Archive for church planting
Where are you going?
Posted by: | CommentsSo excited to be away together celebrating our one year anniversary, my wife and I hurriedly threw some clothes in a suitcase after yet another day’s work. Broke and in love, we didn’t need much to be happy. At least we didn’t think we needed much…. Our destination was Williamsburg, VA. Our first day we had a nice time though it was a touch cool for us in our shorts and t-shirts. Frigid was a better description for the next day. The temperature had dropped more than 20 degrees while being accented by a constant drizzle. Though our budget didn’t have much discretionary capacity, we bought one William and Mary sweatsuit. Based on which extremities were the most numb we decided who wore sweatpants with a t-shirt or shorts with a sweatshirt.
In today’s internet-laced developed world, checking the weather is a given. However, there are a number of other things that would be helpful to know. This week, some friends from the Upstream Collective are leading some U.S. pastors on a Jet Set tour in Taiwan. I will be posting frequently this week with some how-to topics using Taipei as a case-based scenario for preparing and participating in mission.
Here are some areas for research and some links (not exhaustive). Feel free to participate using this case study as an interactive group learning experience. (Yes, I look forward to learning along the way too.) In the next post, we’ll look at next step items.
Weather
Maps
- Taiwan
- Taipei
- Taipei satellite image (- zoom in tight on Taipei in the North and you can see the urban high-rise, concrete setting)
- China – administrative map (helpful for understanding the context)
Religion
Business aspects
Current events
Aslan is on the move
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Whether in the book or the movie, to learn that “Aslan is on the move” is rousing both to the characters and the observer. Something is going to happen. It may not be easy or safe. Things may get messy. There is probably a good amount of pain involved. But it will be exciting…and, ultimately, it will be good.
I have been so encouraged this past couple of weeks to learn of some places in the U.S.–yes in the U.S.–where God is moving. Some of these movements are exciting works in progress. Others are in the incubation stage. Each is very real. Each is concerned with impacting lostness. Each spreads the glory and fame of God, not of man. Some of these may become “movements” that we would want to try to count and dissect. Others may not. However, this connotation of the word movement is less important to me than knowing that the Holy Spirit is stirring the hearts of faithful servants to impact the lives of future disciple-makers.
Participating in the Live Sent Conversation this week was a blessing for me for so many reasons. One key reason is that I was able to meet some serial church planters. Some of these churches have already planted multiple churches. These are some normal guys being used by God to do some great things. Several of these guys readily admitted that they don’t claim to know what they are doing, but they are simply seeking to be faithful. The humility and faithfulness of the Reproducing Churches Network is an encouragement to me.
In addition to what is happening in Florida, I have recently been encouraged to learn that the Spirit is moving in a number of urban centers including Los Angeles, Nashville, Detroit, and Atlanta. Also, there are exciting things happening in Dallas, Houston, and Birmingham. I trust that there will be more posts of this nature in the future, but that is His to do and share. Together, let’s wait and pray expectantly and see what our great God will do.
This week I will be posting a number of times regarding some key points in doing mission. This will correspond with a Jet Set Tour being hosted by The Upstream Collective with Ed Stetzer. It should be an interesting and rewarding conversation. Thank you for participating in this journey. Here are some other bloggers that will be following along on the trip.
Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi)
J.D. Greear
Matt Chandler
Ed Stetzer
David Putman (DavidPutmanLive)
David Phillips (Integrating Missionally)
Michael Carpenter (Dining with Sinners)
Derek Webster (re:frame)
Grady Bauer (Missional Space)
C. Holland (Missionary Confidential)
Kevin Mullins (Life.Outpoured)
Guy Muse (The M Blog)
Ray Short (Cultural Dichotomy)
Todd Littleton (The Edge of the Inside)
Paul Chambers Cox (OMS International)
Tim Patterson (Travel Light)
Justin Powell (Urban Idealist)
David Jackson (Moving at the Speed of God)
Ernest Goodman (Missions Misunderstood)
Repent
Posted by: | CommentsFrom time to time I will be posting original writings of guests from around the world. In this first guest post, Bob Royce, a missionary / church planter in Ontario shares about the necessity and urgency of repentance. For the past six years, Bob and his family have been missionaries in the Toronto area–one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Their heart is for awakening and revival at McMaster University and beyond. They have also been involved internationally in SE Asia, Pakistan, Kenya and other places as well. Thanks Bob!
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Striving as the body of Jesus Christ in North America to be more Kingdom minded and missionally involved locally and globally, we need to get back to the basics…starting with repentance.
The command of repentance is the first message that Jesus started declaring when His time came to go public with His ministry[Matt 4, Mark 1]. While God has done some amazing things through the brief history of the church in NA [missions, media, literature distribution, eucation, etc.], my sense is we flatter ourselves a little too much and we are not as strong as we think we are. Though there are small flames of awakening and revival burning in a few places, for the most part we need to repent of the following just as a starting place:
1. Tolerating sin and disobedience
2. A self-centered, consumeristic gospel and lifestyle
3. A lack of spiritual power, anointing, vitality, and Kingdom appetite
4. Trying to market and advance the Kingdom with mere humanism and sociology
5. We really don’t know the Lord, like He wants to be known
Part of repenting will involve recalibrating ourselves around Jesus and His Kingdom. Here is a challenge:
1. Do a search on Biblegateway.com or your favorite search enginge and look up every reference for “kingdom” in the NT.
2. Prayefully digest what is revealed, and adjust accordingly, both personally and corporately.
There is a bit of urgency stirring in the Kingdom these days and there is excitement mixed with a sobering warning. If we respond to the Spirit’s call to repent, we will be more alive and burning brighter for His glory than ever. If we harden our hearts though, judgment is waiting…Hebrews 3:7-19.
So friends, let’s humbly move forward one step and repent by God’s merciful grace.
Diapers and Missions
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I’ll readily confess that “Diapers and Missions” was not the original title of this post, but that title just takes the…(on to missions). This week I have had the privilege of meeting a number of church leaders in the Nashville area and beyond while working with The Upstream Collective founders. Each of these encounters have helped me get a little better understanding of the shifts that are underway at present in U.S. church and the actual or possible implications. All of the churches and leaders that we had the privilege of meeting were serious about being missional in the local and/or overseas contexts. Some things that were quite encouraging for me include:
- The community that Michael Carpenter is cultivating along with a number of other key people at Matthew’s Table, a church in Lebanon, TN. There are so many great stories here including one couple, Dwayne and Megan, that were recently married in the coffee house which also is where the church meets on Sundays and throughout the week. Lots of challenging and exciting things are happening in their lives right now like a lost job in the former category and, in the latter category, a sweet baby girl; a new business selling cloth diapers to feed a family and, Lord-willing, to provide future overseas mission funds and flexibility; a new part-time job at Java Joe’s for Megan; and awaiting baptism in a couple weeks for Dwayne. This family is just one of the stories of how God is showing his saving grace in this missional church plant.
- Meeting Gary Morgan and learning about Mosaic in Nashville–a church that is seeking to be sent missionally to the urbanites in the heart of the city. Like Matthew’s Table–the daughter church of Mosaic–they are living out throughout the week a level of honest discipleship that is guiding both believers and pre-believers to better understand and live what it means to follow Christ. He also shared with me about another church in the area, Christ Presbyterian Church, which is impacting the urban center through an arts school–Salama. It is my understanding that a number of families involved with the church moved from the suburbs into the urban / inner-city areas of Nashville in order to live incarnationally. That is cross-cultural missions in such a healthy way.
- The guys at The Journey Church are impacting lives in the Lebanon and Mt. Juliet areas while also sharing their facilities to advance the Kingdom of God for the glory of God. Running multiple sites, they are allowing Matthew’s Table to set up a coffee shop with an effort to have a church that can engage another cross-section of the population at the adjacent university. Simultaneously, they are exploring partnership opportunities in a couple different parts of the world. That’s cool. That’s missional. That’s encouraging!
- LifePoint Church in Smyrna is stepping-up to pioneer some new ground in having the church serve as missionary. Prepping two teams of multiple families from LifePoint to go and live in Bangkok and Belgium, the church is sending from the church body to plant churches overseas. More on this in the future, but this is advancing the development or the evolution of missions significantly. Press on Pat, Kyle, Tim, and so many others. Continue on course as the sending church.
The sizes of the above churches are different. The personalities involved are all over the map. The peoples they are working with both in the U.S. and overseas vary, but through all of this Christ is exalted. I look forward to seeing some of what God will do through His church as it is expressed in so many ways in central Tennessee and to the nations. We read the words of Christ: “I came to seek and to save that which was lost.” As His people and as His church, may we always be about His mission.
An Experiential Outlier: Six Takeaways (part 3)
Posted by: | CommentsIn the last post I expounded on five pitfalls that preclude effectiveness even after the requisite 10,000 hours have been invested. Here are six takeaways that we can benefit from in missions. (Obviously seven would be more spiritual, but….) Once again, much of this will apply to missional communities and living as well as church planting.
Start – Get experience. If it takes 10,000 hours of practice to attain some level of mastery, then starting in mission activity today is acceptable if you did not do so yesterday or last week. The clock is ticking, or rather it should be ticking. Practical ways for doing this in a cross-cultural setting include language acquisition, reading literature and history from your people group, and networking with people from the people group either with pockets of people around where you live and/or electronically via Craigslist, Twitter, FaceBook, blogs, etc.
Speed up – One very practical way to gain experience much faster is to learn from others. Personally, I have experienced failure a number of times in different mission attempts. However, there are so many things that I did not have to experience through my own personal failure because others had already put in the time and energy to fail ahead of me. Learning from them saved me time, energy, and resources (including the emotional investment). Thank God for these people and their willingness to be transparent!
Evaluate regularly – According to Socrates, the great philosopher of yesteryear, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” To restate Mr. Socrates as a missiologist, one might conclude that the unexamined missional endeavor is not worth doing. An experienced coach will prove invaluable at this point. This person must balance an adequate cultural examination and the merit of a strategy based on a number of criteria while allowing for what the Spirit is directing to be done in a particular situation. (Remember that Jesus did at times direct for the nets to be thrown back out where there had been no success for hours…to a great result.) At times a coach may be able to identify strategies that are uncertain that will end in either success or a reasonably small failure. However, where a coach can see that the outcome based on the present course will end up far off base, then redesigning the missional endeavor to promote alignment between the time invested and the desired outcomes will prove invaluable.
Recalibrate expectations – No one plans to take on a huge venture for the purpose of failing. To do so would be ridiculous and a guaranteed waste of all resources. Almost as foolhardy would be expecting immediate, overwhelming success. Though no one is likely to complain if it does occur, when a person makes the impossible their expectation, discouragement is likely to set in early in the process. Returning to the 10,000 hour rule, it will be helpful to remember that the violinist with 4,000 hours did not perform as well as the one with 8,000 hours experience, who did not perform as well as the one with 10,000 hours of experience. There is a variable parabolic effect where the time continuum moves at a constant while the effectiveness grows from imperceptible to having significant jumps in growth. It will be helpful for the missionary, missional community, et al to recalibrate expectations of what is normal while praying for God to bless in even greater ways.
See it through – Don’t stop in the process at 2,000 hours of experience. Be faithful to the process and see what the Lord will do as you near the 10,000 hour quota.
Take it with you – Look for areas of crossover where experience can be transferred to new situations, missional pursuits, etc. Language, cultural understanding, one’s ability to dissect what is important in a culture, contacts and relationships, lessons in contextualization, cross-cultural survival skills, missions and/or church planting life practicum, leadership, working with people, etc. may be areas that will benefit you in other contexts. Do rigorous evaluations personally. Also, consider pursuing input from trusted others about your experience which may indicate transferable skills or learning to embrace.
