EL’s Dribble

I want to share an entry from another organic church leader’s that simply says what I think most church practitioners don’t really get. It’s a continuation of my entry “the people are the product“. It’s the fact that we’re out to make disciples and not plant churches. When I was working my way through the church planting training mechanism of our denomination, I constantly heard, “The only way to evangelize the United States is through saturation church planting.” Which means, we need to plant as many churches as possible [specifically institutional style churches with a hip makeover]. Because new churches always are geared towards evangelism and old churches are geared towards taking care of their own. So the only way is to just keep planting as many as financially possible.

But that misses the point all together – because: first, new churches of that stripe aren’t necessarily evangelizing/disciplemaking more so than they are working to get more people in the building; and secondly it’s then wrongly assuming that building more institutions leads to more disciples. That is a lie of the devil – the same as having a nice home leads to whole and healthy families. Maybe sorta… but really, no.

Roger Thoman’s post is simply reminding us that our goal and heart and passion should be making disciples… helping them fall deeply in love with Jesus, follow him with reckless abandon and then help them help others… and continuing the viral nature of the Gospel through the world. Check it out.

Discipling Viral Disciplers
By Roger Thoman
Originally Posted HERE

I no longer try to start simple/house churches.  I think house churches are great.  They provide a place for people to experience participatory, everyone-matters church life.  They provide a way for people to really connect into authentic, one-another community.  They often provide a place for people to recover from some of the pains caused by institutional church life.  But house churches are no longer the end game for me.

I have a lot to catch up on… a lot to share. It’s been a full few months [including just returning from India] – God is teaching me a lot. But here’s a mini-quote from Neil Cole that feeds a lot into why we do what we do. It seems at times like we are “under-structured.” Though to be frank, we can use more of in some areas [though always less than most people think].

But the point is this… there’s this delicate balance with connecting people to the organization and connecting people directly with God. The organization as a family is needed and important. But so often people’s experience of “God” is their experience with the organization. And when life takes them out of the organization, they wonder whether they actually saw God at all.

So the goal is to always help people experience God for themselves… redirect them to Jesus in all cases. Not shield hardship, have them practice what they have learned immediately. It’s hard, but if it’s about making disciples and not growing the amount of church attendees, then it has to be done.

A short telling quote from Neil Cole:

“We want people to imprint on Christ from day one. Imprinting is a term from ornithology, the study of birds. When a baby gosling hatches, it imprints on the first moving object it sees. That object becomes its mother, and the gosling expects to be fed and protected by it.

When a person comes to faith in Christ, most churches tell them to just sit back and receive. They’re spoon fed by the church. And what happens? They imprint on the church or the pastor. They expect the church to do everything. And we wonder why there are so many passive Christians.

There is an alternative. Christ immediately deployed people. Matthew was back with his friends. The Samaritan woman went back to her village. When a brand new Christian is thrust into a hostile environment with a mission, they’re going to pray like crazy. That makes them imprint on Christ immediately.”

Before we get too far into this – I don’t think theres’s a magic “method” that does it right. There’s a reason why the Bible says very little about church models. Frankly it’s so we wouldn’t rely on structure and hunger and depend on Jesus. With that being said, there is a problem when our structures get in the way of seeing Jesus.

I’m email convo-ing with my friend Carl and we were talking about the shift in opinions on the need for regular Sunday worship. We both agreed there’s nothing inherently wrong with meeting Sundays – it’s not so much the structure, but nurturing communities where we live our faith tangibly among those who have yet to know Jesus. So it doesn’t matter what you do. Sort of.

But my problem with stopping the conversation there is that we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing and not ponder whether our structures are communicating a different message. I contended with C-dog that the predominant structures in our present season of history are keeping us from really seeing Jesus. And even though structures are morally neutral, we also have to plant alternative forms in order break us out of a myopia and begin seeing Jesus clearly.

I’ll just throw out a few reasons and then follow up with a few more in another post. In a previous post, I said that the organizing principle needs to be “making disciples.” Making disciples means developing followers of Jesus and followers of Jesus can be broken down to be lovers of God and the world. And our development as disciples is measured by 2 things… LOVE and OBEDIENCE.

But the predominant structure of a weekly Sunday worship and small group accessories communicates the following:

1. The primary expectation of being a Christian is going to church, behaving well and tithing. Why is that? Because nothing dictates the actions of the church more than Sunday attendance. When there is little Sunday attendance, we need to hire a better preacher, provide better coffee and send out more flyers. When it’s high, we need to find ways to keep people going on Sundays by doing BBQs, having a better children’s ministry or a larger worship production. We can talk about “living out” what we believe, but our structure and how we implement it tells us that being a Christian means going consistently to church and doing the Christian-ish things that keep a Sunday worship going.

When I speak with my parent’s generation of Christians, it’s almost impossible for them to define their faith outside of going to church. When I say we don’t meet every Sunday, the first thing they say is, “Where do they go on Sundays then?” And I say, no where… and the look comes on the face of 97% of them… disgust, confusion, shock. It’s like I started wearing my underwear on my head. I even had someone say, “How will they know they’re Christian then?”

When we started NOT meeting every Sunday [we were meeting every Sunday at one point], people said it took a while to get used to it. They’d say, “When I’d wake up on Sunday morning and realized that I didn’t need to go to church… I’d feel… a little… guilty.” They didn’t miss community/worship, they felt guilty. Most people felt like sub-par Christians for not going to church. And their faith was defined more by what they did then by what Jesus has done.

In summary, the Gospel says one thing, our structures say another.

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As I talk to more people about our community I realize that the disconnect most often begins at this point: that church is not something you build/create, but the church is who you are.

Now this isn’t new news. It has been long talked about among many of this generation’s church planters and failed mega-church dreamers. I can hear them now, “We need to BE the church! Not DO church!” But in the end, most people still do church. I see this because many still see church as this thing you build.

It’s not necessarily all wrong in that there is an environment/ethos that each person of a church community contributes to. And that “thing” then becomes the driving force to do/build/create “church” as we know it.

Though some of that isn’t wrong, we miss something very crucial… that if church is something outside of you then that thing can easily become the “product” – the thing we produce. Whether it be the physical aspect of the building or an expansion of the organizational entity [more groups/worship services, etc.]… that becomes the thing we produce. And we miss out on why Jesus does what he does.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross for more buildings or even more worship services. He died so that the world [you, me and the person you hate] would be reunited with the one who loves and discover for themselves their need to love him back. And it’s this love relationship that begins a transformation in us that we can’t do ourselves. And that transformation within us that spurs on a transformation in others. In the end, Jesus died for you and me.

Which means that we’re the goal… we’re the destination… we’re the reason Jesus bore our shame and guilt so that we would live and live freely, fully and purposefully. You see, goals are never expendable. They’re your goals. You don’t give those up. But the means by which you get them are expendable… you use the ones that work and ditch the ones that don’t.

When the entity of church becomes the goal, the people are expendable. But if people are the goal, the entity of the church [methods/structure] is expendable. It becomes about developing people and just finding the means to get there. It’s not building the church and finding the people to get there.

Now we can go 100 ways with this from here on out… questions come up like, “Is it wrong to build buildings?” or “Why do we always veer towards putting out a product?” or “Why is this post so darn long?”

But we’ll go with one short example…

We do a Sunday worship thing once a month. That requires another post all together I know. But in anycase, lately I have had some of my leaders take turns doing the corporate teaching time. They learn how to prepare, listen for the Holy Spirit, practice their public speaking and learn how to shepherd people from that vantage point. It’s overall been very good. No outright heresy as of yet. They’ve all had very powerful things to say… and have helped people understand Jesus better. It’s not perfect and they have plenty of room to grow… but they’re doing great. I’m proud of them.

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As the primary instigator of Haven, I’m often asked why we do what we do. Those who have gone to church for any significant length of time always have the most difficulty understanding. And I don’t necessarily blame them as reflected in this post. When you’ve done something for so long and have understood it to be true, it’s hard not to have extreme reactions.

But the dialogue on why we do what we do always begins with the organizing question [principle] of “How do we make disciples?” And “disciples” would then need to be defined as being “wholly devoted followers of Jesus.” And even this could be broken down to being genuine and passionate lovers of God and people.

I realize that the mistake most make is that they always begin the conversation with form. I heard a prominent pastor share about how he started his church and he said that he didn’t really know where to start except that he needed a Sunday worship and Sunday school. A few years down the line, he had an epiphany that his forms [structure] were the things that were hindering him from doing what he really wanted but he never saw it.

This isn’t to say that churches need to abandon weekly Sunday worship services… but that we should evaluate what we do by what we want to accomplish. The church has borrowed too much from the business world, but asking this simple management question seems necessary.

A lot of things also play into this with regards to my own leadership style, my spiritual giftings/bent, etc. So I’ll start a few string of posts explaining why we do what we do and I’m sure that’ll help our people and help me articulate what has been ruminating in my head for these past few years.

More to come.

A quote from comedian John Cleese from Monty Python fame :

“I think that the real religion is about the understanding that if we can only still our egos for a few seconds, we might have a chance of experiencing something that is divine in nature. But in order to do that, we have to slice away at our egos and try to get them down to a manageable size, and then still work some practiced light meditation. So real religion is about reducing our egos, whereas all the churches are interested in is egotistical activities, like getting as many members and raising as much money and becoming as important and high-profile and influential as possible. All of which are egotistical attitudes. So how can you have an egotistical organization trying to teach a non-egotistical ideal? It makes no sense, unless you regard religion as crowd control. What I think most organized religion—simply crowd control.”

I rarely do a lot of ranting via the blog – and God has slowly worked down a lot of bitterness in me. So this is not so much a rant against the church, but an acknowledgment that the world sees the disconnect between the message and the method [medium]. We think we can use whatever means to communicate the Gospel… as long as it goes out. But our method is contradicting our message and everyone knows it.

It’s in line with what John says in his Gospel that the Word was God… the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us [1:1,14]. Jesus wasn’t just communicating a message – he was the message. He embodied the message – how he lived, who he was, his identity, his purpose, his being was as much the message as the words that came out of his mouth.

We need to recognize how our method is contradicting our message… and begin to repent and reform.

“Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: ‘What does his voice sound like? What games does he like best? Does he collect butterflies?’. They ask: ‘How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?’ Only then do they think they know him.”
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I talk to a lot of people about our community and the churchier people always ask about numbers. And then ask very little after that. It’s always a race to get more in the door… and not a look at what “more” really is. Many a prophet [Leonard Sweet, Reggie McNeal, etc] have talked about changing the metrics of church and church planting… “measuring” the important things that reflect transformation not accumulation.

I had to explain to my boss what was getting me excited lately… things that reflect the right kind of growth. Lisa and Serg have been in our community for a long time and have been leading a house church for quite some time. They were good and faithful leaders, but have struggled at times and were surely learning on the job [that's intentional]. But over the course of the last few years, they along with myself have realized that they have a discernable passion for high school students. And as I began to notice it more I wondered, “Why the heck are they leading a group full of their peers. It ought to be high school kids!”

Lisa and Serg helped at a youth retreat recently discovering yet again that the passion in them for students wasn’t arbitrary, but certainly God-planted. So when Lisa returned she prayed how she might move out among her students to bring Jesus to them. Through prayer, she was led to 5 students – 2 of whom do not know Jesus. She asked all 5 students if they wanted to meet up to study the Bible together and all of them gave a resounding ‘yes’. They’ll start it up at McDonald’s this Saturday.

During the retreat Serg had a great connection with one student and made a very tangible impact in his life. The student returned back to school and after a week, told Lisa and Serg that he had 3 classmates who didn’t know Jesus but were interested in learning more. And he asked them what he was supposed to do now and Serg is now discipling this student to continue to bring the Gospel to his classmates.

I realize that I can’t count any of these people as “members” of Haven. And I don’t want to. It doesn’t work all to well with the traditional metrics of church planting. And the truth is that Lisa and Serg likely needed to grow in certain areas of their lives before they were able to get to this point. It’s hard to “measure” their growth over the course of the last few years… numbers don’t reflect that either. But it’s their growth as lovers and followers of Jesus that precipitated God placing them in the right place with the right heart to begin transformational movement among people that they have true passion for. Either way… numbers don’t reflect that.

I have had to wrestle away the importance of numbers in my own spirit. Wrestle away my need to base my value/significance on the numbers. And relearn what it means to see the important things… about people and about community. And begin to live it even when my spirit screams otherwise.

I realize that my little church planting experiment has done more for me than any one else… but I’m glad some of what I’m learning is rubbing off on the people who are coming along for the ride.

I might as well just feed David Watson stuff into this blog and then call it a day. I was asked by a few of my ardent subscribers [2?] to write more on leadership and everytime I read Watson’s blog on leadership it just encapsulates exactly what I’d want to say. So why not just copy it?

The big thrust is this – management over leadership. As I reflect on reading many leadership books, listening to countless diatribes on leadership, I find that most of them have to do with managing. Managing resources and people to get the objectified yet “spiritualized” goal of either church planting or church growth.

And I realize the questions that divides the two is this: are we developing people or developing the organization? And I haven’t found many who’s heart is to truly develop people at the expense of the organization. Because the truth is that there will be plenty of moments where we must choose one over the other. They are not one in the same. But that already begs a lot of different questions that this posting wasn’t meant for in the first place.

Another way of communicating this:

Manager –>> Uses People [incl. other Resources] –>> Develop/Build Churches

OR

Leader –>> Uses Churches [Structure/Money/Vision] –>> Develop/Build People

Is the goal church or people? That’s a big difference. David Watson fleshes this out more… I’ve had a few people read this and immediately realize that they’ve been managers and not leaders all along. Take a read:

What Makes a Great Leader?

As I begin this new series on Leadership, I want to orient us towards a biblical understanding of leadership.  Most of us have spent a lifetime studying leadership.  We have read all the secular and religious leadership and management books we can get our hands on.  We have attended the conferences and seminars, and some of us have led conferences or seminars on leadership.  Many of us have degrees that include elements of management and/or leadership.  Our ministries are about developing leaders, and we are serious about our coaching and mentoring skills.

With all this information, why is it that there is a dearth of good leaders, much less, great leaders, in the in the world – whether we are looking at government, business, non-profits, or ministry.  Understand, I am not talking about management, I’m talking about leadership.   For many, there is little difference between management and leadership.  Both involve people.  Both are about reaching objectives. But the focus is very different.  Management requires some leadership skills, and leadership certainly requires some management skills.

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I hesitate to write those two words because those are specific to church people… and not just any church people, but church leaders describing organizational process. In anycase, if you fit into that category… then here’s an interesting article with Neil Cole and Ed Young, two leaders who sit on the opposite extreme of the missional/attractional spectrum.

The article says, “The contrasts between Young and Cole are striking: extrovert and introvert, megachurch and microchurch, centralized and decentralized. But what’s surprising is what these two leaders share in common.” When I read the interview… I can’t think of one thing that the two guys have in common. As a house church guy, I find Young’s answers ridiculous especially as they compare and contrast them in the interview. I’m not a big fan of blogging about church methodology, but thought this article was interesting.

Coming and Going
Two leaders. One mission. Two very different strategies.
a Leadership interview

Monday, November 24, 2008

Observing Neil Cole and Ed Young Jr. is a study in contrasts. The soft-spoken Cole quietly entered the vacant sanctuary where we were meeting. He lingered in the back for a while before anyone realized he had arrived. By contrast, Young burst into the room with a shout—every head turned. The sanctuary was immediately electrified.

Their contrasting personalities are paired with very different approaches to ministry. Ed Young Jr. is senior pastor of Fellowship Church, a seeker-driven congregation that began in Dallas in 1990. After surpassing 20,000 in weekly attendance, Fellowship Church is still growing with a highly structured multi-site model that uses video broadcasts of Young’s sermons. The megachurch now has four locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and recently launched its fifth campus in Miami, Florida.

Neil Cole is a pastor and the director of Church Multiplication Associates (CMA), a “growing family of organic church networks.” Cole advocates a decentralized, micro-church strategy to reach the growing number of people who will never be attracted to a worship service. CMA began in 1990, the same year as Young’s Fellowship Church. In that time, Cole’s network has launched hundreds of churches in homes and coffeeshops across forty states and thirty countries.

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I love this movie. This might be to offset Henri Nouwen, but I think it analogizes how many of us buy into a lie about ourselves and never really live to our full potential. We need to stop believing in the lie and boldly live out who we are… without sticking knives in our legs.