Student Church Planting

A New Missional Network … A New Generation of Cooperation

2007-02-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

I’ve mentioned in previous posts the cooperative situation in which my church functions. Like a large and growing number of newly planted Southern Baptist churches, we are not affiliated with a local association. We do cooperate on a modest level through our state convention. Currently, the majority of our missions dollars are being invested in a four-year international partnership to plant churches among the Pachitea-Panao Quechua people of the Andes Mountains in Peru. While we remain Southern Baptist in our doctrine, we tend to take more of a “point-of-contact” approach to our missions giving. Our people want to see where their missions dollars go. They want to see and touch the impact of their missions giving in a personal way. They are not satisfied with, nor supportive of, sending all of their missions offerings to a centralized Baptist fund.

But, lately, I have felt led to involve our people in a more direct involvement in church planting and missions in North America. I want us to get involved in planting strong evangelical churches in places where there are no churches. I wonder … how many more churches can we plant in the suburbs of Atlanta? What about those places where people have basically no access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ … none at all? You know … those places where it just doesn’t work to run a couple of ads in the newspaper, do a bulk mailer, and have 200 people in attendance within four weeks. What about the places where the spiritual landscape is cold and dark … the Shadowlands of North America?

My friend and Mission M Possible ministry partner, Roger Ferrell, has also struggled with this same desire. In fact, he’s been doing something about it. Roger has been doing some research over the fast few months, trying to locate those places in North America where there is little or no Gospel access … places where there are no solid, evangelical churches. It hasn’t been easy. Our denomination (interestingly) has no information on this at all. But,believe it or not, these places do exist. Many are in Canada, but there are also some completely unchurched communities in the United States, as well.

So, Roger developed the idea for a new missional network (well, I helped a little bit) that we want to call The Shadowlands Project. Here’s our idea, in a nutshell:

Locate and target the most unchurched communities in North America.
Target one community at a time for the planting of a healthy, doctrinally sound, evangelical church.
Locate missional churches willing to invest in a network which has the sole purpose of planting churches in the those communities.
Invite those churches to invest, financially, in the support of a church planting family and/or team to relocate to that community and begin the planting of a healthy church.
Challenge those churches to invest a portion their North American missions volunteer efforts in the support of that new church plant.
Provide Church Planting training events and missions experiences for church groups through our “training wing” of the network, Mission M Possible.
Once the church planting task in that community is complete, shift the focus of the network to the next community on the Shadowlands strategic list.

We think this may be a new level … a new generation … of Baptist cooperation. It could be an especially attractive missional network for the rapidly increasing plethora of non-associational Southern Baptist churches. This could also be an effective, inexpensive way for new church plants to immediately and directly get involved in planting new churches and rapidly get church planting established in the “DNA” of that new church.

For the record … Roger and I are both lifelong Southern Baptists, but we will certainly welcome the input and cooperation of like-minded and like-hearted believers from other denominations or non-denominations. We just want to plant churches. We just want to be a part of a huge, difficult, challenging vision. But we do envision that this will be something that many Southern Baptist churches will be able to “wrap their minds and hearts around.”

We’re not asking anyone to abandon any association or group that they are a part and to which they are faithful. We simply want to offer a cutting-edge, “missions frontier,” point-of-contact missional network for churches that are up for the challenge. This won’t be easy. It won’t be something that someone can just mail a check to and then forget about it. The Shadowlands Project will require a real, hands-on, practical missions commitment.

Just think … if we could get just 50 churches to pledge support of just $1,000 per year, we could fund a church planting family (and perhaps another team member) in a manner that is generous and responsible. Not with a meager, insulting, welfare-level pittance of supplemental support. We could support a family with a livable salary until the church was established. We could give a church planter on the “last frontier” in North America the support of a strong and viable network. We could greatly increase this man’s opportunity for a successful, thriving ministry.

What do you think? Would your church be interested in The Shadowlands Project? Give us some input. If you’re interested in becoming a part of this new network and vision,please send me an e-mail with your phone number on it. Roger or I would love to talk to you about it.

Student Church Planters - Going International?

2007-02-03T05:17:00.000-08:00

I recently returned from the nation of Peru. I led a small contingent from my church on a "Vision Trip" with REAP North Peru, a strategy team with the International Mission Board of the SBC.

Our visit led us to this valley in the province of Huanuco. It is called Pachitea. There is a unique people group that lives here called the Pachitea Quechua. There are approximately 60,000 of them. As best we could tell, there were about 600 believers in the entire region.

They are an unreached people group. We are considering partnering with REAP North to become the "missionaries" to the Pachitea Quechua people.

As I walked through the villages of Pachitea, I realized how effective students (teens and college) from North America would be in helping reach people like these. The work is tough. There is much travel, walking, hiking, and even camping! But there are, literally, dozens of small settlements on those mountain tops where the Gospel has never, ever gone before.

How cool would it be to take some faithful Christian students from North America to those mountains and take the message of Jesus Christ for the very first time?

It can be done! It should be done! Pray for my church as we consider this partnership. Sometime in the next five years, we may be organizing a group of teen-agers through Mission M Possible to take the Gospel to this final frontier...

Youth Pastors Who Are Called To Church Planting

2006-12-22T19:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was asked to teach a seminar at an upcoming church planting conference. The title of my breakout session is Leaping From Youth Ministry to Church Planting. This is an interesting topic and one Geoff and I have been exploring for several months. Here are some of the questions we have been asking:

What percentage of church planters come from youth ministry?

Answer so far - quite a few. Okay, so we don't have Barnaesque statistics on that yet. But we're working on it. If anyone has those stats, I'd love to hear 'em.

How can youth pastors transition successfully from youth ministry to occupational church planting?

Ah, there's the rub. We've heard lots of horror stories about youth pastors going into their senior pastor's office and telling him of their calling to church planting. Then they hear the dreaded words: "I'll need your resignation letter by tomorrow morning." So instead of thinking through church planting strategy, they spend the next 24 hours thinking how to tell their wives they have to get a job at Home Depot. Immediately.

So one key is, we have to climatize the church, and the senior pastor, before any announcements. What is the best way to do that? Engage the church in church planting. So my recommendation is that when a youth pastor feels called to church planting, he or she start planting churches using the resources he or she currently has, namely, students. By familiarizing the church with church planting and giving them a heart for multiplication, student ministers will guarantee a better response if and when they decide to step away to be a full-time church planter. Not that working at Home Depot while planting a church is a bad idea, but it would be nice to have the support of your former church and former pastor. If climatizing is done well, they could end up as your sponsor, sending you money, people and resources to plant a new church. And that is good for them, for the kingdom and for your family.

So be patient. Read and reread the parable of the talents. Be faithful, and be wise. And don't jump till you are sure you are called to jump. A call to church planting does not mean you have to resign. It may mean you lead your church to multiply itself. And that is just cool.

Does every youth pastor who feels a calling to church planting have to leave his current position?

I sort of got a little long-winded and answered this one already. But this begs a follow-up question: how do you fufill a calling to plant churches without becoming a full-time church planter? If you are a youth pastor, it may mean your youth group adopts a new church plant, sends encouragement emails to church planters' kids, offers your church or homes as Safehouses (see the Safehouses tab on our website), gives money to church planting, educates your church on church planting, takes a church planting mission trip (like a MissionMPossible deployment event or a Powerplant week), or actually plants a church. Shoot us an email if you need more ideas, we'd be glad to help (unless Geoff is fishing, in which case he will ignore your email. But he will get back to you the next week and be glad to help if you will listen to his fishing stories. "It was thi-is big...")

If you are a youth pastor who is considering church planting or a church planter who came from youth ministry, I'd love to hear your story. We may use it at the conference. And if you would like to join us February 26-27th in Cumming, GA, just go to www.churchplanters.com. You can register for the conference and for my seminar. I promise to have meticulous statistics by then. Just look for the guys in the orange aprons. Come to think of it, "you can do it, we can help" is not a bad slogan...

The "Church in the Container"

2006-12-16T09:05:00.000-08:00

I found this awesome story about a United Methodist church plant in Berlin called "The Church in the Cntainer." The story was written by Kathleen LaCamera, a United Methodist News Service correspondent based in London.

What an inspiration! In this place of desolation and destruction (as many as 2,000 unexploded bombs from World War II are buried underneath the streets and buildings!), this group of believers has planted a church that meets in a storage container! Their vision is to reach their community through social ministries and action, especially ministries directed toward students. Check it out!

The Cow Story

2006-12-04T06:06:00.000-08:00

Well, my Maasai ramblings haven't generated the conversation that I thought they would. So, I'll make this my last post. Of course, I saved my best story and reflection for last.

One interesting character that I met among the Maasai was an elder named Oneipu. (He bears an uncanny resemblance to the elder in the picture ... just a little more white hair.) Oneipu was a tribal leader in the area. On one of our last days in the area, one of Oneipu's cows fell in a hole and the men couldn't get it out. Its back was broken. Oneipu stayed out all night to protect the cow from hyenas and leopards. They could not allow this great wealth to be eaten by the wild animals. They needed to slaughter it for the people.

So, the Maasai developed a plan. They wanted us to take the missionary truck (a Toyota Hi-Lux, not found in the states) down in the bottom of the ravine, where we would all load the cow into the truck, and haul it back up to Oneipu's boma.

Well, it was an absolutely crazy and hilarious adventure ... but we got it done. I don't know how, but we picked up that half-ton cow and loaded it in the back of that truck.

When we reached the boma, Oneipu's son, George (who was the pastor of the church where we were serving), asked me to preach the Gospel. His father was not a Christian and many of the other men were not Christians. Needless to say, I was unprepared ... so I asked God to give me a message. It was in that moment, as I looked at the old cow "chowwing down" on the tall grass, and as I looked at those men, that God gave me my text ... the parable of the lost sheep. The only problem was, I had not seen any sheep in Maasailand ... I didn't even know if they had ever seen any sheep. Sooooo ... I didn't think that God would mind very badly if I did a bit of contextualization. I adapted the parable to that of "the lost cow." Instead of the shepherd, the parable had a herdsman ... and you can guess the rest. (Now, I know that some of you have tuned me out at this point and declared me a heretic, but just stick around, you'll like the ending!)

As God filled my heart and mouth with the words (and it was God, by the way), those men sat silently and listen. Their eyes kept darting from me to the cow lying on the ground behind me. After all, we had just lived out the words of this story! We had just left all of the other cows in the boma and gone on this great mission to save the one lost cow! At the end of my message, I handed over the "invitation time" to one of the local pastors.

What happened next was a holy moment that I know that I will never again experience on this side of heaven. Oneipu, the local tribal elder, arose from his seat in the rear, walked over to George (his son) and me, got down on his ancient knees between us, and gave his life to Jesus Christ. It was an unbelievable event, both to us and to the Maasai men who were in attendance. No other elders in that area had commited themselves to Jesus. They considered the Jesus religion to be a faith for only women and children. But on this day, the unthinkable had happened. A Maasai elder was walking with Christ. Everything had changed. In the coming days, Oneipu's conversion would surely lead to the conversion of many other local men as they followed his leadership.

The next day we had our closing celebration as we prepared to depart for home. Oneipu worshiped for the first time, as the only "Elder" of the church, at his son's side. It was a remarkable day. Right before we left, after the lunch "feast," Oneipu called me over and grabbed an interpreter. He placed a hand on my shoulder, and put a bony finger in my chest. He said, "I will never forget the day that you all saved my cow, for that was the day that God saved me." Shivers ...

Contextualization ... it means to reach people where they are, within their culture, with the message of Jesus Christ. All it takes is sharing the Bible and the message of Jesus through language and methods that the people of a given culture will understand. We do it so well on the international mission field. But why do we stink at it here in the USA? Traditionalism, maybe? Ignorance, pride, and arrogance ... probably.

Why are so many of our churches in North America plateaued or declining? Why are our baptisms on a steady downward spiral? Why is the church so rapidly becoming irrelevant here? It's because of our complete lack of contextualization. We are not only NOT reaching people in the current 21st century American culture ... we have DEFINED that culture as the actual ENEMY! How blindly, ignorantly absurd.

My prayer? God, please open the eyes and hearts of our dying churches in America! Help us understand that we live in a mission field, which demands a missional mindset and ministry strategy! Lord, as churches all around us are dying, please give birth to new churches which will embrace the culture, embrace the people you have created, and love them through ministry (not just judgmental preaching) to bring them to Jesus. Amen

What Will We Do?

2006-11-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

I met many young Maasai men in Kenya. They were men of deep thought, and enthusiastic conversationalists. During my days there we would visit from "boma" to "boma" in the mornings. (A "boma" is a Maasai homestead built around the patriarch and his multiple wives and children.) After an adventurous lunch (we never knew what we were going to get) and a mandatory one-hour rest period, we would gather inder the roof of the church for some awesome Bible studies and incredibly deep theological discussions.

As the Maasai of Ilkushin Baptist Church pondered their vision of "a church on every hill," questions began to emerge. One of the most fascinating and interesting questions that they asked me during one of these lively discussions was, "What will we do when everyone in a Christian?" This one had them perplexed. You see, in their world ... in their valley ... almost every person they could imagine was following Jesus. They sincerely saw a quandry ... what would they do when their entire "world" was converted?

I was blessed to challenge them with my perspective on their quandry. I encouraged them not to rely entirely upon the Western missionaries to take the Gospel to the other places. I reminded them that there were Maasai in may valleys in Kenya and Tanzania. They could send out their own missionaries to reach their own people in faraway places. They seemed pretty excited about the idea.

Wouldn't it be incredible if we could ask that question here in the U.S.? "What will we do when everyone around us is a Christian?" Perhaps if we would stop trying to help God convict people of their sin, if we would stop standing against and boycotting everything and begin standing for something, if we could embrace the people within our culture rather than alienating them as our cultural enemies ... then we might be a bit closer to asking that profound, holy, unthinkable question.

Maybe we should just follow the Jesus methods of evangelism ... meeting needs, ministry, grace, love, healing, and forgiveness.

Church Buildings & Church Vision - Maasai Style

2006-11-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

My first experience with Maasai church life was one of simplicity. Like their homes, their churches were simple and functional. This picture is actually a bit "rougher" than the churches that I encountered. This one seems to be patterned after their home construction.

The churches where we worshiped and spoke were simple metal roofs on rough rafters with cedar posts. Most of them were open-air with handmade benches. Incredibly, the construction team with our church group built three such "roofs" during eight days on the field.

The vision of the Maasai Christians was incredible! They had absolutely no desire to "fluff" their church buildings with expensive decorations and furnishings. Instead, they wanted to start more churches. On my first day there, the pastor of Ilkushin Baptist Church, a sweet, godly man named George Oneipu, took me out in front of his humble church and identified three hills in the distance in three different directions. He told me, through a translator, that it was their desire to see a new church on each of those hills. Indeed, it was their vision that you would never be able to stand upon a hill in Maasailand without being able to see many churches in every direction!

What an awesome vision and testimony! But how far away from that kind of vision are the churches of North America? We built three churches with $5000 in Kenya. Here in the states, churches with perfectly functional facilities will drop $5 Million for "renovations" in a heartbeat. Just imagine how many new churches could be planted in the United States with the money that our churches throw away on "cosmetics" and "looks."

Are we too busy building fortresses on our own "hills" to have a vision for the "mountains" of lost people that surround our churches? Something to think about. What do you think?

Short Term Missions: My Most Memorable Experience

2006-11-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

Kenya - 1997
People Group: Maasai

Most of us have who live and minister "stateside" have gone on short-term mission trips to various places. Many of us have ministered in other places in North America. Others have ventured to leave home, cross a cultural barrier, and take the Gospel to the nations.

My most memorable, life-changing, growing experience was almost ten years ago, when I led a team from my church to work among the Maasai people in the nation of Kenya. We ministered in an area called Ilkushin, in southern Kenya, near the border with Tanzania. This was my first-ever experience with church planting. I'll be sharing stories from this experience ... and the lessons learned ... over my next several posts.

What about you? What was your most memorable, life-impacting, growing experience in cross-cultural missions? What did you learn?

The Nativity Story - Opportunity to Reach Out ... Or Opportunity to Sell?

2006-11-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

The latest edition of Outreach Magazine has a Christmas theme ... naturally. This theme focuses upon the soon-to-be-released motion picture, The Nativity Story. It contains a full-page ad for the movie inside the font cover, as well as a well-illustrated feature story.

The magazine provides a link to a site where church leaders can obtain free ministry resources to use the film as an outreach. Interestingly, if you go to the main web site at Outreach.com, you will find a prominent lead banner with links to a sub-page where you can purchase all sorts of tools to use in making this movie an outreach tool. You can buy post cards, pahphlets, Bibles, banners (extremely costly), even door hangers!

Here's the thing ... are these movies truly effective outreach tools? Or are they opportunities for someone to make money in the Christian "market?"

Think back over the past couple of years, and the many past issues of magazines such as Outreach. Do you remember The Passion of the Christ? Or what about all of the doom-filled, "sky-is-falling" alarms sounded over that non-event known as The DaVinci Code? [Most of the people in my church never heard of it ... they thought it sounded like a diet plan or something :) ]

Are we really using these movies to reach people and fill the seats in Christ's church? Is that's what is really going on here? Or is someone using the church (and its resources) to fill the seats in the movie theaters ... and the pockets of Hollywood?

Opinions? Thoughts? Are such movies effective outreach, even for the cause of Church planting? Or is this just the encroachment of capitalism into it's newly-discovered Christian "market?"

The Memphis Manatee

2006-11-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

I received the weekly newsletter from Cordova Baptist Church in Memphis (I once served as Youth Pastor there), and was shocked to learn that a manatee had been spotted in the Mississippi River. It was discovered by local fishermen. "These old fishermen spotted it two days ago and called the zoo to report that they had seen a prehistoric animal, a Loch Ness monster or something," said Lt. Ed Vidulich with the Memphis Police Harbor Patrol.

Apparently, this eight-foot, 1000-pound behemoth had made the 700-mile journey up the Mississippi River, and spent a few days swimming around in the harbor near Mud Island.

This was a pretty amazing event. According to scientific and historical reports, there had never been a sighting of a manatee so far north up the Mississippi. His presence drew a crowd. People came from all over just to catch a glimpse of the manatee that had wandered into Memphis. They wanted to see this creature that obviously did not belong. Wildlife officials were being flown in from Florida to plan a rescue and get the blubbery critter back to the Gulf Coast. Then, as suddenly as he appeared ... he was gone. The local citizens, as well as the wildlife officials, seemed relieved.

What could have caused his to stray so far north? Surely it must have been seeking something. But what? Graceland? The ribs at the Rondezvous? The ducks at the Peabody? Probably not. Perhaps he was just hungry and looking for food, or lonely and looking for a mate. Maybe he was just curious and looking for something ... he just didn't know what. But whatever he was looking for ... he obviously didn't find it.

But what does this have to do with the church? Plenty, I think. Last week, a family from my church visited a large "First Baptist Church" in a nearby community. They attended to celebrate the baptism of the child of a family member. This family is pretty hard to miss ... they have five kids! The dad reported to me that during their visit, they did not receive a single handshake or word of welcome. No one asked about them. No one invited them to come back. They only received curious stares. They simply felt like they didn't belong ... and they could not wait to leave.

Think about it - How many such "manatees" (guests) wander through the doors of our numerous (almost too many to count) plateaued and declining churches each Sunday? Not many these days. But when they do, it's obvious that they are looking for something. Many times they really don't know what it is that they're looking for ... they're just seeking.

And how do the people of God react? Most of the time we observe. Many times, we observe from a distance. We're afraid to reach out or even to speak. Because, after all, they're not one of us. They don't really belong. Oh, they may "bob around" among us for a while. But eventually they leave. Why? Because the "waters" are just too different from those "waters" of the world in which they live. Because they really don't feel like they belong. And because even though they were looking for something, they just couldn't find "it" ... whatever "it" was. And really, whether we even realize it or not, when they leave many of us are relieved ... because we don't have to change anything to fit our newcomers.

Church ... we have to do better. We have to adapt to reach our culture. We must realize that many of us are trying to minister in the 21st century with 1950's church models, ideas, programs, and mentalities. We must plant new, relevant, cutting-edge churches. If we don't, soon the world will look at us like we are the "lost manatees."

Actual photo of "Manny," the Memphis Manatee.

The Prosperity Gospel ... Continued

2006-11-08T11:32:00.000-08:00

We have the lottery (actually, lotteries - many of them) in my home state of Kentucky. I have seen some remarkable sights associated with the lottery in my 8+ years of living in Kentucky.

One morning, when I lived in Hopkinsville, I stopped in at a local convenience store to buy gas for my car. As I waited in line to pay, I saw something that truly dumbfounded me. A woman directly in front of me was cashing what I assumed to be her paycheck. It was somewhere in the vicinity of $150, as far as I could tell. She stepped up to the counter with two cases of beer. She requested the attendant to fetch her a case of cigarettes from behind the counter. She paid for her purchases with the paycheck, then promptly spent the rest of the money ... every single dollar ... on lottery tickets. I watched helplessly as she pocketed a stack of tickets and about fifty cents in change. She then took her beer, smokes, and lottery tickets and got into a car just outside the door of the store. Inside that car were four small children.

That's why we call the lottery the "stupid tax." Surely only sheer stupidity would lead someone to take such actions. Or is it something more?

You might ask, "What does the lottery have to do with the prosperity gospel?" I believe that it has a lot to do with it.

The lottery is, in my opinion, an unfair tax upon the poor. They are "mentally blackmailed" and duped into thinking that if they just keep playing ... just put a little more money in ... just one more ticket ... then they will be the big winner.

Now, stay with me. Who is, hands down, the most attracted to the prosperity, name-it-an-claim-it, you-deserve-it, God-wants-to-prosper-you "gospel?" The people who have little. The people who are seeking financial hope. The poor. Beyond the poor, such a "gospel" would only appeal to the truly greedy.

I believe that we have, in the prosperity "gospel," nothing more than a spiritual "lottery." If the people will just keep giving, keep supporting the "ministries" in faith, then one day they will hit the "Jesus jackpot" and be rolling in the dough. Because, after all, that's what these supposed "gospel" preachers are telling them.

But didn't Jesus say, "You will always have the poor among you...?" (John 12:8) And didn't Paul have an entire ministry among the Gentile believers to collect offerings for the "poor saints" in Jerusalem? What was wrong with those Jerusalem Christians? Didn't they have enough faith? They must not have given their "seed gift" in faith, or surely they would have been healthy and wealthy.

Here is reality: Some of the most joyful, most faithful believers that I ever met lived in huts made of sticks and cattle dung. I met them while serving short-term in Kenya. They had nothing in this world. Just a hut, a garden, a family, and a couple of cows. But they had everything they needed in Jesus Christ. They were the happiest, most fulfilled people I ever met. I have never seen such dedication and faith in the provision of God. The idea that they are poor because of some spiritual problem is preposterous.

The prosperity "gospel" is, in my view, a uniquely North American phenomenon. It is built upon the selfish premise that everything in the universe revolves around us. We are ridiculously pampered and spoiled. To think that the Creator of the universe is actually worried about the size of my house or my personal 401k is the ultimate intellectual and spiritual act of overblown, out of control self-indulgence.

Shame on those pastors and "ministries" that prey upon the hopes of the poor and profit from the uncontrolled self-centeredness of the American people. The prosperity "gospel" is no gospel at all. Surely these are the "wolves in sheep's clothing" that Jesus warned us about.

As we seek to grow the church and plant new churches, let's make sure we avoid this spiritually and morally bankrupt short-cut just to draw a crowd (and grow a bank account). Let's follow Jesus, who said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." (Matthew 16:24-25)

The Prosperity Gospel

2006-11-06T06:09:00.000-08:00

Last week's edition of the Western Recorder, the state newspaper of Kentucky Baptists, carried a front page story by Ken Camp of the Texas Baptist Standard entitled, "Baptist leaders Voice Concern About Prosperity Gospel's Influence."

His article provides a brief critique of the so-called "health, wealth, and prosperity gospel," otherwise known as the "name-it-and-claim-it gospel" and its supposed growing popularity in North America.

The article includes the view of the oft-maligned Joel Osteen, who wrote in his best-selling book, Your Best Life Now, "The Bible says, 'God takes pleasure in prospering His children.' As His children prosper spiritually, physically and materially, their increase brings pleasure to God."

His view is countered by Suzii Paynter, director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, who said, "...the prosperity doctrine ... limits God. It makes Him into a behavioral psychologist who resorts to external rewards to manipulate the rat-race human beings."

The possible impact of this "prosperity gospel" is something that I decided I had to learn more about. A church in a nearby community is in the process of planting a new "satellite" congregation in my community. I'll admit that I am no fan of the "franchising of the church" movement and multiple locations. I analyzed that in a previous post. But I am an advocate of church planting. There are plenty of unreached people in our community. A new church is welcome. But in seeking more information about the "home church," I found that the coming message series is entitled "King Solomon's Secrets of Success." A message series designed to unveil the secrets of a successful (and obviously wealthy) king sounds hauntingly like a "prosperity gospel" approach. Of that I am most suspicious.

Of course, this "health and wealth" phenomenon is nothing new. We all remember the "glory days" of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. So-called "evangelists" have been broadcasting "Jesus shows" and manipulating working people out of their hard-earned money for the past thirty years. But what is the current impact? What are the implications of this approach to spreading the gospel message? Is it, indeed, the true Gospel? Who actually responds to this message? What is the impact of this version of Christianity, if any, upon Church Planting?

I'll share my view and analysis of what I believe is the true nature of the "prosperity gospel" in my next post.

Show Me the Money! - Funding Church Planting

2006-11-03T14:53:00.000-08:00

A tragic story has been playing itself out in Texas over the past several months. This story involves the possible misappropriation by some church planters and strategists of church planting funds given by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The allegation is that as much as 1.3 million dollars was funneled into house churches or other rapidly reproducing churches that, in fact, did not exist or did not exist for any significant length of time. According to a recent report at EthicsDaily.com, a subsequent investigative probe has already cost the state convention $100,000 and may eventually have a price tag of $150,000.

This story has been and is being covered in-depth by the Texas Baptist Standard and is being closely monitored by the independnt blog Spiritual Samurai.

I believe the heart of this story must be the funding of Church Planting. How is it being done? What is the best way to accomplish the task? Is it truly best for Southern Baptists to pool their funds through larger Baptist entities and allow convention employees beyond the level of the local church to decide where those funds are allocated? Is Church Planting a task for denominations, or is it a task that the local church should be performing?

I know that there are many differing views. Many probably will not like mine. They may even be upset by it. But it is my honest view, nonetheless. More and more, I am becoming convinced that local churches, not denominations, should be reproducing and planting churches.

The inevitable problem that we encounter as we plant churches denominationally is that, in most cases, the "product" (i.e. new churches) must resemble something that all of the churches represented and involved in the process of "sponsorship" can be comfortable with. Multiple sources of funding and accountability bring with them multiple views of acceptable worship style, church polity, leadership ... even the name of the church. Case in point: In many areas of Southern Baptist life, we are still fighting the battle of whether or not a "Baptist" church should have "Baptist" in the name. Churches are being rejected and disfellowshiped over this issue.

I have been a Southern Baptist for 25 years (longer than I have been a Christian ... really). I have served on Southern Baptist church staffs since 1989. Yet the Southern Baptist church that I planted and now pastor was rejected by our local Southern Baptist association six months after being received under watch-care because of this very issue of "Baptist in the name." This is something that I have lived through, and believe me, the scars run deep.

I am so thankful that our church was planted by a local church planting / reproducing model. My church is called Crossroads Fellowship. We minister in the beautiful village of Cadiz, Kentucky. Our mother church was New Work Fellowship in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Our sponsorship and planting plan was simple. New Work developed and prepared a core of people for the plant. This core gave and "banked" their tithes and gifts for a number of months in preparation for the plant. New Work brought me into the process and added me to their staff as a Church Planter. Their sponsorship was simply a generous provision for my family. Our steadily growing church paid its own bills. We gradually stepped down their sponsorship of my family by 50% over a three-year period, when we became a fully self-sustaining congregation. We never received a single penny of denominational support. Yet, we have given faithfully to the Cooperative Program since our inception.

On a Side Note (Chasing a Rabbit): I know personally of two churches planted at roughly the same time as ours in our area, both of which received significant, direct, monetary denominational support, yet neither of which has given any measurable amount in return to the Cooperative Program (according to the statistics that come out in our state newspaper each year). That sort of bothers me. Well, actually, it bothers me a lot.

Anyhow ... that's our personal testimony at Crossroads. We have continued that legacy through our direct financial support of a church plant in Cornwall, Ontario, and the Living Waters Fellowship in nearby Oak Grove (Fort Campbell) Kentucky. We don't give as much as some churches do the the CP. But we are supporting Southern Baptist missions, in particular Church Planting, through our direct financial gifts. So tell me ... are we doing something wrong? Or are we doing something right? Is there a wind of change blowing in the SBC, the CP, and Church Planting? I'm curious, and I' searching.

All I know is that if 1.3 million can be "lost" through one of our current systems, something has to change.

Children of the World - An Awesome Outreach

2006-10-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted for so long. I went on vacation to do a little surf fishing. But I'm back now, and ready to stir up a little dialogue!

I know that church planters and new churches are always looking for effective, affordable, high-impact ministry opportunities to utilize for outreach in their communities. Here is one such ministry that I can recommend to you ... the Children of the World International Children's Choir. This incredible group of kids is a ministry of World Help, a worldwide relief ministry that focuses upon the needs of children.

The Children of the World are actually three separate touring choirs that travel throughout North America in an effort to raise awareness and funds for World Help's ministry to the "Forgotten Children" of Uganda.

From a church's standpoint, the COTW kids deliver an incredible amount of community ministry "bang for the buck." The local church must cover their $600 travel fee for the concert and provide host homes for the children on the evening of the concert. The only other cost is for a group dinner and a motel room for the driving staff. The entire event costs less than $750! The local church pastor facilitates an offering after the concert that goes completely toward the Uganda ministry ... absolutely no funds stay with the local church.

We are hosting the COTW in our community this week. We decided to go ahead and make it a truly community-wide event. Instead of having the concert at our church, we are hosting it at the local community auditorium. We have received some serious radio news coverage, as well as a front-page story in the local paper ... complete with a color photo!!! We are so excited about the potential for community impact through this event.

The COTW choir is an excellent opportunity for a church to give a gift of culture, music, fellowship, and fun to its community. I recommend that you give them a call and invite them to your church. You can find all of the info that you need on their web site. If you need more information, just drop me an e-mail.

What about you? Have you hosted this group in your church? What kind of experience did you have? Can you think of any other ways to maximize the outreach and impact potential for a traveling ministry group such as this one?

The Most Unchurched Places

2006-10-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

I am finally getting on a writing project I've been meaning to do for some time. My editor at On Mission magazine has agreed to let me do a series called Shadowlands: The Most Unchurched Places in North America. We are doing this by theme - Most Unchurched College Town, Most Unchurched City, Most Unchurched Place You've Never Heard Of, etc.

And the information is hard to get. Our mission board research department has information by county, but not by city or town or village. And much of our information does not include other denominations or non-denominational churches. And of those, we do not know which ones are preaching the gospel or how many people they are reaching. When I was a church planter in Maine, we had to go visit towns to see if there was a need for new churches. We could research from afar, but did not know the true situation till we got on the ground.

So I need your help. We are asking those on the ground all over NA (like church planters) to share with us their knowledge of places without churches. My hope is that these articles would attract faithful and adventurous church planters to some places that really need the gospel.

So jump in! Where are some places (towns, cities, areas, counties) in North America without churches?

Is Church Death a Part of Church Life?

2006-09-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

We had one of those "teachable life-lesson moments" at our home early this morning. Our beloved cat, Lizzie, passed away quietly on the sofa in my study around 6:00 AM. Over the years, Lizzie had become, almost exclusively, my daughter Laura Beth's cat. Laura Beth had a very strong connection with Lizzie. They spent a lot of time together. Lizzie slept with Laura Beth every night.

Laura Beth was with Lizzie in that moment when she drew her final breath. It was heartbreaking, and there were many tears. But a little while later, after we buried Lizze under the shade of the pines in our yard, I got a chance to talk to Laura Beth alone. I shared with her a simple reality. The older you become, the more that death becomes a more common ... even an expected ... part of life.

So, what does this have to do with Church Planting, especially with regard to students? A lot! I found an interesting article written by Frank Walton of the Northside Church of Christ in Tucson, Arizona, entitled "The Life-Cycle of a Church." In that article, he proposes that there are three stages in the life of the church. They are:

The Risk-Taker Stage - A stage of zealous ministry and growth.
The Caretaker Stage - A time of comfort zone and "status quo."
The Undertaker Stage - A time of "living in the past" and death.

Insightful stuff ... We need to help our church members, our students, even our denominational leaders, understand that death is a natural part of life, even in the life of the church. I don't know the exact statistics, but the last time I looked, we were closing the doors on 5,000+ churches a year in the United States. Churches are dying. In my denomination, I would venture to guess that the vast majority of our chruches are in the "Caretaker" and "Undertaker" stages. I'm guessing that we are about 10-15 years of funerals away from a drastic demonstration of church closures and death in the Southern Baptist Convention.

So, what's the answer? We need more "Risk-Takers." We need more new churches. We need a new, risk-taking generation of church planters. That's what our ministry is all about. Find out how you can involve students and help train this next generation at Mission M Possible.

To Vote ... or Not to Vote ... That is the Question

2006-09-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

I had a great conversation this afternoon with a new friend that I met on a mission trip this summer. His name is Paul. Paul feels called to Church Planting. He is currently furthuring his education. He "interviewed" me today as part of his research for a school project. He wanted to find out more about the system of government in my church. It seems that he is comparing and contrasting elder-led and congregational structures. I commend Paul for so thoroughly investigating this issue. It's going to help him a lot someday when he dives into the adventure of Church Planting.

Of course, the issue of church governance has dramatic implications in the practice of Church Planting. There has been much discussion, especially in the Baptist media, about the growing trend toward elder leadership among Southern Baptist Churches. Hannah Elliott wrote a very thorough article on the subject for the Associated Baptist Press entitled, "Elder Rule is Increasing in Baptist Life, and So is Controversy Over Role." I recommend this article. It presents proponentsfor and thorough defenses of most views.

We chose, during the early days of the life of our church, to go with an "elder-led congregational" form of church governance. Our elders and staff (who are, by definition, elders) lead the direction of the church. We gather regularly to pray, share our burdens and joys, and seek God's direction. Our ministry teams manage their ministries. Our financial team manages our finances. We do not have business meetings, because we do not want to introduce disunity into the body by forcing people to "choose sides" over every issue. Instead, the leaders lead, and the people minister. It works really well for us. We will actually vote on only four things in our church life: (1) the yearly budget and corporate trustees, (2) real estate purchases or sales, (3) changes to our constitution, and (4) calling or dismissing the senior pastor. There have been other times when we have gathered the church family to discuss other issues, namely specific church discipline situations.

We have deacons, though we do not call them such, because the role of deacon is so grossly misunderstood in Baptist culture where I live. Instead, we call the men in the deacon role our "Life Group Shepherds." They serve to minister regularly to a small group of people.

So, what about your church? Elders or deacons? "Presbyterian" or congregational. Vote or no vote? What is the best system for effective ministry in the 21st century? Does it matter? What are the implications for church planting? Should it affect the fellowship among our churches? I have another to story to tell about that in another post. :)

Baptism Issues - Part 2

2006-09-14T05:25:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that there is much discission, argument, and bitterness regarding last year's IMB policies regarding Baptism. The main "sticking point" is the policy's statement that true baptism is a "church ordinance," as opposed to a Christian ordinance. The root of the issue is authority.

In his recent SBC LIFE article entitled, "Understanding Baptism," Tom Elliff addressed this issue under the heading, "When is Baptism Properly Administered?" In one paragraph of this discussion of the proper "authority" for baptism, he states,

It is obvious in the Scripture that, in additon to the profession of the candidate, there is an obligation on the part of the church.

Hershael York went a bit deeper on his blog, where he stated,

...baptism is a church ordinance. To whom did Christ give the authority to baptize? Did He authorize his followers individually, a denomination collectively, or the institution of His church? Baptists have long understood baptism as a church ordinance.

This entire discussion begs the question, "What is the church?" Is it a group of believers ... people who follow the Savior, Jesus Christ? Or is it an ecclesiological structure?

What do we do with Acts 8:36-39, when Philip (alone ... no church present) pulled over on the side of the road and baptized the Ethiopian he had just led to the Lord?

This stance on the authority of the church (and, by policy, denomination?) in the baptism process presents a series of significant dilemmas for church planters and new churches in our denomination. Who might we accept as being "Scripturally baptized?" We must sort through the complexity of this issue.

What do we do with:

People baptized by immersion in churches of other denominations (or non-denominations) which also baptize by other modes? Does the mere availability of other modes invalidate any and all baptisms in that church in the eyes of the SBC?
Young men and women baptized by chaplains in our military? Perhaps they have been baptized aboard a naval vessel, or in the desert of Iraq, or on an army post in Texas. Does the denomination of the administrator come into play? What about the authority of the church? Does the group of believers gathered to witness constitute the church?
Young people baptized at summer camps? I, myself, once witnessed a new convert baptized by a youth leader in the river that ran alongside our camp. The teen-ager's pastor was not present, though many from his church were. Is his a valid baptism?
Children baptized by their parents? This is a common practice in my church. I encourage our parents to lead in the baptism of their own children after their children have made decisions to follow Christ. Would our current IMB policy recognize their baptisms? On a side note ... I know of an IMB missionary who baptized his own child in the sea on the day his child made a profession of faith in Christ. No church was present, only the missionary family and the public witnesses. Will this child be able to someday serve with the organization that has commissioned and sent out his parents? Is his a valid baptism?
People baptized by anyone who is not ordained? Do we really believe that there is a "power of the priesthood" which requires an ordained minister to perform the actual immersion ceremony?

So ... how will we define the "church?" Who will we accept as members when these issues of baptism arise? Are our churches filled with members who are now ineligible for service through our own mission board? Church planters will surely face such dilemmas, and many other that we have not even thought of ... yet!

Baptism Issues - Part I

2006-09-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

There is a feature article in the latest issue of SBC LIFE entitled "Understanding Baptism." It is written by Tom Elliff. Baptism has recently emerged as a "hotbed issue" in Baptist life. It seems that this article was written in response to these discussions.

I will be pointing out some of the matters mentioned by Elliff in his article through my next few posts. Some of his analysis offered helpful clarification. Other parts of it actually left some unanswered questions. I'm wondering how other Baptists feel about these issues.

Today's Discussion: "Like Faith and Practice (Order)"
Elliff devoted a mere two paragraphs to what may be the biggest "bone of contention" regarding baptism in Southern Baptist life. Elliff states,

"Most Southern Baptist churches and each of our agencies use "like faith and practice" (or, "like faith and order") as the litmus test for fellowship, membership, and service. This means that our members (and ultimately those involved in ministry or missions through our mutually-supported entities) have been baptized in Southern Baptist churches or under the authority of churches of like faith and practice."

But what, exactly, does "like faith and practice (order)" mean? I fear that the definitions of this phrase are as numerous as our churches. Indeed, in the area where I live and minister, most of the churches interpret this phrase as meaning, specifically, "Southern Baptist" or "Baptist" churches. In my own county, this meaning includes the requirement that the word "Baptist" be in the name of the church. I pastor a Southern Baptist Church called Crossroads Fellowship. We cooperate with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Yet, we have been denied membership in the local association based upon the lack of the word "Baptist" on our sign, and we have had a local Southern Baptist church refuse to grant letters of membership to us, stating that they could only grant a letter to a "church of like faith and order."

I am quite sure that there are Southern Baptist churches nearby which would not accept as members anyone who had been baptized within our congregation because of this "like faith and order" interpretation issue. Surely, ours would be dubbed an "alien baptism" by some. This issue of accepting members by statement of immersion baptism from outside the SBC has led to the "disfellowshiping" of churches in a nearby association.

Do such definitions have implications in Church Planting? You'd better believe it! Do they have implications in Baptist life? Absolutely! Here is the simple reality. If there were members of my church called of God to serve in international missions through the IMB, they might face an approval process populated by Baptists who would not even recognize them as legitimate "Southern Baptist church members."

As Church Planters, we must sort through these issues before planting, rather than try to "figure it out as we go." What has been your church's stance / experience regarding this issue of "like faith and order" and acceptance of baptized members from outside the SBC?

Sharing A Passion for Baptism

2006-09-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

Recently our church baptized several new Christ-followers in the pool of one of our church members. It was a joyous celebration and made even more joyous by the fact that we gave people the opportunity to participate in the ordinance. If you want to create a passion in your church plant for seeing people baptized, follow Jesus' pattern for engaging others in both the dunking and the discipling.

It was in Maine that I first read Jesus' words in John 4:1-2 with new eyes:

Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, "Jesus is baptizing and making more disciples than John" (though Jesus himself didn't baptize them—his disciples did). So he left Judea to return to Galilee.

I was a new pastor and had just baptized people for the first time. It was an incredible experience for me and I wanted our other church members to have that experience. When I read these words, I realized that you did not have to be a certified, card-carrying pastor to baptize folks. Here Jesus was giving the thumbs up to regular disciples baptizing their friends, neighbors, family members and anyone who came to a relationship with Christ. We began to follow this practice in our new church, and within a couple of years had over a dozen people who had baptized new believers. When someone came to a relationship with Christ and was ready to be baptized, we would simply ask them who they would like to do the baptism. Who was it who had first shared Christ with them or brought them to church? Who had exemplified Christ to them? After they told us, we would ask that person (or persons) if they would be willing to baptize and we would instruct them on how to do that. Often there were 2 or 3 of us doing the dunking for each new convert!

We had single moms baptizing their children, older brothers baptizing their younger siblings, small group leaders baptizing folks in their group, and friends baptizing their friends. It was amazing to watch and still is. We have the same practice in the church I serve now. In fact, a few weeks ago we baptized a whole family, or I should say, they baptized each other! And one of our college girls had her 85-year old grandfather come and baptize her. It was a magical day and I know those who did the baptizing will be far more likely to feel a commitment to disciple the folks they dunked. Not only that, but it is so exciting, oftentimes the baptizers can't wait to share Christ with and baptize someone else!

What are other ways to create a passion for baptism in your church?
- make the service a celebration. We have a potluck or watermelon or ice cream and a pool party after the service. The church enjoys the fellowship and it reminds us that we should celebrate when the lost are found.

- Ask the congregation for a response during the baptism service. We ask all those present to verbally affirm that they will pray for the new believer and hold them accountable to follow Christ. That way everyone gets to participate.

-Ask people to tell the story of how they came to Christ. Either the baptizee or a close friend or family member can tell the story to those gathered. This reminds the church how these things happen and how they can share the love of Christ with others.

- Invite lost people to come. Bringing family members or friends who do not yet know Christ is a great way to remind the church that there are still many who have not yet heard. And this may also have dramatic results: once in Maine we did a baptism service at a park on the ocean. Two boy scouts visiting from Pennsylvania came over to watch and asked one of our men what it was all about. He talked with them and led them both to Christ while the service was going on! That was a day of rejoicing!

Anyway, the application is this: sharing every aspect of ministry, especially the joyful experiences, with other believers builds leaders, creates passion, and shapes the hearts of the church. That is our philosophy at Mission M Possible, and why we believe that students should engage in every aspect of church planting. The deeper their experience, the deeper their passion for missional living and for seeing others come to know Jesus. And there is no reason (besides selfishness or ignorance) for not letting them participate in this way. Following Jesus' pattern in this is the best ministry decision I ever made.

How does your church engage people in baptism? How do you creatively engage people in other practices in your church plant? How are you mentoring others to have a passion for the work of redemption?

Ministry -vs- Business Meetings

2006-09-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

Can structure inhibit ministry?

That is a question that church planters often face. In order to provide a guiding document, and in order to protect our churches under corporate law, we must each develop a "Constitution and Bylaws." But the question is, "How detailed should such a document be?"

It has been my experience that our founding and organizing documents, if they are too detailed and defined, can actually serve to inhibit ministry in the church. But a more generalized document can serve to facilitate ministry.

Case in Point: A small disaster struck a small southern community. Several families were affected by the disaster. A couple of local churches immediately came to the aid of some of the families involved. They provided immediate financial assistance and "adopted" families in order to provide housing and care. However, the majority of the churches in the community could not provide such aid. Why? Because pastors and leaders were "hamstrung" by their constitutions and business procedures. They could not make any financial commitments without first "bringing it to the floor" in a churchwide business meeting. Some churches experienced an even more difficult time when their constitutions required the announcement of a special business meeting for such a purpose at least twice during regular church meetings prior to a special "called meeting." But by the time three weeks would roll around, the opportunity for ministry would be gone.

So, what should we do about our structures? How detailed should our church constitutions be? What must we do when our procedures, bylaws, and rules get in the way of ministry? How can Church Planters avoid these pitfalls?

Can One Size Fit All?

2006-08-29T06:31:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting lunch with a gentleman who recently began attending my church. He informed me that he had moved to our community from the Midwest a few months ago, and that he and his wife had been actively seeking a church. He came from a non-demoninational, evangelical background. In fact, he had just come to know Christ about five years ago. He further informed me that we were #7 in his visiting order. He had simply been visiting congregations at random from the listing provided on the "church page" of the local weekly newspaper.

He let me know that he loved our church. But the thing that shocked him the most was the fact that we were a Baptist church. Indeed, he told me that we were unlike any Baptist church he had ever seen. He had visited several over the years, and the word he used to describe his experiences was an interesting one ... "cookie cutter." His experience, for the most part, in Baptist churches had pretty much been the same. He saw it is "predictable." After he visited in our worship, he felt compelled to call home and talk to his former pastor to get the "low down" on this "new generation" Baptist stuff. Was it legit? Could he trust it?

Thankfully, that pastor affirmed our denomination and our church's ministry. This man and his wife are rapidly and joyfully integrating into the life of our church.

But those words he used have stuck with me ... "cookie cutter."

Kima Jude, in the new Fall 2006 edition of On Mission magazine, has written an interesting article entitled "One Size Doesn't Fit All: Planting Missional Churches." It is a great article. I think that, if there were any way to make it happen (and, obviously, there is not), it should be required reading for every pastor of every Southern Baptist church. Perhaps, then, much of the fear and animosity directed at church plants (and church planters) by established, historical churches could be averted. Perhaps, then, we could combat the attitude and appearance of "uniformity" that exists among our churches, that idea that we are a bunch of "cookie cuter" congregations.

Following are a few quotes from the article:

"Missionaries still travel great distances to share Christ and plant churches, but others merely walk around the block to do it. Like their international counterparts, North American church planters and churches take a missional approach to church planting. They identify an unreached people group, learn their language, study their customs and notice how they dress. When they plant a church, they design it to be biblically sound and -- to some degree -- resemble the people they hope to reach."

"... on mission Christians no longer have to travel far to encounter exotic cultures peopled by those who speak a different language and practice different customs."

"A church plant seeking to reach people in North American culture cannot take a cookie-cutter approach."

"Missional churches take the unchanging Gospel into the culture they find themselves in whether it is traditional, contemporary, emerging or something else."

Great points all. But the problem in North American churches, and North American church planting, arises at the interface of church and culture (especially in the South). Many, if not most, of our Southern Baptist churches which exhibit a traditional mindset and methodology tend to view the culture of church as being "against" the culture of "the world." Indeed, the biblical references to "the world" are often taken as proof positive that all things of the world are evil, therefore culture is evil, therefore the church must be insulated from it. So the church develops its own isolated culture, with its own practices, rules, and even its own language (which I affectionately call "Christianese"). One must abandon the culture of the world and become "assimilated" into the culture of the church in order to fit in ... in order to be truly holy. You see the line of reasoning...

Then, when a church planter and a new church plant enter into a community, seeking to engage the culture and people "where they are," that church planter and church plant are so often tragically painted as "worldly," "liberal," "charismatic," and, most assuredly, "not Baptist." I know that this is the case, because it has happened to me and the church that I have planted in my community. When word got out that we would not have the word "Baptist" in our name, were wearing jeans to church, used videos in worship, didn't have a "Sunday School," and didn't hold monthly business meetings, we were alienated and ostracized by the local Southern Baptist community. And all that we attempt to do is meet people "where they are" and do ministry within the culture that we live.

Is my experience the exception? Or does it tend to be more of "the rule," especially in the churched (albeit declining churched) southern United States?

I would love to hear about the experiences of other church planters. What can we do, as a denomination, to rediscover the truth of being missional (within the culture) in all of our churches, as well as our church plants? What can be done to awaken a passion for church planting among all of our churches? How can we become known as "cookies" of all shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors?

Chronological Bible Storying - A Strategy to Reach the Next Generation?

2006-08-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

I just received the Summer 2006 edition of To the Ends of the Earth from the International Mission Board. The publication focuses upon the use of storying techniques to teach the Gospel to people groups in oral cultures. The strategy is simple. Missionaries utilize a simple series of pictures to tell the entore story of the Bible fom Creation to Christ.

Interestingly, the piece points out that describing a culture as "oral" does not mean it is "illiterate." Indeed, Grant Lovejoy, director of orality strategy at the IMB says, "...we learned that there are a lot of people who can read and write fine, but are still oral by preference." Interestingly, this tool that was developed to reach the illiterate is proving successful even among well-educated people.

This strategy has led me to consider possible implications for sharing the Gospel within the next generation in North America ... our children and teen-agers. Overall, ours is a literate culture. Most of our children and teens are quite capable of reading and writing. But, it has been my experience that even though children enjoy reading in their early years, many of them lose their love for the practice when they reach the teen years. So, we must study and determine, is the printed word the best method for reaching this next generation ... especially our teens? Is our investment as Southern Baptists in millions of dollars of quarterly Sunday School and discipleship training booklets the best investment of those dollars. I must confess, I am beginning to doubt it.

But is this generations of teens an oral culture? In many ways they are, expecially with regard to music. I think that the I-pod is a vast, uncharted frontier for reaching out to our youth. But, even moreso than oral, I believe that the next generation is a visual culture. Just think about it ... video games, computers, TV, DVD, video podcasts ... even their cell phones take pictures! Are we presently attempting to reach a visual (and semi-oral) generation with words on paper? Are pretty color graphics (still on paper) enough? Are we "missing the boat?"

Maybe ... just maybe ... we should be investing in more high-tech visual presentations of the Scriptures and the Gospel message. Maybe we should be overlaying the story of Scripture on popular music tracks. I don't know. But what I do know is this ... we have to start doing something differently. I believe we have already let a couple of generations "slip through the cracks" in the late 20th century church. Surely, we won't continue to make the same mistakes and keep using the same ineffective methods with the next generation. Or will we?

Cowboy Churches ... Can Students Be Involved?

2006-08-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

I guess I have heard about "cowboy churches" before. But I never gave them much thought. Until this week.

I ran across an old article on the Church Planting Village about these "cowboy churches." According to this article, the sheer number of people involved in the "cowboy" or "western" culture is huge. Indeed, based upon studies of musical tastes, this "people group" (can we call them that? ... I suppose so!) is approximately twice as large as any other people group in North America.

This article led me to another very interesting site hosted by the Cowboy Church Network. Check it out. You can even order a belt buckle!

So, I am sold! I am intrigued. I already have a couple of guys in my church checking out the possibilities of planting a "cowboy church" in our area.

The question for me is this ... how will students connect? Is there a significant number of youth involved in the agricultural / "cowboy" culture in our country? As I look at the youth in my community, I have to think that there is. In my daughter's class there is one girl who lives and breathes horses and rodeos. Others own horses and are involved to a somewhat lesser extent. A trip to our local high school will reveal a plethora of the famed blue and yellow AG jackets (FFA - Future Farmers of America). But can we engage them in church planting? Specifically, is the growing phenomenon of "cowboy" churches an opportunity to reach all of our young "cowboys" and "cowgirls," in addition to their "cowboy" parents?

I would like some input from people who have "cowboy" churches in their area, or who may have attended one. What was it like? What did you think? How can we engage students in this kind of work?

House Churches ... Will They Work in North America?

2006-08-14T05:24:00.000-07:00

A recent Barna Update has revealed some surprising trends in American the church attendance. Barna's recent study indicates that 9% of adults attend a house church during a typical week. A decade ago, this number was a meager 1% of the population in attendance each week. The current 9% level translates to about 20 million adults in attendance at a house church on any given week. Over the course of a month, approximately 43 million adults attend house churches! (Check out the update. It is a fascinating read.)

Barna believes that this trend will continue to rise over the next two decades. Indeed, he estimates that the level of participation will double over the next decade. It seems that he believes house churches are "here to stay" in North America.

I have to admit that I have always been a bit skeptical about the viability of house churches in a North American context. I suppose I always thought that the consumer-driven American culture would demand more, not less, from its weekly gathering of faith. But it seems that I may have been wrong. Publications focusing upon house churches (or simple churches) abound. There are various networks throughout North America. Just google the words "house church" and watch your screen fill up!

What do you think? Are house churches here to stay? Are you involved in a house church? What are the positives of house church? What are the negatives? Would you "give up" your full-service congregation for the simplicity of a house church?

Where are the Men?

2006-08-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

The Western Recorder, the weekly newspaper of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, ran a fascinating story this past week by Kristen Campbell of the Religion News Service entitled, "Getting Men to Church."

Much of the article is an analysis of David Murrow's book, Why Men Hate Going to Church.

Consider these interesting insights that Campbell noted and quoted from Murrow's book:

"My background is in marketing and advertising ... the target audience of almost everything about church culture was a 50 to 55-year-old woman."

The theology and practices of Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam offer "uniquely masculine experiences. Every Muslim man knows that he is locked in a great battle between good and evil, and although that was a prevalent teaching in Christianity until about 100 years ago, today it's primarily about having a relationship with a man who loves you unconditionally. And if that's the punch line of the gospel, then you're going to have a lot more women than men taking you up on your offer because women are interested in a personal relationship with a man who loves you unconditionally. Men, generally, are not."

On Sunday morning, "We're going to sing love songs to Jesus and there's going to be fresh flowers on the altar and quilted banners on the walls."

Pretty heavy stuff. We have all recognized for generations the glaring absence of men from our churches. Maybe it's not because they're simply not interested in spiritual matters. Perhaps they are just not engaged by the overwhelmingly feminine presentation of the faith in our churches.

What do you think? And what should these insights mean to us as we consider the task of Church Planting in the North American culture?

Weekend Feature - David Coram, Church Planter

2006-08-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

David Coram is the Church Planter / Pastor at Living Waters Fellowship in Oak Grove, Kentucky. Oak Grove is a "bedroom" community just outside the main gate of Fort Campbell, home of the famed 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

David is retired from the Army. He is a former enlisted man, warrant officer /helicopter aviator, and commissioned chaplain. He knows the culture and language of the military. He knows the unique ministry needs of military families. He knows his community. Living Waters is a distinctly military-focused church. Check out the Living Waters Fellowship web site. Or drop David an e-mail of encouragement. Be sure to add David and the ministries of Living Waters to your daily prayer list this week.

Analyzing Data & Doing Something About It

2006-08-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

On my recent trip to Savannah, I read through the 2005 Georgia Baptist Convention Annual to get up to speed on Savannah-area churches. I know, I know, I really need a hobby, but I am genuinely interested in this stuff. I love numbers and statistics and think they have real value in formulating strategy to make the church more effective. So imagine my surprise when I found the following:
-In 2005, there were 32,000 members of Southern Baptist churches in the Savannah Baptist Association.
-In 2005, these 32,000 baptized 526 new believers in their churches.

Now think about that. Get out your calculator. That is 32,000/500 or 60.8. It took 61 church members a year to baptize 1 new believer in Savannah in 2005. So how does the Savannah Baptist Association go about increasing the number of baptisms? How can they reach more people with the gospel even as more and more people move into the area?

There are roughly 300,000 people in Savannah with 41,000 new homes already approved in the area. Effingham County, to the northeast of the city, is the 28th fastest growing county in America. So as we look at the picture above, we need a drastic solution.

Ah ha!

The average new church baptizes 1 person a year for every 10 people. What if we could plant and grow a church next year in every one of the 21 sites we identified this week? That is 21 churches x (average church size in Savannah) 150 people /10 or 315 new baptized believers in Savannah next year. Look what happens if we add those new Christ-followers into this equation and each of those new churches plants a church every year in Savannah and then each of those plants a church and so on:
2007: 315
2008: 630
2009: 1260
2010: 2530
2011: 5040
2012: 10080
2013: 20160
2014: 40320
2015: 80640
2016: 161280
2017: 322560 new baptized Christ-followers

In ten years, according to this new math, we would reach the current population of Savannah, not counting what existing churches are doing and those in other denominations and not accounting for a church size larger than 150. So why can't we do it? Why can't we make the math work in a good way?

This is not about new churches vs. old churches. There are plenty of churches of every age who are effective or ineffective. What we are certain of is that planting multiplying churches is our most effective way to reach people with the gospel. This truth has been proven time and again in place after place. And if the churches in Savannah can plant new churches exponentially, it will happen there too. And what a satisfaction, what a joy to participate in this great kingdom-building experience! As a pastor, I am learning that our church's greatest legacy is going to be the hundreds of daughter and grand-daughter churches that are planted through us and the churches we plant.

I know my math is a little funny, but you get the point, don't you? What would it take to see this happen in your area? Let me encourage you to find the numbers, do the math and then do some new math. What would it take to see this happen where you live?

Church Planting Probe in Savannah

2006-08-02T06:37:00.000-07:00

I just spent the last two days participating in a Church Planting Probe in Savannah, Georgia. This event was sponsored by the Georgia Baptist Convention, who partners with Mission M Possible in the Georgia Student Church Planting Network, and the Savannah Baptist Association. A Church Planting Probe is done in most associations every few years to determine where there are needs for new churches based on population growth, population shift and people group changes in the area. We divided Savannah up into five areas and then dispatched a team to each area to drive around, ask questions and assess the needs. We used demographic data and maps to guide our search and at the end of the day had 21 new sites for churches! There is tremendous need for new churches in Savannah.

Now comes the hard part: praying for workers for the harvest. Savannah needs church planters and church planting mission teams. Mission M Possible will be partnering with the Savannah association by mobilizing our network to help plant churches there. We have a week-long training and mobilization event there next summer (see www.missionmpossible.net for more more info) and can facilitate groups there anytime you are ready to serve. So can you help in Savannah? There is much you can do to help even if you are in another town or state. Send us comments and let us know if you are able and willing to be part of a church planting revolution in Savannah!

If you feel there is a need for a church planting probe in your area, let us know. We will help you contact your state convention or missions organization to locate the most recent data and determine church planting needs. Sometimes the best way to determine the need for new churches is to ask the locals. So what church planting needs do you see in your community?

Hurricane Katrina: What Has Been Her Impact Upon North American Missions Volunteerism and Church Planting?

2006-08-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt, the Southern Baptist response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was tremendous. Thousands of volunteers have journeyed to the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast to bring relief and help rebuild. My church has been in the middle of these efforts. We have mobilized four teams to serve in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana since last September.

Disaster Relief has been one of the true "bright spots" in Baptist life. Our Disaster Relief efforts have done much to foster good will toward Southern Baptists throughout the U.S. But what type of impact have Hurricane Katrina, and the subsequent relief and rebuild efforts, had upon Southern Baptist volunteerism?

I haven't found any serious studies or information on the internet about this impact. No one really seems to be talking about it. But in my "unofficial" contacts with missions volunteer coordinators in various parts of the U.S., I have found an overall downward trend in the number of available volunteers. Most of these missions leaders/coordinators have been quick to explain this phenomenon. They have said, repeatedly, "Everyone is going to the Gulf Coast..."

Yes, our response to this disaster has been incredible. It has raised the level of missions awareness in our convention. But was/is it a "flash in the pan?" Has there been a negative impact upon our missions efforts in other areas of North America? Is Hurricane Katrina still taking her toll ... upon our overall missions efforts? Has there been any impact, good or bad, upon North American Church Planting as a result of our intense Disaster Relief response?

Whatever It Takes?

2006-07-31T06:48:00.000-07:00

Some of the guys in my church have stumbled across a new ministry opportunity to reach men ... paintball. It all started when one of the men in my church, John Fuller, and his son, Zach, set up a small paintball course in the field next to their house. Over time, the course has grown as they added more and more obstacles and cover. They have even extended part of it into some adjacent woods.

John talked to me yesterday morning about the church officially backing their "Paintball Ministry." He reminded me of our motto that we have repeated over and over since we planted the church, "Whatever it takes."

I was intrigued. They invited me to play late yesterday afternoon, and I had a blast! There were thirteen men there, and six of them were not members or regular attenders at our church. John is convinced that this is a huge opportunity to reach out to the men in our community. We live in the hunting and fishing epicenter of the universe! And Fort Campbell is very close by. We have many military men within the vicinity of our church.

John's passion and his obvious success in outreach to men have started us thinking. We are even considering adding a paintball battlefield on the "back forty" of our 39-acre campus. We know that it is very different, and not very churchy. The more traditional churches in our area will probably verbalize a few negative comments about it. But if it reaches the men in our area, isn't it worth it?

What do you think? Isn't this the kind of "out of the box" thinking that we need in planting new and growing churches? What are some other creative, maybe even outlandish, ways that we could reach men? Please share your ideas.

Weekend Feature - Prayer for a Church Planter

2006-07-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

This is Jason Burns, Church Planter and Lead Pastor of the Springs Community Church in Newman, Georgia.

Please remember Jason and Springs Church in your daily prayer time this week. Learn more about Springs Community Church by visiting their awesome web site. And be sure to drop Jason a quick e-mail to let him know that you are praying for him this week.

Information on Pastor Jason Burns was obtained from the Georgia Baptist Convention's Church Planting Movement Tracking System. Please feel free to visit this web site and view the public information on Southern Baptist Church Planters in the state of Georgia.

Church Planting Training?

2006-07-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful conversation yesterday with a young man named Joshua. He just graduated from Bible college. He anticipates starting seminary sometime in the future. He shared with me that he feels called to Church Planting. Specifically, he feels called to plant a church in the state of Maine.

He has been communicating with a Director of Missions up there who gave him some very interesting advice. He told Joshua that he should go to some type of school and learn a skill ... a trade ... that he can use to support his family with a good paycheck when he arrives on the field. He shouldn't show up in Maine and expect that other people are going to support him in a full-time work. He should plan to be bi-vocational.

I think that's some pretty good advice. I know that Roger (my Mission M Possible partner-in-crime) and I have talked about this before. Maybe we should rethink everything when it comes to training and deploying Church Planters to the "frontier" mission fields ... even the new mission fields in the south. Instead of paying our Church Planters two or three years of welfare-level (food stamp eligible) "support" through the Nehemiah program or any other program (and expect them to raise the support from somewhere else ... even though the Baptist world thinks they are "funded"), maybe we should use that cash and pay their way through a year of community college to learn carpentry, electrical work, plumbing, medical records, HVAC, or something of that nature. Send them back to another year of school to earn a teaching certificate. Heck, let's think big! Why not make sure that they will never hurt for a job and pay their way through two years of nursing school?

My point? I believe we have to rethink the ways that we will plant churches in the future. And we need to start that re-thinking right now. Maybe the bi-vocational (old fashioned tentmaker) approach is the most practical, most effective, and most biblical. I seem to recall that a fellow named Paul did it that way.

Multi-Site Churches: Good Economy or Big Ego?

2006-07-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

As promised, I did a little research on the multi-site church phenomenon. I found this interesting article at Christianity Today. It is full of positive analysis of one particular multi-site church. And it points to the fact that somewhere in the vicinity of 200 churches in the United States were at least considering a multi-site strategy. That was in 2003. I wonder what those numbers are today.

I think that this phenomenon is a natural extension of the mega church trend in our culture. And I struggle with its potential relation to and impact upon Church Planting. Are multi-site churches good economy, or simply a by-product of egotism and control? Are there seriously not enough qualified, gifted pastors to lead these churches? Should we consider our churches as “brands,” like a Wal-Mart or Krispy Kreme donut shop? (Read the article, and you'll understand what I mean.) How does all of this wash with Scripture? What would the Apostle Paul think? What do you think?

Is Bigger Really Better?

2006-07-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

I came across this picture while I was doing a little on-line research into the mega church phenomenon. It contained a link that appeared to go to amazon.com, where you could supposedly buy this game. When I clicked the link, it took me to a page that absolutely looked like an amazon.com order page. When I finished reading I was laughing so hard that I thought my sides would split open! It is hilarious! Check it out.

So, why was I researching mega churches? Well, I just received the latest copy of Outreach magazine. It is a special edition, the 4th annual "Top 100 Largest and Fastest Growing Churches" edition. It contains feature stories on some of the largest mega churches, charts of growth, and plenty of articles from Thom Rainer, Ed Stetzer, et.al.

After thumbing through the journal, I was a little bit overwhelmed ... and puzzled. I couldn't help but think, "Is this what we are all truly striving for? Is this why so many pastors climb the church ladder of 'success?'" We'll never have a mega church where I live. We would have to import a lot more people. But I love where I live, and I love my church! Does that mean I am a failure as a church planter and pastor? Should I have more drive and ambition? Can I get it if I go to one of the bazillions of mega church-offered conferences that have ads in the magazine?

We need to think this thing through. Is bigger really better? Are we going to reach our North American culture with mega churches, or small churches, or emergent churches (even detergent churches), or house churches? All groups seem to think that their way is the best way ... the right way.

This entire discussion has tremendous implications upon church planting. What do you think?

A Church ... in a Laundromat?

2006-07-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, while leading a Church Planting seminar for middle school and high school students, one of the pretend "church planting teams" came up with an incredible church planting idea. They posed the question, "What about a church in a laundromat?"

They weren't talking about an existing church with a laundry ministry. No! They presented a clear, well-thought-out proposal for planting a new, collegiate focused church in a laundromat. They figured that, after the initial investment in equipment, the new "church" would basically "pay for itself." Students could bring their laundry to the "Laundromat Fellowship," and while their clothes werein the spin cycle or tumbling toward dryness in one of those big, commercial dryers, they could enjoy times of fellowship, refreshments, and Bible study. Since laundry is (in the very least) a weekly need, it seemed to that group of students to be a perfect match for an innovative church plant.

It was one of the most incredible, original ideas that I had ever heard for a possible church plant ... and it came from a group of students!

Well, imagine my surprise (and joy) today when I came across an internet article entitled, "Detergent Church: Phosphate Free and Full of Life." It is a reprint of a story from a local newspaper in Gemeintown, Manitoba (Canada). The essence of the story is the fact that there is a cluster of churches being started in laundromats, called "detergent churches." (They claim that the pastor, who is hard of hearing, became confused at a conference about the "emergent church," thinking that the speaker was saying, "detergent church" ... but I don't believe it. ) These churches, it seems, are springing up throughout Manitoba.

Pretty cool stuff. The way the Canadians are doing things is just a bit too over-the-top "emergent" for me. In fact, I'm not entirely sure about their theology, because their worship practices are pretty doggone strange ... so I'm not at all comfortable with providing a link. If you're that curious, you can find it on your own, just don't get too caught up in the way they do things.

But the principle remains. Laundromat churches! This is an innovative, "out-of-the box" opportunity for church planting that exists in hundreds of our college communities. Maybe we need to buy a few washers and dryers.

Does anyone have any extra quarters?

Sunday Feature - Prayer for a Planter

2006-07-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

This is Pastor Stephen Wood. He is the Church Planter / Pastor at the River's Edge Baptist Church in Suwanee, Georgia. Please remember Stephen and the creative, life-changing ministries of River's Edge Church in your prayers each day this week.

If you would like to know more about him and the church plant that he leads, check out the River's Edge Church web site. And feel free to send him an e-mail, just to let him know that you prayed for him this week. Be sure to let him know that you heard about him through our Sunday "Prayer for a Planter" feature on the Student Church Planting blog. Church Planters have an incredible life of ministry, but many times they feel isolated ... sometimes forgotten. Your prayers and notes of encouragement do make a difference.

To learn more about how you can become involved in church planting, please visit the Mission M Possible web site.

Information on Pastor Steven Wood was obtained from the Georgia Baptist Convention's Church Planting Movement Tracking System. Please feel free to visit this web site and view the public information on Southern Baptist Church Planters in the state of Georgia.

Is e-mail the New Snail Mail?

2006-07-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

I have to admit it ... I am an e-mail junkie. I love to receive e-mail messages. I cannot even to begin to count the number of times that I check my e-mail accounts each day.

But I am, after all, one of the old guys. (I remember those glorious days when there was no such thing as "call waiting," microwaves, or home computers!) E-mail, as it turns out, has been labeled the technology of us older folks. It seems that the next generation is not so fond of my favorite way of sending messages.

Joe Ball, Youth Strategist fo the Kentucky Baptist Convention, noted this trend in his blog this week. He included a link to a fascinating story in USA Today. The writer claims that the up and coming generation is much more motivated by instant communication: media such as IM, text messaging, blogs, Facebook, and MySpace.

I was a bit skeptical at first, but after checking the communication habits of my two teen-age daughters, I now realize that Joe (and the USA Today person) is speaking the truth. Neither of them check their e-mail that often, but they will camp for hours in front of a computer, playing solitaire and sending messages through MSN. I can't help but think that all of this will have a tremendous impact upon the church ... and church planting. But I'm not quite sure how it will have an impact, or whether said impact will be constructive or problematic.

I need some input. Let me pose a few questions:

How do you think the established church will deal with the communication habits and techonological prowess of our youth?
How can we utilize this trend in communication within the youth culture in a creative, positive way?
What do you think will be the impact of instant communication upon Church Planting in the near future?

I'm looking forward to hearing your views.

Student Church Planting 101: Reading Assignment

2006-07-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

Roger and I talked today. We realized that we need to give some direction to the many students (and curious adults) who visit our blog each day. It's not enough just to talk about and promote Student Church Planting. We also need the "education factor." Since it will be several months before we will be able to offer a Mission M Possible Training Event, we thought it might be a good idea to refer our readers to some resources that will be helpful in preparing someone for a ministry in Church Planting.

So ... let's begin with the basics. Before you delve too deeply into the subject of Church Planting, it would be best to gain a better biblical understanding of missions in general. I think a great place to start is by reading The Acts 1:8 Challenge by Nate Adams. Though it is not written specifically for a youth audience, the book is very engaging and readable. High school students should have no trouble understanding the content of this book.

Obviously, The Acts 1:8 Challenge is a detailed look at Jesus' missions geography (Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Ends of the Earth) in Acts 1:8. Adams effectively connects each geographical principle to our modern church context. He also includes a "Church-Planting Principles" section in each chapter, thus integrating Church Planting within the overall mandade that Jesus gave the church in Acts 1:8.

The Acts 1:8 Challenge is a great read ... and it's a great place to begin your studies in Student Church Planting. Read it, and let me know what you think. If you need a copy, you can get one for less than two bucks (used, of course) at amazon.com!

Has anyone out there in the blogging world read this book? Let me know what you think. Share your "book review" by leaving a comment.

Doing little things of great importance

2006-07-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is a guy in a wheelchair edging the lawn at his church. The title of this picture is No Excuses.

Sometimes the most important thing you can do is free up someone else to do more important things. Make sense? I thought about this as I wrote thank you emails today to the youth groups at FBC Snellville, GA and Oak Hill Baptist in Lawrenceville, GA. These groups came and helped our church plant clean up our property, pressure wash a fence, cut the grass, and clear brush. Not important, right? Wrong. This not only made things look a whole lot better for visitors who might be giving us a first glance, but also freed up me and many other leaders at our church to spend time with people.

So what other little things of great importance can we do? Babysit for a church planting couple and let them take a date or visit with someone in the church in crisis. Fold flyers or put stamps on envelopes so a pastor can pray with someone at the hospital. Set up chairs for a church service so a church planting team member can share Christ with the school janitor.

My point is that when we offer to serve in what we think is a small way with humble hearts, sometimes what we do allows really great ministry to take place. And that means cutting the grass is more important than just a nice lawn. Our efforts are multiplied when they free up others to do the big stuff. There was a song a while back that said, "little is much when God is in it." I want to thank my new friends - Ashleys, Lindseys and all my chainsaw and weedeater-wielding buddies for making the little things count, with smiles all round and for giving me the chance to do some things that really matter this week. Not ready to plant a church? Find someone who is doing it, and cut their grass. That is what partnership is all about.

Oh, and while we are at it, you may not be able to fund a new church by yourself. But that tithe you put in the offering plate or that few dollars you send to a missionary really adds up when added to the gifts of thousands of Christ-followers around the world. My denomination (SBC) calls it The Cooperative Program and when you cooperate with others it gives your little bit a chance to make a big difference. Like I said, little is much when God is in it. Give what you got and see what God does.

For more on this, see John 6:8 and the surrounding story and find out what happens when a little guy gives a little to God. What can you give?

Why Your Generation is Made For Church Planting, Part 2

2006-07-09T17:05:00.000-07:00

Geoff is back on vacation this week at the beach, presumably catching more sharks (hum the Jaws theme music here), so I thought I would give you part 2 of my article on how God has prepared the Y Generation for church planting. For part 1 of this article, check out the blog archives. Enjoy!

Why Your Generation is Made for Church Planting
(A Letter to the Y (or Y-not) Generation from an Xer)
continued...

Your generation embraces technology.
The first church I served in was a traditional, Southern Baptist church where I was their first, full-time youth pastor. It was part of my job to be young, progressive and creative. It was expected of me. What I did not expect was to find that the church was a technological dinosaur. Our financial secretary kept all the records in paper ledgers. Our receptionist typed the church newsletter on a green-screened, text-only computer and used a clip art book to place, resize, and place again all the column headings and cute graphics. It took 3 days to finish the newsletter. Meanwhile, I was churning out the youth newsletter on my Macintosh laptop in an hour.

Many church staffs today still struggle with desktop publishing. There are still pastors who do not “do” email. And there are plenty of deacons who could no more keep members in a database than they could keep them in a coffee mug. The language of technology has permeated the business world, where you have to keep up. But in many local churches, where we should not only keep up but lead the pack, technology itself is a bad word.

This, of course, is incomprehensible for gen-Y. You check your email several times a day, and many of you have never sent a letter “snail-mail” at all. You don’t go to the post office, but to the Internet cafe or the closest Wi-Fi hookup. And you expect an instant response to your questions. Technology is a good tool for church planting. We can communicate and get information faster and cheaper. And that means more time and resources for sharing the gospel with people who need to hear it.

Your generation embraces global thinking.
My wife’s parents live in the same small town where they grew up, no more than several miles from the houses where they grew up. My father-in-law has never been out of the country and has only flown on an airplane once, just a few years ago. For the builder generation, moving away from family was a slap in the face of your heritage. Today, it is common to disperse throughout the country, or even throughout the world. We all know that email, air travel, and the euro make a global lifestyle easy. And your contemporaries in other countries watch the same movies your do, eat at McDonalds, and shop at Home Depot. There are 125 Starbucks stores in China, with more to come. Its one big homogenous world, so learning the culture is not the challenge it once was, which means being a missionary might just mean being yourself.

Your generation embraces relationships over rightness.
Now I am not talking here about righteousness. I’m talking about having to be right all the time. Why does it seem like that aisle down the middle of last-generation churches is so the “yes’s” can sit on one side and the “no’s” on the other? I grew up in a builder-generation church and remember heated business meetings with much yelling and arguing about issues. Our pastor of fifteen years was “voted out” and about a third of the members subsequently left the church. There was great concern about being right and defending your position, even to the death of relationships.

Your generation is different. Most y-gens would rather preserve the relationship than win the point. Because many of you grew up in broken homes and have experienced divorce of your parents firsthand, you realize the value of compromise, of working together on a solution for all parties, and on taking satisfaction not in winning at all cost, but in counting the cost of these conflicts and keeping the relationship intact.

It probably bears mentioning that over half of our “church plants” in the last fifty years have not been true church starts sponsored by another existing local body of believers. A full 50% of “new” churches are not church plants but church splits. This part of our history of church planting is not so much missional as miserable! As church people disagreed with one another, a group would get mad enough to quit and leave, often starting a new church right around the corner. Thus we end up with “First Baptist” and “Second Baptist” or “Truth Missionary Church of God” and Truth Missionary Church of God #2!”

There’s a great old joke about a navy vessel that cruised by an uncharted desert island. The seaman in the bow spotted someone on the beach. When the boat reached the island, they found not only the required hermit, but a whole town full of buildings. “What is all this?” asked the captain of the vessel. “Well, I’ve been here a long time and I got bored, so I started building a town. This here’s my bank, my general store, my hardware store, and my church!”
“What’s that building over there with the steeple?”
“Oh, that’s the church I used to go to before the split!”

Okay, so it’s not that great a joke. But it does teach a sad truth. The world is full of churches we used to go to before we got offended, bored, upset, too old, or too young; before the church changed pastors, music styles, or locations. As Caedmon’s Call sings, most of us come from a “long line of leavers.” And there are some good reasons to leave churches now and then. But the good news is that most people in your generation value their relationships with their friends more than winning an argument, so that means fewer church splits, fewer disagreements, and more unity in the body of Christ. Congratulations again!

Though I do have some concerns about your generation’s way of thinking, namely your general lack of concern about absolute truth, more interest in questions than answers, and a tendency to think rather than act, overall I am much encouraged by what I see. You are not just the church of the future, you are the church of the present. I want you to know that we X-er church planters (at least all the ones I know) are praying for you, and will do anything we can to help you grow into the leaders of today and tomorrow. Keep reading scripture, hold fast to the truth, and pray with all your might. What you do with your lives matters, and we are watching you. More importantly, your peers and those who come behind you are watching you, too. So step up to the plate. You can do this! God has called and equipped you for church planting, and church being. Let us know how we can help.

With zeal for His glory,
Roger Ferrell

Our First NOC

2006-07-06T04:02:00.000-07:00

Meet Joshua Simmons. He is our first NOC Agent.

So, what exactly is a NOC Agent? It's a cool Mission M Possible idea to connect college students with church planting opportunities in their area. NOC stands for, "Network Operations: Collegiate."

Joshua will be a senior at Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) this fall. He is an experienced worship leader, sound technician, and "whatever-you-need-him-to-do" laborer. Joshua loves to lead people in worship ... he taught himself how to play the guitar. In fact, we hope that Joshua will be able to lead a special "Leading Worship: Guitar" training track at one of our Mission M Possible Summer Mission Weeks in 2007.

Joshua is an awesome young man of God, and will make a great addition to a Church Planting team.

Check out Joshua's NOC page on our Mission M Possible web site. And if you're in western North Carolina, give him a call! He stands ready to serve.

Are you a college student? Would you like to engage in Student Church Planting in your area? We would love to help. Check out our web site. Send us a note. We'll add you to the NOC List.

Welcome, Powerplanters!

2006-06-30T16:25:00.000-07:00

Geoff and I want to extend a warm welcome to our friends from Powerplant Port Arthur, Texas and Gwinnett County, Georgia! I know this week has been exciting and life-changing for you. For those of us who constantly pray for workers for the harvest, it has been pretty exciting for us as well! We are so glad you are responding to God's call to church planting. As a way to help you meet each other and other student church planters, we wanted to ask you a couple of questions and create the first of many dialogues about church planting. We also wanted to give you an Assignment like the ones we give our Mission M Possible Field Agents. If you're game, this one is a ministry of encouragement to church planters.

So here is question #1: What is the one thing you learned this week that really changed your thinking about church planting? Post your comments!

Question #2: What is the one thing you are going to do with what you've learned when you get home? Post your comments!

Here's your task: go to http://www.gatracking.org/MainList.asp to find the list of Southern Baptist church planters in Georgia. Email one or many of the church planters a note of encouragement. Tell them you just got back from Powerplant and thank them for the work they are doing starting a new church. Ask them a few prayer requests and then share those with your youth group and pray, pray, pray! When I was a church planter in Maine, I got a call one day from someone at a church in Alabama who just wanted to pray for me. It was amazingly encouraging and gave me courage and confidence I desperately needed at the time. So go for it! Be an encourager! If you would like to encourage church planters in another place, let us know and we will tell you how to contact them. Welcome to Student Church Planting!

Roger

The Hazards of Student Church Planting?

2006-06-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is the team from the Asian American Baptist Church in Houston. They are serving this week at the Port Arthur PowerPlant project, doing outreach in the local Vietnamese community.

We prepared our teams for almost every contingency ... except this one. While visiting in Asian homes, it is considered polite to remove one's shoes and leave them on the porch. Our teams have been careful to observe this custom. Adult participant Danny Tape, a long-time teacher in the Middle School ministry at AABC, faithfully removed his shoes for a visit this week and left them outside. All four team members did the same. After the visit, they went out the front door and prepared to put on their shoes ... but Danny's were gone! Everyone else's sandals and flip-flops remained in place. But Danny's sneakers were AWOL. A mystery!

The homeowner immediately knew who the culprit was. A neighbor's dog isnotorious for taking items from neighboring porches and yards, dragging them off, and chewing them into oblivion. She immediately ran down the guilty dog and retrieved Danny's shoes. They were thoroughly soaked in mutt slobber, but otherwise functional, except for the large chunk missing from the rear of his right shoe.

So go the hazards of Student (and Counselor) Church Planting! BTW ... the visit went great. There is now a copy of God's Word in that home. Praise the Lord!

Port Arthur - Breakthrough in Vietnamese Community

2006-06-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

We had an incredible moment at PowerPlant Port Arthur today. Pastor Tom McLean, from the Summerville Baptist Church in Summerville, North Carolina, is leading the "Chao Anh" ministry team [the name means, "Hello, older lady." I don't have time to explain the name :) ] in the local Vietnamese community. He is being accompanied by his wife, a college student from his church, and a couple of interpreters from a partner church in Houston. Tom and his crew have had a difficult time over the last couple of days. You might even desribe their first two project days as "discouraging." But God stepped in today!

The "Chao Anh" team was having dinner this evening in a local Vietnamese restaurant. Through the course of the meal, Tom and his team made contact with the owner of the restaurant. They struck up a conversation which led to a rapid relationship. By the end of the meal, the owner (who is not a Christian) agreed to host a Bible study for the local neighborhood in his restaurant! Tonight, at dinner, our PowerPlant ministry team found a "person of peace," and this may very well be the first step toward an evangelical Vietnamese church in Port Arthur.

Can students help plant churches? You'd better believe they can! Let us involve your student ministry in Church Planting. Check out our web site at www.missionmpossible.net , or send me an e-mail to geoff@missionmpossible.net .

Going Global

2006-06-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

What a day! Our blog has taken off, thanks to a well-written post by Roger at SBC Outpost . We have had close to a hundred first-time visitors today, including new friends in the Philippines, Thailand, Spain, Taiwan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Israel (Jerusalem!), Indonesia, France, Southeast Asia, and Benin!!

One of our new friends, Kevin Sanders in the Philippines, has expressed some interest in connecting to bring our trained college students to help reach college students in Manila.

Isn't that cool? People all around the world are reading the positive message, engaging with thoughtful articles and updates from Mission M Possible, and catching the vision!

We hope that all of our friends in North America and around the world will add us to their daily reading lists. We promise to deliver thoughtful, encouraging news from the emerging world of Student Church Planting.

The Georgia Student Church Planting Network

2006-06-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

Those of you who hang your hat in Georgia may have heard that we now have a Network here in our great state! We will be posting new opportunities and Peach State Networkers as they come in, so email me at roger@missionmpossible.net to sign up!

I met yesterday with Regional Church Planter Terry Little who works in the South Metro Atlanta area. Terry is looking forward to mobilizing Student Church Planters to help with the churches he is helping plant in Walnut Grove, Stone Mountain, Monroe and Conyers. To contact Terry please email him at tman@growth.org. Terry particularly needs students to help in September to launch a new church in Walnut Grove called, appropriately enough, The Grove. I'm setting up a miniature Weekend Op, so email me if you want to plug in.

I will be in Savannah to conduct a Church Planting Probe with the Savannah Baptist Association July 31st - August 1. I also will be meeting with area youth pastors and any interested Student Church Planters so email me if you want to connect.

Interested in a Student Church Planting Network in your state or city? Contact me or Geoff or go to www.missionmpossible.net for more info.

Catching the Vision

2006-06-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

I've met a new friend on the mission field in Port Arthur. He is Pastor Alfred Banks of the Daniel Baptist Church in Richmond Hill, Georgia. We spent about a half-hour before lunch today, talking about the vision that he and his students have caught while attending this PowerPlant project. They have a vision to plant a Hispanic church right under their own roof. They are already considering the people they need to contact to get this vision started. Isn't it awesome? A Georgia church has come to Texas, been trained in church planting, and is now returning home to Georgia with new knowledge, life-changing experiences, and a new vision for church planting! We are exited to welcome the Daniel Baptist Church as one of our first churches in the Georgia Student Church Planting Network.

Blogged with Flock

PowerPlant in Gwinnett County, Georgia

2006-06-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

So I am here in Georgia working with PowerPlant this week. In Gwinnett County. Actually at my house. I'm helping 90 teenagers plant churches in my neck of the woods. What could be better? Well, for teenagers, how about planting churches at the mall?

Gwinnett County is a retail mecca. We have Gwinnett Place Mall, Discover Mills Mall (with the newly opened Medieval Times Dinner Theatre), the humongous Mall of Georgia, and Stonecrest Mall. Oh, and the new Webb Ginn Mall and a host of other shoppes and stores.

One of the church planters we are working with this week is John Mann. John is a bivocational planter who works as the Assistant Manager of a large retail mall. We had a conversation tonight about reaching out to people working retail. I've never seen a book on the subject but it is a fascinating topic, and most of you are especially suited for this conversation since you spend more time at the mall than most people my age do.

Now think about this people group: they work swing shifts for low wages, one week on days, the next on nights. They have to work a lot of holidays and weekends. And they wear those cute little name tags. What kind of church could reach them? Where would you meet? How would you involve them in community? I'd be real interested in hearing thoughts on this subject, so send me a comment! And if you are in the Atlanta area, let us know if you would like to help here in Gwinnett.

See you at the mall (bring your bible),
Roger

Don't Mess With Texas!

2006-06-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

I'm shouting out from Port Arthur, Texas, this morning. I'm in town getting ready for my PowerPlant project that begins tomorrow. It is shaping up to be an incredible project! We are crossing all kinds of cultural barriers. Our PowerPlant students will be reaching out to the African-American, Hispanic, and Vietnamese communities. We even have a team of Vietnamese translators coming from a partner church in Houston to help us reach Vietnamese adults. It is going to be so cool!

I want some of my Southeast Texas friends fom PowerPlant Nashville to give me a holla. Come down to see me, and being me some of that Tex-Mex home cooking you all keep talking about. We could also use some help at a couple of block party events on Wednesday and Thursday. Give me a shout back with a comment on the blog. I'll check back this afternoon.

PowerPlant Nashville Follow-Up

2006-06-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

I know that a lot of my friends from PowerPlant Nashville have been visiting our web site and blog. I would like to get some interaction going ... a bit of a dialogue.

Let me pose a couple of questions ... let's have some fun... Please respond with your comments.

1. What is the one thing that you have learned about Church Planting that has surprised you the most?

2. What do you see as your personal role in Church Planting? Do you see yourself involved in a new church start next year... in five years ... in ten years?

PowerPlant - An Intro to Student Church Planting

2006-06-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

Over a thousand students will be taking part in PowerPlant student mission weeks this summer through the North American Mission Board. PowerPlant has been a groundbreaking ministry for introducing students in Southern Baptist life to the awesome field of Church Planting. PowerPlant is leading several week-long events this summer, and will be hosting mission weeks in several cities in 2007.

If you have attended, or will be attending, a PowerPlant project this summer, and would like to know more about ways you can continue to be involved in Church Planting throughout North America or even right where you live, please contact Roger or me. If you sense that God is calling you in some way to continue your involvement in Church Planting, we want to help you nurture and refine that call. We are already setting up a missional network to connect you with Church Planting strategists throughout North America. We would very much like to help mentor you through this process of your ministry call. We would like to help keep you actively involved in Church Planting.

Please know that we are praying for you and for what God is doing through your awesome PowerPlant experience.

A Partner in the Mission,

Geoff

Why Your Generation is Made for Church Planting

2006-06-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

A Letter to the Y (or Y-not?) Generation from an X-er (Part 1)

The church is a living, organic thing, which means it follows the same rules as other living things. It breathes, it needs food or fuel of some kind, and it grows. But just like plants and animals, it is possible to inhibit the growth of the church. By putting the right (that is, wrong) barriers in place, or taking away necessary nutrients, the growth of a local church can be stunted. And just like in plants and animals, malnutrition in the local church eventually leads to death. And we only have to look at some of the growth inhibitors of the last 50 years to see why so many churches are plateaued, stagnant or six feet under. The good news is that your generation has rejected some of the growth inhibitors of last-generation churches. Here are a few ways God has equipped your generation for starting new churches:

Your generation embraces racial diversity.

“Talking things over, they went on into the house, where Cornelius introduced Peter to everyone who had come. Peter addressed them, “You know, I’m sure this is highly irregular. Jews just don’t do this – visit and relax with people of another race. But God has just shown me that no race is better than any other. So the minute I was sent for, I came, no questions asked. Now, what can I do for you?” Acts 10, The Message

They used to say that the most racially divided place in America is church on Sunday morning. That is not true anymore. The world has had good reason to criticize the church for our racist practices in the past. In one downtown church in a Southern city, I was told by a friend who grew up there that the deacons used to stand at the front doors before each service, not to welcome the right people in, but to keep the wrong people out! By that, she meant that this all-white church in an increasingly African-American neighborhood was scared to death that a “black” family might show up one week under the portico. They could not imagine a racially mixed congregation, a colorful nursery, or hearing the spirituals in the Baptist Hymnal sung by anyone other than straitlaced, navy-blue suit wearing, Caucasian, blueblood, white-skinned, middle-class Christians over 50. Needless to say, this church’s prejudice extended beyond racial lines to affect their views on women, young people, college students, Catholics, Hispanics, and lost people. Also, needless to say, as the neighborhood changed, this church experienced a period of massive decline. When I was contacted by their new pastor, a dear friend of mine, to assist with their transition to becoming a new, welcoming body, they had 200 people meeting in a sanctuary that seated 850! I am glad to say that their views are changing. The church sponsored a neighborhood festival and people of all colors, ages and backgrounds came and had a wonderful time eating sno-cones, playing games and watching puppet shows. One young couple came and asked lots of questions about the church. I visited with them the next week, and realized right off that they did not fit our old member profile! He was black, young, 300 pounds, and worked in a local restaurant. She was white, young, mentally challenged, and unable to work. What’s more, they were unmarried yet living together at her grandmother’s house across from the church! Both of them began coming to my Sunday morning College & Career bible study group. A few weeks later, they both accepted Christ. It was a joy to see the church (led by our college students) reach out to them and slowly learn to love them despite the differences.

Your generation doesn’t see in color. Interracial dating, friendships and marriage are scarcely issues for Gen-Ys. In your lifetime you have never known segregated schools, water fountains, or restaurants. White kids listen to 50-cent (not recommended), black kids listen to Eminem (also not recommended), and everyone (or maybe no one by the time you read this) listens to Jennifer Lopez. Jamie Foxx, Lucy Lu, and Halle Berry share the movie screen with Jim Caviezel, Antonio Banderas and again, Jennifer Lopez. Your boss, coworker, neighbor, police officer, doctor, college professor, or fiancee (pick one) could be Korean, Egyptian, Nigerian, Irish, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Indian, Pakistani or Californian (pick one again). There are so many ethnic groups and mixings these days, who cares? You eat Mexican for lunch, Thai for dinner, and stop at the Asian market for groceries. You are not offended when the automated phone operator says “press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish.” And the most popular sports figure of your generation (Tiger Woods) is a golfer who is African-Chinese-American.

In Theodore Geisel’s wonderful book, the Sneeches, Theodore (that’s Dr. Seuss to you and me!) tells the story of a tribe of creatures called sneeches who live on the beaches in relative harmony. Harmony, that is, for the sneetches with a star on their bellies. They enjoy campfires and marshmellow roasts and sing-a-longs and the comraderie of other starred sneetches. But there is a whole other group of sneetches without stars. They cannot come to these social functions and worse, they feel inferior due to their lack of stars.

But one day something happens to change all that. A peddler arrives with his star-making machine. For a small fee, he will put a star on your belly. All of the starless sneetches sign up and come out of the machine proudly displaying their new stars. The original starred sneetches are horrified, until the peddler unveils his newest machine which removes stars. Suddenly the “in” thing to have is a starless belly which upsets the now-starred sneetches who promptly pay to have their new stars removed. Soon everyone is madly going from one machine to the other, spending money and trying to keep up with the popular group. When their money runs out, the peddler packs up his machines and leaves the bewildered sneetches on the beach. The sneetches find that some of them have no stars, some one, and some two, three, or four. But they also find that when everyone is different, it doesn’t matter how many stars you have. The book ends with the sneetches finally living in real harmony, having learned the costly lesson that everyone is different and everyone has value.

Now, if you can keep track of who has stars and who doesn’t, there is a great lesson in this story. The days of politically correct racially diversity and clothing ads with five kids of different ethnicities are almost over. We don’t have to force that image. The fact is that North America is racially diverse. We don’t have to create it, quota it, or enforce it. We just have to embrace it. And your generation has done that. Congratulations! That loving your neighbor stuff is good for church planting, and more importantly, it pleases the heart of God.

So what is the advantage of an unprejudiced, nonracist generation in church planting? Jesus said the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself. In this new world, your neighbor may not look like you, but he still needs to hear about Jesus! And church planting missionaries who are used to racial diversity tend to treat people of other cultures like real people, not racial stereotypes. Your inclination to respect indigenous people groups, to treat them as equals, to love them, is invaluable to the church planting strategy of the future.

Just a Quick Update

2006-06-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

I can't access my geoff@missionmpossible e-mail account for some unknown tech reason. And, to top it off, I left home without my password info to be able to get my messages forwarded to my other e-mail. So ... if you have responded with a post to our blog over the past couple of days, I promise that I will approve it and post sometime early on Friday when I return to my home. Roger and I are so excited about the incredible traffic both on the web site and the blog. Be sure to check in often and interact with our posts!!!

In other news ... it's official ... our Savannah, Georgia, 2007 project is now posted on The Bridge at http://thebridge.namb.net . The Bridge is an on-line "missions network" that connects missional Southern Baptists with mission projects and opportunities. It is great to have this new promotion partnership with our North American Mission Board!

Geoff

A "Next Generation" Church Planter

2006-06-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

I have been spending a lot of time with a new friend this week. His name is Josh Martin. He is serving as Worship Leader at the PowerPlant project week in Nashville where I am leading the Church Planting training.

Josh is a sharp young man. He is 23 years old, single, and he just graduated from college. He’s serving on a traveling church planting mission team this summer for a purpose. He has sensed the call of God in his life to plant a church. He simply wanted to spend a summer “on the field,” learning more details and facts, and meeting more Church Planters.

Josh has already identified the field where God is calling him. It is the town of Pullman, Washington. Pullman is the home of Washington State University. It’s a pretty big college town. And, in addition to WSU, the University of Idaho is just across the border … only a few miles away. Josh has sensed the call to plant a church to reach college students and meet their needs. He is planning to be part of a ministry team of two or more planters. Each member of the team will be sharing the responsibilities of the teaching and equipping ministries of the church. Josh, himself, brings his musical talent to the team. He is an experienced concert performer and worship leader. You can check out his music at www.purevolume.com/joshmartin .

Josh has already made application to become a Church Planter with the Northwest Baptist Convention. He hopes to hear from them soon, and he hopes to be on the field in October. He has agreed to make a 3-5 year commitment to plant this church and see it through.

Josh Martin, and thousands of college students and recent college graduates are the new faces of church planting. They are deciding that they will not … they do not have to … wait until they graduate seminary, or get married, or reach age thirty, to get involved in Church Planting. They are prepared to be the church of today. God has called. They are answering.

The Mission M Possible team looks forward to many years of working with Josh. We plan to make his church, as well as the two Northwest Collegiate Ministries on the nearby campuses, part of our NOC List (Network Operations: Collegiate). We want to encourage young people to make collegiate choices to go to places like WSU and UI as strategic, missional choices.

Josh is looking for partners in his new ministry. He is only going to receive limited support funding. And, we all know that college students won’t be dropping much cash in anyone’s offering plate. Please pray about coming on board with Josh and supporting his ministry. Contact him through his web site at www.joshmartinmusic.com or send him an e-mail to justbelieve_99@hotmail.com .

And check back often with Mission M Possible. Hopefully, we’ll have him up on the NOC List very soon. And maybe we can host a summer project week in Pullman, Washington, in 2008!

Keep praying. Keep serving. Keep seeking.

Geoff

Students Speaking the Language of Church Planting

2006-06-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

I’m writing from Nashville, Tennessee, tonight. No … unlike almost everyone else in Southern Baptist life, I am not at the Southern Baptist Convention in Greensboro. I have never been to a Southern Baptist Convention meeting in my 17+ years of ministry. Let’s face it … most people who are involved in student ministry in any capacity whatsoever rarely, if ever, attend a SBC meeting. We are always at a camp, or on a mission trip, or a canoeing trip, or at Six Flags over somewhere.

So, here I am again. This week I am in Nashville serving as the Church Planting trainer at a PowerPlant (NAMB) project. We have about 160 participants at this week’s camp. PowerPlant is an awesome week-long mission camp. It’s very similar to World Changers, but without the construction. Instead, students are trained in the basics of Church Planting, and then sent out in the community to get involved in local church planting efforts. I have been privileged to be a part of PowerPlant since its launch in 2003, when I led the project in Cornwall, Ontario. Roger Ferrell, my partner in Mission M Possible (and the other contributor on this blog), led the other pilot project in Atlanta, Georgia, that same year. In fact, PowerPlant was a dream that was born in Roger’s heart many years ago and developed after he shared the idea with an associate at Student Volunteers at NAMB. We have each had the opportunity to write materials for PowerPlant, lead projects (10 between the two of us), and train over a thousand students in the basics of Church Planting.

This morning, I had one of the most awesome moments ever during our Church Planting training time. I had just spend the first two days helping the participants understand some new ideas regarding church (what a church looks like, what it can look like, what a church really is). Then, this morning, I placed them into “Church Planting Teams” to begin thinking about the possibility of planting a new church in their hometown. I encouraged them to think about people who are not being reached by any church. Now, stick with me, here’s the cool part. As I wandered around the room, eavesdropping on their conversations and prayers, I heard over and over again words and phrases like, “culture,” “unchurched,” “creativity,” and “people group.”

It almost brought me to tears! In years past it seemed to take a little longer to break down the barriers of years of cultural church “programming.” But it seems like this group “got it” on the first day. They are already thinking and speaking missionally. They are already sold on the idea of and need for church planting. In their hearts and minds, they are already partners in this ministry of church planting. Clearly, God is at work in this next generation of church planters. He has already prepared the way.

We have to join this movement with Him. We have to educate, train, and mobilize this next generation of Church Planters. We have to mentor them and connect them with Church Planting tasks and opportunities. We have to help them discover and nurture the call of God in their lives to be Church Planters. And that is the purpose and passion of Mission M Possible. We would love for you to join us in this mission … your mission … should you choose to accept it…

Capturing the Missional Heart of the Next Generation

2006-06-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

My son, Sam, is nine. He is a terrific artist (really, I am not biased) who loves to draw superheroes, a passionate fencer (that is a swordsman with an epee, not someone who builds fences),and a huge fan of hobbits, elves, and the X-men. Now, given his age and interests, what would I say to him to get him engaged in missional living? As a dad, this is a question I think about from time and time and the answer is the reason Geoff and I founded Mission M Possible.

The heart of each generation cannot be bought, drafted, or inherited from their parents. It has to be captured. My son has no interest in serving on a missions committee (committee is either the language of corporations and business or the communist party) but is delighted at the opportunity to be a Field Agent for MMP. In fact, we go on the Mission M Possible website all the time, check out the surveillance photos, read the intelligence briefings, look at the map, and dream about the places we could be deployed. See, I've learned that if I want Sam to be excited about the kingdom, then maybe it would help to explain the kingdom in his language. He does not understand the WMU, the NAMB, the IMB, the RAs, or the Committee on Committees (my personal favorite). But if I ask him if he wants to be a not-so-secret agent for God, he will say yes. If I tell him we need several young men to grab their swords, mount their horses and fight dragons, he will say, "I'm in." His response to the call of Christ will almost entirely depend on whether the call captures his heart. Now the Holy Spirit does his work in this, to be sure. But often the Spirit works by speaking the language of the listener.

And why not? Jesus went to men with fishing nets in their hands and said, "follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." So today we call teenagers and children to missions and say, "come, follow Christ, the ultimate superhero!" Or we couch the concepts of church planting and evangelism in the language of espionage. Now, we have to make sure the metaphor works. And we need to be deliberate that we do not embrace a culture that is immoral or unethical. But what better than a godly knight? And what are church planters if not field agents for the kingdom? When King James first commissioned his translation of the Bible, people called Jesus "Lord" and knew what a Lord was, because they lived in a feudal system of government. In the nineties, people began to talk about Jesus as the "CEO" of your life. Sorry, but that language does nothing for my nine-year old. But tell them Jesus is a king and you are a knight of the kingdom and we are getting somewhere. C.S. Lewis got this - what better image of Jesus for kids than the world's biggest talking lion?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject. And love to get feedback on our strategy to capture the missional hearts of the next generation. Check out www.missionmpossible.net and sign up to be a field agent. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to engage a generation in the adventure that is following Christ. Initiate sequence, on my count. 3...2...1.

Pray for Steve Reid

2006-06-09T12:42:00.000-07:00

Please pray for Steve Reid. He is the Church Planter Strategist in DC with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. He has had chronic back pain for years and is now completely incapacitated in the hospital. I talked with him a few weeks ago and he was hurting then and is much worse now, unable to communicate or work. He was my trainer for Basic Training for Church Planters seven years ago in New England and is a generous and passionate guy and a gifted church planting mentor. Geoff Hammond of the SBCV shares the details in this prayer request:

Dear Folks,
Please pray for Steve Reid. He’s back in the hospital in room 2001 of Mary Washington. According to the MRI yesterday, the steel bar they placed in his back has shifted (bent about ½ inch) and is dangerously close to the spine. It is also pressing on a nerve. The doctor is giving some time for divine intervention, and therefore; we are calling you to pray that the Lord would move the nerve and the rod. Otherwise, Steve may face surgery again at the beginning of next week. Please ask the Lord to heal Steve without any further surgery.

We know He can do what seems to be impossible!

Blessings in Christ,

Dr. Geoff Hammond

Please ask folks to pray for Steve.

This Group Gets It!

2006-06-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

New Work Fellowship was planted in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1997. It has grown into a vibrant, thriving church. The missions emphasis of New Work focuses upon church planting. The church has been involved in sponsoring and supporting several new congregations throughout North America.

Likewise, the Youth Ministry at New Work Fellowship is a dynamic, evangelistic, church planting group. Youth Pastor Steve Coleman has made church planting the focus of his entire missions strategy since the summer of 2002. That was the year when his youth church planting team went to support a new church start in Lafayette, Indiana. The new church was being sponsored and supported by New Work Fellowship. His students led sports camps, Bible clubs, and performed other servant evangelism projects. It was a life-changing experience for the group. They fell in love with the town and the people. The entire team, with a few new youth church planters, returned to Lafayette in 2003.

Unfortunately, that new congregation floundered and failed. The lead planter left for another field. The church disbanded and the people were absorbed into other local congregations. The collapse came during the week of the group’s second church planting trip to the city. It was a difficult, heart-breaking week. But it was a great learning experience for the New Work group. Steve was able to help them understand that failure was sometimes a part of the process. In fact, often times many of the most important lessons in church planting can only be learned in times of difficulty and failure. He challenged them not to give up on church planting. The students got it … and very single one of them committed to go to another church planting field the next summer.

In 2004 the group traveled to Crofton, Maryland, a thriving township of 30,000 people, to assist Pastor Roy Jacques in planting the Journey Fellowship. Steve made the connection through a personal relationship with the worship leader at Journey. The New Work team led basketball camps (since everyone in Kentucky is an expert in basketball!), connecting with kids and families, and distributed thousands of flyers and invitations to a massive 4th of July carnival. The week and the event were immensely successful. The New Work student team has returned to support the church planting work at Journey Fellowship for the last three summers. Each year, they have witnessed growth in the church.

Youth Pastor Steve Coleman speaks with wisdom and experience when it comes to youth and church planting. He says, “These church planters don’t need people to come in and tell them how to reach their communities. They just need laborers to show up, be available, and minister within their strategies to reach the people of their area. They need passionate laborers. And our youth are a great labor force!”

Can youth take an active role in planting new churches? The New Work Fellowship youth ministry has proven it with five years of training and experience! If you want to take your youth ministry to the next level, if you want to have a Kingdom impact by involving your students in Church Planting, we can help. Contact us at www.missionmpossible.net . And, please, help us get the word out. We need your help to make this new ministry a reality.

Blessings,

Geoff

Church Planters of All Shapes & Sizes

2006-06-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Geoff and I visited with Dennis Mitchell in the Church Planting Group at the North American Mission Board. It was good to get his affirmation of Mission M Possible and even better to get his insight on church planting. As we talked, a topic came up that is dear to my heart: can we mobilize people for church planting who don't fit the profile? That is, can we train computer geeks to be computer geeks for the cause of church planting? Can we mobilize compassionate people to encourage church planters? Can people without all 13 characteristics of church planters play a role in the process? Or do all our church planters have to be up-front leaders and pastors?

I have a 12-year old son who would much rather build a website than preach a sermon. He's not like me in that respect. But my hope is that he will be able to utilize his gifts in church planting, especially since he can do things that I cannot do. There is a lady in my church, Katie, who wants to plug into ministry but lives an hour away from the rest of us and travels all week for business. I asked her what part of her job she really loves, and she responded "I love mentoring and encouraging younger women!" So I asked her: "if I gave you a list of church planter's wives in the cities you travel to each week, could you arrange to meet them for coffee and prayer, just to encourage them?" Katie was delighted to discover that God could use her gifts in such a meaningful way. I guess you could say Katie will be our church's first Kinetic Church Planting missionary!

Anyway, my point in all this is that we need lots of different people in church planting. Let's look beyond the stereotypes and discover how to engage all people in the work of redemption. Since God has gifted every person differently, won't our work in church planting be far more diverse and effective if we utilize a multiplicity of gifts? Here is a little exercise: ask your teenagers, your family or congregation what they really love to do. Then brainstorm together about how they could utilize that to help in church planting. Let us know how it goes!

If They Could Only Catch One...

2006-06-08T05:07:00.001-07:00

Okay, I admit it. Making this apply to Church Planting may be a stretch at best. But I had to get this picture on my blog. This is my trophy. It is my baby.

I caught this monster back in April on spring break at St. George Island, Florida. I take my family down there a couple of times each year. You see, I am a surf fishing junkie ... but I am landlocked up in Kentucky. It's almost pathetic. My Kentucky friends make fun of me. They just don't understand. Anyway, I have to scrimp and save in order to get back to the beach each April and October.

So, about the picture ... I hooked this beautiful 6' 4", 170 lb beast (Bull Shark - meanest in the ocean) on the sunny, perfect afternoon of April 4, 2006. I hooked it, fought it for 35 minutes, followed it as it hauled me up and down the beach about 1/4 mile in both directions, and finally landed it with a little "crocodile hunter" tail grab by a local guy who was in my gallery of 50+ observers. I smiled, posed for pictures, then put him back in the water to be caught another day (or maybe bite a swimmer or surfer later this summer??).

But here's the thing. Here's my spiritual application, if you will. I cannot wait to go back! I cannot wait to get to surf fishing again! I caught the monster fish of a lifetime! And I know that there are more out there! I'm already tying leaders, cleaning my hooks, prepping my lines, and getting ready to go again. I even scraped up a little money and convinced a friend of mine to bring his family and split a house with my family ... next month! My second of three trips for 2006! Man, we are going fishing!

Now, just imagine our Christian teenagers out fishing ... being "fishers of men." In that holy moment when they "catch one," when they make a connection, when they experience the glory of leading a person to Christ ... they will never be the same again. They will be hooked. Truly, they will be "fishers of men." And they will want to go back again, and again, and again.

That's what we do at Mission M Possible. We fish. We teach your students how to fish. And we teach them how to plant churches. Check out our web site. Catch the vision. Send us an e-mail. We are already "chartering the boats" for next year. We'd love to do a little fishing with you.

Geoff

Partnerships

2006-06-07T03:39:00.000-07:00

Our ministry accomplished something very important yesterday. I'm in the Atlanta area for a couple of days, planning and scheming with my Mission M Possible ministry partner, Roger Ferrell. We had a meeting yesterday with Dr. Jim Millirons of the Church Planting Team at the Georgia Baptist Convention. He was most gracious, kind, and encouraging. It was clear that we shared the same passions and vision. And, praise the Lord! We nailed down a working partnership with our friends in the Church Planting Team of the GBC. We're going to work together to facilitate Church Planting. We're also going to create a network among youth pastors in Georgia for the specific purpose of involving youth ministries and Baptist students in Church Planting ... in Georgia and beyond! Exciting stuff! Our Savannah, Georgia, project is now confirmed, off, and running!

Partnerships are important. They remain important to those of us who consider ourselves as missional Baptists. We're looking forward to establishing many, many more partnerships like this one in the coming days. In fact, we would really like to partner with you.

Find out more about how you can partner with us in mobilizing students for evangelism and Church Planting. Got to www.missionmpossible.net .

Blessings,
Geoff

The Next Level?

2006-06-06T03:46:00.000-07:00

My daughter leaves with her youth group next Sunday morning. They're headed to New Orleans to take part in a youth construction / disaster relief project. Obviously, they will be working in the wake of last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina.

This is our youth ministry's third mission trip. It is our youth ministy's third construction-oriented mission trip. And though I am proud of them, and I know that God will use them to do an incredible work, I know deep in my heart that it is time for something more. It is time to stretch this youth ministry and take them to the next level.

Do you know what I mean? Think about it. Many tens of thousands of students that we send to the "mission field" each year are actually going to construction sites. Without doubt, they do good works. They touch lives. They make a difference. And yet, evangelism opportunities are always rare ... sort of hit and miss. I know, I've probably been on ten such projects myself over the years.

For years we have touted such construction-oriented projects as "entry level" expsures to missions. Yet, in fifteen plus years, we have done little to move these students beyond "entry level." We seem satisfied with giving them just a taste of missions, and we so rarely challenge them to throw back their heads and take a big drink.

It's time for us to train our teenagers to do more that paint and roof houses. Let's face it ... few of them will need those skills in adulthood. We need to train them how to share their faith. We need to train them in the need for and methods for planting new churches. It's time for the Youth Pastors in Baptist life to step up and take it to the next level. Even if your church doesn't get it. Even if your sponsors and adult chaperons want to keep doing construction (because it is their youth ministry "comfort zone" - their security blanket).

We're not going to do it again next year. We've meade our last mission incursion to a construction zone. My youth group and my daughters will be doing missions in the heart zone next year. They are going to a Mission M Possible evangelism / church planting mission week. Hopefully, they will meet some of your students there. It will be a shame if our thousands of missional students in our churches remain hidden behind their hammers and paint brushes. I pray that God will move on the hearts of their leaders and move them to the front lines of this spiritual war that we're all in.

Blessings,

Geoff

Just Add Water

2006-06-05T04:33:00.000-07:00

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. - 1 Corinthians 3:6

Just over two years ago, David Coram planted a church in Oak Grove, Kentucky. He planted a rather unusual church. It is a church that specifically reaches out to people in the United States Army. Living Waters Fellowship is in Oak Grove, Kentucky, just outside the gigantic Army post known as Fort Campbell (home of the 101st Airborne Division).

There coundn't have been a more appropriate planter. David had just retired after 31 years of service in the Army. He had served as a regular enlisted man and worked his way to become a Warrant Officer and a helicopter aviator. He later felt the call of God to enter the ministry, so he left the Army for a while, attended seminary, then re-entered as a chaplain. And that's where he served the remainder of his years for Uncle Sam ... as a chaplain to our fighting men at Fort Campbell. He served under fire in Operation Desert Storm. He retired as a Major in 2004. He already had the connections, he was already committed to the community, and God had called him to plant.

David Coram planted the seed.

Then, just a few months after he and his wife planted the church, God sent a large group of Baptist students to help him water. About one hundred youth and adult sponsors came to Oak Grove, led puppet presentations and sports camps for kids, performed acts of servant evangelism, and "beat the streets," going door to door gathering information and seeking out receptive people for the new church. And they found many! In fact, some of those students had the opportunity to lead a few soldiers and their families to Christ, right in their own homes or even on their doorsteps. The awesome part is that David and his core went back and followed up with each family and each decision. Several were baptized into membership at Living Waters, and remain faithful members to this day.

If you ask David Coram, he will tell you. That group of students made all the difference in the world. They performed tasks in one week that it would have taken him and his team months to perform. They helped give him a "super boost" of growth and energy. God used them to catapult Living Waters to a new level of growth and energy. And all they had to do was show up and be available for God to use them!

Students watered.

And since this is a military church, David knows that he won't have his people very long ... maybe two or three years. The Army keeps them on the move. So they have to reach people and disciple them quickly. They are one of the "Kinetic Church" models that Roger Ferrell describes in his article, "Kinetic Church Planting." But they're okay with that. In fact, David calls the United States Army the "missionary mobilization arm" of Living Waters Fellowship (and he says that with a huge, cheesy grin on his face). Whenever one of their families is transferred to another Army post, the church "commissions" that family as missionaries to that new location. They challenge them to find a new church plant to get involved in or to step up and plant a new church themselves. It doesn't cost Living Waters or the Kingdom of God a thin, shiny dime! Uncle Sammy picks up the tab! Cool, huh?

God has given the increase.

Can students play a vital role in Church Planting? You bet they can! Find out how at www.missionmpossible.net .

Kinetic Church Planting

2006-06-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

(This is an article I wrote for On Mission magazine that has not been published yet. I hope they won't mind if I post it here but I feel it is relevant for our network.)

And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles... therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. (Acts 8:1b,4)

We call it the diaspora, or the scattering. At a critical point in the history of the early church, God saw to it that his people were dispersed throughout the known world to share the gospel. He is still doing that today, and we can respond and join Him in his work, if we can see how He is scattering us – and why! Here are a few thoughts on the 21st century diaspora, or what I call kinetic church planting.
An Apostolic Age. Notice that it was not the leaders of the early church who were dispersed; it was everybody else! Though we use the word apostle to signify one who saw Christ and bore witness to who he was, in its simplest form the word apostle just means messenger. We live in an apostolic age, where the church is not a temple or building in a fixed location but instead is the people of God moving across the globe to share the good news of Jesus Christ. We need to embrace this biblical model and understand that the fact that the average American moves every 3 ½ years is not just a societal trend, but is a movement of God to get His word out to those who need to hear.
College Students on a Mission. Every year, millions of high school students graduate from high school and go off to college. One way or another, through parents, scholarships, loans or jobs at Starbucks; students manage to move to a different town, get a roof over their heads, and become part of the fabric of a new community. As we look at mobilizing people to plant new churches, is there any group as suited for the task as college students? Just as God saw fit to disperse the early church throughout the world through persecution, He has seen fit to disperse gen-Y believers throughout the world into hundreds of colleges and hundreds of college towns.
Yet very few Christian students pick where they go to college based on God’s calling on their life for church planting. But they could! What would happen if a student in Georgia decided to get his engineering degree at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada instead of going to Georgia Tech? And what if he did so because God moved his heart for the lostness of the capitol of Canada? And what if he started a bible study that became a church? And what if, in his junior year, the church called a pastor from another place, a godly man with a godly family, but new to Eastern Canada? I can see the look on that young pastor’s face when that college student shook his hand and said, “I’m glad you’re here. How can I help you for the next two years?” In our denomination, only 50% of new churches make it past the first two years. How many more would be successfully launched with a college student already in the community, meeting people, talking with people, reaching people, discipling people – even before the pastor arrives?
Moving For a Job, and a Calling. As people move from an area because of jobs or family decisions, they often struggle with finding a new church in a new town. They have to learn a whole new system, new people and new strategies. The church they leave behind feels disappointed, since that individual or family is no longer part of the ministry or family there at that local church. The family has to start over looking at churches and evaluating doctrine, programs and personalities to find a new church. Thinking kinetically, we can ask them to consider being a seed family for a new church plant wherever they move. In this way, geographic transition can work for the expansion of the kingdom rather than against it. The people moving can remain part of the “church family,” work in a familiar model, and continue to be developed as leaders as they undertake a bold new effort in a new place. They will already be employed (theoretically, with the new job that caused the move), and able to contribute time, money and energy to the new church. This will make it easier to plant new churches. As any church planter will tell you, getting that first seed core group family is a big step!
A New Way of Thinking. Since most of us have always thought of people moving as a bad thing, this move of God requires new thinking. Moving can be a good thing for the kingdom if we embrace the idea of “kinetic church planting.” Kinetic just means of, relating to, or produced by motion. As in the sport of judo, where the energy of the attacker’s forward move is used to defeat him, so we can take advantage of a transient “forward moving” generation to scatter the gospel throughout the earth!
The Great Commission, as translated by many biblical scholars, more accurately reads: “Therefore, as you go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Kinetic church planting does not require stability. It requires motion! We can plant churches with willing people, as they go.

Collegiate Partnerships

2006-06-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

Our new friend, Kiki Cherry, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, has reminded us of an extremely important aspect of our Mission M Possible strategy. It involves having a defined strategy to maintain mentoring relationships with students into and beyond their college years. We dream of creating an environment where Christian students make their college choices based upon missional, rather than economic, reasons. Wouldn't it be so unbelievably cool to have a Christian students going off to certain schools because they sense God calling them there to do ministry, and maybe even plant a church ... not just to get the degree and make lots of money someday (though both of those goals are okay, too :) )?

So, we want to help facilitate this process. We want to make this a part of our expanding Church Planting / Ministry network. Next summer, we will be completing our first round of projects and recruiting our first group of "Church Planting Sleeper Agents" and "Church Planting Youth Groups" (see www.missionmpossible.net to understand what I'm talking about). We want to connect those motivated, ministry-driven, trained, passionate students and student ministries with collegiate ministries that will reach out to them and find ways to draw them in.

I will (ASAP) post a new page on our web site ... I'll call it "Collegiate Partners," or something like that ... it will most likely have a name that fits within our spy theme. Anyway, on that page I will begin to list our Collegiate Ministry partners. These are the schools and ministries that, through our mentoring process, we will point our students toward. Think about it. We will let you "recruit" our agents to come and serve on your campuses.

We just need your info (or, as we call it at Mission M Possible, "intel"). Please send your name and contact information to geoff@missionmpossible.net . Make sure you give me a phone # so I can give you a call. I like to talk ... can you tell? And we will make some plans, swap some stories, and I will get your school, ministry, and links up on our site. We will also welcome you and at our projects and offer you the opportunity to promote your ministries through talks, printed materials, media ... whatever.

Just another way that we can help prepare the next generation of church planters at Mission M Possible. If you have any more brilliant ideas like Kiki ... just let me know.

Blessings,

Geoff

Safe Houses Needed

2006-06-03T22:58:00.000-07:00

Here is an easy way to help church planters:

Lots of our planters are from one part of the country and serve in another (I know some of you feel strongly about being indigenous so if you want to talk about that, post your thoughts). Getting back and forth to visit family, friends or sponsors is expensive and tiring. Missionmpossible has formed a network of safehouses to provide free lodging for church planters on the road. To become a safehouse, you just have to be willing to host a church planter and family in your home for a night as they travel. Making them french toast in the morning before they leave would not be a bad idea, and praying for and with them is a must.

To find you, they would go on our interactive map on our website and get in touch with you through your church. For more info, check out our website at www.missionmpossible.net. Click on the safehouses tab to see our map and email me at roger@missionmpossible to sign up as a safehouse. Your church can also sign up to host youth groups on their way to a missionmpossible project. Ain't that easy?

Encourage a Church Planter

2006-06-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

Geoff and I are tremendously excited over the response to missionmpossible in the last few weeks. As we start to talk with people about training and mobilizing the next generation of church planters, I cannot help but think about our current generation of CP's who are struggling with finances, loneliness or discouragement. Back when I was planting churches in Maine, there were several guys planting there who a)reached the end of their funding or b)reached the end of their rope and quit planting and left the area. I think about those guys a great deal and realized a few weeks ago that I may be one of the few who does. I mean, we hear much about church planters who are successful but almost nothing about those who fail. And I started to think, "shouldn't we have some sort of exit interviews/counseling/healing process with those who leave in mid-stream (or mid-plant)?" And I also realized that these folks may have as much to teach us as those who are fabulously successful.
So we are putting together a new book tentatively called "Exit Interviews With Church Planters". If you know someone who has left church planting and would not mind sharing their story with us, please encourage them to post or to email me at roger@missionmpossible.net. I'm curious to start a dialogue with those who have gone before, and though I know some of the stories will be heartbreaking, I think it is valuable to us to hear them, and valuable to them to have someone listen. I also would love to hear about any programs to help church planters who have failed get back on their feet, get counseling and figure out what to do next. I have never heard of any ministry like this.
Part of our work in engaging students in church planting is just teaching them to encourage church planters. Last year in Toronto, one of the planters we were serving told our group that he was ready to quit and then some teenagers came and told him that he was a hero to them and they wanted to be just like him when they were older. He shared that this gave him the strength to continue with his work. So encourage a church planter today! Just a phone call or email to pray with them will work wonders.

Student Pastors = Church Planters?

2006-06-03T18:32:00.000-07:00

I don't know if any academic studies have been done, or if anyone has really searched to find a connection, but it seems clear to me that many (if not most) of our church planters are coming from the world of student ministry. I know that's what happened in my own life and ministry, as well as many of my friends.

I'm pretty sure that the more student pastors involve their students in Church Planting, the more students pastors we will find being called out to plant churches. And that's okay. In fact, it's better than okay!

One young man who has taken this step in his journey of faith is a friend of mine named Josh Culver. Josh brought his rather large youth group (somewhere around 40 students) to my PowerPlant projet in Colorado Springs last summer. He partnered with a "restart" there called Springs Ranch Church. He listened and studied carefully in our Church Planting training seminars. And God used that experience to fan the flames of his newly discovered passion to plant a church.

Josh took a huge step of faith and planted Pillar Church in LaGrange, Georgia. He has gathered a core group and launched this church without a dime of denominational money. He is working extra jobs to meet his family's needs. He is stretched as thin as can be ... and loving every passionate, heart-pounding minute of it. He also has a heart to help other church planters, and is involved in a company that provides web site help for new church starts. Church Planting has taken root in his heart and ministry. And God used the pathway of student ministry to get him there. Help feed his fire. Send him a quick note of encouragement to josh@pillarchurch.org .

Youth / Student Pastor ... are you walking a similar life path? Are you struggling with a call to church planting? I would love to talk to you about it. We can help you explore that call at missionmpossible.net .

Can HE Do That?

2006-06-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

The doubters are already beginning to surface. As I have spoken often to people about my passion for Student Church Planting, one recurring response (or, at least a variant of it) that I get is, "Why? What in the world are you talking about? Youth can't plant churches." It just doesn't compute for some people. It doesn't fit into their preconceived notion of what Church Planting is or who Church Planters are. It's as if it is beyond our sovereign God's capabilities and will. I'm a bit perplexed, especially since these responses so often come from people "on the inside," the "missional" in-crowd.

I fear that those of us who consider ourselves to be "missional" have the unbridled potential to be just as closed-minded as the people caught up in the stagnant systems, programs, and methods that still (tragically) occupy so many of our churches. Somewhere in the process ... probably not consciously ... we reach the conclusion that our "missional" ideas are right, and everyone else is off track. Our way is the right way. If we didn't think of it (or if some hip, flavor-of-the-month author that we love doesn't think of it), then it cannot be relevant and cool. If it doesn't look and sound like us, or the things that we do, then it probably won't work.

I guess it's just old age or something, but the older I get the more simple my thinking becomes. In fact, the older I get, I find myself doing much less pondering, over-thinking, and self-indulgent self-defining. I guess I kind of know who I am now. I turn 41 in a few days. I had to shave off my goatee (too much gray). I wear the baggy "old fat guy" jeans now. I buy my sunglasses at the Dollar Tree (no more expensive ones ... in my senility I keep losing them). I find myself liking good old Folgers coffee more than the exotic African blends at Starbucks. Less pretense. Less exotica. A lot more practicality. A relatively simple life.

I no longer think of myself as immortal, like I used to when I was in my 20's. I know, with stark reality, that my days are numbered. In fact, by all statistical standards, I'm at least halfway to my heavenly home. But I still want to make a difference. I still have big dreams. I still want to leave my mark.

I choose to do that by teaching what little I know to this next generation. I know about loving people, I know how to share Jesus Christ, I know a lot about student ministry, and I know just a little about planting churches. So that's what I choose to pass on. I know that it will make a much greater difference than anything I could ever do on any web site, or through any blog, or at any Southern Baptist counter-current political meeting, or even at the annual thrill-packed Southern Baptist Convention.

So ... back to my original subject, since I have so blatantly digressed ... can students be taught to plant churches? Can God call them out as teen-agers to a lifetime of evangelism and Church Planting? Yes HE can. I have already seen Him do it. You can see it, too. One million Southern Baptist students are waiting to be mobilized ... looking for a direction. Check out our strategy at www.missionmpossible.net .

Missional Mayhem

2006-06-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

We sure do love our "buzzwords" in Southern Baptist life. It seems to me that our newest addition to the semantic salad bar is "missional." I have been amazed at the incredible level of linguistic surgery and analysis among "missional Baptists" in the world of blogdom over this humble little word.

The simple reality is that you do not have to be a twenty-something, an emerging churchish person, have a goatee, spend ten hours a day in a coffee shop, do text messaging and IM, know Ed Stetzer personally (I actually am honored to know Dr. Stetzer, by the way, had a class with him), or even be a postmodern-renegade-spiritualist- fighting-against-the- archaic-SBC-system blogger to be missional.

Do you want to me "Missional?" Then invest yourself in the next generation. The church of today is in our colleges and high schools ... even in our middle schools. Let's set a missional example for them. Let's teach them how to share their faith and plant new churches. Let's stop beating our heads against the established past and look to the future. It is now!

We have a strategy. Check it out at www.missionmpossible.net .

My humble advice is that we should all spend a whole lot less time sitting around thinking about how we are "missional," get out into our communities, and BE MISSIONAL!!!

Gotta go. I have a culture to engage, people to love, churches to plant.

Students Planting Churches?

2006-06-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

Our Future Depends On It!

Some church health statisticians claim that we are closing the doors on approximately 4,000 churches a year in North America. And our Southern Baptist Convention is no exception.

SBC Statistics, from the 2005 Annual Church Profile report, showed a net gain of 234 churches in the SBC last year. But, according to the NAMB 2005 Annual Ministry Report, there were 1,795 new church plants and affiliates in the same year. Let's do the math. 1,561 Southern Baptist churches (at least) died in 2004-2005. Even in the middle of our "Everyone Can!" push for more baptisms, our total number of baptisms fell by 16,097 from the previous year.

I am convinced that we are just a few years of funerals away from seeing a dramatic increase in church deaths, and a decrease in our convention overall. We must get busy planting new churches. Our life as a denomination depends on it.

That's where our students / youth come in. We cannot afford to wait until our kids reach college, or beyond, before we expose them to the realm of Church Planting. We must train them as youth, equip them for Evangelism and Church Planting, and unleash them upon the continent of North America as a Church Planting army. We are in a spiritual war, my friends. We need more feet on the field.

The 2004 Annual Church Profile showed that we had 8,206,440 people enrolled in Sunday School / Small Groups in SBC churches. Of that number, 1,073,961 ... an incredible 13 % ... were between the ages of 12 and 17. Let's be generous (way too generous) and say that 50,000 were mobilized to do missions last year. That still leaves over a million students waiting to be mobilized. That is an army waiting to be unleashed! And, by the way, we have to stop letting them hide behond their paint brushes and hammers on the plethora of construction projects that we are operating across this continent. Missions must be more than feeling a warm fuzzy over a nice paint job or a straight line on a new roof. We have to get past being satisfied with good works. Sooner or later, someone has to step up, open up, and tell people about Jesus Christ. We need to teach these kids how to do evangelism. We need to put them on the mission field and challenge them to do it. If we teach them, and if we challenge them, they will do it. They will share Jesus with boldness ... with reckless abandon. I've seen it. They are bold beyond our wildest adult measures.

But we must also teach them about Church Planting. We need to help them understand some new definitions of what a church can be. Youth Pastors, that is going to be up to you ... because most of the members and leaders in our churches are clueless about Church Planting, the reasoning behind it, or the even need for it. Most of those who know of it, tragically, tend to line up in opposition to it. It's threatening to them. It encroaches upon pastoral pride and imaginary parrish territories. It is a reminder of the cycle of church death that so many of them are caught up in.

There is a bold new ministry to help Youth Pastors expose their students to Church Planting, train them in its practice, and release them to take part in church planting ... right now ... while they're still in school. The ministry is growing. A Youth Church Planting Network is forming. Be on the cutting edge of this eternity-changing movement. Check out Mission M Possible. The "M" stands for something important ... "M" aking Disciples and "M"obilizing Church Planters. Your Youth Ministry will never be the same again. You might even find God calling you out of your Youth Ministry comfort zone to step out and plant a church.