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Building A Church for Mission

Ed Stetzer reflects on the recent survey that indicates the unchurched prefer traditional, cathedral style buildings.

Herrington on Building Missional Cores

John Herrington, Director of Church Planting for Hill Country Bible Church, recently spoke to the Austin Area Church PLanters Network. His topic was “Rapidly Building Missional Core Teams.” He launched his reflections from Matthew 9. Let me guess, you are thinking, not another “the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few” message, but stick with this. John brought some missiological and good old fashioned evangelistic reflections. What follows is my re-wording of a couple of John’s solid insights:

1. To reach the harvest you need more than laborers; you need to know the soil. Borrowing from Keller, John exhorted us to study and understand our target group’s “baseline cultural narrative.” In other words, spend enough time with the harvest to know the cultural soil it grows in. What are their values, hopes, fears? What motivates them to work and to play? What is the major story that influences their decision making? Singleness? Relativism? Capitalism? Sex? Power? Do you spend enough time with your harvest to answer these questions?

2. Evangelize sparingly, Reap unbelievers sparingly. John challenged us to quit hiding behind the broken defenses of the postmodern harvest–”door to door doesn’t work with us”; “community over conversion”; etc. John shared a story of going door to door with one of his planters to “get in the door” with his community. Sometimes it was straight for the spiritual jugular, other times it was simply getting to know the neighbors. John encouraged us to get out, get a dog, and meet your neighbors. Get into conversation, stir up community, and invite folks to something, a BBQ or whatever, but DO SOMETHING. Lots of folks turned out for the planters BBQ and his core team is thriving. If we sow sparingly we will reap sparingly. Get unchurched into your missional core. Sow abundantly, reap abundantly.

3. Put your hope in the sovereign, immanent God, not best missional practices. From Acts 17 John reminded us that Paul grounded his evangelistic hope in God “determining alloted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him…he is actually not far from each one of us…” Ultimately our hope can not be in great cultural savvy or best missional practices but in the sovereign immanent God who is here.

Revisiting Christ & Culture Revisited

The review continues…

Promising Interview w/ Pastors of Kaleo

Drew Goodmanson and Kaleo church have been kind enough to share some of their missional thinking documents with me while planting Austin City Life. Now fellow Acts 29 planters, Goodmanson and Fairchild will be sharing through Shapevine in an online interview. They do theology and missiology very well.

Check it out.

HT:SM

Christ & Culture Revisited

I am reviewing D. A. Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited over at Creation Project.

Jeremiah for Church Planters

Reading through the book of Jeremiah can be very good for a church planter (it certainly has been for me). Here are a few reasons why:

• Like church planters, Jeremiah was asked to do counter-cultural things (prophesy judgment and exile, carry a flask around, bury a loincloth, speak of God’s righteousness and holiness). For a planter, things like church discipline, God-centered preaching, gospel-focused counseling, contextualized ministry, and so on can be very counter-cultural, counter to prevailing secular and Christian sub-cultures.
• I am reminded of how utterly opposed our God is to our sin. Jeremiah has been prophetic in my life, calling me to repent of “seeking broken cisterns that can hold no water and forsaking the God of living waters” (2:13). The broken cistern of church planting is no place to find significance or refreshment. Only the God of living waters can satisfy my soul.
• I am refreshed by the breathtaking promises offered by God in the midst of struggle with sin. God has not left me to broken cisterns, but promises living water (2), a healing balm (8), knowledge of God (9), a new heart (36), the Spirit of God (36). A few refreshing promises…

Blessed (happy) is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust IS the Lord (17:7).

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land (23:5)

• I am reminded of the gravity of shepherding the flock of God and the consequences of poor shepherding (chps. 2,4,11,17, 23). God has not called me to planting; he has called me to pastoring. This is eternally weighty. I am not responsible for producing culturally savvy Christians, but for leading God’s people to cherish him above all things and to love others with radical, Jesus love.

And that is just getting started. Probably more to come on Jeremiah for planters.

Barriers to a Church Planting movement in the U.S

Michael Stewart on the barriers to a church planting movement in the U.S.

Missional Resolutions from 7 Hills

The missional resolutions of Seven Hills church are excellent:

1. We resolve to learn and speak the language of our culture.
2. We resolve to sincerely listen to people and their ‘stories’.
3. We resolve to be a Christian community that is counter-cultural/intuitive.
4. We resolve to live out our Christianity in our work and recreation.
5. We resolve to demonstrate the unity of the church in the city.

See their website for more…

Lessons from Planters

JR Woodward is sharing his results from a church planter survey. So far he has listed answers to “the biggest lessons learned” by half a dozen planters.