded to directly. It’s got to be one of the highlights of this entire blogalogue on missional versus attractional. I urge Dr Keller, Dr McKnight, Rev Kimball, and other missional thinkers to respond to Bill. I urge a response that does not by pass the issues he presents regarding consumerism. Yes it’s a tired critique. But answers like “no one can avoid being a consumer,” or “people are coming to Christ in these churches” or “different models work for different contexts” simply don’t cut it when a guy like Bill Kinnon speaks so forthrightly.I hope everyone else has learned as much as I have from this dialogue. What do you think about these proposals? Agree? Disagree?

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Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Evangelism,Incarnational,Missional,Missional Ecclesiology,Post-Attractional 14 Comments

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