Organic Church Movements

In February, Christine and I, are heading to Ontario, CA for a short weekend to spend time with the CMA guys and gals who are training many on Missional Movements. We want to invite you to come, be part of the training and then trust God with what He wants you to do. You can find more info at CMA Resources.

Categories: ChurchPlanting, Movements, Leadership

What to do in Simple Church?

I know from experience as I have tried to share God's vision for simple church so many questions about details have surfaced? What to do with kids? Who is going to lead worship or teach? I know that I haven't really experienced much of the answers or even have them in my brain, but I do know why I believe God is calling Christine and I to start a simple church; to reach those people who are yet to know Christ and His community. That is so much of our desire and prayers lately yet we're waiting for the Lord's word of 'yes, go now."

Today I came across a simple 20-25 minute video that answers much of the heart and details behind simple church. This may help you too in your journey of seeing how God is calling you to 'do' and 'be' the church.

Video: When you come together.

There is a great description in words at What do we mean by simple Church?

Categories: Church, SimpleChurch, ChurchPlanting, God

Missionalism will destroy you and others

I toss around the idea and dream of missional communities that impact a person's heart, life, relationships, community and city with the Gospel. Today I read an article by an author, pastor, speaker that I highly respect, Gordon MacDonald. Not because of his greatness but because in his brokenness he learned a ton about the grace and mercy of Christ.

Here he talks about something different than a missional church or community but the dangers of missionalism. Here are a few of his thoughts:

It's a leader's disease. Like a common cold that begins with a small cough, missionalism catches on in a leader's life and seems at first so inconsequential. But let this disease catch hold and you are likely to have bodies strewn all over the place, the leader's and some of the leader's followers.

Missionalism starts slowly and gains a foothold in the leader's attitude. Before long the mission controls almost everything: time, relationships, health, spiritual depth, ethics, and convictions.

Missionalism catches hold when an idea is bigger than a person and overwhelms the soul's ability to constrain it and direct it.

Missionalism—the passionate need to keep things growing and growing so that one proves his/her worth—can catch hold from various sources. For some of us, it came early in life when we discovered that we got a lot of love when we went forward to dedicate our lives to Christian service.

Comedian Robin Williams, who has lived his life rather frantically, checks into a rehab clinic (our modern version of a monastery) and when he comes out two months later, tells Diane Sawyer what he's learned.
"All any of us want is to be loved," he says. Could that be what's behind missionalism? A suspicion that if I build and build and build, doing all these good things, that people will love me? Do bigger accomplishments equate to more love?

Read the whole article and insights on how to protect your heart, mind and relationships from the dangers of Missionalism: click here.

Categories: God, Movements, Leadership, ChurchPlanting, SimpleChurch

No Perfect People Allowed

Well I'm sitting out on my deck, the wind is blowing my long brown hair in my eyes, the smoke from my cigar is far from making this weakling cough and I finished a good read by John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a COME AS YOU ARE culture in the church. For you spanish speakers and readers you can read it at No Se Admiten Personas Perfectas.

At first it felt like a "Look at our church; we are perfect and follow us" type book about Gateway Community Church in Austin, TX. But soon I let that first emotion go and saw the tremendous heart that John, his staff and congregation have for the lost, broken and messed up emerging generation. It really pokes and prods my heart and our current American churches on how we are structured, thinking, praying, reaching and responding to the hurting people around us.

I first read it because the title struck me and I was at Joel and Ana's wedding in Michigan and saw it in the hotel lobby sitting around. I read the first chapter and I thought, "Hmm, I not perfect and I feel messed up and like a failure this past year. This book is for me." I didn't realize that it was for those leading and wanting to reach these type of people. But all along the way I found my heart longing for a type of church, life and ministry that reaches people in my community like they have, even though I have issues with the traditional four walls church.

Chapter 10: Tribal Truth: Creating the Culture of Incarnational Truth was worth whatever price you pay for the book. I got my local library to buy it for me so I didn't pay anything but I would have paid the $12. If you're leading a church, pray for the lost, want to figure out how to get away from just caring and shepherding Christians then you ought to read this book.

Here are a few quotes to perk your interest and give you a feel for the John's heart and maybe this will challenge you in your thinking, life and ministry.

• "Are we raising up a generation of leaders ready to lay down their comfortable lives to dive into the muck of cultural America? Or are we just playing church-developing spiritual dependants who consume the goods off whatever church shelf will "feed me," or "puff me with more knowledge," or even "feel" postmodern?" p. 20
• "We can make people conform but not become. So the better path is to help people trust God, and that's a struggle for all of us! Even for religious leaders who often struggle trying to control people's behavior, because if feels like a reflection on us. We must all let go and trust God to lead and guide us into wholeness and healing." p.157
• "Sex is a psuedo-connection for hetero- or homosexual need for intimacy." p. 162
• "We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit." Pascal p. 167
• Truths: 1. Humble Truth 2. Practical Truth 3. Rational Truth 4. Incarnation Truth
• "Our Goal is not to get people to "convert" by repeating one prayer. The goal is to love God and people, living out of the fullness of life in God's kingdom, inviting all to come and enjoy the fruits of His life in us, because the door has been flung wide open through Christ." p. 175
• "[Most people] lead lives of quiet desperation." Thoreau p.205
• "Ours is a culture crying out for intimacy, but only able to conceive of accessing it through sex." Mike Starkey (God, Sex and Gen X) p. 223
• "...leaders can't afford to retreat into holy huddles, cursing the darkness. We must walk forward into it and turn on a light. Jesus said His words are truth that liberate--that bring life and freedom to every aspect of existence." p. 226
• Regarding the Samaritan Woman: "Jesus knew that until she had living water springing up in her soul, flowing out a right relationship with God, she would forever drink from muddy water." p. 227
• "Listen attentively to a person's story, then ask, "Which way forward from here? Help people move toward Christ regardless off their path." p. 228
• "True healing, however, often requires a lengthy process of righting the wrongs and uncovering the lies of the past. God can heal us immediately, but more often He takes us along a different path that forces us to continually depend on Him, because only in Him do we find true life. If he immediately healed us, we would immediately turn back to our independent, self-centered ways." p. 247
• "...sometimes pain can be a friend if it drives us to the end of ourselves and into the arms of God." p. 252
• "God has a plan to create a new family, a redemptive family--a family with the power to heal and restore what humanity lost by going its own way." p. 288
• "...one of the tasks of God's new family needs to be teaching each other how to enjoy life as God intended." p. 292

That's a good snippet. The book has some great personal evaluation questions after each chapter and some for your small group. I would suggest reading this with your church or small group leadership. It will open your eyes to the lost around us, what they are going through and unfortunately how the church is hurting them and missing their real needs.

John ends the book with a chapter for leaders and how we should think about our future church generations. What are we doing to raise up the next generation of church planters?

Enjoy the read!

Categories: Church, ChurchPlanting, SimpleChurch, Movements, Ministry, Leadership, Books

This describes my heart a bit

The past few years I have tried to nail down who am I and what do I like doing. Having great team members and friends in our lives has helped confirm and validate some of our feelings and stirrings God has been tossing around inside our hearts and minds as of late. Also, moving to Greeley, CO, having some serious rest and process time and meeting new friends have shown us what we really want to do in the future. We're just not sure when; waiting on the Lord.....

One of my new great friends and neighbors is Billy Williams. He is a non-college graduate, super successful entrepreneurial businessmen. Maybe someday in the future I'll go to work for him. We talk often about business, leadership, start ups, church planting, our brokenness and the Gospel. It has been a source of life to have him in my life.

A post from Glenn Smith at New Church Initiatives caught my eye today on what goes on inside of me. Talking to Billy has also surfaced similar issues and passions in my life that he has being a entrepreneurial businessmen.

"Entrepreneurs are very interesting people. I work with entrepreneurs in both the vocational ministry world and the business world. I love them. It is true that most people perceive entrepreneurs to be "risk-takers" but I've learned that most entrepreneurs are also thoughtful planners!"

Read the whole short article at ENTREPRENEURS AND FEAR

Categories: God, Movements, Gospel, ChurchPlanting, Leadership