Church Planting and the Movement of God

Often times I vacillate back and forth in my thinking in regards to church planting. It’s like I have a Calvinistic Sean fighting in a cage match with the Arminian Sean and the results are bloody knuckles, fat lips, bruises, and a heck of a good time.

Part of me just wants to just jump into the melee of church planting and start doing, doing, doing.  It’s kind of the notion of running out the door sprinting and yelling behind my shoulder, “Hey Lord, bless meeeeeee …!!!”  Often times when I see a need I just want to do something about it or grab someone by the collar and pull them with me.  Lack of progress is frustrating for me and I need to see tangible results / movement before I go to sleep every night.  Groups or leaders involved in church planting or campus ministry who spend gobs of time in prayer and Bible study frustrate me because I just want to yell, “Ok, that’s fine but just DO something!”

At the other end of the octagon is the calm, cool, collected, and trusting part of me. I don’t want to be a bull in a China closet, I don’t want to run out from under God’s protective umbrella, and I want to be patient, trusting God, attentively listening for His voice, seeking Him, and straining with all of my might to hear what He’s doing already and how I can be involved. It’s the idea that God was already at work here long before I got here and my job is to listen for His voice, look where He’s moving and stirring hearts, and then join Him giving Him the glory.

I realize both are part of the same pie or two sides of the same coin, but right now I’m learning trust, dependency, and surrendering to God. Just as the “Filioque Controversy” has taught me much regarding God’s already work in the world I’m learning that when I catch a glimpse of who He is, what He’s already doing, and join Him then ministry is a heck of a lot easier (and funner!).  Then when that happens I can run after it with all of the gusto I have.

Church planting and campus minsitry seems to be clicking best when there’s a healthy tension between both sides … trusting and doing, listening and acting, seeking and obeying …

Exegeting the City

Most often when the term exegesis is used it is in reference in Christian circles to the way of studying Scripture.  “It is a method of higher critiscism employed by theologians to interpret the Bible. The general approach is to examine Bible texts within their historical and cultural contexts (Dr. Ron Boyce).”

When applying exegesis to cities Dr. Boyce goes on to write “the city becomes the text.”  Man, I love that.  I’m sitting here trying to get my head around that concept.  Like has been said many times before … when we go to seminary /grad school those of us who’re in professional / vocational ministry learn the tools of exegeting Scripture but we’ve never been taught how to exegete our cities or contexts we find ourselves living in.  Similar to Scripture, cities are both simple and yet at the same time complex, deep, multi-layered, and rich where one could spend a lifetime investigating only to throw their hands up in the realization of how little they know.

Exegeting cities takes both “book smarts” and “street smarts.” Pouring over demographic material is helpful in understanding its history, key decisions, density, diversity, and so on but that only goes so far.  The best way is to actually get out and about in the city.  Maybe the reason why many pastors often are disconnected from the very city they minister in is that they spend the bulk of their time each week in their sequestered church buildings surrounded by predominantly fellow Christians?  Then when they speak of the city/culture often you only hear of the evils associated with each.  Maybe they’ve failed to realize how cities are indeed blessings and gifts from God?  Maybe they’ve failed to realize that the whole trajectory of human history is transitioning from rural (the Garden of Eden) to urban (Rev. 21-22).  What is the new heaven?  … a mega-city that makes Tokyo or Mexico City seem like a sleepy suburb.

So why not try it?  This week why not get out there and begin exegeting your city?

City Signals

Yesterday was like Christmas in March. Whenever I get shipments of books from Amazon I get all giddy and tear into them like it was Christmas morning even though I know exactly which books I ordered.  The book that was just sent to me was City Signals by Ray Bakke and Brad Smith. What’s fun is that the packages contains both a book plus DVD’s of Ray speaking.  If you’ve ever heard Ray speak he’s one of the few guys out there who I could literally sit for hours at a time listening and be mesmerized.  Even at his house north of Seattle he’s created a walking tour through his property that outlines significant people throughout church history.  Amazing.

So last night I popped in the first DVD and me and Grant watched as Ray talked about the city and all that’s going on.  Ray shared how our cities at a rapid pace are urbanizing and internationalizing like never before.  For example, in one zip codes in the NYC area there are 163 different countries represented and since there’s roughly 200 countries worldwide that one zip code has most of them living together.  Isn’t that unimaginable?  Our missions push for hundreds of years was to mobilize people and send them overseas and a great cost both financially and personally.  And now?  All of the nations are coming to us into our cities but at their own expense.

I wonder how much of this global movement is akin to what took place with the 1st century church?  God told them to take the Gospel to the whole world and instead they stayed put in Jerusalem.  It took persecution to finally drive them out of the city taking the Gospel with them.  God’s charge to us has been the nations and we’ve only mobilized a small few but now He’s bringing the nations to our cities.  Last night watching Ray talk was a jolt of adrenaline.  It got me amped up about what God is doing in our cities globally.  No longer are remote jungles to frontier of missions … it is in our cities.  No longer do we need to cross geographical barriers to reach people … we just need to walk across the street and cross cultural barriers.

I tell people over and over again when I get to speak on the topic of city that there’s no better time in human history then now to be alive. God is up to something … something amazing.  His heart is for all the nations, all the cities, and all the peoples.

Immigration and the Creative City

I’m been slowly plodding through a book called The Creative City which has been a fascinating read. The chapter I’m currently on is “The Foundations of a Creative City” where the author cites several key components which make cities creative cultural hubs. One of the keys to creativity is diversity and that could, to cross reference with Richard Florida’s work, not only spur on economic growth but make the city a hotbed for an exquisite culture.  The more tolerant cities are by and large the stronger they are and that openness includes gays, immigrants, a diversity of lifestyles, experiences, and so on.  Simply put … if you want to see where there’s amazing innovation, creativity, a flourishing city with loads of cultural amenities then you need to find an incredibly diverse city that’s open and tolerant.

“Throughout history outsiders and immigrants, from within the same country or abroad, have been key to establishing creative cities.”  The struggle we have as evangelicals is that for the most part we all look the same and act the same (generically speaking).  Most are white, conversative in life style and political views, middle-class, live in the suburbs, live in traditional families, and so on.  What are most cities like, especially the cores?  Non-white, liberal in lifestyle and political views, non-tradtional family structures, etc.  Again, where does this demographic tend to cluster?  In the city.  Where do evangelicals cluster?  In the suburbs.  Is there any wonder why we’re not planting churches in the city?  We like to plant churches among people who look, act, live, and think like us.  How tragic.

What are the implications for church planting?  Can you begin to think of 1-2-3-20 things???  Is it any wonder then why we’re planting in one place and not another?  Recently I was in a city of about 4 million people with a flurry of church planting going on and yet there wasn’t any at all within the city limits.  The city is a tough nut to crack to say the least.  I think because we don’t know how to do it we tend to stick with our default mode and plant among people who look like us which means the suburbs.

Maybe we can reverse the tide … are you in?

Kung Fu and the Art of Church Planting

Wow, my  boys are freaked out about tornados.  Having grown up out West in California and Arizona they grew up with threat of natural disasters … earthquakes (yawn), tsunamis (sigh), venomous snakes and insects, heat, and so on but tornadoes?  You’d think Armageddon is coming.  They’re terrified so when it rains and is windy they’re thinking we’re going to get sucked up.  So last night we watched Kung Fu Panda to take their mind off things.

As I watched the movie in light of the book Deliberate Simplicity I’ve been reading it got me thinking.  Right now, I’m entrenched in figuring out an assessment process to determine what church planters are going to get funding from us.  Like we’ve talked before, assessments seems only really applicable when there’s money involved.  If you’re not getting money who then cares what others say or think about you?  So I go back and forth mentally knowing that our assessment process bogs down the very movement we long for but since there’s money involved it snags it up.

It seems in most current church planting systems everything is so front-loaded. We Discover, Design, Develop, and then Deploy.  In the book I’m reading their model for rapid church planting is … Identify, Deploy, Train, Support.  Basically, they find the right leader and turn him loose.  That’s it.  “We find that deploying leaders first allows us to put leaders into the game more rapidly and creates motivated learners (at least they now have informed questions to ask).”

It’s akin to learning Kung Fu.  How do you learn unless you immediately start doing it?  It’s hands-on.  Isn’t church plantin that way?  Isn’t it learned best but just doing it?  I think here’s our overarching problem.  We’re not risk takers.  Most church planting organizations are high on control thus on over emphasis in formal assessments and goal-setting and our funding is based upon whether someone “hits their marks.” We’re a culture of control. The longer an organization has been around the tighter the controls. On the other hand, movements are fluid, organic, and need laxed controls to breathe and move. This is a culture of taking risks.  The reality is that there are failures in both camps it’s just that one side doesn’t allow for it while the other knows it’ part of the game.

If we ever want to move church planting away from only the elite and talented doing it then we need to rethink how we get people involved. Like learning Kung Fu, we just need to get people going and help them on the fly.

There’s No Secret Ingredient!

So towards the end of Kung Fu Panda after Po relentlessly trains to become worthy of the dragon scroll he finally gets his chance.  The legendary scroll is brought down and Po unrolls it in hopes to discover the key to limitless power available to the dragon warrior.  To his utter dismay and shock it is blank … not writing, nothing, just his reflection.  Dejected and devastated he walks away from the dream of becoming the dragon warrior thinking it was all a scam or delusion to begin with.

As he’s helping the village flee the wrath of Ti Lung his father finally reveals the scret ingedient of his secret ingedient soup.  (I know, great timing, eh?  You’re supposed to be fleeing for your life but you’re talking about soup). Come to find out there IS NO secret ingredient … the soup is already special in and of itself.  At that point Po pulls out the dragon scroll and unrolls it.  What he sees this time is that its not simply a blank scroll but more like a mirror … showing Po his own reflection.  It dawns on him … he IS the dragon warrior, the scroll did not reveal limitless power but instead the power Po already had within him … he was the secret ingredient.  He then hurries to the Jade Palace to fight Ti Lung.

In church planting we have things so backwards and upside down. We have such an over-emphasis on strategies, target groups, business-like structures, research, marketing, and so on that we fail to realize that there is no secret ingredient.  We are the dragon warriors.  Everything we need is found within in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the gifts and abilities that He’s placed within us.  I’ve been reading a refreshing church planting book called Deliberately Simple and last night I was delighted to read, “We don’t waste time on demographic studies. We don’t have a target audience. Jesus already told us to make disciples of all nations and go to the ends of the earth. We don’t feel the need to be particularly selective, if he is not going to be.” So true …

Why do we run around with a flurry of activity failing to realize we’re the dragon warriors?  Everything we need is within.  I’m tired of most of what we do is great for the business world but the problem is that we’re not in business. I’m constantly reminded throughout Scripture that God uses misfits, thugs, murderers, immoral people, prostitutes, weirdos, cowards, and illiterates for His plan and purposes.  They’re all like the overwieght panda Po in Kung Fu Panda.  He was no kung fu master but since he was chosen he had everything he needed within.  Maybe we should starting listening as well …

Kung Fu Panda and Church Planting

I confess, Kung Fu Panda is one of my favorite movies and I’ve even watched it late at night all alone after the boys were asleep in bed.  The funny thing is that as I watch it I see so many parallels to spiritual issues of calling, church planting, and God’s overall plan for our lives.  I think if I ever were to make a movie about Jesus I’d probably use Jack Black as the lead actor.    So I thought, well, why not flesh out some of these thoughts via the blog?  I guess that way if I start spouting some heresy or crazy ideas enough of you will call me on it.

The first part of the movie is my favorite when Po is having a dream about being the dragon warrior.  There are several hilarious one-liners like “chew on my fist” or “they were blinded by pure awesomeness” or “there is no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness.”  So Po has this dream only to wake up to the stark reality that he’s a simple noodle-serving bear in the family business.  But something within him dreams and longs for more.  Do you ever feel that way?  I’m not talking about anything like “you’re destined for greatness,” but it’s like we all have this dream or this song that plays in our psyche and imagination.  Are you tracking?

Let me put it this way … don’t you just kinda “know” why you’re alive and what God has for you?  If you quiet yourself long enough do you hear it?  You can’t explain it but there’s an internal “I must do” that speaks into your soul.  Some may call this calling, others call it something else but every time I watch Kung Fu Panda I so relate to Po’s internal feelings and longings for something beyond his current reality.  Sometimes I can’t put it into coherent words but as time moves on that dream, that song becomes louder and clearer. I know it involves church planting, community transformation, and the city and that’s about it right now.  Sometimes when my mind is adrift I can begin picturing it in vivid HD clarity.

What is your dream?  Listen, I’m not talking selfish dreams like wanting to be famous, pastor a mega-church, or be well-respected.  This is a dream for God’s glory and not our fame.  What’s burning inside of you?  Can you feel it? When you dream can you see it?  Touch it?  What is it?

Matchmaker for Cities

Ok, I’ve just completed my beta version for a City Personality Fit Questionnaire.  Basically, it’s a questionnaire designed to help church planters find a good “city fit” for where they’re going to start a new church.  This is something that has been bubbling in my thinking for a while now.  How much thought goes into not only the city but the type of city we’re going to plant in? Assuming cities each have distinct personalities is there a way to match them with our own?

Have you ever moved to a place where everything about the city, the people, the lifestyle, and worldview just didn’t fit?  You feel really out of your element and everything takes so much energy just to function there.  On the other hand, have you ever moved to a city where everything about it … the lifestyle, the people, the worldview, and culture was such a good fit that it gave you energy and passion?  Think about in terms of church planting and coupling that energy and passion with the process of church planting.  Woah, dude … potent.

Think about it.  The 3 biggest decisions / questions in your life are (1) what you going to do? (job, career), (2) with who? (your marriage partner), and then (3) where?  We put sooooo much effort and emphasis in the first two right? We pray about it endlessly, we scrutinize, seek counsel, weigh the pros and cons, talk about it with friends, post about it on Twitter, work really hard, and in the end we hope and pray we’ve made the right decisions.  If we do that for the first two then why not the third?  Are we any less spiritual that we go through all of this effort for the first two? Why or how would it be unspiritual to go through this same tedious process with the last?

That’s why I’ve created this City Personality Fit Questionnaire to help you take this third choice seriously especially when it comes to church planting. So go ahead, give it a try.  Click on city-personality-fit1 to download it, then fill it out, and email it back to me.  Any takers?