See the irenic and insightful exchange over whether or not to use video venues for church growth at Bob Hyatt’s blog. Be sure to read Darrin Patrick’s response.
Category: Missional Church
14 Observations from Acts for Founding a Church Planting Movement
A few observations from the first two chapters of book of the Acts regarding church/church planting:
1) Jesus deliberately launched the Church by avoiding predictive talk about the timing and nature of a political future kingdom (1:6,7,11).
2) The power and presence of the Holy Spirit, not well-honed arguments, was central to the success of the global Church (planting) movement.
3) The first church launch team of 120 people was established upon a foundation of prayerful waiting on God (1:13-15).
4) The first church began in the midst of controversy and desertion. Judas, a key leader left the movement and had to be replaced (1:15-26).
5) The first church proclaimed a whole gospel for the whole world (1:8; 2:5-28; 3:1f).
6) The first church was grounded in whole Bible theology, demonstrating the unity of the Scriptures and their focus on Jesus.
7) The uniqueness and universality of calling on Jesus Christ for salvation (2:21-36).
8) The sovereignty and foreknowledge of God was central to the story of the church (2:22-23).
9) The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus was the central message of the Church.
10) Jesus was proclaimed as a living redeemer and life-giving lord over all things (2).
11) Personal repentance, baptism, faith and forgiveness was the natural result of gospel proclamation.
12) The church cultivated a profound sense of community through teaching, fellowship, shared meals and possessions, and prayer (2:42-47).
13) People were filled with awe and worship before God and his acts.
14) The church became an organic, growing movement (2:47).
Grow the Church!
There is so much pressure to deal with in church planting. Pressure to get you target audience down, pressure to meet assessment guidelines, pressure to prove your call, pressure to win people to Christ, pressure to raise money, pressure to grow the church well, pressure to preach like a celebrity, pressure to serve your family, pressure to stay on top of culture, pressure to cultivate communion with God, and oh, the pressure of dealing with your own sin and inadequacy. Add to those items the weighty demands of shepherding eternal souls and the warlike attacks from Satan, and it is evident that church planters are faced with an incredibly diverse and inordinate sense of pressure. What to do?
Well, I am learning that I have to sort out my sources of pressure, the good from the bad. Some pressures must be rejected. “Grow your church” for example. I will never grow our church. Only God in Christ through the Spirit can do that. Yes, I am joyfully responsible for sharing, discussing, preaching, teaching, living the gospel, but I am not sovereign over the hearts of men. Only God can give new, believing hearts to old, broken, sin-encrusted men. So, while I should not bear the weight of regeneration, I am to carry the pressure of responsible, joyful witness. I must cast out negative, ungodly, christian cultural pressures and invite positive, godly, biblical ones. This requires prayerful reflection, cutting off my impulse to relieve the pressure through immediate action. Instead, I pray, confess, and receive grace to do what God has called me to do and repent from doing what God has not called me to do, like grow his Church.
Alan Hirsch: Organic Systems
My earlier critique of Alan Hirsch’s book, The Forgotten Ways, was incomplete and imbalanced. Though there is too much self-coined jargon to wade through, making it a frustrating read, after the first half of the book there are some real gems. So while my earlier praise and critique stand, Hirsch is due more praise, especially from a church planter’s perspective.
The chapter on “Organic Systems” is very helpful. He nicely sets traditional churches in contrast to organic churches:
Planting a new church, or remissionalizing an existing one, in this approach isn’t primarily about buildings, worship services, size of congregations, and pastoral care, but rather about gearing the whole community around natural discipling friendships, worship as lifestyle, and mission in the context of everyday life. (p. 185)
Hirsch then proceeds to lay a theological foundation for why Organic, which is primarily rooted in allusions to the biblical doctrine of creation, especially as it pertains to the church. Noting organic metaphors such as living temples, vines, bodies, seeds, trees, etc. he argues that this imagery is not haphazard but latent with are intrinsically related to the essence of the church (180). Next, he rightly tethers this creation imagery to the triune Creator noting that “an organic image of church and mission is theologically richer by far than any mechanistic and institutional conceptions of church we might devise” (181).
After laying this foundation for Organic church, Hirsch develops insights based on his research and reflection on the nature and function of organic systems. I will briefly list them here: 1) Innate intelligence: trust the organic nature of the church 2) Life is interconnected: follow this impulse in community 3) Information brings change: free and guided information flow is vital to growth. 4) Adaptive change: constantly adapt and react to your environment.
In turn, he advocates building relational networks that have “viruslike growth.” More to come…