The word “ecclesia,” used in the New Testament over 100 times to describe the local gathering of Christians in each city, was a word that actually referred to the public civic assembly in Greco Roman culture. It was a very public gathering where people could gather and participate in the governing of their city. Using the word to refer to the Christian church gathering then indicates a public aspect to it. The Christian assembly is the called-out ones in each city who seek to be governed by the Lord of the universe.
By using the word ecclesia, the NT emphasizes two different aspects to the gathering. There is its public aspect to the gathering. These people are called to gather together to witness to the Kingdom before the watching world. Yet there is also the unique aspect to this gathering amidst the culture. These people are called “out” in order to witness that Jesus is Lord and not Ceasar. The ecclesia is a calling to another way of being governed– the Kingdom of God – which is at work in the world. Going public then is essential to its witness in the community. Yet it shall not be attractional in the sense of appealing to people’s immediate tastes, preferences, conveniences or needs. This is about God’s Kingdom under the rule of Christ.
All this to say it is important and essential to the witness of the gospel that a church eventually go public with its meeting. Yet, when starting a church, or as I like to refer to the process – seeding an expression of the gospel in a community – I think it best to move with caution when going public with the gathering. Take it slow. The time has to be right. Obviously, this goes against the majority of received wisdom on church planting where the so-called “launch” of the public gathering is actually viewed as the legitimating event, the founding moment – of the church plant. But I can think of at least 3 reasons to go slow.
1.) Going public too early can derail discerning God’s Mission together in this community. When you go public before a culture of mission has been established, the community can get derailed by the newcomer Christians who “come” to your church gathering. As we all know, new church plants attract disgruntled Christians looking for something new. The new church seedling can get caught up into knitting these new folk into a cohesive body of Christ seeking God’s mission, not their own perceived wants and needs from a church. This can set back a church’s development into mission. My advice: Resist at all costs building a church body around disgruntled Christians. Instead, one by one, relationally, through prayer, the study of Scripture, the sharing of the communty’s gifts, and discerning the context, work out together what God is doing among you and in your context, seeking where God is calling you into, in the first years of your community’s life. Then go public.
2.) Going public too early can change the focus of your gathering to numbers and success. I can’t explain why, but for some reason when a gathering is opened to the public, and numbers of people show up, leaders start to concentrate on “how many.” If you are not well ensconced in your mission you can get immediately distracted and start focusing on the numbers coming on Sunday morning and how you can keep them coming. THIS ALWAYS DEFEATS MISSION. As Courageous Church pastor Shaun King said “I sold my soul for church attendance in our first week and I could never quite get it back.” See his story here. This automatically sets back the ecclesia formation that needs to take place as now we are focused on keeping people/Christian happy. My advice: Resist at all costs the temptation to work to keep Christians happy and more people coming to your Sunday gathering. Focus on discipleship and mission. The church will be the outrgowth
3.) Going public too early can put the cart before the horse. A worship gathering should be a part of a rhythm of an already existing community. We should gather as part of a shared life the rest of the six days a week. It is a gathering and sending rhythm. There must be an integrity to our life together before we go public or else the Sunday morning gathering becomes a performance to attract people, as opposed to a coalescence for the celebrating of what God is doing among us and the shaping of our lives to understand it and participate in it.
It is very important to form good “political” habits in the founding of a new expression of the gospel. By “political” I mean the things that drive us to be together and live life together. There will be a correct time to go public but DON’T RUSH IT! Any stories out there of going public too early? Any other cautions we should consider when we go public with our church gathering in the world?
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Reminder! Oct 28 and 29 the Missional Learning Commons is coming to Chicagoland. We’re centering our presentations from real live missional practicioners on the issue of discipleship. What does the practice of discipleship look like in a missional church?? How do we cultivate a discipleship culture into God’s Kingdom? as opposed to just producing another program? We will hear from and have discussions built around on-the-ground practitioners. Mike Breen and the team from 3DM will be hanging out with us to share some of what they have learned and help facilitate our conversations.
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This post is money, yo. We just added an additional monthly gathering to our rhythm of life together in our missional community, so we now meet weekly. We were wondering if we should just call ourselves a church since we have most (if not all) of the elements of “church” in place. We (with the prodding of one of my fellow Kingdom co-workers) decided not to do so. This post (in my opinion) very clearly shows why have not “launched” publicly. Thanks for this stuff. Keep it coming. The Cleve (Rocky River, specifically) gains a lot from your input from afar.
Great Thoughts!
Church Plants, especially those that come from an established “way of doing it” generally follow what made it work the first time.
Forgetting the leadings of the Spirit for a particuliar community always out weigh the “way of doing it”
Plus when the focus is on “what will we be perceived of” comes into play, the focus of the mission swing back to self-reflection and not God Reflective.
Yes, establish the initial communityof believers, then open up to the public with depth of the Word and let it be the driven force rather than being the newest, coolest, on target for worship, etc. church plant.
Whoops….we should always following the leadings of the Spirit for a particular community and not let “way of doing it” be the first step
Thanks Dave! We are at this place of holding off of ‘going public’ with a worship gathering, but are regularly being encouraged to start one. The momentum of the traditional worship service that we came out of is so very strong in shaping what we think we need to have that it is hard for some to wait. Thanks for the encouragement!
I’m confused. Is not, “seeding an expression of the gospel in a community,” precisely an attempt to faithfully embody the manner in which the NT speaks of ecclesia? If so, why would we be inclined to see “going public” as something after or in addition to what we are already doing? I suppose what I am saying is that it seems like a focused and faithful attempt to incarnate the gospel in a place is already and always a public affair and that if we think that we need to move from “staying private,” to “going public,” we’ve already missed something. I can’t imagine what it would mean for a community of people to build a culture of discipleship or mission without being public. Could it be that what we really need is not so much patience before we “go public,” but a new understanding of what how witnessing to the good news of the kingdom is always a public affair? I feel like you can help us along those lines.
Exactly.
JR,
I think I am using “public” in a way which you are not buying into. That’s cool, but I think you ignore that there are in fact ways of going public which go beyond living daily life among the neighborhood. I am talking about a political public presence. For instance naming a church, I would say, is an act of going public. It allows people outside the movement of this people to locate, give definiton to the how’s and why’s of what is happening around this people. I think putting up an internet site, I think holding a service that has an identity that people can notice, are public acts in ways the activity to which you point are not. Admittedly my thinking has evolved on this stuff, but I disagree with the way you are describing or blending the word public in with private…Of course, I would jump in with you and rage against the private-public distinction as used in traditional evangelical discourse i.e. pirvate Christian piety versus public political engagment. But that has nothing to do with the way I am using the word “public” … is this maybe the source of confusion? Blessings dude
Eh, maybe. I think what I’m after is an imagination of having a robust public political presence with or without a name, signs, or site. I think all those things are fine, but don’t find them to be prerequisites for achieving exactly what I know you are after. In fact, though I won’t do this here, I might actually make a case for how they work against what having the kind of public political presence that we need to see more of. Essentially, I felt like your post read as a simple plea to be patient before you get to becoming a “real church,” as evidenced by opening your doors to the public. And I wished it had read more like, what’s really important is that churches develop a vision of becoming a public political presence, and if the ecclesia discerns that naming itself, holding public services, and developing a website helps them in these regards, so be it. Might just be a subtle difference, but for some guttural reason, I feel like it’s an important one.
I think it has become part of “missional orthodoxy” to downplay one’s political presence as public. I’ve thought about it, and watched alot of churches develop on the ground. And even though I’ve cautioned for years in the same manner you’re doing (and this post continues that caution eh?), I think through observations over the years, that an on the ground community should eventually have a political identity. Not one so they can attract a crowd. But a public identifiable presence whereby the influence of the Kingdom can enter various spheres. Not from a place of power, but humility. These things are hard to maintain I know, once one has a public identity. So I am excercising caution here. That’s what this post is about.
But let us remember the NT church became known as “the Way”… let us remember what ecclesia basically means … a public meeting announced and identified fro everyone to show up and participate in a form of governance … they put announcements out to every one in the city, in some cases forcing every one to show up …
I think I’ve towed the “missional company line” and I think you’re right to resist.So I think this discussion needs more nuance than the missional conversation has had up until now.
We all have stories how this can go wrong but this shouldn’t mean throwing the baby out with bath water. One of my favorite lines is “the revolution will not be televised.” But we shouldn’t turn it into an ideology.
BTW, sorry this post read “as a simple plea to be patient before you get to becoming a “real church,” as evidenced by opening your doors to the public” Huh? Thanks for raising the issue! Others most certainly may have gotten that subliminal message. I do hope that most readers who know me/read me know I don’t believe that. I think I’ll have to go to therapy now after that one.
peace bro!!
DF
We waited two years before we hosted a Sunday gathering, and for the past three years have gathered every other week. Even with two years of waiting, there was a tidal pull of finding all of our legitimacy in the “how many”. In fact, my previous church planting experience had the mission derailed once we began gathering regularly on Sundays.
Thankfully, what happens on Sunday is not the primary way we’ve come to measure our success in fulfilling the mission of God in our community. Even after being a planter for 10 years, the pull is still there, but by meeting every other Sunday, it staves off the reliance on the gathering to be our mission.
For all those who are making a go at this, let me encourage you! It is possible! The freedom allows me to engage in our community in ways I never could when I was chasing Sundays.
Thanks, Kyle. I agree that an every-other-Sunday rhythm is a strategic discipleship option for the reasons you mention.
yep!
Fantastic post. Thanks as always DF.
Great word David – thanks.
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