Tony Wheeler dot Net

The internet is a funny place.  Many moons ago, before Al Gore invented the internet, people used really neat technology to call other computers or servers.  Basically these computers would talk to each other and the owners could transmit 1s and 0s to each other in nifty green screen or if you were lucky orange screen.  They would also dial into a central computer and use something called BBS.  BBS was the early form of online community.

Now, I’m not that geeky and most of what I know about these old technologies I’ve learned from Hollywood or books such as “The Computer that Wore Sneakers”.  My foray into the wonderful world of the information superhighway came sometime in the mid-Nineties when I would use my grandparent’s home computer to dial up (probably a 9600 or 14.4 modem I don’t remember) to America Online to research and occasionally chat.  Surely you remember those days?  During college I utilized AOL Instant Messenger exclusively and services like Yahoo and MSN were loathed by yours truly.  I used to chat a ton and always had IM active when I was online.  Then I would meet one person who used Yahoo or one person who used MSN Messenger.  Then cool services like Trillian and now the web based Meebo came out where you could have one central location to manage all of your contacts.  Today, Social Networking, which is pretty much what the early BBS and IM were, has exploded into tons of networks and services.

So what?  I was thinking today as I was reading a new blog that I stumbled upon by a guy named Paul Watson about the social nature of the internet. It seems that we’ve come full circle in terms of what we use the internet for.  Sure we can get the latest news, stock quotes, pay bills, buy stuff that we don’t even need, and conduct endless amounts of research.  But by and large the internet is still used for networking of the social and professional variety. Blogs, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Forums, LinkedIn, and a whole bunch of other places are simply ways to connect with other people.

Paul’s blog has a ton of interesting info about reaching the online generation.  If you are a staff member or volunteer at a church, it is worth your time to take a minute to check his blog out.

I’ll be talking more about the online community and what I’ve done and what I would like to do to have a great impact more as the days go by.  The real eye opener behind all of this is that people are searching out connections and community in any way that they can get it.  What can we do to help fill this real need in people’s lives?

As a student of Church Planting over the past decade or more, I’ve seen a lot of fads come and go.  Systems that work well for one church in one location but fail miserably in another.  I’ve seen God’s hand divinely placed on some churches while others struggle and eventually close.  One thing that I can say with certainty is that there is no one right way to plant a church.  What works for one may not work for another.  What one pastor can pull off, another will fall flat on his face with.  In the following, I’m NOT bashing anyone, just sharing where my heart is at.

A couple of observations:

• Many times church planters read a book or attend a boot camp and return to their hometown or the place that they have lived for a number of years.  I think that this sometimes causes a loss of the missional focus of the gospel unless there is a strong DNA already there.
• The picture of what it looks like to plant a church in 2008 in the United States is not easily reproduced by everyone with a calling to plant a church.  Elaborate sound systems, projectors, state of the art facilities…they all cost money.  Not everybody has access to a ton of cash.  Not everybody should plant this kind of church, anyway.
• The core of the the Great Commission is not planting new churches, but making disciples.  We have gotten caught up in a wave of planting churches because it is the cool thing to do and not really gotten good at making disciples.  We have the idea that if we have a great sermon on Sunday and having small groups throughout the week automatically makes disciples.  I’ve read the Bible (okay, I’ll admit that I did skim over some of it…I’m sure that it is important who begot whom, but it is DRY!) and I haven’t found this formula anywhere.  Jesus wasn’t interested in teaching the multitudes for a long time, he was interested in forming a band of 12 and then about 70 into dangerous Kingdom agents. Why is this not our strategy?

Being different for the sake of being different is dumb.  Being different for the sake of the Gospel is not.  I’ve been greatly influenced by a number of different speakers and authors, but in the past couple months I’ve been devouring everything that I can get may hands on regarding Simple Church or Organic Church.  I’ve been greatly blessed by Neil Cole, who wrote Organic Church and a host of other stuff that most people haven’t even heard of.  I heard Neil at the Exponential Conference back in April.  He explained a bit about how discipleship is a lost art and that we are on a search and rescue mission.  He explained about how Awakening Chapels, the organic church planting movement that he founded, does discipleship.  Life Transformation Groups (known by many other names) are one of the primary vehicles that they have used in disciple making.

LTGs are groups of 2-3 people of the same sex who meet for one hour each week for Bible reading, accountability and prayer.  The Bible reading is 30 chapters a week.  Seems like a lot, but Neil explained that the goal isn’t simply to finish the reading, rather the goal is to not finish the reading.  If the reading isn’t finished by one person, then the next week the same 30 chapters are to be read.  This continues until everyone finishes the reading. There are a series of accountability questions that are asked and each person should answer truthfully.  Finally, each person selects a couple of people in their lives to pray for.  When God moves into the lives of those people that we have been praying for, new LTG groups are formed.  The possibility for exponential growth is literally limitless.

Simple enough?  You bet.  Can anyone do it? Indeed.  Can it be transferred to other cultures, time periods in history and survive trends in church planting?  I think so.

So, LTGs are the simplest form of church that I have been able to find.  The Bible promises us that where two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, that he is there also.

Is that it?  Is that where we want to stop? NOT A CHANCE!

Stay tuned for Part III — The Simple Way Church.

One of the things that I am passionate about is hospitality. I really enjoy inviting people in and “entertaining” them. As a church, we take this very seriously and it really one of the areas that we put more time, energy and money into. We spend about $50 bucks a week on supplies/food/drinks for the people that come to Journey. There are some people that would scoff at that amount of cash as being nothing, but lets just say that our worship leader gets paid the same amount each week! My team of volunteers is about 6-7 each week, the other areas have 1-2. It takes a lot of time and energy to set up and prepare for the scale that we have set up.
Why do we do things this way? I am convinced that people are craving community. People want to go places where everyone knows their name. People want to be known and loved for who they are, not for what they can offer.

One of the biggest areas of influence on Sunday mornings is what we call Bagel Cafe. We have a couple of coffee selections, hot water for tea and hot cocoa, bagels, some pastries and usually some sort special of the week. People really look forward to having a good cup of coffee and a small “breakfast” while hanging out and talking. We honestly have struggled to get people INTO the theater so that we can start the service! We do Bagel Cafe for a half an hour before the service starts and more and more people are showing up at 9:30 just to hang out. I can guarantee that if didn’t have Bagel Cafe, people would not show up at 9:30!

For people that spend a lot of time in coffee shops and bars throughout the week, this is a natural venue for us. We have the lobby of our movie theater set up like a coffee shop/cafe where people can relax, wake up and nurse their hangover. (Yes, people who go to Church sometimes also go to bars. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. I know of churches who meet in bars that have had more people meet Christ and have their lives radically changed. How is your church doing? When was your last baptism? Sorry. /rant) I am very intentional about the lighting, music and overall flow of the area. Everything tells a story and gives off a vibe. Usability is huge for me and I think through the process of how people will be using the area. There have been some huge adjustments in this area. We had a church planter visit us this past week and I described this area as being an evolving area. It is almost never the same as it was the last week and there are always things being changed and added/subtracted.

I firmly believe that if you are a church that is reaching unchurched/dechurched/disillusioned folks and you aren’t doing something like this to create community, then you are missing out. It is a low pressure way for your people to meet your guests. It doesn’t have to be as elaborate as our set up. I am a keep it simple kind of guy. For us, this is simple.

If you want other pics, contact me and I would be glad to hook you up.

Here is a pic of our Bagel Cafe area:

I was talking with a new pastor friend earlier today who really challenged me. One of the things that we talked about was what makes me tick, what gets me up in the morning and keeps me up at night. My answer was, “That is a good question.” Over a good portion of the past year I have been the First Impressions Coach at Journey Church. I gotta say that hospitality really fires me up. I enjoy making people feel welcome, making sure their needs/wants are met. This really comes from how God has gifted me and also some of the vocational positions I have held. The other thing that I am passionate about is outreach. This takes a wide array of forms, but at its heart is relationship. I dig meeting people and just being in relationship with them ( I am going to write something about this in a different post because it doesn’t fit here, so look out for that!).

I am by no means an expert on the subject of First Impressions/Hospitality, so please don’t take it that way. Over time, I’ll be including some of the things that my team does at Journey and things that my team doesn’t do at Journey. Honestly, the things that we don’t do are more important than the things that we do. I am convinced that what goes on outside of the auditorium (sanctuary, gym, theater, insert your congregational gathering place here) is as important, if not more important, than what goes on inside.

So, I guess all that to say, be on the lookout for a series of postings that deal with this area. I hope what I have learned and experimented with will encourage some of you to look differently at the way your church does things or make them better. Stay tuned…