Category: Missional Church

Missional Community Leadership Conference

Posted on December 20, 2008

The Austin Stone and Acts 29 are hosting a Missional Community Leadership Conference on Feb 6-7 at Great Hills Baptist. This is the kind of conference that is long overdue and will deliver on Gospel, Community, and Mission for the practitioner.

Main Speakers:
Matt Carter: Leading your Community to spiritual health
Darrin Patrick: Leading your Community to gospel repentance
Alan Hirsch: Leading your Community to missional discipleship

Breakouts:

There are too many to list, but include topics like Missional Leadership, City-wide Networking, Discipleship, Communication & Conflict.

More Info here. Register there.

Church Planting on a 50/50 Gospel

Posted on December 19, 2008

In recent posts and comment interaction we have tried to expose a certain fruitlessness in the debate regarding church planting methods. To a degree, this debate ignores what is most critical in church planting—our understanding, articulation, and embodiment of the historic gospel of Jesus Christ.

Are methods entirely untethered to gospel? Are there certain, more biblically faithful understandings of the gospel that will produce certain, more theologically faithful churches? If so, what about the gospel needs to be debated? What misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the gospel are we in danger of succumbing to?

In his newest book, Christless Christianity, Michael Horton argues that it is a semi-pelagian understanding of the gospel that most endangers the American church. He claims that American Protestantism has been dominated by semi-pelagianism, what I’ll call a 50/50 understanding of the gospel—we are saved by fifty percent grace and fifty percent works—God’s assistance in our choosing.

This gospel unabashedly undermines the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. We aren’t enemies of God; we’re just wayward souls in need of redirection. But did Jesus die merely to redirect meandering people? Surely his teachings would have sufficed to correct our wayward morals. No, Jesus died to atone for our high treason, both inherited and enacted, against the Lord of All. We have deliberately refused holiness and sought therapy for our sin sick souls. If we are not truly sinners and need just the divine assistance of a kindly Christ, then the gospel is reduced to moral rehabilitation and spiritual highs.

How does a 50/50 gospel affect church planting? A fifty-fifty gospel will produce a thrifty, nifty church. Like a church building I pass every time on my way to Dallas, we will end up offering “30 minute worship, guaranteed!” Harmless, cheap, convenient, or your money back guaranteed. A 50/50 gospel will inevitably lead to no gospel at all and a church that is reduced to attracting people interested in an occasional dose of moral redirection and a quick spiritual high. We will produce addicts not disciples, events not churches.

In the end, a 50/50 gospel will result in churches that are mainly services, places where the weary moralist turns up for a fresh filling of “you can do its” in order to continue tickering along in his own strength for his own goodness. This kind of gospel is worse that diluted gas. The human engine will putter along without ever knowing the difference between 100 proof gospel and 50/50, puttering all the way to hell. If  the American church is to faithfully embody the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will have to get our doctrine of sin and grace right, not just in our preaching but also in our planting.

Monologue or Dialogue; Homes or Services?

Posted on December 18, 2008

The Q&A below is intended to provide some answers and stir up more insight regarding some burning questions in the current debates on Sunday gatherings, missional communities, and diaological preaching. This Q&A is adapted from an email exchange I had with Mike Edwards, who kindly lent me his permission to do so.

Dialogical vs. Monological Preaching

Mike: Where are the theological/biblical roots for monological preaching?

Jonathan: The Bible does not sanction one method of delivering God’s word over others. In fact, it advocates a variety of ways, monologue being just one of them. See the monological examples of Peter and Paul in Acts 2, 4, 17, and so on. Paul’s letters, which were read aloud were monologues, homiletical deliveries. Throughout the epistles we are told to preach, teach, correct, rebuke which strongly connote a direct address, not so much a conversation. However, I am open to and use dialogical approaches in different settings. Paul used dialogue in the synagogues, with individuals (Lydia), and even on Mars Hill.

The key here, I think, is to minister the Word diversely in ways appropriate to context and audience. Monologue has served the Western church well for some time in a post-Enlightenment, post-Gutenberg age. Yet, with the shift of the center of Globally Xty away from the West to the South and the East, and increase in postmodern values of conversation, changes in technology to visual, aural, and vibration experiences, dialogical increasingly makes cultural sense.

Missional Communities vs. Sunday Gatherings

Mike: If you start your church on missional communities, why have a larger gathering? What does that look like for your church?

Jonathan: Similar to my statement above, the Bible doesn’t sanction any one way. We need to have a dynamic ecclesiology that allows for contextualization; there are many biblically faithful ecclesiologies. That is the brilliance of the gospel and the incarnation; its translatability into community and culture. We started City Groups (Missional communities) before we started the weekend gathering/service. That was good for our context and good for our ecclesiology, gospel-centered, community-focused, and missional.

I think a launch/service model can cultivate good community and mission, but is often more difficult to do so. In suburbs it is difficult to even get a gathering to shepherd into CGs/MCs, so the launch model offers a gathering point. Pentecost was a dramatic launch model that spun out house churches. I am glad we did CGs first and service second. It has made a HUGE difference. Gathering doesn’t need to be weekly, but it should happen regularly to maintain the marks of the church and instructions in Heb 3  & 10 of not forsaking the assembling together. Also, somehow these groups would need elder oversight and auhoritative teadching and leadership for church discipline.

Re-up Your Missional for 2009

Posted on December 17, 2008

It is frequently noted that evangelism is local witness and missions is global (cross-cultural) witness. Does the missional church movement erase this distinction? If everyone is a missionary, then shouldn’t local churches reach local cultures? 80% of deployed missionaries are sent to already evangelized areas. Roughly 30% of the global population is unevangelized and largely untargeted by so-called missional churches.

In other words, missional churches aren’t really being missional. They are evangelizing locally but not globally. If the missional church movement is to truly participate in the mission of God, it must engage in cross-cultural missions in order to plant churches where no local witness exists. Consider re-upping your missional for 2009 by going overseas, supporting indigenous pastors, sending a cross-cultural missionary, or targeting unreached peoples in your city or town.

For more on this see Keeping the Global in Missional